Blog Posts
"The Truth About Reformation"
As we enter October and prepare to celebrate the Reformation once again, we wanted to share the following poem by Meta Herrick Carlson.
Photo by Wim van 't Einde on Unsplash
As we enter October and prepare to celebrate the Reformation once again, we wanted to share the following poem by Pastor Meta Herrick Carlson.
The Truth about Reformation
Reformation rumbles
when we try to make sense
of the world around us,
when we go looking
for clarity and comfort
in things we already know,
traditions and tools we already have
and still, we find them lacking.
Reformation remembers
how often faithful dissent
and brave wonder have been
confused with harm and heresy,
a theology of transformation
conditioned to stay fixed in place
and devoted to more of the same,
a kingdom compromised and captive.
Reformation refuses
to hustle and borrow and earn
what God has declared generous,
a gift beyond mortal measure
so wild and free it disrupts everything
that aims to contain and conserve
what is meant to keep moving,
an ancient blessing and truth about love.
Story-ing the People
Once upon a time there was a man
who tried to save himself, to earn
God’s pleasure and life after death.
If anyone could do it, he could.
Martin was a monk and knew the law.
He spent his days in study and prayer,
tucked away from much of society
to focus on higher, spiritual things.
But the harder he aimed at perfect,
the more lonely and lost he felt,
the more he searched and questioned
his own motivations and God’s, too.
Could there be another way,
a wider way to fear and love God,
one that honored his humanity
instead of resenting it so much?
What would it look like to entrust
his eternal salvation to God in Christ Jesus
and to live like he’d been set free,
to be honest and beloved and whole?
Martin wrote a catechism for parents,
so families could practice faith together
at church and at home, in daily life
and everywhere God is with us.
When scripture gets in the hands of the people,
reformation rekindles and sparks
from embers of a faith that always finds
new words and ways and will for asking:
What does that mean?
Where did it take place?
Who did that law benefit or harm?
How does that story transcend time?
Why does any of this matter today?
It’s a tool to use, a lever to pull,
a lens to help us see that God delights
in high altars and dinner tables,
grand sanctuaries and hearths at home.
It’s a reminder the sacred story
is still spilling into our lives, quenching
our dignity, belonging, and purpose
with promises that never run dry.
Reformation rumbles
not just once long ago, but whenever
the people start asking and
keep asking and can’t stop asking:
What serves our own piety
and what serves the living God?
What truths are contained and captive
and who benefits from keeping them small?
Where does the kingdom need our resistance
for this faith to be more fully free?
What is passing away
and what is being made new?
Download and share one of these quotes…
or share your own!
Meta Herrick Carlson
Meta Herrick Carlson (she/her/hers) is a pastor and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She serves a two campus congregation all learning how to let go and lean in for the sake of a shared future. Meta’s first book Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life proves a worthy gift in these uncertain times. Her second book Speak It Plain: Words for Worship and Life Together with more ordinary blessings and resources for church nerds and liturgical communities was released in December 2020.
Website | Instagram
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.
How Parenting Is Teaching Me Notes of Rest: Lessons from the first month
What a marvel it is to have a child. There really are no words to do it justice. A few of you have expressed interest in what parenthood will do to my sense of rest. I’m sure that will be a lifelong journey, but here are a few quick insights
Photo by McKenna Phillips on Unsplash
This post originally appeared on Julian Davis Reid’s substack called “Notes of Rest,” a weekly newsletter about music, Christian faith, and rest to promote the practice of contemplation & creativity. Read more and subscribe here.
Thank you for the warm wishes on the birth of my sweet little Lydia last month. It is a blessing to write for a community that celebrates such big milestones. What a marvel it is to have a child. There really are no words to do it justice. My favorite moments to savor are when she opens her eyes for the first time after a nap, and when she makes eye contact with me as she practices lifting her head, and when Carmen, Lydia and I sit on the couch together. The list goes on, but that begins to count the ways.
A few of you have expressed interest in what parenthood will do to my sense of rest. I’m sure that will be a lifelong journey, but here are a few quick insights from the first month.
When we rest, others get to rest too.
When Lydia sleeps multiple hours a night, we all get to rest. (Ha - when.) And that reminds me of how the logic of Sabbath in Scripture is centered on the idea that when the people of Israel receives God’s gift of rest, those who work for them, the foreigners who live in their midst, the other animals, and the land get to rest too.
We tire others out without realizing it.
On the other hand, Lydia has no idea how her erratic sleep schedule tires Carmen and me. To be sure, we are happily exhausted - we oftentimes find ourselves laughing at 2 in the morning - but it is exhaustion nonetheless.
Similarly, we the writer and readers of this post exhaust others whether we realize it. Capitalism has made it such that we exhaust bodies and lands routinely, our own included, in our pursuit of fanciful fairy tales of never ending wealth (e.g., Greta Thunberg). And what’s worse, the means of our life as is often occluded from us, such that we don’t have a real sense of what life costs. (I always find it odd that we can put a price on an apple. What does it actually cost us?)
Now, Lydia is not to blame at all for the exhaustion she causes. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. The sista just wants to feed and be held. Amen to her knowing what she needs, ha.
To some extent, we are like her. We do not singlehandedly control the factories and the governments and the IG algorithms that promote our exhaustion and the exhaustion of the world. And we do not understand all that we do. However, unlike Lydia, we do have some sense of what we are doing and should be held responsible for the ways we exhaust. Let us pay attention.
