The line between theatrical production and reverent worship is as thin as the veil between heaven and earth, a veil that was torn when Christ died, or perhaps long before. After all, Jesus was a storyteller who followed the models of the prophetic storytellers, who were inspired and guided by the source of all stories, our heavenly Creator.

Revelation cuts both ways. It comforts the vulnerable and indicts the powerful. It saves some and judges others—not because God changes, but because people respond differently when the truth is made visible. You cannot unleash chaos on communities, terrorize people in broad daylight, and then claim innocence when fear and resistance follow. You do not get to be both the author of violence and its victim.

Each week we at Church Anew provide you with Lectionary Musings, a collection of previous posts related to the lectionary texts for the coming Sundays and feast days. This post is not that. This post is for my fellow ministers and church leaders staring down Sunday and wondering: How do I lead in a time like this?

If this makes you uncomfortable, good. Let that discomfort move you toward action, toward solidarity, toward truth. This is not a moment to look away.

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. 

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. 

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. 

For many of us shaped by immigrant families or marginalized communities, this Mary feels familiar. She looks like our abuelas—complicated, courageous, caught between survival and hope. Women who resist in their own quiet ways while also carrying the weight of harmful narratives they inherited. Women whose faith is not perfect, but persistent.

Perhaps there were adults too,
She suggests,
But in the agrarian societies
Of the First Century,
Much like in agrarian societies of today –
One of the first jobs
Of children
Was to tend the sheep and the goats
Out in the fields –
Like David
Of old.
The.
Shepherds.
Were.
Children.

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. 

When I’m coaching, it’s not about me or my ministry. And since I’ve been bearing witness to Sandy’s ministry all year, through these sessions, site visits and engagement with her congregational leaders, I have a robust sense of why her ministry is fantastic. I could ask, “Why did you want everything about your ministry to change?” But I don’t. Instead, I just listen because coaching might be the only place Sandy gets to name these things aloud so she can hear them, share them, and loosen some of their power.

In the end, the root of all progress is community. We cannot walk through the challenges of our personal lives alone, let alone affect broader positive change. It is through shared faith, shared vision, and shared purpose that we move forward.

It took me all this time, but I have learned my lesson. Here it is in a nutshell: ENJOY THE JOURNEY! Let me break it down for you…

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. 

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. 

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. 

The invitation I’m offering in Liturgies for Resisting Empire is to identify those overarching themes of imperial thinking – like dominance and power, dualistic thinking, structures of hierarchy – that have taken root in all of us, to understand the history and processes of how they came to be, and to make intentional choices that act counter to that and lead us towards communal healing.

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. 

When a little Rumi or Jinu shows up at your door for Halloween, or when your Sunday School classes won’t stop chanting “gonna be gonna be golden,” you don’t need to worry that demons are encroaching on God’s world. You can smile, knowing these kids have learned something about shared suffering and transformation and redemption.

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.