Blog Posts
Vocation: What do you do?
Erin Weber-Johnson and Rev. Mieke Vandersall always felt challenged when they try to tell strangers what they do for a living. Their profession is far more than a job–it's an expression of their vocation.
Photo by Jake Weirick on Unsplash
Exodus 36:6-7
“So Moses gave command, and a word was proclaimed throughout the camp: No one is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing, 7 for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.”
Erin recently sat next to a Rabbi on a flight. There was a steady stream of people who would interrupt him and ask questions. He leaned over to Erin and quietly whispered, “Sometimes I wish for anonymity.” His vocational expression allowed for people to bring their own narratives, questions, and presuppositions and he became the face for their experiences.
Erin nodded in understanding.
Erin and Mieke always feel challenged when we try and tell strangers what we do for a living. We have far more than a job–but our job is an expression of our vocation.
It’s complicated. As faith-based fundraising and giving consultants for congregations and non-profits, we often hear a number of responses:
I could never do that. Ask people for the money? That feels gross.
God and money? Could you include any harder topics?
Oh you’re one of those…
My hand is on my pocketbook!
Consultants are the worst. They take your watch and tell you the time.
We've thought about trying to find another word for our vocational title. Even the inclination to refer to our consulting work as vocational may be surprising, or feel at odds with the word consultant, given the commonly held perspective that consultants "take your watch and tell you the time."
The alternatives we've imagined for consultants include: Giving Companion and Partner in the Stewardship Ministry. But what do those names mean? In our reflections, we've realized that the word fundraising itself feels imprecise.
We love our work. We love what we do. Because we work collaboratively, we don't see ourselves as mere service providers. This means that while we offer expert advice, we just as readily dream alongside our clients about what's possible. And we do this while focusing each client community's collective gaze on a common goal. We know that when we fixate on a financial goal alone, we are vulnerable to missing what we believe to be the most important point of all: the process of fundraising is itself a restorative life-giving ministry.
The Bible is filled with stories of God preparing a table for us. In many of the gospel stories, Jesus creates a table uniting communities, resources, and people in innovative ways not only build their capacities, but also their imaginations. When we re-meet each other where we are and take a better look at ourselves in relation to our neighbors, we can create powerful new ways of repairing broken systems, reinvigorating our giving and re-energizing our faith.
The spiritual discipline of fundraising within the context of the church is better known as stewardship. When we engage in the acts of asking for and giving gifts, we must acknowledge and confront our own relationships with money, which often bring up feelings of shame, guilt, frustration and confusion, accompanied by perceptions regarding scarcity and abundance.
Often, what's hidden in the acts of inviting and giving gifts is the unique opportunity to be liberated, to not let our past experiences and narratives bind us any longer. The necessary actions in raising funds can heal us, individually and collectively.
This is why we do what we do. Our purpose is not to prioritize care for bigger givers, and we do not seek status symbols for ourselves or for others.
Rather, we have a bold desire to facilitate the redistribution of wealth.
We yearn for communities to understand that what they cannot do individually, they can do together. Our work is guiding communities together to both recognize and build their collective power.
The reason our work is focused on building trust with people is because they haven’t had positive experiences with consultants – or in fundraising. When you don’t know how to raise money well, you rarely succeed, and that does not make people want to engage in this work anymore. In addition, consultants are rarely trusted and often people think we are out there to do as little work as possible and charge as much as we can. We wish there was a different way to describe that this ministry could look in its truest form, as partnership.
Before starting Vandersall Collective, Mieke worked at a small nonprofit that was fighting for queer ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). As the organization’s primary fundraiser, she was face-to-face with many individuals and committees asking for funding. Over time, she began to realize that fundraising was so scary to her because when she was asking for funding, she was asking for acceptance of her as a young, queer woman. To get herself out of this dysfunctional cycle, she had to be confident in her own value, in her own identity. Then “the ask” became much stronger, as it was not a personal ask to heal herself (essentially), but instead to provide an opportunity for others to make a difference in a church that both the donor and Mieke dearly loved. This is why it is a spiritual discipline.
And it is this practice that guides our vocational work. We remain rooted in our purpose.
As we do this work, we believe in God’s call to an alternative economy. Walter Brueggeman, a theologian who has impacted both Mieke and Erin’s theological understanding says it this way: “[A] facet of prophetic imagination…is a new economy that is organized around a love of neighbor and that is committed to the viability of widows, orphans, and immigrants. Widows, orphans, and immigrants are people who in the ancient world did not have advocates who were empowered by the totalism in a patriarchal society. So it becomes a test case for the economy, and it is a redistributive economy of respect and viability for vulnerable persons, and there is no way to cover over or to hide or disguise that we are talking about policies of redistribution.”
Our vocation is so much more than raising money by whatever means necessary.
We acknowledge that vulnerability is at the heart of what we do. It is hard to acknowledge that we have needs. That we need each other. That we cannot do it alone.
Our relationships with money not only shape our relationship with God but impact our relationships with each other. The narratives we tell about our worth intersect with our ability to recognize God’s movement in the world. We are unable to imagine what belonging means in the kingdom of God and create structures around these imaginings without examining the relationship between our worth and work, without reconstructing a theology around money that is liberative.
Our prayer is that one day, as was the case in Exodus, all will have enough—so much so that the people were restrained from giving.
May it be so.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
Rev. Mieke Vandersall
Rev. Mieke Vandersall, Owner and Principal Consultant, has over 20 years of executive leadership experience in the religious nonprofit arena. Mieke encourages nonprofits, congregations and religious leaders as they work to fund their ministries; this work comes out of a deep knowledge of the particular exhilaration and stress of working for long-term structural change and beginning and sustaining programs.
Prior to her consulting work, she was the Executive Director of Parity, where she founded a program for LGBTQ Future Pastors, as well as Not So Churchy, a new worshiping community. This post spanned from 2003-2014. Mieke and the Future Pastors Program is a feature of the documentary film, Out of Order.
Mieke is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Presbytery of Southern New England. Mieke’s work at Vandersall Collective has also been recognized as a validated ministry by the Presbytery of Southern New England.
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.
Stewardship during an election
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
I have been asked by a number of people about some top tips for what to do this year with giving and the upcoming presidential election. There is concern that divisive politics may monopolize the attention of those in our communities. Or, alternatively, how our communities respond to the election may cause givers to rethink their life choices and keep their annual gifts. Recently a pastor asked me if I could send a top five list for ensuring success this election year.
I want to honor that question and also acknowledge the reality that many of us are tired, feeling the relentless weight of holding too much. The truth is we often look for Top 5 Lists because we need quick help and support. Top 5 Lists offer us the promise of easy to digest information and easy to implement action steps.
Each of us deeply desires to know how to eat right, lose weight, save enough for our retirement, and raise our children. We want to know how to have/be enough. Yet, most “How to” lists are full of things we already know. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve read a magazine headline promising to change my life in three easy steps only to be disappointed when I already knew the answers. There is no silver bullet, no step-by-step process, to the perfect life.
So it is with stewardship. Really, what we need is not “How to raise money positively/effectively,” but to ask what is keeping us from living into stewardship as a holistic ministry while reflecting the context of the moment. I bet the answers to that list would be considerable!
Here is what we know about giving and the upcoming election. In the 2016 presidential election, I made a hypothesis about how the election would impact giving to congregations. I thought it would be congregations that aligned themselves with one presidential candidate or another that would see increases in giving as advocacy and “rage” giving were at a high.
However, the giving data and statistics that would emerge months and years later would show my hypothesis was wrong. Giving was high in congregations that mostly identified as one political party or another. And yet, it was also high in a number of churches considered purple or with a mixed set of views within the congregations.
Instead of my faulty hypothesis, giving was propelled in congregations that clearly reflected what was happening outside their church doors, made a connection between where people were with their giving and how their giving to the church would be meaningful given that moment in the nation’s history, and invited others to be part of the work.
What this demonstrated to me was there were pastoral needs felt by a congregation and giving became an opportunity to meet people where they were. The work of stewardship, in all its wholeness, was not about meeting a budget so the ministry could take place. Rather, stewardship was and is a contextual ministry, one that asks what are the needs of those in our congregation and how do we shape our ministry accordingly.
The work of stewardship leaders is the work of creating connective tissue between the motivations of givers in the wake of emerging national issues and concerns, and a life-giving invitation to explore how their giving can bring healing and repair in the world.
2024 began with some people concerned about the outcome of the presidential election in the United States this year. Regardless of the outcome, we as a country have seen the fallout and experienced the painful divisions from recent presidential elections.
And so, unpacking what stewardship means this year will be important. Stewardship is so much more than a fall drive to meet the regular operating costs of a congregation.