Resting - truly resting - calls for faith in God’s provision.
Working in the gig economy, which is supported in part through the paid segment of this Substack (thank you, subscribers!), means that for the most part my paternity leave was unpaid. I had saved money for that, but still felt the precarity. Being off in mid-August and September meant that I was missing a big part of the music festival season. I had to turn off Instagram at some point because I just kept having fear of missing out (Fomo) as I saw my colleagues playing all over the world. It was a tension. Lydia was here! My world was forever changed with joy unspeakable. But still, the show had to go on elsewhere, and people found subs for me.
My internal struggles during paternity leave were thus an excellent revealer of my own vulnerability and need for Notes of Rest. The message I preach to all of y’all is what I needed myself. Even as a freelancer, even as a musician, even (and especially) as a new father, rest was called for, and I had to believe God would provide.
I return now to the work of Notes of Rest with increased confidence that God will provide. Just this week, I am putting the finishing touches on my debut solo project of original music, called Candid EP, and just signed a literary agent deal for my forthcoming book on Notes of Rest. (More on both of these later.) God is good and his mercy endures forever, and I am trusting God to continue providing for me and my family in the ways that draw me deeper into faith. As I have said before, Notes of Rest is more than a session or catchphrase - it is a lifestyle, one that yields and lives by faith.
Rest invites community.
As we rested as a family during this month, people came to bring food through meal trains from our church and Carmen and my families holding us down. People I speak to a few times a year, or a few time a decade, reached out to care. I was blown away by the tokens of grace. We didn’t “earn” compassion. Every meal, card, gift card, overnight stay, and onesie was a gift, and we have tried to receive it as such. I admittedly felt guilty at times for such care. I can take care of Lydia. I am present to care for her and Carmen. I will step up to the plate. But there again, I was missing the point. People weren’t assessing my capacity to care. They were celebrating the new life and offering me a gift. I was humbled by what all I needed to receive. (I wonder if toxic masculinity made it harder for me to just simply receive care.)
1 John 1:10 puts it well: If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and [Jesus’] word is not in us. I approach my career as an artist-theologian with thankfulness that my public work in helping folk hear the rest for which they were created is directly connected to my private work in hearing it myself. I’d be a hypocrite to otherwise cut off this link. When anxiety arose during paternity leave about what the future held, I could look at my sweet Lydia and realize that I, like she, was in need of constant care from God.
For all of the parents on this thread, and for all who have been parented, I pray that this new chapter of my life in Notes of Rest can encourage you to humbly seek Notes in yours. God calls and God saves, and that saving brings good rest for our souls, minds, bodies, and for the rest of creation. It’s dope that something as miraculous and life-changing as Lydia’s arrival can teach me that, again.
Abundantly,
Julian
Julian Davis Reid
Julian Davis Reid is an artist-theologian who uses words and music to invite us into the restful lives we were created to live. He is a founding member of the jazz-electronic fusion group The JuJu Exchange and hosts contemplative retreats called Notes of Rest.
Julian has performed and spoken throughout the country and around the world, and he has released three studio albums, the latest being Rest Assured, a collection of hymns on solo piano. He earned his M.Div. at Candler School of Theology at Emory University and his B.A. in philosophy at Yale University. He and his wife Carmen live and worship in his hometown Chicago.
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 Meaning of Life: A Parable
Journeys are less often about the goal, and more frequently about the experiences it takes to complete them. Such are the spiritual journeys that we embark on, but they are more than they seem. They can reveal things we do not expect, and like a dream, hold a unique significance for each of us.
Photo by Clint McKoy on Unsplash
This is based on a dream I had. What do you think it means?
In a town far away, a young man approached an older man known to be wise. "Sir, I am told that you know the meaning of life. Will you share it with me?"
"Yes, my son," the older man said. "Come with me."
After a walk of many miles, they came to the shore of a large lake. The older man pointed to an island of rocks in the middle of the lake. "Do you see that island in the lake?" he asked the young man.
"Yes, sir, I do. Is that where I may find the meaning of life?" the young man said excitedly.
"We shall find out," the older man replied. "First, we must get there."
The older man reached down and scooped up a handful of wet sand from the lake shoreline. He threw it out into the lake toward the island, where it landed with a splash. He did this a second time, and a third.
The young man was perplexed. "Sir, what are you doing?" he asked.
"I am building a bridge of sand to the island," the older man replied. "Help me." The young man reached down and scooped up a handful of sand and threw it into the lake toward the island.
"Each scoopful of sand represents a word of wisdom," the older man explained. "We must walk to the island on a bridge of wisdom."
Twenty years later, enough sand from the shore had built up a bridge enabling the two men to walk to the island of rocks.
"Finally, now, is this island where I will find the meaning of life?" the younger man, now twenty years older, asked.
"We have another journey ahead of us, my son," the older man replied. "Do you see that mountain on the other side of the lake?"
"Yes, sir," the young man replied. "Is that where I may find the meaning of life?"
"We shall find out," the elder replied. "First, we must get there."
The older man reached down and picked up a rock from among the countless rocks on the island, and threw it in the water toward the mountain, and it landed with a splash. He did this a second time, and a third.
Again, the young man was perplexed. "Sir, what are you doing?" he asked.
"I am building a bridge of rock to the mountain," the old man replied. "Help me." The young man reached down and picked up a rock and threw it into the lake toward the mountain.
