Blog Posts
One Year Later: Violence Against Asian Americans
Responding to the mass murder in Atlanta, Georgia, on Marcy 16, 2021 Church Anew invited our network of contributors to respond with biblical reflections, calls to action, and laments. We repost these words from visionaries one year later to provide witness for your proclamation and action. We join in solidarity, grief, and commitment as the families of victims and the nation mourn lives lost: Xiaojie Tan, Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez, Daoyou Feng, Paul Andre Michels, Soon Chung Park, Hyun-Jung Grant, Yong Ae Yue, Suncha Kim.
I’m a Scholar of Religion. Here’s What I See in the Atlanta Shootings.
By Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort
To move through this world as an Asian who is American is to exist under the gaze of white supremacy. In other words, we have to constantly give an accounting of ourselves to justify and explain why we are here.
So we learned early on the name of the alleged murderer. We learned that he is white. We learned that he is a Southern Baptist, but not his motivation. Was it racism? Was it deep-rooted misogyny? Was it a fetishization of Asian women in particular? Was it toxic theology — an extreme fear of God and an equally extreme self-loathing?
As a Korean-born woman, a Presbyterian minister, a scholar of religion and a child of both church culture and American culture, I have asked the same questions and can only conclude: It is all of the above. Race, gender, religion and culture are all implicated.
Evangelical Masculinity and Atlanta
By Dr. Greg Carey
Few White men, particularly those of us with deep experience in the evangelical world, have testified to this reality in our own experience. Predictably, many White evangelicals spoke out to condemn the murders and deny a link between their teachings and this tragedy. I am sure most of them believed their denials. I am sure the denials of White evangelical racism were more important to them than were the condemnations.
My own experience as a White, formerly evangelical, man reinforces my suspicion that the details of this atrocity have lots to do with White evangelical culture, especially Southern White evangelical culture and its masculinity codes.
The Creator Delights in Diversity
By Dr. John Thatamanil
We who are subjected to hatred and dehumanization face a great and horrible danger that we may come to doubt our worth, our own preciousness. My dear siblings, I pray that not a one of us will surrender to this temptation. You, I, each and every one of us, is an embodiment of the Beloved’s creative passion for diversity.
Invisibility Is No Longer an Option
By Dr. Mary Foskett
The Church needs to answer the commandment to love thy neighbor and join the effort. It needs to exorcise the theologies that fuel white supremacy, learn how to intervene when anti-Asian harassment or violence is unfolding, and take on systemic racism in all its forms. It needs to finally recognize the full humanity of all persons of Asian descent.
White Supremacy the Deadly Fantasy: Sermon on the Mount in the Shadow of the Atlanta Murders
By Rev. Dr. Sze-kar Wan
It’s pointless to debate if the Atlanta shooter was driven to mass murder by a self-professed sex addiction or by racism. Both issue from white supremacy. We don’t need legal jargons to tell us this is an anti-Asian hate crime. We just know it. From experience and from history.
When Religion, Sex, and Race Breed Violence
By Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu
In the ecclesial context, this Sunday many preachers and pastors are going to stand behind their pulpits to preach. What will they preach? Will they address the anti-Asian racism happening all around them? Any work — any sermon — that addresses and tries to combat such anti-Asian hatred simply must take on the intersectionality of race, sex, and religion. Will you?
Must Someone Die Before We’re Visible?: Myths and Hot Takes
By Dr. Sam Tsang
When Asian Americans warned our society that something terrible was happening to us, everyone including the news media dismissed our claims, rendering our suffering invisible. Why does it take a mass shooting of our people to raise any kind of awareness?
How Much Hate to Make a Hate Crime?
By Rev. Angela Denker
How could it be that this good, “church boy,” would turn into a killer? We would call him a “lone wolf.” We’d wonder about mental illness, about family trouble. We’d tell Long’s story as an individual, rather than explore his place in a pantheon of angry, white, male, conservative, Christian mass shooters.
A Lenten Lament on Violence Against Asian Americans
By Dr. Deanna Thompson
The importance for communities of faith to heed these calls has only grown more urgent since the racially motivated murders in Atlanta. As we reflect on this week’s tragedy, let us stand in solidarity with the Asian American, Pan Asian, and Pacific Islander communities and seize on this season of Lent to repent our individual and collective complicity in systems of violence.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Lenten Devotion - Scripture Study as Spiritual Practice
1. Endure and Overcome
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. Romans 15:4
Recently an elder in our community, more than 50 years older than me shared how concerned they were about all that has been happening in our world. They talked about their life and lamented at some of the changes over the years, and my relief slowly started to emerge. When I tell you I felt so much better, I felt SO much better. The thoughts and feelings I had been having were normalized and some of them were even shared by this person. It gave me some perspective and encouragement. It reminded me of the first time I read the beginning of Moses' story. I had always known of Moses who stood up to Pharaoh and parted the Red Sea. I hadn’t known of the Moses who was also hesitant. It changed the way I felt about my own uncertainty being called into ministry. This is the beautiful power of scripture. Encouragement and hope reside in the pages of stories about people who endure and overcome. To dwell in the Word every day is an opportunity to find peace you didn’t know you needed. May the Word of God bring you encouragement, peace and hope as you relate to the stories of people who came before you.
Loving God, open the Bible to me. Reveal your love in the stories from of old. Show your character in the pages of this book that has been passed on from generation to generation. Shepherd me through studying your scriptures. Amen.
2. Living and Active
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 14:12
Something that tempts me more than I want to admit, is the attitude of ‘I already know’. I catch myself assuming I already know what a piece of scripture has to say to me or to the Church. If you’ve been around scripture, church, or a community of faith in Christ for a while there are some stories in the Bible that get repeated over and over again. I find it hard to read, listen to, or engage in conversation without assuming I already know what God has to say through those well-known stories. But if I believe that the Word of God is a living and active word, as this text tells us, this mindset may be a problem for me. If you can relate, here’s what I have to remind myself when reading: I must hold an attitude of openness, and a sense of humility to keep learning and hearing something new.
God, let your word speak to us in new ways, help us to hear your words as if they were being told to us for the first time. Help us to have an open heart and an open mind to your living Word. Amen.
3. water and word
It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4
Have you ever heard that when you’re feeling hungry or snacky that you should drink water first? See, we’re dehydrated so often, what we might be feeling is thirst and not hunger but it’s hard for us to differentiate between the two. It’s funny how often we misread what our own body needs. It made me wonder: How often do we misinterpret and neglect our own need for God’s Word? This might be a confession you can’t relate to, but sometimes I will go all day without drinking water (because I love coffee too much). I get to the end of the day and I can’t figure out why I feel so gross, so tired, so unwell. Then it clicks. ‘You didn’t drink ANY water ALL DAY.’ Well, something else clicked when reading this text. Some days end with me lying in bed wondering why I feel so gross. I would run through my personal checklist: I slept well the night before, I ate well, drank water, was social and so on. Click. You haven’t read your Bible IN DAYS. I’ll be honest, I forget that to read my Bible daily is to care for my body, my mind, and my spirit in the same way that drinking water does.
God, we give you thanks for your Word. Remind us of the nourishment that comes from your Word. Feed us with the good food of your love, that we might taste and see your goodness in all that we do. Amen.
Jessica Gulseth
Jess Gulseth is a seminarian at Luther Seminary in St. Paul seeking ordination in the ELCA. Jess is a Director of Children & Family ministry in the Des Moines, IA area.
Join us for a two-day retreat to renew our spirits and re-align our leadership. Featuring Nadia Bolz-Weber, Tod Bolsinger, Joe Davis, and Jenny Sung.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Lenten Devotion - The Lord is My Shepherd
As part of our recent Lent in a Box event, Church Anew commissioned a daily Lenten devotional around the sermon series offered for Lent: Shepherd Me O God. As part of our blog during this season, we are delighted to share it with you. The themes revolve around spiritual practices that emerge from studying the 23rd Psalm. May you find a meaningful and holy Lenten season.
1. The Lord is My Shepherd.
We begin the Lenten season with dust. We recognize we are dust and to dust we shall return. Covered in ashes we humble ourselves before a holy God who knows us by name. Nothing is hidden, no branches to wrap around ourselves. We’re just left to sit in the truth of who we are… human. Our great Shepherd doesn’t leave us or abandon us there. Instead Christ promises to bring about something beautiful and holy from all the good intentions and broken promises. In all of God’s divine royalty, through humility and great love our Shepherd leads us beside still waters and green pastures.
Let these promises reside in more than just our hope. Bury it into our bones and flesh. May we embody and rise in God’s love day in and day out, in the extravagant and mundane even if we don’t feel it, even when we can’t see it.
Holy Shepherd, you see the depth of who we are and refuse to turn away. In our great sorrow and grief you raise us up and remind us of what is true. We are dust and to dust we all return. As we live and breathe, pour into us the strength of your Spirit and the tenacity of your grace. Give us visions of your goodness to come. In your name Jesus, Amen.
2. I shall not want.
If we had to, could we actually name what we need? Would it disguise itself in the shadows of sleep or safety? Do we even know the difference between want and need? So often we crave the illusion of fulfillment and find ourselves feeling gutted and empty. We give all we have to the wind hoping the wind will love us back or recognize how hard we try. In the meantime, Jesus waits. Will you let me feed you? Will you let me breathe into you the very life you seek? When we are lost in our want, we are like children holding a knife with the blade side in our palm. God doesn’t rush up to us and rip the knife out of our hand. Instead, Jesus sits beside us and gently asks, “Beloved, you are holding something dangerous. Will you let me hold it for you?”
Giver of life, in a world where we confuse want and need constantly, Lord be our guide. Let us no longer gorge ourselves with things that keep us malnourished and weary. Help us distinguish between what we want and what we need. All we have ever needed is you. Draw us close, draw us near to that which breathes life into us. In your name Jesus, Amen.
3. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
After God created humans, the very first thing their Creator instructed them to do was to rest – to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. How many Sabbaths have we skipped? How many vacation days go to waste? A wise friend once told me, “Baby, get off the cross we need the wood.”
We are not Jesus. We are called to be in community. One of us alone could never bring about green pastures for all. Instead, God invites us to lie down in them together. Trusting this is where we are fed. Where we are healed. Where we are made whole. If you are convinced it has to be you always, you have been fed a lie. It’s Jesus who feeds, who makes us all lie down in green pastures. Trust the shepherd. Not the want in your belly. Rest in this God who pours into you and resurrects you.
Holy God, my body collapses at the promise of your green pastures. My need overtakes my wants and I rest in you. I feel the richness of your goodness, the brightness of your wholeness, the warmth of your healing. May I dwell in your holy echo my whole life long. In your name Jesus, Amen.
4. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
The waters of chaos call to us in the big and the small things, inviting us to move, work, and fight until we have nothing left. These waves know they don’t have to be big, they just have to be constant, never giving you a moment to breathe or catch your breath.
Jesus invites us to calm waters that restore us and make us new. In the beginning, God hovered over the waters of chaos and brought order, creating life and bringing about good things. In these still waters, we are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever. In a world that fights to name us and claim our identity, we can rest in the identity that can never be taken from us.… Beloved child of God.
Generous Creator, I hear your invitation to still waters. Do not let me get distracted or overwhelmed by the waves of chaos beckoning me. You call me to be restored, to be made new. I trust I was created to be more than a thing that produces results. I was created to know joy, rest, and restoration. Calm me in your waters with your peace that surpasses all understanding. In your name Jesus, Amen.