When we think about gifts, there has been a long-held focus in the church on the 3 T’s: time, talent and treasure. I believe initially the idea of holistic stewardship was amorphous, too hard to wrap our minds around. Instead, leaders offered tangible things that could be offered to God. However, our bodies, and souls are not limited to just these three T. We are more than the time we give, our skills and expertise, more than the money we provide. We are flesh and blood bodies. Our minds and souls, connected in profound ways, were created by the same divine power that made the earth and the heavens and called it good.
Stewardship is not limited to these three components. It includes the totality of our beings. In the ministry of stewardship, we bring our whole selves to the Divine.
What does stewardship of our bodies, our minds, our souls look like this year with the election?
Our family has begun having conversations about our values. What does God call us to be and to do the next day after the election? Identifying our values now allows our family to move beyond places that may feel out of our control, to plan proactively who we will be on Day One.
Once our values are identified, we articulate who the people are that may be most impacted by the election. How might God call us to invite, to manage, to give to and to thank in the midst of that reality?
In this season of the election, I invite you to consider stewardship in its totality, to do the work of connecting others' needs to the abiding values of your faith community, and to live in the hope that through giving of our whole selves, we can work for repair of the world.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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.
In This Crucial Election Year What Will Your Community Do on Day One?
On Day One of the next administration (and in whatever follows), communities of faith must continue the work being God’s people. Regardless of whether you see the outcome you desire or not, the work will need to go on. You’ll either be working in alignment with those you trust, or you’ll be in the resistance against those you do not trust. Either way, there will be work to do.
By ERIN WEBER-JOHNSON and REV. THIA REGGIO
Photo by Element5 Digital
“As for you, you will keep my covenant, you and your offspring throughout the generations.”
—Genesis 17:9
We, the people of the Abrahamic traditions, are keepers of God’s covenant. That is our charge, established millennia ago and carried on from generation to generation into the present age. It is a charge that exists both within and outside of human history.
In the moment in which we are living, with the forces of greed, fear-mongering, and power-hungriness that have always been at work in the world now amplified by media and transmitted around the world with lightning speed, it’s easy to lose sight of the longer view that connects us across the ages to our ancestors and to generations yet to come.
We are trained to focus on much shorter timelines: 24-hour news cycles, crises that hold our attention for a few weeks at a time before they’re subsumed by the next crisis, political rhetoric punctuated by election year trends.
In 2024, the U.S. is anticipating a November presidential election in which it’s not an exaggeration to say that Americans face a choice which may well determine the future of our democracy, with impacts that will be felt around the globe. With such high stakes, it’s easy to be hyper-focused on securing the outcome you believe will be the right one.
As people of faith, as bearers of God’s ancient covenant, we cannot allow our vision to be so exclusively near-sighted. We must recalibrate our focus to include a much longer horizon. We must understand that the work of God’s justice does not begin and end with an election cycle. Vote, yes. Work for the near-term outcome you desire. But remember that your commitment to keep God’s covenant will continue when the election results are in.
On Day One of the next administration (and in whatever follows), communities of faith must continue the work being God’s people. Regardless of whether you see the outcome you desire or not, the work will need to go on. You’ll either be working in alignment with those you trust, or you’ll be in the resistance against those you do not trust. Either way, there will be work to do.
Rather than succumbing to a sense of overwhelm or becoming paralyzed by dread, the time is now to reflect on your values and priorities and to discern where your energies need to be focused. In addition, this is a moment to consider what groups of people may be impacted depending on the outcome. As you consider this, you can think how your strategies can show care in the days, weeks, and years to follow.
As soon as you’re able, here are steps you can take:
Gather as a community and envision together the world as you believe God desires it to be based on scripture, your tradition, and your core values.
Identify 1-3 priorities where your community can focus sufficient energy.
Call leaders to create a plan of action to support these priorities in light of each potential outcome.
Organize people to start laying the groundwork to bring the plans to life.
Prepare for a new phase of work to begin on Day One of the next administration, adapted for whichever outcome occurs.
Creating a Day One Strategy gives people a sense of agency. There are things that can be done. By allowing us to plan now, this gives us collective power.
Remember, you are not alone. God is with you. God’s promises have been active since before our history began. Powers and principalities have risen and fallen many times in God’s presence and the covenant still stands. So must we stand in God’s promise to work toward the world of peace with justice that God is calling into being—whether we live in an age that reflects those values or obscures them, God’s promise will prevail.
Rev. Thia Reggio
Rev. Thia Reggio, collaborator, seasoned pastor, worship leader, community organizer, disaster response coordinator, career discernment counselor, strategist, writer, simplification consultant, and mother of three. Thia is at her most joyful in an eclectic environment. Connecting and communicating varied aspects of life—like those between a plant pushing up through the soil and the challenges of life in a busy city, between ancient battles and psycho-social structures in organizations, between children learning a language and adults facing retirement, this is what Thia finds life-giving.
After more than twenty years as a process and communications consultant to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, Thia heeded the call to seminary and the ministry, graduating from Union Seminary with a Master of Divinity in 2012 and a Master of Sacred Theology in Christianity in a Multi-Religious Context in 2013. Thia currently serves as pastor of The Second Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, and on the Advisory Board of the Center for Earth Ethics.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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 Hidden Secret of Winter Trees
In order to grasp this great truth, the first thing we need to do is to get off our human high horse. We aren’t all that, especially when you compare us to the world of trees.
Shared with permission by the Rev. Susan Sparks and www.day1.org.
Today, I’d like to share the secret to life.
Where might I have found this great wisdom?
Oprah? No.
Dr. Phil? Nope.
Tik Tok? Definitely not.
No, I found this great wisdom by doing something very simple: walking out and looking up at the winter trees.
How could trees—let alone dead, lifeless, winter trees—hold the secret to life?
In order to grasp this great truth, the first thing we need to do is to get off our human high horse. We aren’t all that, especially when you compare us to the world of trees.
Trees have lived longer than we have. In fact, trees are the oldest living organisms on the planet. Trees, mold, and jellyfish are older than human history. The oldest tree is a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California that scientists date as around 5000 years old. That is Tigris and Euphrates, early Mesopotamia, Bronze Age stuff. Its name, appropriately, is Methuselah.
Trees are also smarter than we are. In the book, The Hidden Life of Trees German forester Peter Wohlleben shares some astonishing discoveries. He talks about trees as social beings and explains how they actually communicate with each other, give warnings to other trees in the forest, share food through their root systems with their own species, and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors. Why? Because one lone tree is vulnerable, but a forest offers strength and safety. In short, trees nourish community.
If only human beings could learn that simple lesson.
At least the writers of the Bible realized the importance of trees. In fact, there are three things the Bible mentions more than anything else: God, people, and trees. The Bible speaks of the great cedars of Lebanon and tells how Moses used acacia wood for the ark of the covenant. Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree, and Jesus’ followers are described as oaks of righteousness. David crafted his musical instruments from the wood of a fir tree. A branch from the olive tree signified safety after the flood. A tree formed the wooden manger, and a tree formed the cross.
Trees are an intimate part of the holy narrative, but they’re even more than that because out of all creation, God chose trees for self-revelation. We see this in the beautiful passage Isaiah 41:19-20, where God recognizes the suffering of the people and offers them a sign: “I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set junipers in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this.”
God chose trees—the myrtle and the olive, the fir and the cypress—to reveal God’s self, making trees the sacred keepers of holy wisdom.
This brings us back to the secret of life, which, in my humble opinion, is to be found in trees. Specifically, it’s in winter trees.
The day I walked out to look up at the trees was dim and dreary. The trees, leafless and bare, formed an almost lace-like pattern against the gray winter sky. To a brief passerby, they probably appeared lifeless, dead even.
I think we all know how that feels. Sometimes everything in life can feel and look bare and brittle, lifeless, even dead. However, there is way more going on under the surface than we realize.
Consider those bare winter trees. Inside their seemingly dead branches and trunks, a magical transformation is happening. Months before, in the fall, the trees dropped their green leaves in order to conserve water and centralize and focus their energy. I think of a tree in this stage as being like a sprinter in a quiet, motionless crouch before a race. All energies and focus are drawn down into that moment before the runner springs into action. What appears in winter to be a quiet time of death for those trees is, in fact, the combustion engine of life.
We always think of the season of spring as the beginning of life, but in fact, spring is not the beginning. It’s the manifestation of the transformation happening inside those great trees right now, in the winter.
In writing about wintering trees, the author Katherine May explains, “The tree is waiting. It has everything ready. Its fallen leaves are mulching the forest floor, and its roots are drawing up the extra winter moisture, providing a firm anchor against seasonal storms . . . It is far from dead. It is in fact the life and soul of the wood. It’s just getting on with it quietly.”