"Each rock represents an act of caring love," the older man explained. "We must walk to the mountain on a bridge of love."
Twenty years later, enough rocks from the island had built up a bridge enabling the two men to walk to the mountain and climb to its summit.
"Finally, now, is this mountain where I will find the meaning of life?" the younger man, now forty years older, asked.
Just then a ferocious storm arose. Heavy rains and fierce winds buffeted the lake, the island, and the mountain. The lake was filled with treacherous waves, dissolving the sand bridge they had built. Great winds blew the bridge of rocks into the waters. Forty years of work vanished in a matter of moments.
The younger man was heartbroken. "All that work we have done is gone!" he said, "and I have yet to find the meaning of life!"
"No, my son, you are well on your way to finding the meaning of life," the old man said calmly. "You have walked the way of wisdom, and you have walked the way of love. But you have another journey ahead of you."
"Where must I go now, sir?" the younger man asked.
"You must climb down this mountain and return to the town and wait there for a young person to approach you and ask you to share the meaning of life. And then you must guide them here just as I did you," the older man explained.
The older man smiled and added, "When you have shared this journey with another, then you will have found the meaning of life, as I have just found it myself now. Thank you, my son."
The two embraced, and then the younger man, his eyes brimming with tears and his heart full of wisdom and love, climbed down the mountain to return to the town.
Peter M. Wallace
Rev. Peter M. Wallace, an Episcopal priest, was for 22 years the executive producer and host of the “Day1” weekly radio program and podcast (Day1.org). He is the author or editor of 15 books, including most recently A Generous Beckoning: Accepting God’s Invitation to a More Fulfilling Life; Bread Enough for All: A Day1 Guide to Life; Heart and Soul: The Emotions of Jesus; and Comstock & Me: My Brief But Unforgettable Career with The West Virginia Hillbilly.
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.
"This Generation"
Trying to make sense of “this generation” can be fraught with misapprehension. Many things are different, yet many things remain the same. The Gospel of Matthew helps to reinvigorate our notions of modernity, and remind us of the place that children hold as descendants of faith and the new foundation for future discipleship.
Photo by Benigno Hoyuela on Unsplash
Inspired by the play-based curriculum of my children’s preschool, I used to turn my kitchen over to Desmond, Anna, and Ozzie, when they were barely toddling around and gurgling a few words at a time. I would get out all the pots and pans, every possible cooking utensil, and many large bowls of random ingredients: uncooked rice grains (to my mother’s chagrin), flour, baking soda, various shapes of dried pasta noodles, water, vinegar, food coloring. The shrieks of joy and frustration at the experiments we were concocting together punctuated the constant music of spoons clanging on bowls.
We would go at it: straining and combining, kneading and splashing, and if there was ever an image for the strange mixing of images and stories that often happens in so many of the stories of the Bible, (and especially the stories that Jesus tells us), this might be one possibility. I love the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel, and the chance to sit with his version of Christ’s life and ministry, a version that includes all the familiar stories ranging from the parables about the kingdom of heaven to the feeding of the multitudes.
Speaking of children, they actually play a striking role throughout most of the gospel of Matthew—they’re received and blessed by Jesus, they participate in miracles, they are recipients of healings. This is not surprising as Matthew’s focus is firmly rooted in one’s roots—the relationships between ancestors and descendants, and making explicit the line from Jesus to all the familiar characters beginning with Abraham to King David to less familiar names, then to “Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations,” (1:16-17). Matthew wants us thinking in terms of generations. Of the stories of ancestors. Of dreams of descendants. And all the beautiful ways we’re tied together.
There’s the moment in chapter 11, though, when he seems especially exasperated with “this generation.”
“But to what will I compare this generation?” (v. 16). He answers this himself with a parable about children who do not respond to the celebrating or to the wailing. Are the children who play and wail in the parable to symbolize the prophets of their tradition—Elijah, Moses? Or do they represent John the Baptist and Jesus? They were on opposite ends of the spectrum: John played the part of societal misfit, a throwback prophet whom many supposed was demon-possessed (v. 18). Jesus, on the other hand, associated himself with sinners and tax collectors, and was viewed “a glutton and a drunkard” (v. 19). John called for mourning and repentance in the face of judgment whereas Jesus proclaimed joy because of the presence of the kingdom. In both cases their messages encountered unbelief or indifference by “this generation.”
Having read this passage countless times over several years I always found myself nodding at the overall frustration that Jesus may have felt towards “this generation.” Why haven’t they figured it out?
The message of God’s kingdom was practically a bright, flashing neon sign with John the Baptist, and they had a front row view of the nearness of God’s kingdom enfleshed in Jesus: in all the teachings and miracles of healing and raising from the dead, of feedings and calming of storms and walking on water.
In other words, “this generation” in Matthew’s gospel seems easily swayed, capricious, even fickle.
At the same time, I can’t help but feel some empathy for them - the crowds, the people, the disciples… ”this generation.”
Chapter 11 is part of a narrative section following Jesus’ launching of the disciples out into the world – their commissioning to proclaim the good news: “The kingdom of heaven has come near;” and the work: to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Not only does “this generation” have this work, but there is the extra burden of the constant tension with the wider community; and not only the established religious community, but pressure from neighbors, relatives, colleagues and co-workers, and friends. There is judgment, rejection, persecution.
