Church Anew Blog
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Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: May 24 and 31
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
Shielding the Joyous
When I feel the most joyless is when it is most essential for me to practice joy, to seek out this Godly abundance. Not to disassociate. Not to demean my own suffering or the realities that have brought me low. But because God calls — compels — us to remember: the things that speak death over us don’t get the last word.
Introducing Wonder Anew
Many of us today approach faith with both longing and skepticism. Some of us grew up in church and are reexamining inherited beliefs; others are discovering spiritual practices for the first time. Many of us are deeply invested in questions of justice, community, meaning-making, and how ancient Scripture speaks into our own lives (or even if it does).
Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: May 14, 17, and 24
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
Hope for the 21st Century Leader
Our egos won’t allow us to open our hands and release the power that we have to empower others to do the work.
Strategic Ambiguity: Rendering Unto God and Caesar
The Jesus comparisons, the Truth Social imagery, and the Caesar-like symbolism all point toward a troubling trajectory: a national careening toward a distinctly American form of emperor worship, one clothed in the language of white Christian nationalism.
Brunelleschi’s Miracle: How Patronage Makes the Impossible Possible
Florence’s dome should not exist, and yet it does. It stands as a testament not only to the nearly limitless possibilities of human ingenuity, but also to the practical necessity of fiscal support to make such artistry possible.
It All Counts: Author Q & A with Rev. Natalia Terfa
I think about all these people floating around in the world who aren't gonna walk into a regular church – for whatever reason. When I started asking, “What are those reasons?”, there were so many answers that sounded like: “I found this thing that is meaningful, but someone said you can’t do it that way.” And the throughline became me saying: “Why? Why not?”
Trusting in the Way
And Jesus says, I’m the way.
You have me.
You already know everything you need to know because you know me.
Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: April 19 and 26 2026
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
Render Unto Caesar? A Tax Day Reflection
What does it mean to balance religious identity with loyalty to a nation? And when, if ever, should believers practice tax resistance in response to unjust authority?
Who Will Share My Story? Biblical Commentary on 2 Samuel 13
I spoke with a prophet and he shared with me a prophecy that he himself could not believe. He said, “Before the church is to become persecuted, women will first. Before the church is to share the good message, women will first. And before the church is anything, women will be everything for it.”
Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: April 12 and 19 2026
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
Holy Humor Sunday: It’s Weird, It’s Risky, and It Might Be Exactly What We Need
It’s the Sunday after Easter and everyone at church has a kazoo.
Tickets to the Eucharist
When people are accustomed to—and willing to—pay a ticket price for a well-produced event, what’s the harm in charging a nominal fee for a Christmas Eucharist? And when so many pay membership dues to gyms or subscribe to services, what’s wrong with charging a fee for Christian community?
Mary the Tower
We need Mary in our life of faith too. Our Tower to guide us, to hold us up, to offer shelter, to remind us that we too can show up even as we grieve and struggle to trust and speak our faith out loud. We need Mary the Tower to hold us steady when we cannot be steady ourselves.
Join Isaiah’s Palm Sunday Actions
On this upcoming Palm Sunday, disciples of Christ have the opportunity to follow his example as we stand against injustice and oppression today. Isaiah, a group long known for empowering those who are vulnerable to the political powers of this world, is calling for faith communities around the country to join them on the Palm Sunday Faith Actions.
Holy Week and Easter Musings 2026
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
Holy Week and the Theme of Corruption
We now inhabit a milieu in which brazen examples of “cashing in” are normalized, and citizens—and even our churches—have grown numb to them, often remaining silent about a matter that affects us all.
“I Bind Unto Myself Today”: St. Patrick, Revisited
In a hermeneutic of generosity, I suspect Patrick wanted to baptize his former captors because he could see how the chains of enslavement bind even its purported victors into sin. Slavery binds even the “masters” into submission to evil. Slavery denies the God-bearing image inherent to all people; should you see in the eyes of the ones you oppress your own salvation, you might know you have no freedom at all.
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