We see the same pattern in human life. William Bridges in his book, Transitions talks about the passages of life, such as those that take place in a job, a relationship, a move, or another life change. He explains that all transitions are composed of three things: (1) an ending, (2) a neutral zone, and (3) a new beginning.
The ending is when we let go of the old. The neutral zone is that time of unknowing when we listen, focus, think, and wait. Then, eventually, the new beginning gleams forth. The key is that it all starts with an ending.
The problem is that unlike trees, we humans tend to fight this truth. We want to focus only on the new beginning. We think that to figure out our plan, to make our choices, we’ve got to get going. If we aren’t producing something, who are we? Endings are seen as unpleasant, and the neutral zone is seen as unproductive. It’s also scary.
When we’re in the neutral zone, we stand bare, like the trees in winter. It’s a time when we can no longer hide our truth behind our agendas, lists, or busyness. Who are we without our leaves? We humans hate asking that, but vulnerability is the place of greatest beauty.
There is a tiny, wonderful book called Trees at Leisure written in 1916 by Anna Botsford Comstock. In it, she talks about the beauty of winter trees: “In winter, we are prone to regard our trees as cold, bare, and dreary; and we bid them wait until they are again clothed in verdure before we may accord to them comradeship. However, it is during this winter resting time that the tree stands revealed to the uttermost, ready to give its most intimate confidences to those who love it.”
The true secret to life lies in the deep wisdom of trees, the place where God chose to reveal God’s self. The trees know that spring is not where life is truly generated. Transformation takes place in winter—that time of ending, that quiet neutral zone, that gap that exists when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully formed.
What parts of your life feel like those bare, brittle, lifeless branches? Who are you without your leaves?
While life can sometimes look and feel like a tree in winter, remember that there is more going on under the surface than we realize. Like the energy humming inside those trees, there are unseen things happening within us. We are changing, churning, transforming inside.
If you doubt that, just walk outside and look up.
While it may feel like loss, while we ourselves may feel lost, winter is simply a time when our energies are gathered deep into our souls, waiting like a sprinter in a crouch ready to spring into new life.
Amanda Gorman, the inaugural poet, put it best: “If nothing else, this must be known: Even as we’ve grieved, we’ve grown . . . We are battered, but bolder; worn, but wiser . . . If anything, the very fact that we’re weary means we are, by definition, changed; we are brave enough to listen to, and learn from, our fear. This time will be different because this time we’ll be different. We already are.”
Rev. Susan Sparks
JAs a trial lawyer turned standup comedian and Baptist minister, the Rev. Susan Sparks is America’s only female comedian with a pulpit. A North Carolina native, Susan received her B.A. at the University of North Carolina, law degree from Wake Forest University, and Master of Divinity at Union Theological in New York City.
Currently the senior pastor of the historic Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City (and the first woman pastor in its 170-year history), Susan's work with humor, healing, and spirituality has been featured in O (The Oprah) Magazine, the New York Times, and on such networks as ABC, CNN, CBS, and the History Channel.
A featured TEDx speaker and a professional comedian, Susan tours nationally with a stand-up Rabbi and a Muslim comic in the Laugh in Peace Tour. In addition to her speaking and preaching, Susan writes a nationally syndicated column through Gannett distributed to over 600 newspapers reaching over 21 million people in 36 states.
She is the author of three books, Laugh Your Way to Grace: Reclaiming the Spiritual Power of Humor, Preaching Punchlines: The Ten Commandments of Standup Comedy. and Miracle on 31st Street: Christmas Cheer Every Day of the Year – Grinch to Gratitude in 26 Days! (May 2020).
Most importantly, Susan and her husband Toby love to fly-fish, ride their Harleys, eat good BBQ, and root for UNC Tar Heel Basketball and the Green Bay Packers.
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.
Making 100 TikToks as Ministry
It’s remarkable how many transformative words stay locked within the walls of our churches. Our messages are beautiful, life-changing, and somehow secret. Our ideas are available only to those who know our addresses and trust us enough to step inside.
It’s remarkable how many transformative words stay locked within the walls of our churches. Our messages are beautiful, life-changing, and somehow secret. Our ideas are available only to those who know our addresses and trust us enough to step inside.
As part of the preaching team at New City Church, I felt this. As a church led by queer people of color in South Minneapolis, I heard and gave powerful messages. I saw God’s liberation experienced and expressed – with one condition.
You had to be there. Whether in-person or online, attendance was mandatory.
That’s why I started making TikToks
Culture is having a conversation. Will the Church be a part of it?
We all have different relationships to social media. For you, is it a distraction to avoid? A danger to reject? Another type of noise?
Is it a mystery? An algorithm that rewards some content while punishing others? So complex and changing that it can’t be learned or used?
Or maybe it’s simpler – is it a chore? Is it something you have to do? Is it something you make someone else do?
At some point, I’ve answered yes to each of these questions. Maybe you have, too. But as a speaker and storyteller, I felt compelled to extend my ministry online.
My first reason is geographical. To love my neighbor, I must ask, “Where is my neighbor?”
If my neighbors spent three hours every single day by the river, I would have a river ministry. It just so happens that the river is TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.
My second reason is theological. I worship a Jesus who preached in synagogues and in streets. His message could not be contained in a temple; it spilled over into towns, rivers, hills, and fields. His best work was outside – where the people were.
For those reasons, I began to experiment with short-form videos. I tried lots of things – posting clips of sermons, making original content, filming video responses to others, scheduling on different platforms, and much more. I was surprised by what worked and what didn’t.
I’m by no means an expert on TikTok. God knows I watched a bunch of videos from people who say they are. Like many of you, I’m just doing ministry and learning every day. But by taking this journey, I’ve grown as a leader and I’ve grown my community. On average, I reach 10x more people per post (TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube combined) than I do in person.
After making 100 TikToks as part of my ministry, here’s what I’ve learned
1. TikTok Never Ends. You Do.
Social media is an endless source of content, but I am a limited, beautiful child of God.
Content that never ends can mean creators that never stop. This type of content is never content.
When I started, the advice online said to create one to three TikToks a day! With a full-time job in marketing and a ministry role at my church, that was not going to happen. But when you start an account with zero followers, there’s this constant temptation to do more.
To do healthy ministry online, we must reject never-ending, never-stopping, never-enough content.
God has taught me that frequency determines fun. The ideal frequency is the point where something is both presently enjoyable and potentially expandable. It’s the place where you feel like you could do more, but you chose not to. Giving 100% sounds great, but it is actually exhausting and unsustainable. I’ve learned there is something beautiful about giving 70%.
In this season, making three TikToks a week is fun. Five was too many. Seven was a non-starter. Sustainable ministry is more important than super-sized growth.
2. TikTok is Always Available. You Aren’t.
Healthy ministry requires healthy boundaries. This is true whether you’re serving others in-person, online, at church, or on TikTok. These guardrails look different from person to person and even from season to season. While some may reject social media altogether, I think healthy boundaries can make social media a joy and a gift.
First, I protect my time. I want to be fully present in life. This includes my ministry but goes beyond it. I enjoy limiting social media to after 5 PM on weekdays. I turn off notifications so I don’t see likes or comments until a designated time. All of this enables me to engage with my life and work during the day while enjoying great content and community at night. Your life is different than mine, but designated times to be on and off are essential.
Second, I protect my process. I tried so many different ways to create videos – on my phone, on my laptop, in my car, in my house, the day before, a month out, and more. I’m currently making three TikToks a week – two are originals and one is a sermon clip. They are filmed on weekdays and scheduled by Sunday for the following week. I don’t make videos for the same day/week anymore. I have a spot in my house and a time on my calendar for making videos. I schedule my videos for 8 AM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I don’t see those videos myself until after 5 PM. I don’t post on weekends because those days are for me. Last year, I edited everything myself and now I have the support of a talented video editor. My process protects my life and my ministry.
3. TikTok is A Place of Discovery. Be Discoverable!
On TikTok, people are constantly discovering new content and creators. It’s a place where people who would never walk into your church or end up on your website can discover your message. Let’s make ourselves discoverable!
Making a 30-minute sermon is an art form – making a 60-second video is, too. Hashtags, subtitles, location, camera, lighting, and sound are all just ways to help people discover you.
I didn’t know sharing an idea from the front seat of a car was more engaging than hearing the same thing from a pulpit. I didn’t realize responding to another video, called a stitch, was more captivating than hearing the same thought in a sermon.
In His ministry, Jesus would say, “You have heard it said,” and then he would add, “But I tell you the truth.” Who knew Jesus was really good at TikTok stitches?