But this story isn’t just about the disciples, it was written to include Matthew’s community, (those reading the gospel at the time), that is, “this generation” includes Matthew’s people: those who’ve witnessed the destruction of the temple, the displacement of their people, and the emerging question of their own identity as God’s people in the midst of cultural upheaval, and governmental and political corruption. There was disease and poverty, and ongoing social inequities.
It feels familiar, doesn’t it? The world was heavy then, and it remains so today.
At the end of the prayer, Jesus offers an invitation. It is tantamount to turning from the narrative world to the writer’s world to the reader’s world, what we sometimes call “breaking the fourth wall.” Matthew intentionally includes future generations. That is, “this generation” is the church today, meaning all of us here. When Matthew has us thinking in terms of generations, it’s because the story is constantly extending out. The circle is constantly widening to include more and more of us.
“But to what will I compare this generation?”
I reflect often on this last year in which we’ve attempted to recover some semblance of pre-covid normalcy by returning to the speed and intensity of life before. Or maybe we tried not to because we did learn that our pre-covid lives were untenable – not for us, not for our planet. But we got swept up anyway into all the activities and work, the programs and commitments, and this on top of regular life with its new babies/grandbabies, illnesses, and travel—most of it good, wonderful and purposeful.
Suddenly, our calendars became fuller than ever. Maybe it’s just me. No doubt much has shifted not only in the last three years but even in just the last year. In hard ways. There are a lot of conversations now about “this generation,” and the impact of all that has happened - is happening in the world - on them. What can we do, or should we do with “this generation”?
It struck me that at least one thing has remained the same. All around us there are narratives and stories, voices and sources claiming answers: the formulas, the plans, apps and tools—proffering and asserting a “wisdom,” a certain way of operating in the world, of living, of being, of choosing. To be pushed and pulled in so many different directions – this too weighs on so many in “this generation.”
And so we have Jesus’ countercultural words at the end of the passage: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Before this invitation Jesus gives thanks to God: “You have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” What does God reveal to “infants,” to the most vulnerable, to the least likely, to the powerless among them? To “this generation”? :
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
We are invited to rest. And certainly this resonates in profound ways during this summer season. But the kind of rest offered here is, (typical to Jesus’ vision), a radical alternative. Rest as a response of love. Rest as an offering of care. Rest as a way of being in this world when everything says “do” and “go,” and “scroll” or “download” or “buy”?
‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”
This invitation to rest is radical because it is also an invitation to a particular kind of discipleship.
According to NT scholar Colin Yuckman: Despite all the warnings about rejection and suffering (10:16-22), Jesus speaks of a discipleship characterized by “rest,” “light” burdens, and an “easy” (or “good”) yoke.
But light burdens and easy yokes appear oxymoronic. They produce a tension in our understanding of Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus elsewhere reminds disciples that “the gate is narrow and the road is hard” (7:14). Less than a chapter ago in Matthew we hear a different tone: “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (10:38).
The command to “learn from me” in the Greek (mathete ap’ emou) is related to the word for “disciple” (mathetes). The invitation to discipleship, however, is more than cognitive learning, or overcoming a gap in knowledge; it is the adoption of a way of life. And this way of life is expressed in terms of doing and being something in relation to Jesus.
In other words: to learn from Jesus is to rest in the person of Jesus. To follow Jesus is to rest in the person of Jesus.
The promise of rest is not guaranteed vacation time, but a beautiful theological affirmation. Of who we are. Of who is with us and for us. And it has precedence. Yuckman goes on to explain: The language clearly recalls Moses’s own vocation (Exodus 33:12-17). To ease Moses’s anxiety about the uncertainty of the wilderness journey, God promises to accompany God’s people along the way: “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). God will fulfill the promise for this people whose existence has known little rest (first enslavement, then wandering, later exile and captivity).
Discipleship then, according to Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, is the ongoing return to the person that is the source of all we are and do in this world. It is as the prophet Zechariah says in the passage today: a return to the stronghold and to the promises of God’s restoration. It is the simplicity of the child-like dependence on God who sees us and all we carry, and loves us.
I think often of the young people in our midst, in our churches, who especially participated this past summer in the work of the church, (whether at church camp or on pilgrimage). How might we affirm all their journeys, their work, their experiences because they too need reminders that God’s invitation to rest is an invitation to discipleship? But they also show us a particular kind of wisdom as “this generation,” which is their adventurous response to these invitations, this summer, engaging their belovedness.
Perhaps this is why children are an important motif throughout the gospel. We read elsewhere that “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” To read about feeding the hungry is one thing; to give a cup of water to one of these little ones is quite another; but to receive that gift is a part of our faith.
This is an invitation to enact wisdom by redirecting our lives. Because the truth and wisdom of our faith is in the living. One discovers the wisdom of Jesus by following, (and yes, sometimes), doing, and also sometimes napping, (Google the Nap Bishop and the Nap Ministry). It’s also making space to dream and to imagine and to hope, and we do so by adopting his spirit and living his imperatives, that is, first to rest in him.
It is fitting that Matthew’s Gospel ends not with Jesus’ departure, but with the assurance of his ongoing presence: “I am with you, even to the end of the age” (28:20). We rest in Jesus, we respond in love so that through him we might be the flesh and blood, the hope and joy of his kingdom in this world.
Mihee Kim-Kort
Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort is a Presbyterian minister, agitator, speaker, writer, and slinger of hopeful stories about faith and church. Her writing and commentary can be found in the NY Times, TIME, BBC World Service, USA Today, Huffington Post, On Being, Christian Century, Sojourners, and Faith and Leadership. She is co-pastor with her spouse of First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, MD and a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at Indiana University.