5. He leads me.
God meets us where we are and invites us into the way of love and resurrection. Oftentimes we hear, “God has a plan for your life.” I wonder if it is not so much about a particular plan we ought to execute in a specific way. What if it is more about God’s hope to create something beautiful together. In collaboration we curate holy spaces. We sit before the blank canvas of life as God delights and wonders what we will create together. It doesn’t matter if you use markers or paint, clay or crayons. It’s an invitation where beautiful holy things can grow and in the growing and becoming we see, encounter, and dance with our Triune God. We can trust there is grace for our fumbling steps, and liberation from our perfectionism and pressure.
Giver of Life, sometimes I worry and doubt how well I am performing and walking on this path you’ve called me to. Liberate me from judging myself and help me trust what you say about me more than what I say, or others say about me. Let me flourish in the rich soil of your goodness. Deepen these roots far and wide so every fruit it bears reflects the depth of your mercy and holiness of your name. In your name Jesus we pray, Amen.
6. In right paths.
It’s easy to create from our pride in a way that doesn’t manifest God’s goodness. At times our names and egos inflate, making us unaware that we are dancing alone, unable to see the steps of others to adapt or change with the world around us.
When this happens, we begin to grow out of our own soil, rather than the soil of community. In the places where we feel stuck and alone, lead us back Lord. You search tirelessly for the one lost sheep. During this Lenten season, open our eyes to see where we are creating from a source other than you. Lead us back to places we are humbled and made new.
Good Shepherd, thank you for always searching me out. Forgive me for the ways I continue to get distracted, prideful, or unaware. May everything we do, touch, create bring about wholeness and healing for ourselves and our entire community. In your name Jesus we pray, Amen.
7. For his name’s sake.
“For his namesake” means Christ has vowed his name to each of us. Before the name of Jesus every family in heaven and on earth takes its name (Eph. 3:14-15). In the way Christ leads us, we are covered and clothed in Christs’ righteousness. We can pray in the powerful name of Jesus and do far more than we could ever think or imagine. The Spirit intercedes for us.
During this Lenten season may you dwell and be strengthened in your inmost being through the mighty name of Jesus and notice your connection to God’s creation and the very source of love, life, and liberation.
Mighty Deliverer, we are ushered and adopted into your family by the grace of your love. Thank you for seeing me in all that I am, and still delivering me from myself and all that wishes to destroy me. You hold me close and hold me tight. I can never be plucked from your hand. For all this and more I give thanks to you. In your name Jesus, Amen.
Rev. Jenny Sung
Reverend Jenny Sung is an ordained #FreeRangePastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. She has been preaching, writing, and curating spaces worldwide for healing through brave love and community art. Rev. Sung’s passion for art comes from her many years as a professional modern dancer, founder, and co-director of One Dance Company in the Twin Cities. Follow Pastor Jenny on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram by clicking her Linktree.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
The Power of Co-Development
Excerpted from Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility & Co-Development (pp. 112-13, 116-19),
by Hunter Farrell & Balajiedlang Khyllep
(InterVarsity Press Academic 2022)
I’m standing in the middle of Peru’s coastal desert, a million miles from anything, wondering what in the heck I’m doing here. Miles and miles of sand and broken rock frame the horizon. “It’s just ahead, brother. Can you see it yet?”
“Definitely not,” I think to myself.
A U.S. Christian development agency had asked me to visit the Haya de la Torre Association, a group of landless farmers who had been working together once a week for 16 years in an attempt to cut a 1.4-mile-long irrigation canal out of solid rock. The canal would irrigate 2,700 acres of parched land and provide the farmers with land for themselves and their children after them. With only 124 yards left to go, they had requested funds to rent the heavy machinery necessary to cut and cart away the rock. I took one look at the granite mountain in front of us and chuckled to myself. It looked like pure foolishness. But I guess I’d never really seen faith move mountains before.
A charter member of the association, 68-year-old Alicia Moraga, showed me the 1.3-mile ditch already cut and carefully lined with rock. Using ancient technology that dated back to the Inca Empire, the community had coaxed water out of the Huara River, high above the arid lands, and brought it within reach of their goal. I looked at Alicia, perplexed. “Sixteen years? What kept you going, Señora?” I asked.
Now it was Alicia’s turn to be perplexed.
“But you should know about hope, pastor! We want our children to have a better life than we’ve had, and they’ll need land for that.”
Alicia said the association had bet that if they could bring water to the arid, unclaimed land overlooking the town of Humaya, they could obtain land—approximately 40 acres per family. All along Peru’s bone-dry Pacific coast, the equation is simple:
land + water = life
I stopped in my tracks.
The thought of dirt-poor peasants working for 16 years with picks and shovels to access water for their children made my definition of hope look pretty wimpy.
They had already raised money for the hydrological study and had successfully battled both a mining company and the government to retain title to the arid land…I smiled as I suddenly realized our God’s remarkable sense of humor. This is precisely where the church works best: sharing modest funding with poor and oppressed communities through community-initiated, community-managed projects. This is mission “with,” not “for.”
And so in Humaya, Alicia Moraga and her small band of poor, landless farmers are opening up a small piece of God’s Reign to provide hope and an inheritance for their children. And I’m thankful to Alicia and her community because they have shared with me a faith that moves mountains…
Is there a way to understand the development of human beings and of their communities in a different—in a postcolonial way—stripped of the paternalistic assumptions of “I develop them”?
Can we recognize the image of God in each person and understand that it is impossible for me to develop any other human being—that each person and community is responsible before God for developing themselves to the best of their ability?
In a very real sense, the verb “develop” cannot take an object: I cannot develop you. But perhaps, by God’s grace, I can contribute to the conditions that allow you to develop yourself by removing barriers and offering tools…
The power of co-development is in its radical mutuality. It rejects the implicit sense of power and control “givers” thought they possessed and insists that, as companions walk together with God, there is no “giver” and “receiver”: there are only human beings desperately in need of God’s grace in Christ. Thus, co-development is a radically mutual process that invites all to bring to the circle the gifts God has given them to offer to their mission companions. In doing so, all
Co-authors, B. Hunter Farrell and Balajiedlang Khyllep
will be changed. Perhaps you’ve heard a missionary, after a lifetime of sacrificial giving in communities of material poverty, sum up their entire missionary career with the surprising words, “I received so much more than I gave.” What is it these servants understand about life in God’s realm that many in the church have missed?
I don’t know about you, but even in the most important relationships in my life—my wife, my friends, my siblings—my efforts to “develop” them have been notorious failures. These loved ones would (with good reason!) question and even resent my efforts to change them. But they have generally welcomed my willingness to walk with them in their efforts to improve their own lives—if I enter that space with some humility, empathy, and compassion and if I’m willing to open my life to their companionship. Without that sense of reciprocity, human relationship becomes case work or a task list: it’s my responsibility to improve you…
This is the genesis of true co-development, both personal and communal. As we walk as companions in God’s mission, it is critically important that we walk in the freedom of unconditional love, freeing the other to be the person God intended them to be and not what we would desire them to become. This prevents us from treating the people God invites us to accompany as the objects of our mission and safeguards their place as subjects in the mission of God.
Honestly examining our plans and actions against a commitment to relate to our companions as the primary subjects of God’s mission in their community can free us from old, colonial patterns in ways that can upend hierarchical mission relationships and open a space for a closer, more authentic companionship in mission. I am convinced there are few actions we can take that so profoundly improve our mission relationships and enhance the changes our companions and we seek.
B. Hunter Farrell
B. Hunter Farrell (doctor of anthropology, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) is the director of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s World Mission Initiative (WMI). He worked for over thirty years as a missionary, director of world mission for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and a professor of mission and intercultural studies.
He has published articles in The Journal of Latin American Theology, Christianity Today, and Missiology and is the co-author, with Baljiedlang Khyllep, of Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility & Co-Development (InterVarsity Press, January 2022).
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Not later. Today.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:14-21
Friends, I want us to dwell on one word in this reading, one word that makes all the difference in how we read this text, how we come to understand the shape of God’s salvation, how we come to embody a ministry faithful to the good news of Jesus.
That word is today. Today.
But here’s the problem.
I don’t know about you, but these pandemic days have distorted my sense of time so calling our attention to a word about a measure of time might not be such a great idea!
Two weeks to bend the curve turned into months of uncertainty and waiting. Weeks and months of online school for my kids blended together while the seasons turned seemingly more slowly than usual. The promise of better days, a so-called return to normal always on the horizon but seemingly not drawing closer. The birthday parties and celebrations and holy Sundays were just not the same on a screen. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I know what day it is or exactly how many months we have been living under the weight of so much loss and worry and stress.
And there’s a second problem too, at least for me. In the tradition in which I was nurtured, I was taught a faith that was less today and more focused on later. Salvation was a future reality we would taste only after death. And while apocalyptic dreams were in the air and being “left behind” was a thing before the books were a thing, the urgency of the moment was always about the future, not so much about the present. I heard every Sunday, “Now is the time to answer God’s call by walking down the aisle and accepting Jesus as your savior!” Later was the time to really taste the goodness of God in a body resurrected but only after death.
But perhaps the “later” of salvation is not just a problem in certain churches. I think we are used to asking where we can find good news. We are accustomed to seeking out the what of the gospel. We are used to wondering why the good news matter. We know all too well the who of the good news: yes, the Triune God as well as those many on the margins seeking God’s justice.
But how often do we ask when? Do we ask when is the good news of Jesus with urgency and hope? Do we ask when this good news will come to fruition?
That is, how often do we ask, do we ever ask this: When is the gospel? When is the gospel?
When will the poor hear good news? When will the captives be set free? When will the oppressed find their chains loosened? When will the dead taste life once again? When, God, when?
Jesus’ answer in Luke 4 is clear. Jesus’ answer is unequivocal. Jesus’ answer is transformative: today. Today.
Let’s set the scene.
Right before our scene, Luke narrates how Jesus faced a trio of temptations after the Spirit drives him into the wilderness. Notice that the Spirit is living and active even when propelling Jesus into uncertainty and danger. Tempted to feed himself, to prove his trust in God, to grasp at the imperial power that would seem to guarantee the advent of the reign of God, Jesus persists in the path of faithfulness, a path marked by the prophetic example of his own mother and the urgent call to repentance of John. Jesus emerges from the wilderness, tested, perhaps a bit scarred, but also carried by God’s grace and God’s promises.
Still filled with the Spirit, he comes back home to the acclaim of many. And as he has done throughout his life, he is at his local synagogue, gathering with his neighbors in the expectation that they would heard good news about God in a world marked by imperial aggression, by sickness and loss, by the everyday sorrows and joys of life.
At a familiar synagogue, at a spiritual home, Jesus is handed a scroll of Isaiah where he finds written an ancient prophecy. Notice that he does not thumb through a codex looking for his favorite passage. The text is chosen for him, certainly by wherever the reading left off the previous week but also by the Spirit paving his every step. He reads from Isaiah a transformative promise. I often tell my students that if Luke had enough papyrus to write a one-verse Gospel and not a 24-chapter Gospel, he would chosen these words from Isaiah. Here is the breadth and depth of the good news according to Luke in one, okay maybe two, brief verses.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The good news, it turns out, is not an ethereal expectation of intangible hopes. No, the good news is embodied. Such good news sets the world right. Such good news shatters our expectations and starts at the margins of the world. It starts with people we have chosen to lock away, to neglect, to harm by our action and inaction alike.
These promises are to be found within the year of the Lord’s favor. They unfurl over a period of time, not to delay God’s good gifts but to proliferate them.
Because notice Jesus’ simple yet profound interpretation of words of Isaiah: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today, my friends.
But what could that possibly mean?