Jean Carlos Diaz
Jean Carlos Diaz is a gay, Puerto Rican speaker and storyteller from the Twin Cities.
jean also preachs at New City Church, a faith community led by queer people of color.
Whether through marketing or ministry, storytelling or speaking, his mission is to move people to things that matter.
he’s married to his amazing husband Fabo. Jean loves Jesus, but in an inclusive and liberating kind of way and He'd love to support or speak to your community.
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.
Questions have Wings
As we enter 2024, there is deep apprehension and fear about the pending presidential election this fall in the United States. How do we stay connected to our faith in such anxiety ridden times?
“At this point in my life
I'd like to live as if only love mattered
As if redemption was in sight..
You see when I've touched the sky
The earth's gravity has pulled me down
But now I've reconciled that in this world
Birds and angels get the wings to fly
If you can believe in this heart of mine
If you can give it a try
Then I'll reach inside and find and give you
All the sweetness that I have
At this point in my life.”-Tracy Chapman
As we enter 2024, there is deep apprehension and fear about the pending presidential election this fall in the United States. There are anxieties about the outcome of that election and the impact it will have on bodies: women’s bodies, the bodies of persons of color, trans bodies, LGBTQIA bodies, bodies living in war zones outside the United States, bodies of those who live on the margins, the poor, the unhoused, the hungry, and those without access to healthcare.
The concern for further division and the hateful rhetoric of years past looms large. Earth’s gravity feels heavier at the start of this year. We feel the weight of the past and wonder what is next. I am reminded of that iconic scene from Forrest Gump, as Jenny, the titular character’s lifelong friend, a young girl traumatized by a life of abuse and hurt, tugs at Forrest’s arm to join her on her knees in a field, in a childlike prayer for deliverance. “Dear God, make me a bird, so that I can fly far, far, far away from here.” The present moment feels as if it is freighted and encumbered by all we’ve been through and there are moments when many of us want nothing more than to escape, to fly far far away. But the weight of gravity seems to keep us stuck in place.
It can feel hard to imagine right now. It can feel hard to consider what the future holds. I find myself asking:
What do I wish I had known years ago to prepare for the years following 2016?
What can I apply today?
How do I show up with love and care for others with this information?
How will my body and the bodies of others be impacted?
There is a phrase I’ve heard , “thoughts have wings”,which describes how a thought or an idea can take off growing and stretching farther than anyone could have anticipated. This phrase invites us to consider unintended consequences attached to the power of words, to stories, to questions. Words can take flight and catalyze our fears, stir our hopes, and spark imagination. The right questions can allow us to let go, take off. They have the power to transform our minds and hearts and to see beyond the fears and pain of any given moment to something hopeful.
The right question has wings.
In Isaiah we read: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31) Written at a time when both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were crushed under the weight of the Assyrian empire, the prophet describes God’s action in the world, but also a people in turmoil. As they looked for liberation from oppression, as they faced their own divisions and conflicts within, these words sparked their imagination and fueled hope.
But, that hope isn’t just the product of inspiring words. Embedded in and around this verse in chapter 40, the prophet questions to their audience: “Who is like our God?” (v.18) and “to whom then will you compare [God]?” The questions catalyze a change in thinking. They serve as a reminder of who the people are, and who they belong to. Ultimately the prophet’s questions serve to shift the hearer’s perspective. “Lift up your eyes on high and see” says the prophet. And so an idea like hope takes flight.
Now is a moment, like the one facing the prophet Isaiah and the people of God. It is a moment that calls for good questions, perspective shifting, eye-opening, story changing questions. Our questions can lead to new ideas, redefining and reshaping how we understand and live into concepts like belonging, stewardship and ownership and so much more, moving us away from easy answers toward deeper connection with one another amid the struggles of life.
Our questions and our words mold themselves into wings that can break free from every weight of fear and defy Earth’s gravity.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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 body is not an accomplishment: a bodily apocalypse
What do we do with the memories that haunt us? That sneak up on us late at night. And whisper words that cut quick to our core?
Photo by Eneko Uruñuela on Unsplash
“….somewhere a little girl is reading aloud
in the middle of a dirt road. she smiles
at the sound of her own voice escaping
she is not the opinions of others
she is of visions and imagination
somewhere a little girl is reading aloud in the middle of a dirt road.
she smiles at the sound of her own voice escaping the spine of a book.
she is a room full
of listening, lending herself
to her own words
somewhere
a deep remembering of what was, she survives all.”-AJ Monet
There is an industry alive and well. The industry of healthy lifestyles. So many before/after pictures, promises of things to come, ways for the body to achieve more than we thought possible.
By making healthy choices, we are told we will become more successful, more at peace, more in our bodies, more, more more.
I see similarities to the prosperity gospel mentalities which spout that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes increases one's material wealth and physical well-being. The responsibility lies solely on us as humans to make better choices, to be better people, to follow the rules. And if you don’t follow the rules, then those who experience poor health or a lack of wealth are in these circumstances because of choices they made.
The other side of this, of course, is what happens when change isn't possible.
When economic systems are built to ensure people remain in poverty.
When the body doesn't respond to changes in behavior.
When both money and health intersect and we see a deep inequity in our access to healthcare.
When we are told that we are the sum product of our choices, it's a lie.
There is an interconnection between the illusion of control, the commodification of well-being and our culture of blame for those who cannot meet unattainable expectations.
There always comes a moment when bodies break, and are beyond control, despite our deepest wishes. What does it mean to come to a bodily apocalypse? When we are stripped down of all illusions that the latest Instagram reel or set of positive choices will delay the onset of age, or will change our health realities.
What pervisity has befallen us that calls for us to use the health of our bodies for more systematic bias? When did we create a narrative of success and achievement around health?
When I hear words of bodily health lifted up as something we control, we battle, we push the limits for, we seek to own as a marker of influence…it is here that I wonder: where is God?
Pseudo-Dionysius and other like-minded negative theologians talked about how, in the working of articulating the limits of language, we find the divine. In describing what the Divine isn’t, we point both to the limits of language and, in comparison, how much more God is.
In this same way, we can apply this thoughtful framework to how our bodies exist in the world and intercept God's movements.
Our limits, our beautiful humanity, point to a place where the divine is. This is holy.
Resist how our bodies, in all their limits, become places of idolatry. Where we seek to become more than we are or were ever created wondrously to be. Perhaps instead, our body’s limits are reflections of the Divine’s creation, and by buying into false promises, we reject that creation.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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.
Apocalypse Of The Body
Theologians have a word for this kind of revealing, when something stark and dire and even painful occurs and reveals a deeper truth, something hidden in plain sight; it is called apocalypse. The word apocalypse includes the meaning “unveiling” or “disclosing”.
Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash
Touched the mirror
Broke the surface of the water
Saw my true self
All illusions shattered
Money's only paper only ink
We'll destroy ourselves if we can't agree
How the world turns
Who made the sun
Who owns the sea
The world we know will fall piece by piece…
By Tracy Chapman
Fall is beginning to wane in my part of the world. The leaves have all changed, fallen from the trees, and begun to drift in the gutters and along the boulevard. I look out my office window and the branches of our Norway maple look stark and bare, naked under a gray sky. Recently, during an exercise at work, my colleague Thia explained the startling science of how leaves change color in the fall. She described that it's not actually that they change from green to red or orange or yellow. Rather, their autumnal color was there all along, hidden under the green chlorophyll. When fall occurs and the leaves begin to lose this nutrient, as they near a kind of death, their true colors are revealed underneath. What was hidden all along is now breathtakingly visible for the world to see. The world we know falls piece by piece.
Theologians have a word for this kind of revealing, when something stark and dire and even painful occurs and reveals a deeper truth, something hidden in plain sight; it is called apocalypse. The word apocalypse includes the meaning “unveiling” or “disclosing”. An apocalyptic event or vision, therefore, reveals things as they really are. Sometimes we hear this word used to describe political or world events, wars, natural disasters, and tragedies. It is important to notice that these things impact whole groups and communities of people, sometimes the whole world. The scope of an apocalypse is most often collective or communal.
At the same time, these collective moments of apocalypse can unveil truths hidden in our individual lives, in our personal stories, and in our bodies. One of my favorite singer-songwriters, Tracy Chapman, is having a moment right now, and I’ve found myself returning to her songs with new eyes. I love the piece, quoted at the outset for the ways it brings together apocalypse and bodies and money. Apocalypse can be the moment when illusions, like the great songwriter describes, are shattered, when we see our true selves.
Recently a pastor asked me why as a fundraiser and lay theologian, whose work is ostensibly about money and philanthropy, why I spend so much time talking about bodies? How are the two interconnected? How does asking questions about how we value our bodies relate at all to budgets?