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.
The Source and End of Unity and Belonging
When reading Paul’s letters, the exegetical and theological mistakes we might make are numerous and often tragic, as we all know. The list of insights is significant, of course, but so too are the distracting detours and the deadly interpretations.
Editor’s note: This sermon on Romans 12, preached by the Rev. Dr. Eric Barreto of Princeton Seminary at the beginning of the new academic year, is an invitation for all of us to live into and experience God’s call to community wherever we may be.
Making your way through the beginning of Romans, you will find a haunting story about the downfall of all humans and the divine intervention it took to deliver us all, everyone. The letter reaches a beautiful crescendo at the end of chapter 8 in a long litany of dangers that cannot separate us from the love of God. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God, and what a necessary word that is for me. ln chapter 9, Paul turns to a problem: what about Israel? What about God’s promises to a people? Here, again, Paul turns to a haunting story of human failure and divine persistence. Paul closes in chapter 11 with worship and wonder when pondering God’s extraordinary goodness, God’s unbroken promises, God’s inexhaustible grace.
And if you’ve made it this far in Romans, you are exhausted! So many ideas, so many twists and turns, so many questions to pose, but at least the letter is almost done, or so we think!
Because we are not nearly done. Not even close. We still have five more chapters to go! And here we run into a significant problem in coming to understand the heartbeat of Paul’s letters into the confession about God’s unrelenting righteousness that Paul places before us.
Of course, when reading Paul’s letters, the exegetical and theological mistakes we might make are numerous and often tragic, as we all know. The list of insights is significant, of course, but so too are the distracting detours and the deadly interpretations. I want to draw our attention to one such potential mistake today as we begin this fall semester, as some of you join the community for the first time and as some of us return to the rhythms of the academic year once again.
Here’s the mistake:
When we arrive at these closing chapters of Romans exhausted and full of questions, we might miss the centrality of community. We might not notice the importance of belonging. We might neglect the possibilities of human relationships in a world dominated by empire’s drive to make us enemies, contestants over scare resources, neighbors so suspicious of one another that we build ever greater walls between us. You see, these closing chapters of practical advice, hard-won hopes, and personal greetings are not mere appendices for Paul’s letter but critical to the larger arguments he is weaving about God and, yes, about us.
I would be deeply mistaken if I were to listen to the litany of wisdom Paul enumerates in chapter 12 and hear only digestible bits of advice best captured in a greeting card, a cross-stitch, or a bumper sticker. These are not mere quotes but the hard-won conclusions of a pastor and missionary who has risked so much. I would be deeply mistaken if I assume that these closing chapters are the afterthoughts of Pauline theology, the specific stuff I can jettison for the universal, or merely the practical implications of much more important theological truths.
Instead, for Paul, how we gather is a reflection of whom we confess God to be, the ways we find and create belonging are practices of faithfulness more than just politeness, how we treat one another carries the weight of God’s presence in our midst because how we care for one another is a matter of life and death, for in community we experience a taste of the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
I wonder what it would mean for us all to take much more seriously the value of not just the products of our intellectual efforts but also the everyday care and attention we might share with one another, whether in a dorm or a park, whether in a classroom or at the cafeteria, whether at the quad or here in this chapel. What if we imagined that how we relate one to another was not just a way to be nice or polite but a reflection of our deepest commitments to God and one another? And what if we believe, truly believe, that the “we” I’m talking about includes not just students and faculty but also the staff and groundskeepers, those who tend to and clean the buildings, our neighbors here in Mercer Hill and the Witherspoon neighborhood alike?
After all, we rejoice and weep because of the ways God’s joy courses through our communities and the ways God’s grief has drawn near to us even when, at times, all has seemed lost. Living in harmony here should not be a form of control; harmony should reflect the grace that makes us kin one to another. Living fully into community reflects God’s intentional attention to the oppressed and Jesus’ own practices of eating with the sinner. We feed our hungry enemies and give water to our rivals because of God’s bounteous feeding of all creation. We overcome evil with good as we reflect God’s own intervention into a fallen world with love, not violence; sacrifice, not a quest for earthly power; hope and grace, not resentment and vindictiveness.
That is, in every case, in every single case, the source and end of these forms of unity and belonging, these founts of freedom are not our achievements but God’s free gift to us.
So, my friends, remember that each person you meet on this campus is a beloved child of God. And know this, (not in the way you know 2+2 is 4 or the forms of the aorist or the dates of the creeds), but in the way you have tasted and known the joy of God’s presence, in the way you feel when you first meet a friend it feels you have always known. Expect to see God when you exegete and when you eat, when you read and when you pray with a neighbor, when you are writing the best essay you have ever produced and when you comfort a classmate in grief.
After all, the God who incarnated in Christ, who dwelled and dwells among us, who suffered and died, who lives in victory over death, that God is always near. That God is always here with us. That God is always stirring in this community. That God is always inviting us home, inviting us to belong, inviting us to make room for all these strangers who have now become our friends.
Rev. Eric Bareto
Eric D. Barreto is the Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary. He holds a BA in religion from Oklahoma Baptist University, an MDiv from Princeton Seminary, and a PhD in New Testament from Emory University. Prior to coming to Princeton Seminary, he served as associate professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, and also taught as an adjunct professor at the Candler School of Theology and McAfee School of Theology.