I mean, Jesus, look around. We are surrounded by death and division, injustice and peril, harm and hurt. Jesus, I get that you want us to hope for the future, but you can’t be serious that you mean “today.” Not literally, right, Jesus? You can’t be serious?
I think Jesus means exactly this. I think Jesus knows what he’s talking about.
Today. Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. When it comes to God’s salvation, there will be no delay. When it comes to God’s justice, there will be no delay. When it comes to God’s goodness, there will be no delay. When it comes to God’s grace, God’s love, God’s call on our lives, there will be no delay.
What does the today-ness of God’s promise mean for us today then? In the middle of a pandemic that lingers still, what does today mean? In the wake of protests for racial justice that linger over the generation, what does today mean? At the bedside of the dying and alongside the grieving, what does today mean?
It is striking to me that Jesus declares, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” at the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke. He declares “Today” before the healings he performs, before the multiplication of food in a deserted place, before he eats with the sinner and the tax collector, before his resurrection. But he also declares, “Today,” before he calls Herod a fox, before John is executed, before he cries over Jerusalem, before he is betrayed by a friend, before he is tortured and lynched on a Roman cross.
The Jesus of Luke is not unfamiliar with the power of God’s Spirit. Neither is he unfamiliar with the sharp realities of living in the shadow of empire’s might. So, his “today” is not naive or optimistic or positive thinking.
No, his “Today” is a prophetic declaration that echoes his mother’s song in Luke 2, a song where Mary declared the powerful would be brought down from their thrones and the hungry would be filled. His “Today” is accompanied by the work of his hands and his choice about with whom he would eat. His “Today” talks the talk and walks the walk. His “Today” faces disappointment and hopelessness and doubt. His “Today” dies upon a Roman cross. His “Today” rises from the grave, scarred and delivered.
Declaring “Today” is an act of trust in God’s promises, a bold voicing of faith, a step toward the reign of God.
The “Today” Jesus speaks does not trust just in the power we might have to overcome temptation. No, his “Today” rests on what God has already done, on God’s assured victory, on God’s resurrection power. “Today” is not about us; it is about the God who sets the world right.
My friends, we are still living in that “Today.” We are still living in God’s victory. We are still living in the wake of the resurrection. “Today.”
In the eye of a hurricane, today.
In the victory over injustice, today.
In the death-dealing of a pandemic, today.
In the healing of the sick, today.
In the trauma of violence and division, today.
In the bridging of broken relationships, today.
In the overflowing ICU, today.
At the soup kitchen, today.
Behind the pulpit, today.
At the table Christ has set before us, today.
With every breath and every step you take, with every anguished word you whisper in the dark of the night, with every blessing you give, with every tear you shed, today.
Not tomorrow. Today.
Not next week. Today.
Not next year. Today.
God’s promise. Today.
God’s grace. Today.
God’s justice. Today.
God’s good, good news. Today.
Dr. Eric Barreto
Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. His passion is to pursue scholarship for the sake of the church, and he regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.
Twitter | @ericbarreto.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
The Church on Noah’s Ark - What will you bring?
What if we are currently in a Noah’s ark situation within the Church?
We can hear the waves rising, and screams of Church leaders telling us not to panic. However, every part of us knows something is about to give. The story of Noah’s ark is horrifying and confusing when you think about it. Is this how The Holy One truly responds to their created when things aren't going well? Perhaps the cuteness of animals walking two by two distracts us from the fact that mostly everything in the story is destroyed.
Ann Frank shared fairytales to the youngest inmates in her final weeks at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her fairytales were not consumed with princesses and happily ever after. In her fairytales nasty war-like things happened to the main characters and they had to overcome something devastating. These fairytales lifted the spirits of everyone because she spoke into the truth of their experiences while offering a hope that required all of them. The solution was not just up to one person, or one hero.
Perhaps Noah’s ark is that kind of story. The kind where awful things happen and the promise is SOMETHING WILL SURVIVE, something will last even when it feels like all hope is lost. The Church has survived the rise and fall of many empires and leaders. The story of resurrection is not just a core belief, it's who we are. It’s what stops us from dealing in the currency of fear and grounds us in naming a thing what it is.
We have the opportunity right now to be in holy conversation about what we want to put on the ark together.
What needs to survive? Let’s be clear, God will have God’s way and maybe our Creator is inviting us to dream with them. So much in our culture is changing. How do we authentically honor what was, what new things need to surface, and what will last into the future? Like Ann Frank’s fairy tales, it may require all of us. How can we enter into this holy work together?
As a body we are notorious for fighting over miniscule things such as paint and carpet colors. How do we get past the cerebral egos of our rightness and commit our bodies, a simple pebble, to joining the many on this path? How do we shift our lens of measuring outcomes and success to prioritizing genuine connection to God and one another? I don’t think we even need to be right. We just need to be brave in love. Naked Pastor had a meme on Instagram that read, “What got Jesus into the most trouble wasn’t what he believed but who he loved.” Who do we love and what kind of holy trouble does it get us into?
Is it possible to understand we are in a Noah’s ark situation and we need to work together and to get something onto the ark? Perhaps it is even something simple like Love God, love one another as you love yourself? Once Noah and his family got off the ark things spread out. What if we don’t have to judge the way God calls each of us to live out this story? What if we are all called to different places in the vineyard? Maybe we must trust, encourage, and love one another and God where we are planted?
I know it may feel like I am asking a lot of questions rather than giving you a bunch of answers, and maybe this is the movement of the Church. Perhaps, we need to pause in assuming we have all the answers. Start asking each other honest questions, and listen to one another’s responses. I am not suggesting we continue to ask the same leaders the same questions we have been asking the last 500 years.
What if we ask different people, different questions? Could it take us somewhere new? Where I have witnessed beautiful collaboration and powerful movement is among organizations working toward disability justice, liberation, food justice, and racial reconciliation. To be honest it makes sense. God has always been asking people from the margins to rise up and teach the appointed leaders how to follow. Maybe if we are used to leading it is time to now follow, and if we are used to following perhaps God is inviting us into a leading role? For all this and more I give thanks to God who continues to challenge us to see beyond ourselves and never stops inviting us to create something beautiful together.
Rev. Jenny Sung
Reverend Jenny Sung is an ordained #FreeRangePastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. She has been preaching, writing, and curating spaces worldwide for healing through brave love and community art. Rev. Sung’s passion for art comes from her many years as a professional modern dancer, founder, and co-director of One Dance Company in the Twin Cities. Follow Pastor Jenny on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram by clicking her Linktree.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
After the Manger: an Epiphany Lesson
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. (Matthew 2:12)
In Matthew’s Gospel we hear of the visiting Magi, strangers from another land, who came to offer gifts to Jesus.
They had made a stop on the way to see the regional king, Herod, who told them to “come back and let him know” where exactly that new king was.
No reason in particular, just so that he could “pay his respects” as well.
These magi were no fools, thank goodness.
They went home another way, and Herod?
Oh, Herod raged.
There is a whole story with two important things to notice in verse 12 above.
First, the magi listened to their dreams.
I find this part of the story very compelling this year.
When we’re tired (beyond tired, really) and feeling a little hopeless, it can be hard to listen to our dreams.
Hard to hear what the longing of our hearts really is trying to tell us.
We cover up that deep inner longing, that voice that is quietly whispering the dream within us. We cover it up with resolutions
and goals
and intentions,
which, let’s be honest, are all basically the same thing.
What if we took a little bit of time at the start of this new year and wondered - what are my dreams telling me? What is my deepest inner voice trying to say?
Imagine if the magi hadn’t trusted themselves.
Imagine if they had ignored or suppressed the little voice telling them that it was not safe to return to the regional king.
The first part of this story asks us to tend the whisper that we don’t often pause to hear, and often don’t trust.
To the Magi, it whispers:
What if the regional king is lying?
I know this is a dangerous question to ask, but the skeptic in me loves that it’s at the core of the magi’s dreams.
What is the regional king that keeps lying to you?
Is it capitalism?
Patriarchy?
White supremacy?
A culture that tells you you should be having your best life now?
Some sense of inferiority or worthlessness?
All of the above?
What are your dreams warning you about?
Our dreams are telling us to go another way.
That’s the second part of the story in this single verse.
The magi go another way.
They have listened to their dreams, and have faced the reality that Herod was lying to them, and they return home by another way.
This is so hard.
When we’re tired (again, beyond tired) and even listening to our dreams feels like a big ask,
this next part definitely feels like too much.
So we don’t.
Most of the time, we just don’t go another way.
I get it. It’s easier to go where you’ve gone before.
To do things the way you’ve done them.
To follow a path you’ve already been on.
But sometimes we need to go another way.
And I think this is one of those times.
We need to go another way.
The world is pushing us to go back to the way things were, and it’s obviously not working out real well for us. Not mentally or physically. Not emotionally or spiritually.
Many, if not most of us are not ok.
So what might it look like, even now - especially now - to imagine a new way?
To try something new?
To not do it the way we’ve always done it but to listen carefully to our dreams and set out on another way?
This feels particularly relevant in the church right now.
If we’re honest, many of us don’t want to go by another way. We want to go back to the way it was.
Maybe it’s because so much of our theology and liturgy and practice is grounded in tradition.
And don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about tradition, it’s beautiful and meaningful and connects us to generations past and future.
But what if our inability to go another way is putting us in danger?
What if we aren’t willing to risk the anger of the regional king and put the whole story at risk instead?
This article has more questions than answers, I am very aware. But I know I’m not alone in asking them. I know many clergy colleagues and congregation members asking these same questions. People who are daring to listen to their dreams, and risking the anger of the powerful in service to the daring dreams of Gospel.
As we enter into the season of Epiphany, I wonder if we can look to the magi for not just a lesson on how to follow a star, but for what happens next.
What happens when we listen to our dreams and dare to go another way?
Rev. Natalia Terfa
Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”
Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Today We Went to Church
We went to church today. We went two weeks ago for the first time in two years and the kids looked surprised, unused to such music, procession and murmurings, but perhaps sensing a familiarity in the scene of their baptisms not too too long ago. This morning we entered again, encountering Advent making its familiar promise that I still want to believe.
We walked out two hours later with Walter cast in the role of a lifetime — Shepherd. People urged us to consider putting Glenn in the show as well, but we know better. Let's stick to the “silent night, holy night, all is calm all is bright" version of Jesus' birth, rather than the more true chaotic mess of the birth in the manger in Bethlehem that would be re-produced if our three-year-old was in the role of Sheep.
We went to buy a tree after the service and Walter and Glenn eventually landed on a beautiful one, the tallest we've had with the star almost scraping the ceiling. After our traditional spaghetti dinner, prepared by Brad, we all sat on the couch and gazed at the tree and began singing the Christmas songs that we sing every year — which involve Brad and my best efforts at the first verses of Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Little Town of Bethlehem, O Come Emmanuel, and Walter's current favorite, "Joy to the World, as he loves the line “and heaven and nature sing” - I love that line too. We also sing We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Jingle Bells.
Half way through the singing we stopped, remembering the Advent wreath Walter had made two weeks ago in Church, and we lit the second candle of Advent, with its urging to prepare God room in our hearts, echoing to cries John the Baptist.
We sang a bit more, and after cleaning up the magna tiles in the bedroom, the kids climbed in and we said their prayers that I had created a few weeks back.
Why am I writing all of this? I guess because I am viewing myself as a parent, an identity that I'm still amazed is me, watching Brad and me along with Glenn and Walter craft together traditions that will be our family's own. As real to my children as the traditions my parents crafted were to me. I am becoming more clear that this work of translating tradition is our own to do — it is responsibility, a privilege, and a right. No tradition is 'pure' passing untouched from one generation to the next. It is all handcrafted, all homemade, and, if offered with love, the traditions will give our loved ones something to hold on to that gives them life.