When talking about stewardship, we often talk about the three T’s: time, talent and treasure. Pastors and theologians and folks like me who work at the intersection of faith and money use these three T’s to invite people to tangibly offer what often feels intangible, to give people a way to put their faith into action for the common good – for the repair of the world.
What concerns me many days are what falls in between the T’s. These things – time, talent, and treasure – have a lot to do with bodies, but they are not the sum total of us. When we are healed and whole, our bodies include these things and all that is in between as well, the things often hidden in plain sight.
And, I am convinced that embodied, fleshy beings that we are, when we’ve encountered an apocalypse that reveals how bodies are commodified, objectified, or not loved in their fullness, as God loves us, that our job as people of faith is to imagine an alternative way to be in the world.
“We’ll destroy ourselves if we can’t agree”, if we can’t imagine that alternative way in the world. Since the first horrific attack in Israel by Hamas, and the subsequent bombing in Gaza by the Israeli military, the siege-like tactics cutting off food and water and aid, my heart like so much of the world has broken again and again.
Yet, if you listen to the rhetoric on all sides of this war, you’ll hear the language of bodies and worth, how many were killed and what constitutes an equal and measured response to that loss of life, what kinds of lives were lost (combatants, innocents, children, adults, the elderly)?
An alternative way asks, how does one assign value to lives and bodies, when each of us is of infinite and incalculable worth in the eyes of God?
In the shattering of lives and bodies and communities, may our lives open to this truth, that each of us, Israelis, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Russians, Americans, black, white, queer, straight, male, female, non-binary, all of us are priceless. When all is stripped away, when each of us sees each other in the fullness of who we are, may we be granted a glimpse of the holy and infinite, unfathomable, value and beauty of the lives we share, and the bodies we inhabit.
Bared myself wholly heart and body unadorned
Stripped down solely
To the evil and the good
Felt no shame
Naked to the world
And all illusions shattered
Money's only paper only ink
We'll destroy ourselves if we can't agree
How the world turns
Who made the sun
Who owns the sea
The world we know will fall piece by piece
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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.
Upending the Parable of The Widow's Mite: Witnessing Systems of Harm
A close reading of Mark 12: 41-44, especially interpreted through the lens of the Law found in Deuteronomy (14:22-29), stirs up important questions about an often used stewardship approach that interprets this as an object lesson from Jesus regarding individual, sacrificial giving: a person of limited means asked to give generously beyond their livelihood.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Stories about what we think about money, or what we think God thinks about money, are profoundly important. Our money narratives impact scripture and can shape how we hear and interpret scripture. Fostering feelings of guilt or shame, they can serve as a barrier to receiving the good news of the liberating love of God.
The story of the widow’s mite from the Gospel of Mark is frequently utilized in sermons across denominations during annual giving campaigns. While often used to provoke individuals to faithfully consider their giving to the Church, unlike the wealthy young ruler found earlier in Mark (chapter 10), here Jesus does not prescribe action or lift up the widow as an example for others to follow:
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. (42) A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. (43) Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. (44) For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
(Mark: 12:41-44)
A close reading of Mark 12: 41-44, especially interpreted through the lens of the Law found in Deuteronomy (14:22-29), stirs up important questions about an often used stewardship approach that interprets this as an object lesson from Jesus regarding individual, sacrificial giving: a person of limited means asked to give generously beyond their livelihood.
Rather, Jesus is observing and commenting on predatory and exploitative political and social practices. Read in this refocused way, the story reveals the negative impact those that misuse the Temple system had on the marginalized, specifically this widow. Reinforcing this interpretation is Jesus’ own words, often found throughout the gospels quoting Deuteronomy, to highlight and condemn the predatory practices of the day.
Jesus was concerned about how money and possessions were used within larger systems, and utilizing this pericope, frames his observation as directed at the Temple treasury rather than the widow, and draws a corollary between the unjust systems experienced both then and now.
When reading this selection of text from Mark, one might rightly ask the question:
“Where is Jesus pointing our attention ? Where is the moral weight of this story? Is it with the widow or the treasury?”
How one answers these questions dramatically shapes the interpretation of the passage. Fellow Church Anew contributor Walter Brueggemann’s Money and Possessions presses this question:
“It is astonishing that we in the west have been schooled to read the Gospel narratives through a privatized, otherworldly lens that has transposed the story into an individualized, spiritualized account…Jesus was focused on issues related to money and possessions, the ways they are deployed in a world governed by God, and the ways in which they define and key social relationships.”
Brueggemann points to a Jesus who not only was deeply concerned about the ethical use of money and possessions within systems, but in keeping with Mark’s context, saw the necessity of fulfilling the Law found in the Torah.
Before the destruction of the Temple the treasury functioned as a vehicle to fulfill the demands of Torah for the collection of economic aid for those regularly dispossessed, namely widows. By giving to the treasury, the rich and those with means were fulfilling their responsibilities, so that the widow did not have to. In fact, widows were not required by Law to give to the Temple. Given that she was not under any obligation to give (and in light of the fact that she contributed her two remaining coins), this parable challenges the interpretation that the widow is motivated by generosity. In fact her motives remain unclear. What is important to note is that the wealthy are not taken to task for contributing to the system. Rather, in the passages just before this text, it is the scribes that would “devour the houses of widows” (Mark 12:40) that perpetuate an inequitable and unjust system.
This challenges many western narratives about money. We do not see any passage within this text that suggests Jesus is asking others to give sacrificially or to reflect on their own individual giving. Rather, his words seem almost intended to shame those who would receive a widow’s last coins.
In the wake of crisis after crisis from the last few years, many are calling for reordering of our faith communities and systems. We see the dispossessed and marginalized still fighting for rent relief, for justice from consumer predatory practices, and the regular practice of philanthropic redlining which limits what additional services are provided.
Throughout Mark we witness Jesus concerned about the use of money in larger systems. This preexisting concern provides a consistent basis for the argument that Jesus’ attention was not focused on the sacrifice of the widow, for whom we do not know of her actual motives for giving, but for the predatory economic practices of the day. When viewed not in the interpretative lens of an individual giver, but through a wider analysis of broader systems of injustice, the Jesus in Mark’s gospel provides relevant spiritual insight to be utilized by contemporary readers today.
How might shifting the focus away from individual thoughts on giving to systems that do financial harm release problematic narratives this fall?
How might Jesus’ witness of predatory practices invite us into the liberating love of God? And, living in that love, might we respond?
This fall is an important time to ask what narratives need to be released and how we might reorder our lives together.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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 Stewardship of Memory
What do we do with the memories that haunt us? That sneak up on us late at night. And whisper words that cut quick to our core?
Photo by Prometheus 🔥 on Unsplash
Gawd at times it's pretty rough
I get these flashes from the past
The pain, the anger, the sadness
Just creeps up on me, unexpectedly…
Haunted by Memory: A poem by Kaila George
There are many sayings about living a life without regrets, living life to the fullest, regretting what you did instead of what one didn’t. So many memes and words of inspiration. What do we do with the memories that haunt us? That sneak up on us late at night. And whisper words that cut quick to our core?
I live many days as Harper Lee describes her iconic character Scout; living the book of common prayer. I am thinking of things done or left undone, evil done to me or done on my behalf. Working to be present, but when living I hold my ancestors' stories and my own ... .all the while working to discern what's useful, what needs to be saved, what needs to be passed on to my children.. Sometimes all my old memories feel like junk— hanging out for all to see, to comment on, to frame in their own lens.
I wonder what the old evangelical revivalists would proclaim about an internet that doesn't allow for memories to be washed clean as snow. They pop up at us, surprise us, take us back at how real feeling can hit—even after decades. There they are—sitting out—waiting to be used, to be remembered, to be felt again.
The summer I was married, I lived in my husband’s village on an island in Alaska. Growing up in the midwest in a white, upwardly middle class family had taught me specific economic and class rules. Among those rules were neatly mowed, tidy yards with houses well tended. At Christmas, we were assigned a specific lamp color so as to keep to the correct order of red-green-red-green. All distracting kids paraphernalia saved for the backyard where fences kept messes away from view.
Arriving at my husband’s fishing village, I was unprepared for how stewardship looked in different cultures. How cars and old machinery parts were piled and lined the yards of houses. Piece of whatnots stored for a future date.
On the island, there are few places to take, say a car with a broken down transmission, to trade in. There is also limited ability to locate items for repair and often items can be reused for other purposes. Kids toys are often communal property as well. Rather than used by one family, they lay in front yards ready for other families.
Nothing is wasted. Everything can be saved, reused or shared.