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.
Leadership Lab: Jessica Liles
A one on one interview with Jessica Liles exploring the challenges of planting a church and building relationships between the congregation and the community in an ever-changing world.
Over the past year the Church Anew team has been working to connect and build resources for church leaders to see what their colleagues are doing around the country. With that the Leadership Lab was born. We have interviewed several church leaders doing innovative and amazing things, and we want to share their knowledge and wisdom with the world.
Church Anew recently sat down with Jessica Liles, Deacon and Director of Faith Formation and Education at the Neighborhood Church in Bentonville, AR. She has also been recently named as the Director of Youth Ministry for the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and Director of the 2027 Youth Gathering.
Church Anew: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Jessica Liles: I live here in Bentonville, Arkansas. I'm a deacon in the ELCA, married to a pastor. We started the Neighborhood Church about 11 years ago. We planted this church straight out of seminary. We have two kiddos. I particularly love traveling a lot, and national parks are our thing. Joe and I get to do a lot of other fun work for the larger church. We've been part of Mission Developer Training and helping lead the church planning component. We've been doing that since 2018. I've been connected to the Youth Gathering since 2009 and working in the Interactive Learning Center. I've been recently working on a special project with a network called Formation Co-Op, to think about reimagining youth ministry and what that would look like.
CA: Can you talk a little bit more about your ministry context?
JL: Yeah, absolutely. Joe and I planted the Neighborhood Church. He was called here in 2011. We started in an elementary school in a Cafetorium [cafeteria/auditorium], and we rented the space for three hours. We had three hours to get in, set up, have service, and then tear down, but one of the neat elements that we kind of wrapped into worship was fellowship in the middle of service, kind of also holding to the larger framework of worship that gathers the word at meal sending.
And we took the elements of that, and the Lutheran hymnals, and revamped it to feel kind of non-denominational. When folks walk into worship at the Neighborhood Church, they're like, wow, this is non-denominational. And you have these great songs that you hear on the radio with a great prayer and a great message. After the message, we roll right into traditional worship including the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer and communion. Lots of folks find this is engaging when we have this mix of hitting their spiritual needs in a variety of different ways.
CA: What has been a bright spot in your ministry, whether it be through the Neighborhood Church or through your work with Churchwide, statewide, or synod-wide kind of work?
JL: Being a deacon is this interesting space where you act as the bridge between the church and the world, or the larger context of the church. I think one of the brightest by spots of my ministry is living in that space.
I think another one of the bright spots is the Youth Gathering. You just plop in a city, see 30,000 youth participate and embrace the unknown, embrace the city, embrace everything. I really love interactive learning. It’s amazing to watch young people walk into that space and be able to try to tangibly interact with their faith. They get to see other places in this world where they might connect that maybe they don't see in their home congregations, or they learn about a new ministry and make connections with other folks in other parts of the country, or the world.
CA: What have been some of the challenges in your journey of building the Neighborhood?
JL: Building a church from ground up is some of the hardest work you will ever do. I think part of that challenge is trying to figure out and navigate the space in which you land. This is where you're going to plant a church. You’ve got to get connected to the right ministries, other churches, and create a support space in and around everything you do.
I think for mission starts, one of the bigger challenges often is the movement of people in and out of the building process. The first couple years you have these really impactful, involved, and crucial leaders that helped you start this thing. And then you realize that they must go on to their next thing. That's a really unexpected challenge that I don't think Joe and I were prepared for at the beginning. Now we realize that every ebb and flow of folks within the ministry has come and gone at the right time. The spirit is just moving in this ebb and flow of people because of the gifts they bring are what we needed at that moment to move us to the next spot.
As you grow, just sustaining is a big challenge for mission starts. Part of it is that movement from the pastoral congregation to the programmatic congregation because when you're the person that has done everything and then you start to move into the next phase things get tricky. There are other people that are doing the work and allowing the congregation to see them as knowledgeable and as important as the pastor and the other leaders. Navigating some of those components gets to be a challenge, not just in a mission start, but in a lot of churches that are growing.
CA: So, throughout all of this, where have you found support and encouragement?
JL: I find that camaraderie with other mission planters, people that are in a similar space as you, creates a really supportive and encouraging space. Pastor Anna Johnson at Churchwide has been one of our biggest supporters, encouragers, and cheerleaders. Reuben Durand has also been another one that has just been a phenomenal support for us, as well as some of the other staff at Congregational Vitality. But really getting in and getting connected to other folks living it really has been super life-giving for us. It feels like you're not the only one living these things. They understand the bigger picture of what's happening and are willing to give you compassion, and support, and encouragement. That's been huge to have folks that just have your back and understand the hard work of starting a thing from scratch.
CA: What spurred you and your husband to start the Neighborhood Church? What hole in the community were you trying to fill when you originally decided to create a church plant?
JL: It goes back to our calling together in seminary. I came from a super small town in the northeast corner of North Dakota where our pastor was shared with two congregations. It was a two-point parish. Joe came from Phoenix and Las Vegas where his dad was a pastor of large, massive churches. We kept trying to figure out how we would do ministry together when we came from such different places. For us, it ended up being a great space for us to think about how to merge our experiences.