This includes the tradition inherent in faith. I hope Brad and I can offer an expansive, open faith with Jesus at its core teaching a way of love. We offer it with an open hand, hopeful that such things as wonder and joy and the possibility of radical new birth are a part of our own lives and the lives of our children. Glenn and Walter already receive all this with grace and curiosity, and even now they are forging something new as new lives considers what is wheat and what is chaff for them. And so it goes, and I feel so grateful for it all as I sit, gazing at our tree — thinking of the new words that Walter is learning to read right now in school — beautiful, friends, family, together.
Paul Raushenbush
Paul Raushenbush is Senior Advisor for Public Affairs and Innovation at IFYC (Interfaith Youth Core) promoting a narrative of positive pluralism in America, while researching and developing cutting edge interfaith leadership. He is the Editor of Interfaith America.
Facebook | @raushenbush
Twitter | @raushenbush
We know how hard it is to find a Bible study that can be used easily in any context. Our premise is simple: Ignite curiosity in the Bible through generous invitation, fresh witness, and breathtaking video. Download episode 1 for free and see what it’s all about.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s Christmas Message 2021
A number of years ago I read a book by Roberta Bondi who at that time was teaching at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. The title of the book was “To Love as God Loves.” Professor Bondi in that book looked at and examined early Christians. And one of the things she observed was that early Christians saw their vocation of following Jesus as learning how to love as God loves. And that was the title of the book, “To Love as God Loves.”
If that is true, as I believe it is, when we look at the New Testament stories of Jesus, and particularly the stories around Christmas, we see early glimmers of Jesus showing us how to love as God loves. The Christmas stories found in Matthew and in Luke, for example, actually show us something about God's way of love.
We all know the Christmas stories, the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes as it's found in Luke's gospel, the baby that's born of Mary, the stories of Mary while she was pregnant meeting her cousin Elizabeth, and the words of the Magnificat—“My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
We know the stories of Mary giving birth in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn, the stories of the shepherds out on the field beholding the angel choir— “Gloria in Excelsis Deo.” The stories of a baby born is the story of beauty, a story of hope; for as the Jewish tradition says, every child who is born is a reminder that God is not finished with the world yet. In this case, the baby that was born was named Jesus.
Matthew tells the same story but highlights other dimensions that remind us profoundly of the way God loves. In Matthew's story, the child is born and there is great beauty in it, but there is some difficulty, even in the relationship between Mary and Joseph when they discover that she is with child before they're actually married. But an angel intervenes and tells Joseph in the dream that this child is God's miracle.
And so Joseph accepts his responsibility and cares for Mary and the baby Jesus who is to be born. And all moves along well. And in Matthew's version there is the star, the Magi or the wise men who come from afar, but then the story takes a dark turn.
And all of a sudden the same beauty that surrounded the birth of a child now is tinged by an ugliness of tyranny, the ugliness of injustice, the ugliness of hatred, the ugliness of unbridled selfishness as King Herod hears rumors of a rival to his throne being born and begins plans to execute children to stamp out his rival. In Matthew, that is the context for the birth of Jesus.
And Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus when he is born are forced to flee as refugees seeking political asylum, eventually in Egypt, because of the wrath of King Herod. They are saved from the destruction, but many do die.
In the late 1930s, The Episcopal Church embarked on efforts to save refugees who were fleeing tyranny, evil, injustice, bigotry, hatred in Europe at the advent of the Second World War. In The Episcopal Church, Episcopalians and many other Christians and Jewish people in the United States and people of goodwill and human decency worked together in a variety of ways to save as many refugees as they could.
And at that time, Episcopalians created this image. And it shows Mary holding the baby Jesus in her arms on the donkey with Joseph walking with them. And as you can see, the sign said, “In the name of these refugees, aid all refugees.”
The Christmas stories are reminders that this Jesus came to show us how to love as God loves. And one of the ways we love as God loves is to help those who are refugees, those who seek asylum from political tyranny, poverty, famine, or other hardship.
In the 1930s, Episcopalians did this to love as God loves, and today, ministries like Episcopal Migration Ministries, the work of this church, have helped to resettle some 100,000 refugees as of December 2021. And that work goes on for refugees from Afghanistan and from other places around the world.
The Christian vocation as Jesus taught us is to love as God loves. And in the name of these refugees, let us help all refugees.
God love you. God bless you. And, this Christmas, may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love.
Bishop Michael Curry
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church.
Facebook | @PBMBCurry
Twitter | @BishopCurry
Twitter | @episcopalchurch
Facebook | @episcopalian
We know how hard it is to find a Bible study that can be used easily in any context. Our premise is simple: Ignite curiosity in the Bible through generous invitation, fresh witness, and breathtaking video. Download episode 1 for free and see what it’s all about.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Reigniting Purpose in Your Ministry
Maybe I should do something else for work?
If you're working in ministry through this season, raise your hand if you've thought this, said this in confidence to your friends, or just blatantly set it out loud. I keep thinking about all the other things I could be doing. People tend to play out different scenarios in their head — kind of like picking the ending of those Goosebumps books. If I didn't like the outcome, I just went back and picked the other option. Sometimes I play the “What If'' game. What if I had gone to dental school and spent my days telling people they should floss more? What if I had stayed in the field of journalism? What if I hadn’t moved or had taken a different job?
My friends in ministry have spent many hours dreaming about everything from starting our own churches, inventing cool gadgets, driving for UPS, to creating content. A lot of this dreaming is just for fun. But the dreams have hit a little heavier and have been a little more frequent lately.
So why do we feel like this so often?
For me, it starts with false logic. It goes a little like this: when things are hard, I feel like I'm doing a bad job. I believe if I'm doing a bad job, I must not be a good fit. And if I'm not a good fit, then I should just give up. Well things have been hard a lot lately. We claim that it's “just a season,” but that season seems to keep getting extensions. So then I have to ask why things are this hard?
Well, the demand to produce ministry is so high. Too high. It feels like we have to make up for Covid lost time. I feel so much pressure to perform at a certain capacity, to get a certain amount of things done, to push for more and better ministry. That is exhausting, and not exhausting like how I feel after Christmas Eve, or a mission trip, or family game night. It's fatigue, it is a lack of energy, and it's really hard to get pulled out of that.
We’re close enough to the new year to be setting resolutions and goals, right? Here are some of the things I'm going to strive to remind myself and put in practice moving forward:
It’s not my job to solve everything myself.
I can manage my energy more efficiently.
I can focus on the values behind my ministry that give me purpose and joy.
Sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to solve problems, trying to build relationships with everyone, being a really good team leader, preaching a really good message, and upholding the church that I lose sight of God. One of my friends and colleagues is really good at reminding me of this: I am not Jesus. I am not the savior of the world. I do not carry the weight of salvation on my shoulders. God is God, I am not. And not only does that provide me relief when I remember it, but also it reminds me that God is at work – that we are working in tandem with God.
One of my professors said it this way: “God is responsible for God's Church.” Meaning, at the end of the day, there is truly only so much that I can do. There is only so much you can do.
So I'm going to ground myself in the truth that God is at work in our ministries, through us and around us.
Second, I want to manage my energy better. Energy plays a key role in my attitude and in my ability to enjoy my work. I always talk about how I have 10 coins. These 10 coins represent the amount of energy that I have every day. I start the day with 10 coins and throughout the day different tasks and social interactions deplete the bank. At the end of the day I go home and relax. I do the things that I need to do to replenish the bank.
I want to pay more attention to how expensive certain tasks are. In particular, I know there is one project in my ministry that almost depletes my entire energy bank. So I know I should hand-off that project to someone for whom it will cost less to do. Now this doesn't work for every task that I have, and it might not work for every task you have. But I do have the authority to delegate and give tasks to somebody for whom it will bring life. This may be support staff or a volunteer – somebody who will be excited about the project and will be willing to invest in it; this will be better for me and better for the ministry itself.
Third, I want to spend more time focused on my ministry values instead of ministry tasks.
I’ve found this to be a more helpful lens through which to view my work. Two very important elements of ministry for me are relationships and team dynamics. I want the relationships I have with students, parents, and other congregants to take priority. This might seem like a no brainer, but it often feels like a genuine challenge to prioritize relationships. This might be pausing just a little bit longer between worship to catch a few more people or to have longer conversations. This might mean less teaching and more listening.
Team dynamics are also of high value because I believe a cohesive team can withstand turmoil, handle conflict, encourage creativity, and carry out vision. My, oh my, do team dynamics take a lot of time and care. But I’ve seen the work pay off and it’s worth it.
In sum, please know you are not alone in your struggles, in your weariness. There is so much in this moment that we do not get control over and that demands our mental, physical, and spiritual energy. We can acknowledge and accept that, while also working toward practices that reinvigorate the why of our calling to ministry.
Jessica Gulseth
Jess Gulseth is a seminarian at Luther Seminary in St. Paul seeking ordination in the ELCA. Jess is a Director of Children & Family ministry in the Des Moines, IA area.
We know how hard it is to find a Bible study that can be used easily in any context. Our premise is simple: Ignite curiosity in the Bible through generous invitation, fresh witness, and breathtaking video. Download episode 1 for free and see what it’s all about.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Notes of Rest, A Musical Mini-Retreat
With the holidays on the country’s doorstep, now is as good a time as any to think about how the church values rest. Sadly, we can easily see how often we do not value it enough. After all, there is always more righteousness we can pursue or sins to redress. Yet the arc of Scripture shows us the importance of choosing rest as a means of living in a rhythm not fully governed by the patterns of this world. For instance, on Day 7 of creation God took time to refrain from creating anymore, and on Holy Saturday God chose not to raise Jesus from the dead, but instead wait until Sunday morning. Neither extreme destroyed God’s sense of rest, and that is an invitation for we the church too: to follow after ancient Israel and receive God’s gift of rest. This is why I created Notes of Rest.
Notes of Rest is a spiritual mini-retreat that interweaves Scriptural meditations with solo piano music in order to cultivate rest, contemplation, and creativity in all who will hear Jesus’ call. I offer these virtual and in-person sessions for churches, seminaries and affinity groups (e.g., lawyers, healthcare workers, caregivers, parents). The goal of the ministry is to let contemplation of God emerge from our resting in Scripture and music such that we can see and hear more of God. The Lord is not only at work, but at rest too.
The name Notes of Rest is a play on the word “notes.” In musical terms, notes and rests must come together in order to create music. So from that perspective, Notes of Rest is about giving people music that helps them pause and “center down” as Howard Thurman would say. But the name also emerges from the practice of preaching. A sermon is a series of notes on a passage towards a particular end. So in the case of the retreats, my brief meditations and resultant questions are designed to help you rest and be introspective. When the notes from Scripture meet the notes of music, we can be formed to experience the gift of rest anew.
If you have ever attended a worship service, you have probably experienced the formative power of joining music and Scripture together. In many traditions, the service is a constant interplay between Scripture and music. When we aren’t hearing one, chances are we are hearing something based on the other. The back and forth is characteristic of so many traditions because since biblical antiquity, we have recognized the capacity of text and sound joined together to shape us for Christian life. So in Notes of Rest, I join them in order to form us to be well-rested disciples.
A Notes of Rest session flows through three movements: Rivers, Banks, and Wellsprings. During Rivers, I read Scripture and then surface from the text several questions about your spiritual journey. As you sit with the questions and text, I play familiar church music for you — such as Great is Thy Faithfulness or Give Me Jesus — so you can travel this journey of introspection with familiar companions whose theologies can help you find your responses. (As an aside, the grassroots organization Fearless Dialogues, another space I serve, helps people explore hard conversations around taboo subjects using familiar objects such as music.)