Stewardship is often described in how we use the gift of our lives. Whether it be the gift of time, talent, treasure, testimony. We use these simple T’s as they present tangible ways to consider how God moves in the world and, in the movement, calls us to life. Tangible things we can offer to give up for the sake of God’s liberating, life giving love. Yet, our life is made up of so much more than those tangible things.
In the stewardship of our lives, nothing is wasted. In the economy of God, we see how creation reflects this wisdom. We are seen fully and loved completely—from the hairs of our head to the random sparrow.
But, what do we do with the stuff of our lives that don't fit easily into those tangible T-categories? The stuff that doesn't feel like treasure but doesn't feel like sin either.
The memories that we receive may not feel like gifts.
I am haunted by memory. Memories of moments I can not take back. Regrets for choices made, even when the choices were the right ones. Even when I believe I acted as one called.
Memories my ancestors made through their choices. Regrets carried, even when they believed they acted rightly, as one called.
And so today I am laying them out in my front yard. No longer seeking to hide them with a fence. I may pray for my soul to be clean but my memory will never be.
In the ongoing act of the stewardship of life, I offer up my memories for repair, for reconciliation, for the common good. I am unsure what can be reused or shared. But I cling to the hope of God’s economy.
And, some memories, the haunted memories, are of no use except that they bear witness to mine or others’ survival. In God’s economy, nothing is wasted.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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.
Upending the parable of talents: bodies over profits
The parable of the talents then would become a commentary at large about an economy that uses people and values things rather than values people and uses things.
“God forgive me for seeking a place at a table you would have overthrown.” Mikayla Bates, viral post accessed August 2023.
Since the pandemic, I have been drawn to stories that, for better or worse, have shaped me. Seeking a sense of myself in the midst of uncertainty, I wanted to find meaning between the words and hope in the story arcs. I asked myself what were 3 books that significantly impacted the way I viewed myself or the world that I read as a youth. I’ve spent the last few months rereading them. In the midst of so much grief and change, I wanted to tap not into nostalgia or memory. Rather, I wanted to remember who I was, what I cared about, and who I wanted to be. In the lines I remembered how characters became, albeit imperfect and rather one-sided, mentors. These stories were powerful; they shaped life.
At the same time, an online congregation I am a part of entered a time of learning about the power of story through the lens of the parables. Parables are powerful; in their interpretation we find layers of wisdom and purpose. Psychologists talk about how we translate new information and fit it to align with our internal narratives. It’s how a single event, say a conversation, can leave individuals with very different recollections.
When hearing parables, we can often feel bound by our own narratives. Often our first readings are the ones that stick. They shape how we hear it moving forward and the complicated truths are lost. While it does the work of rooting one’s identity, it also can tie us to problematic narratives that keep us from receiving the liberating love of God.
It was in this context that I prepared for the upcoming parable of the talents in the lectionary:
Matthew 25:14-30
Jesus said, “It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.
But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?
Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
Fall is coming, and with it will come many a story of how Time, Talent and Treasure are used.
With fall will come a season of exploring what we believe about money and…what we believe God thinks about money.
How do we unpack or release narratives that prevent us from the liberating love of God?
Often, when this text is interpreted, it is thought that God is embodied by that of the master and we are to learn something about our own gifts and abilities. Used as a stewardship sermon, I`ve been exhorted to use my talents to grow other gifts for the benefit of the Christian community.
However, in this recent reading I began to ask myself, why would Jesus ever compare the Divine in such a way as “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid.” And where else does the Divine say such things as “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
I believe this story was not told for modern-day Christians to determine how best to get a return on investments. Jesus did not come into the world to form a kingdom built on acquisitions and bottom lines. Rather, this powerful parable was once again a commentary on those in power who would use a person’s fear to intimidate others into production and profits.
Jesus, formed in the way of covenantal relationships, sought to build a kingdom that upends our narratives and shifts our understanding about money. The parable of the talents then would become a commentary at large about an economy that uses people and values things rather than values people and uses things.
As we enter the fall together, I invite you to share in considering these questions:
What would it mean if Jesus tells stories like the parable of the talents as a way to highlight the corruption in power?
What if Jesus tells stories of stewardship to show us, in contrast, a new—and yet ancient—way of sharing and caring for people? A way of reminding each other how to be with and for each other.
What if Jesus is giving witness to the injustice of his day and proclaiming a new way of being? What would that mean for us today?
As we enter the fall together, I invite us all to return to the stories, either internal or external that shape us.
May we repent of seeking to join tables that need to be overturned and seek to uplift the worth of bodies rather than profits.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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 body as a house of belonging
Photo by Inga Gezalian on Unsplash
“…This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.” David Whyte
In Advent, Christians around the world collectively anticipated the arrival of Jesus as embodied hope. We waited for the coming again of the “Word”, in the flesh. And, at the playing of David Wilcox’s startling and profound chord marking that moment in the famous carol, “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” sitting on Christmas Eve I realized that I had been holding my breath. Sitting next to my sons, my spirit soared as I heard those notes, remembering that Christ, fully human and fully divine, came to live with us. The story of the Incarnation is the story of divine desire to be with and belong to humanity and answers our longing to be with and belong to the Divine. And, perhaps most profoundly, Jesus’ birth in a particular human form shows us the powerful role bodies play in the work of belonging.
Last December my office held a Secret Santa gift exchange. In preparation, each participant was asked to write one sentence that would describe what they might want for under $20. I instantly knew what I wanted. More than the typical requests for candles, mugs, or funny calendars, my heart knew it needed beauty. To understand my desire, I should describe my context. I live in the Twin Cities where winter can drag on long after Epiphany’s magi have found the Christ child and set their sights to return home by another route. I find that sometime in late February and early March, my soul begins to long for colorful, beautiful things. My body longs for green grass and leaves on trees and sunshine.
So, when asked what I would like as a gift under $20, I wrote, “something beautiful to look at to get me through the long winter.” A few weeks later a package arrived from my Secret Santa. I could feel from the package that it was light and oddly shaped. I thought perhaps it was a picture of something inspiring or a piece of art created by the giver.
Imagine my surprise when I opened it to see my own face looking back at me. My colleague’s gift was a mirror, shaped as a cloud, in a wooden holder.
The mirror took my breath away and I sat quickly down, touched by the thoughtfulness. Rituals and practices, whether serious or silly, hold the potential to shape our individual identities and those of the communities we belong to. Practices like sharing meals or exchanging gifts create the connective tissue of belonging. Moreover, within this particular practice of gift giving, there was something about receiving a good gift—one that reflected my desires and hidden prayers, that created a sense of being seen – of being known. It was an act of belonging.
Here, by extending belonging, my colleague “saw” me and was also naming that I could give myself permission to look in the mirror and call my body beautiful. In my colleagues' friendly gift was a powerful theology: one that names our bodies as far more than categories, boxes, and checkmarks. There is a deep connection to what it feels like to be seen in bodily form and to belong.
My body, marked with age, shaped by childbirth, and carrying within it the trauma of a pandemic and my own bouts with Covid, has not always been my first thought when I think of beauty or belonging. Formed by a culture that holds out impossible images of bodies, which tell me that in order to belong I must look and be a certain way, reminds me that my body is the site of colonizing forces often well beyond my control. But, as a cis-gendered, straight, white woman, I know my body has also served as a catalyst, gatekeeper, and barrier for others’ belonging. My body reflects both the sins of the colonizer and the colonized. Yet, here was beauty, never further away than the nearest reflection.
With the mirror came a small card that simply said - “From your Trans Santa”. I should note here that my colleague is a trans person, and without him saying so, his gift reminded me that despite my own struggles to find beauty in my own body, to find a sense of belonging in and of myself, there are many communities, not least of which are trans folks, whose very identities and bodies are often the location of rejection, disconnection, and alienation. In coming to know the trans and non-binary community, I have experienced how LGBTQIA+ individuals often receive messages from the broader culture of what bodies should be, what boxes they should fit into, as well as the emotional and physical cost when they don’t. In all of this, my colleague reminded me of the embodied belonging Christ demonstrated in his birth and life. In my request for beauty, he gave me the beautiful gift of embodied belonging.
In the work of Jesus’ liberating and life-giving love is the act of claiming that our full bodies, the full expression of our beings, are seen, known – that we belong to God, to one another, and to ourselves.
This is not some new realization of modern day politics. Our forebears in faith wrestled with belonging and identity, too. I am reminded of the Israelites in Babylon, seeking to claim their own identity, naming the practices and stories that would help them retain a sense of self and community even while in exile. Or consider the stories of the early patristic period as the church mothers and fathers, seeking to prevent heresy and schism in the embodied community, wrestled to articulate creeds and doctrines centered in the very body of Jesus, who he was, and what his life meant for the world. Humans are drawn together by our need to share stories and shape practices that express how bodies are deeply and intimately connected, how we are woven together, and how we belong to each other.