When we got in the space of starting a church, we needed to just sit and listen for a while. There’re some really important conversations you need to have with city planning, with school districts, school boards, a variety of the other nonprofits in the area, and other churches in the area to figure things out: Where are the gaps? What do we need here? And I think what we intended to bring to Arkansas was this idea of a church for young families, partly because we were in that space and stage of our life of having young children. We embraced that idea of ministering and focusing on young families. Just this idea of providing something new and something different in the lens of the Lutheran world.
When we got to Arkansas, there were all these churches that didn't have any particular denomination in their name. That was a component that we both thought was super important. We don't have Lutheran in our name, and that was intentional because we wanted folks to not be afraid to walk in our doors if they didn't understand what Lutheran meant.
CA: What makes Neighborhood Church so approachable?
JL: Yeah, you walk in and everyone's going to say hello to you. It’s that sense of hospitality and welcome that is so important to us. When you start a church, you think all about what the culture of the church is going to be? What are we going to do? Our folks have realized that at one point they were a visitor, and someone walked up to them, and said hello, and had a fantastic conversation with them that made them feel welcome. Then they feel empowered to go and do that for the next person. Anyone can walk in and be welcomed.
Also, we’re super focused on kids in regard to our worship. We greet the kids and try and engage with them. Then we talk to the parents. If you're focusing on young adults, you have to engage in conversations with young adults, not with their parents. That's been a big part of us really trying to be a welcoming, approachable congregation.
CA: Many parents struggle to get their kids interested in to church. How can adults foster a love of faith and community in their kids?
JL: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's so foundational to faith going beyond the childhood years into the teen years, into the college years.
Our catchphrase is this: parents don't bring kids to church; kids bring parents to church. If you think about that it means that you are engaging, and you're tailoring the experience to children. On Sunday morning when mom and dad are tired, and the kids wake up excited for church, mom and dad will go to church because the kids want to go to church. Think about walking into the space, from the parking lot all the way in. What elements screen children? What elements engage children?
We have a super engaging children's ministry. Again, a lot of this has changed because of COVID, but I think what was so successful for us was that in our form of worship, if you will, families start with worship together. We do this two or three song opener where families are together worshiping. Joe comes up and does a welcome. He invites kids forward for a quick sermon. He provides a super engaging children's message, and he does a fantastic job getting the kids excited. He engages the kids and asks them to bring their parents up. So, if we're doing a pushup contest, Joe's not going to ask the kids to do the pushup contest. He's going to ask the kids to go grab their parents, and their parents are going to have a pushup contest engaging the family in worship. We also create opportunities to keep children engaged in the traditional aspects of worship.
Some people love it and stay forever, and some people are mortified and will never come back, but I think being comfortable in that is an important piece. We're not trying to keep all the sheep; we're trying to feed the flock. If they are not being fed here at the Neighborhood, we know all the other pastors in the area, so we can help find the place where you're going to worship and be connected the most.
I think another successful thing that we've done from the very beginning is expanding church use. Walking into church is a super scary thing for a lot of people, so we built the church as space to be used for more than just a Sunday morning service.
We do popcorn theologies on Friday nights. We would play whatever popular Disney or Pixar movie was happening at the time. We would have food and they would watch the movie as a family. And then the only thing we did at the end of the movie was ask the question, “where did you see God in this movie?” And we wouldn't let the parents’ answer. We wanted the kids to answer, and then we circle up and we pray and that's it. It was easier for families to invite friends to something like that rather than on a Sunday morning. It was an easy stepping point for an experience of the church without it being a worship service.
We had an experience before we planted the church. Like I said, I think I was pregnant with Landon. Kaleigh was probably year and a half, almost two maybe. And we were sitting in a church in the area, a traditional Lutheran church, and she's a year and a half. She does not sit still. She won't go to the nursery. So, she's literally crawling up and down the pews, and then a lady turned around and shushed us, and I thought Joe was going to lose his ever-loving mind. Then we walked out of the room, he's like, we will never ever have that happen to the Neighborhood. That is a no-go for me. Kids are a huge part of our life. So yeah, it's playful.
CA: The Neighborhood has really innovated in using the internet and social media. Especially since the pandemic, when everything was shut down.
JL: Yeah. Joe does a great job being aware of what's happening next. We were streaming when COVID hit in March. Joe knew how important it was to be there and to be streaming from that very first Sunday. It was supposed to be our largest Stewardship Sunday of the Neighborhood's history. And it was that Sunday we chose to go completely digital.
We realized how hard it was to pivot for a lot of other congregations. By that May, we had reached out to, I think, all 65 synods at that point offering to teach them how to use streaming tech. I think we had between 100-150 churches join in on that. That's where a big catalyst for our outreach towards that ministry started. We met Matt Short, who's at Milwaukee Synod, and he got us connected to a grant with the Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Synod churches in Milwaukee.
We did a tech conference for them. We did three lead-up events, and then a big one-day conference on Digital Reformation, that’s what we called it. And then helped install tech into probably 15 different churches in Milwaukee. We’ve continued to install tech, and cameras, and switchboards, and all the things that you need to stream. So not only was it important for us to be there, but it was also important for us to help others to get to that point because the larger Church understands now too. Your reach is now farther beyond your town or even your county. You have people watching from all over the country, from all over the world.
It is so important to continue this ministry in the digital sense, whether it be streaming, or social media, or little video clips on YouTube, whatever it is.
CA: As we wrap up, what words of encouragement and or challenge would you share with other leaders in your faith community or in another city?