After swimming in the Rivers, we dry ourselves off on the Banks (short for riverbanks), where we talk about what happened for us in the waters of Scripture, music, and questions. Participants’ responses are rich in diversity. Some talk about their feelings. Some talk about their thoughts. Some just give thanks for being able to sit still in the music. As they share, I can sense the spirit of rest radiating out of people, even over Zoom!
Concluding our time is Wellsprings, which is when retreatants get to respond to what is bubbling up inside them due to Rivers and Banks. As I play for the retreatants again, they are invited to engage one of four verbs: rest (some more), pray (for yourself and/or someone else), encourage (yourself and/or someone else), or create! The diversity of responses during Wellsprings astounds me. One of my favorite stories comes from a session on marriage a few months ago. Welling up in a participant was a profound longing for her husband who couldn’t attend, so she used Wellsprings as a time to dance. Only God can birth such a creative impulse!
Notes of Rest creates a moment for us to receive the gift of rest that God demonstrates for us in Genesis and the Gospels. Whether we are in a time of great productivity and/or of lamentable death, Rivers, Banks, and Wellsprings becomes a space for us to respond with the rest Jesus provides in abundance.
As an outgrowth of the retreat’s impact on my own life, tomorrow (Thanksgiving) I am releasing my debut solo album entitled Rest Assured. This project comprises some of the retreat’s music that specifically addresses God’s faithfulness and our ability to rest assured as a result. From traditional Anglophone hymnody such as “His Eye is on the Sparrow” and “It Is Well With My Soul,” to the Negro Spirituals “Give Me Jesus” and “I will Trust in the Lord,” to the Taizé community’s chant “O Lord, Hear My Prayer,” the album invites us to embody the posture of trust that Jesus summons his disciples to have in Matthew: “Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”
No matter how you enter this holiday season, be it a time of Eden-level fruitfulness or Golgotha-level despair, I pray that you and your community find rest in God. For when we choose stillness, the Spirit reminds us that our rhythms with God are always bigger than the good we produce or the evil we witness. May we rest assured knowing that salvation has come and is coming.
Julian Davis Reid
Julian is an artist-theologian who creates beauty with music and words to amplify Jesus' sound. His debut solo project Rest Assured will be on all streaming platforms Nov 25.
In addition, he stewards two ministries: Notes of Rest (spiritual retreat) and The JuJu Exchange (jazz-fusion group). He studied theology & the arts at Candler School of Theology (M.Div.) and philosophy at Yale College (B.A.). He and his wife Carmen are based in his beloved hometown of Chicago. You may learn more about him at juliandavisreid.com.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Permission to Feel More Than Gratitude
We all know there are many things to be grateful for and at the same time there is a deep exhaustion, time feels weird, and trauma is real. We all have people in our worlds we love and others who are at best annoying us, at worst breaking our hearts. A year ago this time we were only able to have Thanksgiving with our immediate households, and now we have the choice to be together. Will it be a time filled with long hugs and happy tears or 6+ feet of emotional and physical separation because many of us are just too raw, too mangey?
Wherever you find yourself on this spectrum, your whole self gets to exist, not just the grateful parts. All that has been broken, wounded, strengthened in you is not for naught. We have felt the edge of our capacity and maybe even willed ourselves a little beyond it. We have cried, and laughed, hoped, and hurt. We have felt lonely, afraid, worn out, and anxious. We have embraced loved ones, we have witnessed beauty in our collective strength and sorrow in disconnection.
Amidst all the things you have to get done this week, may you have spaciousness to catch your breath, relax your shoulders, and breathe. You are wholly seen. You are wholly known. You are holy Beloved.
Remember the story of Noah’s Ark? Wow, that story is terrifying. Once you get past the cute animals you’re left with death, destruction, and inconsolable grief. Why do we share this story in Sunday School? God destroys just about everything and yet ... God doesn’t. Maybe part of the hidden beauty is the promise that something survives. Even after all of this heartache and woe, something will survive … something will last. We are resurrection people.
This fall I went on a pilgrimage led by Rev. Don Carlson with LEAD visiting places throughout Turkey and Greece where apostle Paul journeyed, and you know what we saw over and over?
Ruins … so many ruins.
Photo by Rev. Jenny Sung
In Philippi we saw the first Christian Church built in 314 CE, and now it sits in ruins. We saw the ruins of wealthy cities and powerful empires. We saw the tombs of Emperors who were worshipped like Gods and to dust they have returned. No amount of money or power kept them from crumbling. After seeing site after site of ruins, you wonder what’s the point? What will survive? Even now many worry about the institution of the Church. Everything turns to dust, and yet … there we sat. A group of 26 humans on this pilgrimage compelled by the same story that drove Paul to these holy spaces. Despite the many ruins and fallen empires this story continues on. This story continues to draw us close. This story still keeps its promise.
Many of us just celebrated The Reign of Christ Sunday remembering God is God. Everything else we try to worship or lift up turns to dust. As we begin to move into the season of Advent what are you going to put on your ark? What do you want to survive? Think about all you have already survived. We have a whole universe swirling inside of us. In so many ways we are all doing the best we can and in the midst of our best we still hurt people, we still make mistakes, we still grow forward. God continues to hover over our chaos, come to us and make us new in Christ Jesus.
At this time I invite you to take a holy pause, catch your breath and pray:
On the Deep inhale...
Pray: “For all I have survived”
On the Full exhale...
Pray: “God, thank you.”
On the Deep inhale...
Pray: “For your grace upon grace”
On the Full exhale...
Pray: “God, thank you”
On the Deep inhale...
Pray: “For this holy pause and your promises”
On the Full exhale...
Pray: “God, thank you”
Rev. Jenny Sung
Reverend Jenny Sung is an ordained #FreeRangePastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America meaning she spends most of her time traveling, preaching, speaking, writing, and coaching leaders how to heal through brave love and beloved community. She received her Masters of Divinity through Luther Seminary and is the founder and co-director of One Dance Company, a professional modern dance company in the Twin Cities. Connect with Rev. Sung here.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Climate Sermon
"God so loved the world..." Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry preaches at the Liturgy for Planetary Crisis. The service focused on climate change and the need for swift, just action to bring us back into right relationship across the human family and with all of God's creation.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry - Sermon during COP26 Climate Liturgy
And now in the name of our loving, liberating, and life giving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I am indeed profoundly grateful to all who have gathered here with this time of liturgy for a climate in crisis, for all who have worked behind the scenes to bring us together, and for all who are part of the COP delegation of the Episcopal Church. At this important time, I thank you, and thank god for you, and thank God for all who advocate for our Mother Earth.
While I happened to be in New York to preach tomorrow, I live on the land of the Tuscarora nation and the Lumbee in North Carolina. A friend of mine, Charles Marsh, who teaches at the University of Virginia, some years ago wrote a book on spirituality and civil rights entitled “Beloved Community, Spirituality, and Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement until Today.” In that book, at one point in a chapter where he was talking about Fannie Lou Hamer and her impact both on the Mississippi Freedom Party and on human rights and dignity, he said this and I quote, “Through Fannie Lou Hamer, Jesus had founded the most revolutionary movement in human history. A movement built on the unconditional love of God for the world and the mandate to a community to live that love.”
I believe that's true. Jesus did not found an institution for the sake of an institution, though institutions can serve Him. He did not found a religious organization for the sake of religious organizations, though religious organizations can serve Him. Jesus founded a movement, a movement of people committed to following His way, which is the way of the love of God. And they dare to live that mandate in the world: that God loves.
From John chapter 3, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
For God so loved the world.
I'm not sure if it's because I've got more gray hair on my head, or I'm just slow to learn, but it's only been in the last few years that I've realized just a little bit the enormity of the conversation that happened in the third chapter of John's Gospel between Nicodemus, the Pharisee, and Jesus the Messiah. Nicodemus comes up to Jesus, and he's curious. He wants to know from Jesus, what's it going to take to make life livable? What is the core of your teaching? And Jesus says, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus says, “Well, that's not possible, I'm an old man. You said you must be born of the spirit that which is born of the flesh is flesh that was born of the spirit is spirit.” And then Jesus launches into the power that makes this new birth, that makes this new creation, that makes this new heaven and earth possible. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man. So what I'm telling you, Nicodemus, so what I've been trying to teach you all. Be lifted up. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. He gave Himself. God so loved the world.
It's taken me this long to figure out the enormity of what's going on here. That Jesus was telling old Nicodemus that that God loves this world, that's why I'm here. He was telling Nicodemus that this love of God for the whole world is the way to heal this world. It's the power that will heal this creation, that will redeem God's lost creation. God so loved the world.
I began to realize how large this was a few years ago when I was in conversation with Bishop Andrus. I don't even remember where we were, probably at a house bishops meeting. And I remember saying to him, I was playing with this text and wrestling with it. I've been listening to John 3:16 my whole life. In the 1928 prayer book, remember, it was in the comfortable words, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and all that believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It was in the comfortable words, now in rite one in the liturgy, and if you hadn't noticed that in the 1928 prayer book, and didn't see it in the 1979 in rite one, watch the NFL football games and somebody's going to have a sign that says John 3:16.
But it never occurred to me, how enormous what Jesus was telling Nicodemus that day. Until bishop Marc said, “You know what the Greek word used for the word ‘world’ is?” And I said, “Brother Marc, I've been out of seminary a long time, and my Greek is old and rusty.” And he said, “It's the word cosmos.” And I said, “Lord, have mercy.” It’s the word cosmos! Not just a little bit here. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not not just you and me. No, no, no. Not just the human family. No, no, no. Francis of Assisi figured this out a long time ago. It's not just us. It's not just the Earth. It's everything that exists. The cosmos! God so loved the world! All things! Like the Nicene Creed said: visible and invisible. God so loved the world that He gave His only son.
That's extraordinary. But there's more.
Roberta Bondi, who I believe is retired, used to teach at Emory at the School of Theology there, is a scholar, historian, theologian of the early church, and one of her books that she wrote a number of years ago that I still pick up and reread is a book entitled “To Love as God Loves.” And she says that when you look at the early church, the early Jesus movement, when you look at the early church carefully, you will see that the early Christians believed that their vocation to follow Jesus was to learn to love as Jesus loves. To love as God loves, because they remembered that Jesus said at The Last Supper in John's gospel, “A new commandment I give you that you love one another as I have loved you.” Their vocation: baptized. Their vocation: discipleship. Their vocation as a follower of Jesus is to love as Jesus loves, to love as God loves, to give as God gives, to forgive as God forgives, to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God!
That is the vocation of a Christian. To love as God loves. God so loved the world.
Hear me Christians, that He gave His only son. Notice the text. He gave, He didn't take. He gave, He didn't exploit. He gave, He didn't misuse. He gave to care for. He gave to love. God so loved the world. I didn't realize how big this text was.
And then there's more! I'm not finished yet. I'm going to stop because I know, I know, you all got other things to do, but this is a remarkable text. Notice that Jesus says, “God so loved the world” after He says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” If you go back in the Hebrew scriptures, the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness is a healing story. Folk can be bitten by poisonous snakes. Stay with me now. The creation had turned against them, and they were harmed, and Moses takes this bronze snake — I don't know what all that means — all I know is Moses takes this bronze snake, and when folk look at the bronze snake, if you will, folk get healed! I think Jesus was telling old Nicodemus: “You want to heal the world. You want to heal the creation. You want to heal the nations. You want to heal our relationships. Do love as God loves. God so loved the world.”