And, so, the question then becomes, what barriers keep bodies from belonging? Or, going one step further, what barriers keep us, in our bodies, from belonging? Why do even our faith communities often struggle to create and hold spaces where bodies know belonging?
“Our bodies know that they belong; it is our minds that make our lives so homeless. Guided by longing, belonging is the wisdom of rhythm. When we are in rhythm with our own nature, things flow and balance naturally. Every fragment does not have to be relocated, reordered; things cohere and fit according to their deeper impulse and instinct.”
–John O’Donohue, Eternal echoes
Now, after the season of the Incarnation, after Christmas and the Epiphany, I am struck by my own need to keep to a rhythm, to continue practices like the giving and receiving of gifts, where I can continually be reminded that just as Jesus came among us, the divine Word, in a body, so too, I can find divine beauty in my own body. I will give myself over, in the months ahead to the practices of loving care for my body so that I can care for and love the bodies of others in my community and in the world. I will continue to look at myself in that mirror, seeing with the eyes of the Incarnate One, that which is beautiful and holy in what is reflected back to me. I’ll try to remember the Apostle Paul’s teaching, that “now we see as through a mirror dimly” and one day we shall see face to face, just as we are seen and known even now. And, like the poet, love all things that take awhile to love so that my body may be a house of belonging.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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.
Tending Fires
Photo by Siim Lukka on Unsplash
We shall be known by the company we keep
By the ones who circle round to tend these fires
We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap
The seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth…
In this great turning we shall learn to lead in love.
Written by MaMuse
Regular Church Anew blogger and theologian Walter Brueggemann sparked something in me recently when he reminded me of the importance of a prophetic imagination. The work of prophetic imagination, he writes, is two-fold. The first part is to critique the world in its present distortion so that we do not think it normative. The other is to hint at alternative ways of shaping the world according to the purposes of the Creator.
The word prophet has come to mean a lot of things over the centuries. In recent years the word has smoldered with its more radical and revolutionary meanings. In a time of reckoning with the deep injustices of our nation and our local communities, I have heard the call to burn down empire and wondered how I could be a part of that tearing down. Yet, I can’t help wondering if we burn it all down, what is to be built in its place? Like so many, I have longed for a fresh vision, something born of the prophetic imagination, an alternative to the economies of oppression and empires of greed that so shape our world. Simon and Garfunkel famously sang that “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls” and I can’t help hearing in those words an echo of the prophetic imagination, the promise that God’s kingdom appears through the cracks and brokenness of our humanity. Perhaps we miss what is always evident to the prophetic imagination because our eyes always gravitate to the glittering center of empire instead of looking outward to its edges. In the brokenness caused by empire, God is always doing a new thing, and I yearn to see it now more than ever.
Yearning for healing, beauty, and new life always seems to intensify in this season as the days shorten. I arrive here in Advent with all this longing for a fresh vision, a world shaped by prophetic imagination, and discover that Advent is a time of prophecy embodied. We await expectantly in faith and hope for not just a new way of seeing the world, but a new world in the flesh.
All of this was in my mind when at church recently we sang the song which I quoted at the opening of the article. Something in the words intersected with my yearning for a new vision of the world renewed according to the purposes of God, and these words kindled my imagination for what is possible. I’ve found myself humming snatches of the tune and singing the words silently and out loud to myself all week long.
“We shall be known by the company we keep.”
Since 2020 there has been a sustained experience of loss and disconnection. We have isolated and masked and avoided gatherings and close physical contact all to keep each other safe. As a result, our viral pandemic has been followed by an epidemic of loneliness and isolation and a resulting crisis of belonging. While the past year has shown us that we can once again be together, we have also discovered barriers to connection that go much deeper to the core of who we are. We are learning just how much we’ve been formed for disconnection and just how difficult it is to find a true sense of belonging. We yearn for a vision of how we can be together and belong to one another. We want to be known, and somewhere, somehow, we want to be known by the connections we forge, and the company we keep.
“By the ones who circle round to tend these fires.”
Fires can tear down and destroy. And fires can bring life. It is a scientific truth that certain ecosystems need fire to renew life. Indigenous peoples have long known this wisdom, which is why out here in the Midwest where I live, long ago first peoples would set fire to the prairie to renew the land, bringing new plants to feed the herds that in turn brought vitality to the community.
Our yearning for belonging is deeply connected to that of life. A prophetic imagination is kindled precisely in those places where God is bringing forth growth and new life in the wake of destruction and loss. Prophetic imagination invites us to tend the fires of new life within community. The kindling of these fires is created not by tearing down each other for the sake of righteousness. Rather, tending the fires invite holy wisdom and a vision of life springing forth at the crumbling and charred edges of empire.
“We shall be known by the ones who sow and reap. The seeds of change, alive from deep within the earth”
While here in Minnesota the bleak midwinter is still a month or two away, the season of Advent which we are about to enter brings with its motifs of waiting and expectation. The seeds lie dormant in the ground waiting for the season of new life and renewal that is coming. A prophetic imagination is needed to see past this moment to what will come. And this is why there is something hopeful and life affirming by the act of sowing seeds. As the Psalmist writes, “Those who go out weeping, carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying their sheaves.”
We can understand the grief that might accompany the farmer carrying her precious few seeds to the field for planting, seeds which could have fed her family.
Likewise, one does not need much to imagine the joy that might accompany a harvest following such a courageous act of planting. I yearn to be known as one who acts so boldly as to plant new life in the face of grief, pain, and loss. I yearn to belong to others who do the same.
“In this great turning we shall learn to lead in love.”
And so, beloved, this season my Advent song is this one. It kindles a prophetic imagination in me, a vision that sees clearly the distortion of the world as it is, and helps me imagine the world according to the purposes of a God who is always calling us to life. In this great turning of our lives, we do not leave our grief nor do we forget the suffering and loss. But such an imagination, kindled this season, invites us to turn away from the glittering center of empires, to tend fires of belonging, and to see how God is bringing life and leading us forth in love.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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.
Grief, Bodies, and Worth
As people of faith we are given frameworks and images of just such alternative ways of being with one another, socially, spiritually, and economically. The kingdom of God calls to us, beckons us, to reimagine our worth, our belonging, our bodies.
Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash
“Listen to the power of your grief.
God is singing. God is singing.” Jorge Lockwood
Relentless. This is the word I often hear to describe the cascading and intersecting crises of the past years. The world, each of us, is experiencing a relentlessness that feels like grief upon grief.
Grief can be an isolating experience. Certainly each grieving experience is unique, an expression of the cumulative toll of pain and loss one has experienced in their lifetime. We may never fully understand another person’s grief or know exactly how to walk alongside them in it. In our struggle to comfort and understand, or, worse, in our desire to insulate ourselves from the pain of others, we may try to explain another’s grief and pain.
What’s more, we know grief extends well beyond individual experience. Of course we know more clearly than ever in this moment, we also hold collective grief - the pain we all carry after the lives lost to COVID-19 and the endless cycle of systematic injustice. We even experience the anticipatory grief that comes from not knowing what tomorrow might look like, and the loss of the belief that things could be predictable. All of this grief causes us all to reevaluate our lives while experiencing moments of bone deep tiredness, of what the psalmist says requires “sighs too deep for words.”
Grief shows up in unpredictable moments, making itself known at times when we least expect it, reminding us of its existence, bringing to mind all the things we have lost and for which we grieve. Which is why, on our best days, we know we need to acknowledge our grief, experience it, and heal from it and even, if we are so fortunate, to make sense of it. That is to say, in the midst of grief, we sometimes try to engage in meaning making.
As we consider our multiple losses, as we experience our own mortality more clearly, we are compelled to make meaning from what has occured. Some opt to create funds in honor of loved ones, others move to a different part of the country, and still others might opt to make major life and career decisions in response to grief and in an attempt to wrestle from it some kind of meaning. I am fascinated, intrigued, and confused by how grief influences or translates to vocation and work. Consider, for instance, how many people quit their jobs during the so-called “Great Resignation.” (1)
The New York Times reports 47.8 million people left their positions to pursue different job opportunities during the pandemic. Taken in aggregate, this shift in the workforce, resulting as it did from the painful experiences, the grief and losses, of the pandemic, is staggering. Yet, these stories also bear witness to the desire to make sense of grief as so many made decisions born of our deepest values learned or relearned through the pain of our collective loss. These answers guided many to clarify their own sense of vocation and to reflect on their own boundaries and limits. The resulting shift of the workforce raised, for me, questions of bodies and worth. I wondered, “What is the value of my body?”, “What is the worth of an individual life?” and “Why do I keep living this way—I can do better, right?”