The power of that love, the power of our advocacy in the name of that love not only can fix the crisis, but can heal the deeper crisis that is behind it.
I have started to realize, I know folk talk about intersectionality. Again, I'm a slow learner. I started to realize some things are related. It is not an accident that the rise of mercantile capitalism in the West and the conquest of lands, right, stay with me, go back to your history now, and the conquest of lands is directly linked to the enslavement of African folk and the forced removal and genocide of indigenous folk. It's not an accident that exploitation of the creation leads to not only exploitation of the earth, but the exploitation of people. That's why god so loved the world. The whole thing. All of us.
This text is big.
And lastly, because this text points toward the healing power of love, of a love really lived as God lived. It points to our vocation as followers of Jesus in such a time as this. I was reading one of the ENS articles about the sister, the Lutheran pastor from Finland, who is part of the Arctic indigenous community. And she said this: “While we are hopeful about transitioning to cleaner energy and more sustainable solutions, we are also concerned about green colonialism, including the plans to build a wind farm on our homeland. And this is the point: We still live there. We're still living there, practicing our traditional livelihoods: fishing, reindeer herding. And our land is sacred to us. It gives us life and shelter. It is our home. It is our church.” It is our home. This is our home. This is our church. And we must cultivate a new spirituality. No, no. An old and ancient spirituality that is born of the wisdom of our indigenous brothers and sisters. And born of the wisdom of our brother Jesus and the scriptures.
And therein may be the spiritual key to the sacramental work of fixing the climate, the outward and visible sign, but also repairing the inward and spiritual reality which unless repaired, will continue to corrupt the outward reality.
Maybe the old song of some old slave somewhere sums up our prayers best this way: “He's got the whole world / in His hands / He’s got the whole world / in His hands / He's got the whole world / in His hands / God's got the whole world in his hands.”
Amen.
Shared with with permission by the Office of the Right Reverend Michael B. Curry, The Episcopal Church, in its entirety. For more on Episcopal Church climate advocacy at the United Nations, visit iam.ec/COP26. The Most Rev. Michael Curry is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the author of the book "Love Is the Way: Holding On to Hope in Troubling Times"
Bishop Michael Curry
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church.
Facebook | @PBMBCurry
Twitter | @BishopCurry
Twitter | @episcopalchurch
Facebook | @episcopalian
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Why Campus Ministries Aren’t Streaming Worship
I was fascinated when, after a colleague posted a question in a sizable group forum for campus pastors asking, who in this group regularly streams worship, a significant majority of the campus pastors who commented responded that their worshiping communities were not streaming worship.
It may come as a surprise to some that the oft-repeated idea that streaming worship will be necessary in the post-pandemic church has failed to gain traction in many communities centered on ministry with digital natives. But it shouldn’t.
Although, as Sociologist Hartmut Rosa, puts it, “the screen has become a kind of bottleneck through which our experience and appropriation plays out,” the leading platform for worship streaming, Facebook, has been hemorrhaging youth and young adults for years now (Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World, 91). According to internal research, young adults think the network is “boring, misleading, and negative.” Despite the fact that Instagram, Facebook’s second platform, has done better in this regard, the ubiquity of Sunday morning streaming on both platforms over the past few years did nothing to reverse the overall trend.
Regardless of the platform, streaming worship just isn’t the type of screen-time young adults are looking for.
It’s not that digital natives are abandoning social media; they’re simply moving to platforms like Snapchat and TikTok that are inhospitable to Sunday morning services (even shortened ones).
Nor is it that campus ministries lack the big-budget cameras and tech to do it well (much of the media college students engage is low-budget video shot on cell phones).
When a keynote presenter, at a conference I recently attended, quipped that more people attended Easter services in 2020 than in any other year in the history because services were available online, I guffawed too loudly. I imagined congregations racking up “views” as Gen-Z and Millennials watched an Easter service for 5-10 seconds before swiping to the next service.
This may sound cynical, but these habitual thumb-and-eye movements views aren’t a metric that really counts as worship attendance.
Before I go any further, I should clarify that a critique of social media in general is not in the scope of this blog. Nor am I arguing here that streaming worship is an inherently bad idea. I’m not piling-on already burned-out church leaders.
Church leaders have made truly valiant efforts to make worship accessible amidst something unprecedented in their lifetimes.
Streaming worship was and is a part of that. Some congregations have done streaming in remarkably good and faithful ways that have given digital worshipers the experience of being in touch with God and the world. This is a good thing.
Rather, because I believe campus ministries reveal a leading edge of the church, I want to raise the question of why those who work directly with digital natives seem to be abandoning streaming in the late stages of the pandemic? What might this suggest about post-pandemic practice?
Although, like most other congregations, the worshiping community I serve at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was quick to adopt online forms of worship in the Spring of 2020, including streaming, we were equally quick to abandon streaming once our community could gather with relatively safety with social-distancing protocols in place. (I say this recognizing that due to variation in local conditions this is not the case for all worshiping communities.)
Our primary reason for no longer live-streaming was rooted in the active leadership of several LGBTQIA+ students who were not out to their parents, some of whom who were using different names in the community than their names assigned at birth. We didn’t want to accidently out our students. We made the decision that caring for the most vulnerable in our community needed to take precedence over the possibility of someone discovering and engaging our community before they swiped to the next discount televangelists on Sunday morning Facebook.
As I read through the aforementioned group forum, I saw a similar rationale present in many of the posts. Describing worship contexts where worshipers were invited to open-up, campus ministers cited concerns about student vulnerability. Others shared concerns about personal information being broadcast into the void of the internet. Some talked about how streaming was almost impossible because the orientation of the worship space was a circle rather than a room with a ready for video point-and-shoot focal point.
These comments imply an interesting set of value assumptions about worship itself. The worship described by these campus ministers is relatively small, non-hierarchical, intimate, inclusive, and intentional about providing worshipers space to be vulnerable with one another.
In these spaces, students have room to question and to claim creative agency.
For these campus ministers (and campus ministries) worship itself is a place for ministry and care, to be seen, a place of concrete accompaniment — things not easily transferred to the medium of streaming.
In the introduction of Ryan Panzer’s Grace and Gigabytes: Being Church in a Tech-Shaped Culture, Panzer offers a helpful distinction between tech-using and a tech-shaped culture (1-12). Panzer argues that rather than merely finding technical solutions, “What the church needs is the capacity and will to transform our ministries to engage a culture whose ways of thinking, decision-making, and relating to one another have certainly changed,” (12).
Digital natives have learned the value of asking questions (think Google search). They’ve always been able to search for information about anything and get answers (both good and bad.) Where does worship open up brave spaces for questions?
Digital natives are accustomed to creating media, not merely consuming it. They’ve had power and agency in the creation of the spaces they inhabit. Where does worship invite this creative impulse while taking seriously the vulnerability it creates?
Digital natives seek connection and collaboration wherever they can find it. They seek relationships and spaces that offer belonging. How does worship foster this sense of shared embodiment and community?
What Panzer suggests is that humans formed by a tech-shaped culture deeply value being in touch with the world in particular ways. Rosa agrees, writing:
[W]hen we check to see whether our latest post or blog entries have elicited reactions in the form of comments or “likes” … what we really concerned with at bottom is being noticed, seen, addressed, contacted—being in touch with the world.” (92)
The irony is, for many digital natives, the digital streaming of worship is a woefully poor fit for the actual needs and values of those most formed by a tech-shaped culture. It is largely passive and hierarchal. It provides a medium for seeing, not for being seen. It is the repackaging of older values into a digital frame — the proverbial old wine into new wineskins.
Of course, not all tech-shaped values can be so positively framed: insofar as, the digital-age names the realities of social acceleration and run-away commodification, in-person worship potentially represents a form of deceleration (a temporary respite) or at least disruption of hyper-efficiency, speed, and individuality, too. In an era when screens have become a uniform medium for relating to the world, indeed, worship has the potential to open up a radically different channel for being seen and known.
Indeed, for many college students, worship has become the place to put away their tech.
I wonder what clues this might provide us as we continue forward in this late-modern/late-pandemic season — both digital and analog.
Undoubtedly, we are in a time of unprecedented changes in the Christian church that the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated significantly. And digital hybridity in ministry and in worship is likely here to stay. Nevertheless, I am convinced as we enter into this late-period of the pandemic that simply streaming worship is not really an answer to what comes next. What will make worship compelling to those whose lives are already too crammed with good things to do will be the way in which worship discloses a ministering God — a God who continues to show up in the flesh-and-blood of questioning, creative, vulnerable communities.
A couple of months into the fall semester on a college campus, it seems analog places are all the rage this season as they represent a break from our screen-mediated relationship to the world. As it was once said, “Digitization is the peak of convenience, but vinyl is the peak of experience,” (Jay Y. Kim, Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in a Digital Age, 27).
Rev. Adam White
Adam White is the Campus Pastor at The Lutheran Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Laugh a Little: Scripture as Instruction Manual or Action Film?
Have you ever found yourself reading the Bible and thought to yourself:
Do you know what this story reminds me of? The Fast and the Furious.
For those of you who don’t know, The Fast and the Furious is a series of action movies about cars, street racing, and saving the world from every terrible villain. I know that doesn’t make sense, but trust me, these movies are fun.
And I know the comparison to the Bible seems strange at first, but hear me out. The Bible is totally an action movie.
At least sometimes.
You see, there are parts of the Acts of the Apostles that read more like a summer blockbuster than a sober, serious Oscar-worthy drama. Shipwrecks! Prison breaks! A snake leaping from a fire! These all litter the pages of Acts and lead us to ask a serious question about what kind of testimony the Bible bears. I wonder if we have not taken seriously enough the delight, the joy, the entertainment the Bible evokes in us. And that that delight, that joy is not just entertainment but a way these texts can form us, shape us, teach us something about the shape of belonging.
Even as we gasp at the adventures of Paul, even as we smile at these delightful stories, God is teaching us who we are.
The story of Eutychus is such a story of delight in Acts 20:7-12. It’s a strange little story, especially if we try to read the Book of Acts like an instruction manual for putting together the perfect church. And we do this all the time, don’t we? How many times have you heard this in church: “Wouldn’t the church be better if we could be the church like it was in those earlier days?”
It’s as if we tend to treat the Book of Acts like a Lego manual or Ikea instructions rather than what the text actually is: a collection of powerful, sometimes strange but always delightful stories.
And so we come back to the delightful and strange story of a young man named Eutychus. Remember the scene. A community of followers of Jesus has gathered to hear Paul preach. Two stories up, the community is gathered late into the night. We might imagine candles warming and lighting the space. And Eutychus is there sitting on a window sill, lulled to sleep in the warmth of the room and the droning of Paul’s voice. You’ll notice that Paul just keeps preaching and preaching late into the night. Apparently, the sermon is so long and, yes, so boring that poor Eutychus falls asleep, falls out of the window, and — splat — dies. And if you go back and read the story carefully, you will notice that Paul declares that Eutychus is fine, y’all, just fine. He then goes back and keeps … on … preaching.
Some of us never learn a lesson! And it is only after Paul goes back to preaching that we hear from Acts that Eutychus was indeed brought back from the dead. Everyone is relieved as am I.
This, my friends, is a funny, delightful story. But in too many churches, we assume that because the Bible deals with serious stuff that it cannot be funny, that it cannot delight us, that it cannot jolt us from our seats with its strange imaginations. This is a delightful story. This is a strange story.
This is an important story.
But how? If we treat the Book of Acts like an instruction manual for putting together the perfect church, what do we learn from the story of Eutychus? Perhaps we will gather that we should put bars on our windows so that no one can fall out of them. Perhaps we will conclude that church should only happen on the first floor of a building. Perhaps we will deduce that we preachers should cease preaching boring sermons, which is a pretty good idea but not really the point of this text, is it?
No, what if the Book of Acts is not a blueprint for putting together the perfect church but a spark for our imaginations, an inspiration to see the world just a little bit differently? In that case then, this is not a story about the architecture of a church building but the architecture of a community’s trust, the structure of a community’s witness, the organization of a community’s center.
What would it look like for us to look to the margins of our community and find Eutychus there, at the edge of death and bored by what we are doing in the middle of the church?
What if we invited Eutychus to be the center of our community? What if Eutychus were to teach us all what God is doing in their life? What if Eutychus is the witness we need to trust? What if it is Eutychus’ story that will pave a path for the church, show us what it means to be faithful today?
There is one other wrinkle to this story. Do you know what Eutychus means in Greek? Lucky!
This is a delightful story. And the delight this story can evoke lingers over us if we just embrace its vibrant, transformative imagination.
Notice where the story of Eutychus is asking us to look for the flourishing of the church. Not to the unrecorded words of Paul’s sermon but the renewed life of Eutychus which brings so much hope to the church. Notice the call of the gospel in this story to all of us. Our call is to heed the margins of our communities, listen to the steady voice of the Spirit in these spaces, and echo what God is already saying and doing there. Our call is to trust the witness of black neighbors sharing their stories of oppression and courage alike. Our call is to declare that Black Lives Matter and then live and love as if we believe it. Our call is to notice that those who are losing most in this pandemic are those we have tasked with essential jobs with un-essential pay. Our call is to see the journey of the migrant as a potential gift rather than a wave or plague to repulse. Our call is to amplify how our LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors are so richly embodying the good news of Jesus despite so much rejection from a church supposedly in the business of grace. Our call is to point to the fragility of empire all around us. Our call is to imagine a world reshaped by God’s goodness.
I confess that these are days when I need some delight. I need some joy. I need a little bit of silly action movie in my life. And not because I need to be distracted. Not because I need to be anesthetized from the pain of a world afflicted by layered pandemics making clear that we have so often failed to live up to our deepest convictions about equality and faithfulness alike. I yearn for the kind of joy that helps me see the world as it ought to be.
You see, there is something about the good news of Jesus, the good news that transforms a broken world, the good news that makes us whole, the good news that tells us that the politically powerful are but frail imitators of the grace-filled power of God. There is something about that good news that can only be communicated via this joyful narrative delight. There is something about God’s love that can only be communicated by a feeling of delight and belonging and shock and confusion and joy all at the same time.
God can teach us how to nurture a faithfulness that looks like belonging. A faithfulness that asks Eutychus to lead. A faithfulness that disrupts who is at the center and who is on the margins. A faithfulness that brings the dead back to life. A faithfulness that scrambles our expectations. A faithfulness that heals. A faithfulness that nourishes us with an imagination for a world turned upside down. A faithfulness that delights. A faithfulness that laughs and grieves alike.
And that kind of faithfulness, that kind of trust just might become for us a rhythm and a shape and an inspiration. Such faithfulness teaches us to belong. Such faithfulness teaches us to be prophets. Such faithfulness teaches us the shape of a grace we cannot contain in words, for such grace always exceeds our expectations and our frail attempts to explain rather than feel. Such faithfulness turns to Eutychus. Such faithfulness just might bring Eutychus back to life.
And in that way, Eutychus just might bring us all back to life, too.
Dr. Eric Barreto
Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. His passion is to pursue scholarship for the sake of the church, and he regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.
Twitter | @ericbarreto.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
An Open Letter to Those Who Haven't Come Back to Church
Non-church-goers — hi.
I know you're there.
I know there are a lot of you.
Or at least, there are a lot more of you than you've been made to believe.
You haven't been back to church since, oh, March 2020.
Maybe you have watched every online service or not a single one, or somewhere in between.
No matter what, I want you to know I see you.
I want you to know that I get how hard this stage of your faith life is.
How deciding to come back to church inside of the building on a Sunday at a specific time and in person, or not, feels a lot more complicated than you ever anticipated it would be almost two years ago.
I know how some of our pandemic life felt like a reset — a breath even — and in that time you were able to look at the parts of your life and reevaluate anything that felt like a "had to."
I get that when you really thought about it, church was one of those things.
Maybe you weren't sure why you were going, or if it was something you even wanted to do in the first place, but week after week you found yourself getting to church on Sunday morning.
And then you discovered that not going felt better than going on most Sundays.
You discovered a love of easy Sundays without getting ready or leaving your house.
You learned that a slow and steady walk in that wild area near your house felt more like church than trying to wrangle a kid or your own attention through a sermon.
You found that what you gained somehow had more meaning than anything you lost.
So you haven't come back.
And there might not even be a "yet" on the end of that sentence.
You haven't come back, and I know that you might not ever come back.
If that's you, I hope you'll hear and trust my next words to you: Choosing to not attend in-person church, or attend any church at all, doesn't mean you don't believe in God, or that your faith is somehow lacking.
It's just not true, even if you've been told it is by someone else.
I know there are a lot of reasons you may have decided to stay away, and I hope you hear me when I say that each and every one of them is valid.
I get that maybe you aren't sure what you believe anymore, but whatever it is certainly doesn't look like what it used to look like, and you know you won't find it going back to the way things were.
I understand that you might not feel like it's safe to gather yet, for you or for someone you love, and you don't trust that the people gathering will make decisions based on your safety.
I get that you don't want to come back yet and that it feels like the church is moving on without you, that you are being left behind and left out.
Valid. All of this is valid.
And I get it.
I get all of it, because I feel it too.
I too, feel anxious about big groups of people.
I feel unsure about what I believe anymore, or if I even believe at all.
I don't know if I trust my neighbor to look out for me.
I am so tired and want a break.
I know, I know, pastors aren't supposed to feel this way.
Or if we do we certainly aren't supposed to say it out loud.
We're supposed to model faith without fear and confident leadership in the face of unprecedented challenges.
But I can't. I feel all the things you are feeling too.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
I want you to know you're not the only one feeling this way. And more than anything, I want you to know that I meant it when I told you that church was always more than a building.
I meant it when I told you the church was the people, the relationships, the wondering together about God and faith and life.
So too, I mean it when I say you don't have to come back to church if you don't want to.
If you can't, won't, or aren't sure yet, it's ok.
God has always and will continue to meet you where you are.
Rev. Natalia Terfa
Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”
Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Celebrate Facebook’s Outage? Many Faith Communities Couldn’t Talk at All.
This post originally appeared on IFYC.org on October 5, 2021, and is shared in its entirety with permission.
The response from at least some portion of Facebook’s 3.5 billion users to its five-hour outage on Monday went something like this: “Good, I’m glad it’s down, may it stay down forever.”
The righteous gloating (albeit on another social media app) was founded in some pretty legitimate reasons. Facebook has been the conduit for disinformation and hate that have cost lives. New revelations from a whistleblower testifying to Congress on Tuesday alone suggest that the most negative aspects of Facebook are there by algorithmic design, intended to keep us on the platform, getting angrier at one another, and inflaming tensions in our already fragile democracy.
But Facebook, as well as the company’s Instagram and WhatsApp functions, have become not just essential to real-world communities: They have become many groups’ only locus, especially the religious and spiritual communities that have been creating ways to stay in one another’s presence during the coronavirus pandemic.
The idea suggested by some that Facebook’s crash was an opportunity for people to “talk to one another face-to-face,” however well-intentioned, belies the reality that not everyone can talk to one another face-to-face. Monday’s outage was actually an important opportunity to remember what a catalyst the internet has been for religious seekers and those who are isolated spiritually. Facebook has lifted the geographical restrictions that used to keep people of faith and no faith from being present to one another mentally, emotionally and spiritually, even when they can’t gather physically.
“It’s probably a good thing that this outage didn’t happen on Sunday,” said the Rev. James Martin, noting how many churches and other houses of worship rely on Facebook Live to stream their liturgies. “Also, there are many churches and schools who rely on Facebook to stay connected, especially during the pandemic. So a shutdown can affect more religious individuals and organizations than people might expect.”
Martin himself teaches the gospel every day on a Facebook Live to thousands of people who might otherwise never have the chance to learn from this open-hearted, inclusive Catholic priest.
“We’re accustomed to viewing site outages and service disruptions as purely technical problems,” said Amanda Quraishi, founder of the Institute for Digital Civic Culture, “but as we continue to build out digital spaces for social and communal purposes, we have to come to grips with the new reality: Our well-being as individuals, communities and societies is now inextricably tied to our ability to access digital platforms.”
Besides earning her living on the internet, Quraishi depends on Facebook to host her local Austin, Texas, chapter of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, which offers a space for Muslim and Jewish women to be in intentional community with one another.
For all the outrageous and funny Facebook outage memes that flourished briefly on Monday, Quraishi pointed out, there are real consequences for some. “There are whole communities where people seek refuge, get comfort and find support for all manner of deeply personal concerns that take place in various Facebook groups — and that tragic things can happen when those groups disappear in an instant, and without warning.”
For religious leaders who connect with their flocks on the internet, the outage was a reminder to own their information. Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who uses music to offer her thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok wisdom from the Torah, had some practical advice: “It’s important for content creators to back up their content on something they own, like a website, a blog and of course, one’s computer or a cloud,” she said. “Content creators should also have an email list to keep in touch with their followers.
“The outage yesterday showed that relying on Facebook for messaging, entertainment, and creating content can be shaky.”
There is much to criticize and reform in our tech companies. The internet is still young and Facebook in particular often operates like the selfish and headstrong teenager it is. I pray that those who build the technology that connects us will focus on bringing people together to find lasting connections, as they claim to do, and not only for profit. A big part of that means serving religious community, interfaith understanding, personal well-being, and collective peace.
(Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is senior adviser for public affairs at Interfaith Youth Core. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
Paul Raushenbush
Paul Raushenbush is Senior Advisor for Public Affairs and Innovation at IFYC (Interfaith Youth Core) promoting a narrative of positive pluralism in America, while researching and developing cutting edge interfaith leadership. He is the Editor of Interfaith America.
Facebook | @raushenbush
Twitter | @raushenbush
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Who Said You Were Naked?
At the root of our relationship with God is the gift of choice. Our thoughtful Designer never intended us to be obedient robots who live out a particular plan, so God included the seed of agency. God recognized that choice is healing and the most loving. We have been called to co-create something beautiful echoing the freedom and grace we have in this risen Christ. We all have been given this gift of choice to create, to heal, to love.
After Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, they hid. They covered themselves with leaves. When love found them God asked, “Who said that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11). Some may hear these words as angry. I hear a breaking. Now instead of wonder, Adam and Eve are clothed with shame and a lie that has now made a home in them. This lie became more real to them than God.
According to the American Institute of Stress
77% of Americans are experiencing stress that affects their physical health.
73% of Americans experience stress that affects their mental health.
Stress is the number one health concern in High School Students.
Is it possible we too have been clothed in a shame that lies to us and tells us we can’t stop? We can’t rest? We can’t take a moment to catch our breath?
No matter how much we earn or how much recognition we get, do we still feel naked?
Maybe it whispers “you need to be, you ought to be, you should be more …” Fill in the blank.
It is safe to say many of us may not be the best versions of ourselves right now. This pandemic has definitely taken a toll on our “stress,” and we are arguing if the end is in sight. Yet amidst all of this chaos we still have choices to create, to heal, to love.
This call is both holy and heavy.
To be called to create with God is wow. Who are we, that the Creator would allow us spaciousness to have ideas, voice, and agency to build together a world we believe is good. This call can be heavy because as humans it is challenging work to sit in this ambiguity together.