For those who are currently employed, another trend is afoot regarding - what commentators are calling “Quiet Quitting”. (2) Here people start to quietly enforce boundaries around work/life balance, no longer working beyond reasonable boundaries or established contractual expectations, refusing to go “above and beyond” or accept “other duties” not clearly in their job descriptions. Many are quietly “quitting”, refusing to work during off hours, resisting tasks beyond the scope of their original position.
Grief, meaning making, and the resulting impact on the workforce, is also raising questions about productivity. As the exhaustion and grief of the pandemic prompt many to set or reset healthy boundaries and resist the culture of overwork and busyness, we are being asked again to consider a new way to envision the relationship between money and bodies. As we explore again these connections and consider anew what productivity means, we might realize that this moment holds a powerful opportunity for us to imagine and usher in alternative economies. As people of faith we are given frameworks and images of just such alternative ways of being with one another, socially, spiritually, and economically. The kingdom of God calls to us, beckons us to reimagine our worth, our belonging, our bodies.
Jorg Rieger (3) notes that economics has always had a moral dimension. However, alternative economies often struggle in implementation as we do not begin to factor in alternative measures of productivity. The economic vision of the kingdom of God turns our conceptions of who owns money and possessions, as well as our understandings of who has power, and flips them on their head. When we remain concerned about our worth in measurable outcomes and success measures, the framework of the kingdom of God, where debts are forgiven, the poor are given pride of place, the hungry are filled, and as Mary says, the rich are sent away empty, shifts popular cultural conceptions of the what is measurable and what success looks like.
Our relationship to our money and bodies not only shapes our relationship to God, it impacts our ability to recognize God’s movements in the world. We are unable to imagine the kingdom of God, that is, God’s economics, without decolonizing, recognizing and eliminating beliefs about our worth and work, deeply engrained as they are by a world that values profit over people, currency over connection, and belongings over belonging.
I am reminded here of advice given to me early on in my career. I was told the key to success at any organization was to accomplish enough early on to be “irreplaceable.” Here my worth, measured by my productivity, ensured my place in the economy and in society. Recently, in a group of colleagues, we all admitted to no longer feeling drawn to the same intense “hustle” as we did prior to 2020. In the wake of death and injustice, we developed a new appreciation for our own bodies - a deeper sense of value of our own selves against the cost we might assume to pursue these previously held beliefs. The cost our culture assigns to the body is one many no longer are willing to pay to meet career objectives and false ideas of success.
I seemed to be drawn
to the center of myself
leaving the edges of me
in the hands of my wife
and I saw with the most amazing
clarity
so that I had not eyes but
sight,
and, rising and turning,
through my skin,
there was all around not the
shapes of things
but oh, at last, the things
themselves.
Lucille Clifton (The Death of Fred Clifton) (4)
What if this moment calls us to the surprising reality of our worth? This notion of worth shifts our priorities and understanding of productivity, the body’s worth, not in the ‘shape of things’, but with new, focused sight, our grief giving voice to what our souls need. What if, rising and turning to God in our own bodies and skin, we see ourselves not in mere shapes or as hollow vehicles for productivity, but at last as beloved, whole.
Footnotes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/business/great-resignation-jobs.html
Jorg Rieger. No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics, and The Future. Fortress Press, 2009.
Gupta, SudipDas. "The Death of Fred Clifton by Lucille Clifton". Poem Analysis, https://poemanalysis.com/lucille-clifton/the-death-of-fred-clifton/. Accessed 22 September 2022.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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 Cost of a Body
Photo by Eddi Aguirre on Unsplash
What is a body worth to you?
What is a body worth to God?
On the surface, one might be inclined to answer that bodies are priceless. Bodies are sacred. Bodies are beloved.
Yet, this language doesn`t translate consistently. There is a tension that occurs when we talk about one’s hourly rate or the value of one’s time. When a person is injured or killed, insurance adjusters quantify what a life is worth in terms of monetary reimbursement. When considering prison reform, school reform, hospital reform, analytics are made of the cost of a single body in order to determine cost/benefit analysis. How do we make sense of this question in the modern world?
Recently, the nation was horrified at the brutal murder of Eliza Fletcher, a woman out on a run one morning. Initially described in the news at a pre-kindergarten teacher, major news headlines quickly changed to read ‘billionaire’s heiress grandaughter murdered.’ Within 24 hours new information was provided that her grandfather was not a billionaire; that initial headlines didn’t accurately reflect Eliza’s identity. In the midst of this question of her worth, others asked important questions about why this case gathered more attention compared to similar cases of women of color. Why does one human’s body garner extensive attention and public outcry while others remain unseen?
In the Twin Cities where I live, after the murder of George Floyd my family watched as the national guard’s tanks made their way through our streets. Palpable pain and loss gave way to fresh visual expressions of grief. Strangely, the national guards presence seemed to focus their protection at predominantly white owned businesses. The news began to speak of the cost of the protests to local establishments. One business owner of a nearby Indian restaurant was featured saying, “George Floyd’s life is worth the loss of my business. I can always rebuild again.”
How one views our bodies, as vehicles for productivity, as estimable by hourly wage or as beloved impacts the ability to engage in conversations about money. The powerful relationships between body and money impacts our relationship to God.
What can we say about how God moves in our world when even our notions of stewardship and giving are often rooted in the sense of ownership of our material goods. Having created us in his/her/their image, the creation story tells that God entrusted the land and animals to Adam.
Edgar Villenueva further problematizes this idea in Decolonizing Wealth by saying the concept of colonization took place around the time when humans became farmers and concepts of ownership, managing or controlling the land gave way to owning plants and animals.
Somewhere stewardship began to resemble ownership. And, in developing systems of hierarchy and control, ownership didn't stop at land and animals.
I would take Villenueva’s wisdom one step further as colonization connects to bodies. Our body’s worth, with roots from our nation’s history of slavery and the selling of bodies is embeded in our DNA. We feel it in our bodies and in our relationships with others. It translates now to overwork, insurmountable anxiety, and vocational burnout. Folks describe their fear of being replaceable, disposable, or not of worth. Overwork becomes a defense mechanism when asking, “what am I worth?”
Psalm 139: 14
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
As we move into a season often called that of annual giving, stewardship or fall giving, we are often asked to consider our relationship to money. Yet, the weight of this question about the worth of a body lays heavy. How do we pray to a God who forgives us our debts as we forgive our debtors when this language is also linked to scriptures of how God loves us so much that he gave his only son? Ultimately, this drives the question: what was Jesus’s body even worth?
The question of bodies and worth emerges both in theologies of giving as well as the lived experience of those inviting others to give. In thinking of stewardship and faith leaders, I’ve both experienced and read painful stories from leaders (people of color, women, those differently abled, etc) in the church where they`ve described the impact of code switching, of leaving the identity of their body at the door in order to raise money. In other words, these beloved were forced to measure the cost of their body in order to receive funding for ministry.
What am I worth? What are you worth?
Sonya Renee Taylor writes in her powerful book The Body is Not an Apology, “When our personal value is dependent on the lesser value of other bodies, radical self-love is unachievable.” The work of monetizing bodies was historically crafted and rigorously maintained to enforce the notion that some bodies are worth more than others. Some bodies would cost more than others.
The theology of decolonizing stewardship invites us into a new way of thinking about our money in relation to both our bodies as well as other beloved of God. This moment calls us to an unpacking of the ways our minds as well as bodies have been colonized in ways that apply a cost to the body, to the soul. Our work, in exploring our relationships to money and bodies, is one of asking difficult questions, living in ambiguity, avoiding prescription, and celebrating diversity as holy.
This moment calls us to bear witness not only inherited sinful systems that would see a body as something to possess, own, or monetize. It is one not of only tearing down the colonial mindset, but of hopeful imagination as we invite the holy spirit to reorient ourselves to God and each other in the world.
Erin Weber-Johnson
Erin Weber-Johnson is Senior Consultant at Vandersall Collective, a faith based, woman-led consulting firm and Primary Faculty of Project Resource. In 2017 she co-founded the Collective Foundation, which worked to address the gap in giving characteristics in faith communities of color. In 2022 she co-founded The Belonging Project, a movement designed to reimagine belonging across the ecclesial landscape.
Previously, Erin worked as the Senior Program Director at the Episcopal Church Foundation, as a grants officer at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, and served as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She holds a BS from Greenville University, a Masters of Public Administration for NYU and is currently completing a second masters in Religion and Theology from United Theological Seminary.
A published author, she strives to root her work in practical theology while utilizing her experience in the nonprofit sector. Her co-edited book, Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy is available through Cascade Books.
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