Instead of doing the work to listen to the diverse choices of others, many people feel obligated to restrict, edit, and/or silence the voices they don’t agree with in the name of God.
These binary attitudes toward everything being either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ distracts us from our call to co-create. We are finding ourselves back in the garden eating from the tree of knowledge believing we are God and deciding for ourselves what is good and what is evil. Beloveds, we need to take many seats. At a time when the choices of so many are being taken away, we need to remember this gift of agency.
To take away a person’s agency is beyond even the lengths God will go.
We see throughout scripture how God goes to the people who have been robbed of choice and offers them the way, a new possibility. We see Jesus going to the woman at the well, and while knowing everything about her, he offers her living water. She leaves her water jug behind and tells everyone about Jesus. She no longer thirsts. She no longer believes she is naked. This Samaritan Woman has living water.
Before Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda he asks, “Do you want to be healed?” This always gave me pause. Yet Jesus knew that by healing this man, his whole life would change because his body had changed. No longer would he be begging by the pool, or doing the things he had always done.
Healing does that. It changes us. Jesus never takes away our agency. Our bodies cannot be compartmentalized from our faith or from worship; our bodies are not disposable; God never takes away our choice.
As people of faith, many of us have become detached from our bodies, compartmentalizing them from the human experience for many different reasons.
This compartmentalization is profoundly destructive. When we disconnect from our bodies we begin relying only on our minds, trusting our bodies less and discounting them as shameful. Our bodies are holy sacred spaces because of the Spirit that animates our limited physicality.
Each of us carries the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We carry resurrection. It is the holy rooting itself within our very flesh, consecrating us Beloved. What if we saw one another and didn’t judge each other's flesh bag? Instead, we saw everyone as a temple where the Holy Spirit dwells. This would mean an injustice against people and their bodies would be an injustice against God. Not because we are mistaking humans as God — we are mistaken when we believe everyone is not carrying God in their very being.
When we ignore our bodies, we begin to reduce people to ideas and sides. We detach other people from their bodies and their lived human experience. When we do this it is easier to dehumanize them and reduce them to an issue. And what causes us to go there? You can tell how hard a person is on themselves by how hard they are on other people. If a person does not have radical grace for themselves, they struggle to have it for others.
If they believe they are naked they are going to work pretty hard to appear clothed and unashamed.
Who told you that you are naked? Who told you that you are not good enough? Who said this would be easy? You do not need to have all the answers. You don’t have to pretend this isn’t hard. You get to show up with your questions, wonderings, bad decisions, and receive living water.
There is chatter that the Church is dying. Beloveds, you cannot kill the Church. In many ways it is reforming. The more time I spend outside of the Church and embodying this God given holy temple in the wild, I see there are many people who have been told they are naked, not good enough, not holy enough, not Christian enough… and they are building The Church. They are dreaming of living water and feasting on it.
God has always been in the margins with those who have had their choices taken away and said, “Come, follow me.”
Rev. Jenny Sung
Reverend Jenny Sung is an ordained free range pastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. She has been preaching, writing, and curating spaces worldwide for healing through brave love and community art. She received her Masters of Divinity through Luther Seminary and is the founder and co-director of One Dance Company.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
“Never Forget”? 9/11 and the Ethics of Memory
“Never Forget” is the most recognizable slogan connected to the 9/11 attacks. In the months and years following the attacks, the slogan was plastered on banners, bumper stickers, and billboards. The meaning seems clear, so much so that the slogan is not really debated or questioned in mainstream America.
But is the meaning clear?
After all, what – or who – are we supposed to remember? And how should we remember 9/11, particularly as we mark the twentieth anniversary of the attacks this year? It’s best to think of “Never Forget” less as a slogan with an obvious meaning and more as a question – or better yet, as a series of questions stemming from larger moral concerns about how we remember tragedy.
The most popular meaning of “Never Forget,” the meaning promoted in the media and by many politicians, is that we are supposed to remember and commemorate the nearly 3,000 people who died after al-Qaeda operatives turned planes into weapons of mass destruction and targeted some of America’s most iconic symbols, including the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. We are also supposed to remember:
The attack on our freedoms and values
The first responders who heroically rushed in to rescue people trapped in the burning and collapsing towers in Lower Manhattan
The military personnel who fought in the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the over 7,000 U.S. soldiers who died
All of this is worthy of our memory.
But it’s worth asking whether “Never Forget” is deployed in such a way that we are, in fact, encouraged to disregard some of the more troubling aspects of 9/11’s impact, aspects that do not reflect well on our nation, its policies, and its collective memory. In other words, as we are encouraged to “Never Forget,” are we also encouraged to redact, whitewash, or blot out from our collective memories the trauma and tragedy inflicted by the U.S. government on hundreds of thousands of people around the world?
If we rethink what it means to “Never Forget,” if we honestly and courageously seek to remember who and what we are often encouraged to forget in the name of patriotism and national fervor, what we would encounter are troubling questions about the character of our nation and its larger commitments to human rights and dignity.
What would it mean for us to remember the following actions and outcomes arising from the U.S. government’s response to the 9/11 attacks?
The more than 335,000 civilian casualties resulting from the war on terror
The 37 million refugees and internally displaced people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, among other countries
The heavy reliance by the U.S. government on extraordinary renditions, or the extrajudicial process by which the government secretly captures and transfers individuals suspected of having connections to terrorist organizations to other countries in which they are detained (at times indefinitely) and sometimes tortured
The illegal and reprehensible torture of detainees in U.S. military prisons (Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib) and CIA black sites or secret prisons, including waterboarding, forced rectal feeding, rape, urinating on detainees, beating injured detainees, sleep deprivation, threats to detainees’ family and children
The unwarranted surveillance of Muslims, Muslim organizations, and prominent Muslim leaders by the FBI, the NYPD, and the NSA
The entrapment of dozens of Muslims in counterterrorism stings that involve paid FBI informants manufacturing terrorist plots and luring vulnerable people into these plots to create the illusion that the U.S. government is winning the war on terror
The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), established one year after the 9/11 attacks, which required men from close to two dozen Muslim-majority countries to register with the U.S. government and be photographed, fingerprinted, and interviewed
The more than 200 hundred bills introduced in state legislatures to limit reliance on religious law in state courts as part of a larger movement to ban “sharia law”
The Muslim ban, or the policy of prohibiting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, that had its genesis in Donald Trump’s call as a presidential candidate in December 2015 for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”
The anti-Muslim statements and proposals coming from presidential candidates since 9/11, including Muslim ID cards, a Muslim registration system, preventing Muslims from serving as president, calls to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods,” and the insistence that “Islam hates us”
The surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the months following 9/11, the persistence of these hate crimes since 9/11 (which never dropped back to pre-9/11 levels), and the alarming resurgence of these hate crimes during the presidential campaign in 2015 and 2016 when they reached their highest levels since 9/11
These are not the events or episodes that have made their way onto bumper stickers or into campaign speeches or 9/11 commemoration services. It would be easy to forget all of these things in a rush to defend the memories of those who died on 9/11 or on the battlefield in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But we should not forget these more troubling aspects of our nation’s response to 9/11.
Neglecting or forgetting these horrors disregards the very human rights that we so often proclaim as the backbone of this country. Such memories are undoubtedly difficult since they focus attention on America at its worst. Yet they are crucial if we are to come to terms with America’s violence, its human rights abuses, its Islamophobia, and the consequences of its all-too-zealous militarism. Remembering the pain, suffering, and injustices inflicted by our nation on many innocent people under the guise of national security is the least we can do twenty years after 9/11.
I offer these reflections in the hopes that people of faith take to heart the voices and experiences that are all too easily downplayed, dismissed, or disregarded whenever we encounter the mantra “Never Forget.” If we are to honor all the lives affected or lost in the twenty years since 9/11, and if we believe these lives reflect the image of God inscribed in all people irrespective of faith tradition, then Christians will need to do their part to amplify the stories of those Muslims at home and abroad who have suffered grave injustices at the hands of our nation.
Otherwise, “Never Forget” will remain a solemn yet shallow slogan that encourages us to value some lives over others and to ignore the hatred, hostility, and violence aimed at our Muslim neighbors.
Dr. Todd Green
Todd Green is associate professor of religion and co-director of the international studies program at Luther College. During the 2020-21 academic year, he served as the interim director of the college’s Center for Ethics and Public Engagement. His research focuses on Islamophobia, including the impact of 9/11 on Muslim communities in Europe and North America. His books on the topic include The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West, and Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
The Church and the Great Resignation
There’s a phenomenon we’re experiencing right now, one that is predicted to continue over the next year, called “The Great Resignation.” (If you haven’t heard about it yet, you can read about it HERE or HERE.)
4 million people in the U.S. quit their jobs in April alone, and a not insignificant number of others are at least considering it.
In early August, CNBC reported a survey which showed that:
38% of US workers are seeking employment elsewhere.
41% are considering leaving their current job within the next six months.
52% of people who are thinking about quitting say they're financially prepared to do so
57% of people who say they are not financially prepared to do so are willing to take on debt while they search for their next job.
There is something happening, as people begin to examine the ways life has changed over the last year and a half.
We are, collectively, holding up the pieces of our lives and asking what parts we want to keep and what parts we can let go of. We are asking questions about what really matters.
On a somewhat smaller scale than the job market, but no less impactful for those of us in church leadership, people are doing this same thing with their faith. People are pondering what to keep and what to let go of.
And, friends in the church, it’s time for us to be honest about which one of those most people are choosing.
Over the past few weeks, I have had many conversations about how the church “doesn’t mean what it used to mean to me” and how faith is being found more outside of the church than inside. Just as they are doing with their work and their lives at home, our people are holding up the pieces of their life of faith and asking what really matters.
This is, dare I say it, the beautiful, glorious, and God-centered work of deconstruction.
This term has received quite a bit of negative press lately as churches blame the decrease in worship attendance on a loss of faith, instead of what it really is, people deciding that their faith does not need the church.
Add to this the fact that many church workers, pastors, music directors, youth leaders, and other church staff have all at least considered leaving ministry, if not currently planning to do so. All of that on top of the decrease in seminary students and an increase in retiring clergy and you have the recipe for a very different future church than we are currently planning for.
The church has some very challenging and vulnerable work to do. Together. Denominational leaders and staff and clergy and congregations. I call it vulnerable work because it’s so hard to come face to face with difficult truths, the primary one being that the way we have always done it isn’t going to work where we are going next.
This feeling of vulnerability can either create space for the spirit to create and move and grow or it can cause us to harden and dig our heels in and the new life we are being asked to plant and care for will not be able to take root.
I don’t have the answers, not at all, but I can tell you with complete confidence that riding the pendulum swing back to “how we used to do it” is a recipe for the death of the future church. And while I don’t have answers, I do have some ideas and questions, based on the interactions I have with my community of faithful non-churchgoers whom I pastor weekly through the airwaves of a podcast.
To my clergy colleagues, our people are as tired and struggling with their faith as much as we are.
Your vulnerability and honesty about these struggles from the pulpit are needed.
The church should be a place where we can do this struggle together, not a place where struggling doubters feel they cannot go. I know how tired you are. Does your congregation?
To the higher-ups across denominations, do you know how close your clergy are to leaving ministry right now? They need you to see them, hear them, and advocate for them, and they need you to be at the forefront of thinking creatively about the future of the church.
To people of faith in and outside of congregations, keep asking questions. Keep struggling and doubting and wondering and dreaming.
You are imagining the future we keep talking about.
Natalia Terfa
Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”
Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.