JL: What we've taken as the vision of the Neighborhood is grounded in Philippians 3:12-14, and it is that we strive to change church and create relationships. If those are two foundational principles that church leaders or churches can live by, it gives them permission to do a lot of things that I think folks might be nervous about. It empowers you. Creating relationships foundationally with God is so important. And like I said, the foundation of all of that is so that you can go out to the community and build relationships there, and then build relationships within the congregation. That changing church isn't scary when you're doing it, when you've created relationships on a great foundation. Change is hard. And we went through a lot of change in 2020 and beyond.
My encouragement would be to continue to embrace change and to try something different and to think and move outside the box. Joe and I did the keynote speech at the North Texas North Louisiana Synod Assembly this spring, and we like to do this paperclip activity. We call it “clip art”. So, we all know that the paperclip has one use, but we want you to tell us as many uses you can have for the paperclip. Write 'em all down. Now apply that process to the church: What are the uses of the church? How is your church building being used? How is your ministry being used? Then we give you a pile of paperclips, and you to build something out of paperclips that's functional, or art, or whatever.
Church leaders should do the same thing for ministries. It’s okay to stop doing something. It's okay to do something completely different. Try something for six weeks. If it doesn't work, try to fix it and move on, or scrap it. Always being willing to change, to move, and embrace the culture and the world around you.
Special thanks to Elizabeth Schoen, one of our Church Anew interns over the summer, for her work conducting many of the Leadership Lab interviews and getting the series launched!
Jessica Liles
Jessica Liles has served in many different roles; children's ministry, youth director, admin, and overall master organizer of all things church. Ordained as a Deacon in 2021, she is the extension from the church out into the community! She currently serves as the Faith Formation and Education Director guiding people to understand how to live out their relationship with Jesus!
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.
One Pastor's Side Hustle: Subscription Boxes for Women in Ministry
An interview with ConseCrate subscription box founder Dr. Rev. Ruth Hetland.
Photo by Dmitry Mashkin on Unsplash
Our Church Anew blog editor, Pastor Mary Brown, recently sat down with The Rev. Dr. Ruth Hetland to talk about a unique side hustle she engages in called ConseCrate Subscription Box.
Church Anew: How long have you been a parish pastor?
Ruth Hetland: I was ordained in 1999 and I served 4 full-time calls in churches. Now I am doing part-time interim work in addition to my calling as business owner of ConseCrate Subscription Box, LLC.
CA: What led you to consider pursuing a second vocation?
RH: I love being a pastor but always felt very restless and liked doing new things. I had many different side projects over the years and so I was a big fan of a podcast called Side Hustle School. The ideas were so creative! One in particular was someone who started a subscription box and they talked about how important it is to find a group of people that are underserved. In thinking about a good market for a subscription box, it occurred to me that women in ministry didn’t always have many resources just for them. I thought it could be a really fun idea to start a subscription box for women in ministry. I posed the idea with some clergy friends and there was a great response. I found some other podcasts that focused on subscription boxes and related topics, such as how to find boxes, source items and set up an LLC. I followed all of the steps and gave it a try. My first ConseCrate box was for Advent in 2020. I started with 170 subscribers and had fast growth right from the start.
CA: What is your subscription base now and how have you grown it?
RH: Today I have 500 subscribers a month from all around the country and throughout the world. Most have found me through social media and other ministers sharing about ConseCrate on social media. We originally packed the boxes at our home, but now we use a fulfillment center.
CA: What types of items do you include in a ConseCrate box?
RH: We have a monthly subscription box and also special one-time boxes for ordinations and installations, etc.. Typically there are five to six items each month, including something useful, something humorous, something inspiring and always a surprise.
I also do custom boxes for special events, such as synod assemblies, conferences, and retreats.
CA: How do you continue to source such a wide variety of creative items?
RH: I love to include items that are created by ministers who have their own side businesses. We’ve had roasted coffee from Oregon and honey from a beekeeper pastor in Kansas. We have included books from several ministers who are authors. After three years of doing this, the list is very long of items we have included from ministers who make things: earrings, mug rugs, lip balm, soap, cards, stickers, cookies, finger labyrinths, and prayer strands. Ministers are very creative people and it is fun to share all the cool things they are making!
CA: How have you grown the concept beyond the boxes?
RH: We recently started a book group that meets virtually for the discussion. Authors of the books join us, too. We are also offering a travel experience - it is called ConseCrate: Out of the Box - for women in ministry. In January of 2024 we are going to Belize for our first journey. We still have a couple of spots open! We are doing this along with another pastor-owned business, Sunlight Tours led by Pastor Sarah Raymond at sunlighttours.org. There will be good food, adventure, rest, warm weather, yoga, and renewal along with women from many different denominations and from all around North America!
CA: What is your hope for the future?
RH: Most of ConseCrate’s subscribers are ministers who buy ConseCrate for themselves. One of my goals that I’d love to see is more congregations buying boxes for their ministers as a fun monthly surprise or clergy appreciation gift. It is a simple way to share a bit of joy with a minister and to support the creative work of so many other people who make the fun and useful items that go in each box. Find out more or subscribe for your minister at consecrate.cratejoy.com.
Rev. Dr. Ruth Hetland
The Reverend Dr. Ruth E. Hetland is an interim pastor and founder of ConseCrate Subscription Box, LLC. She is a happy cat lady and mother of sons. She lives in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota where she drinks a lot of coffee, practices yoga, and writes morning pages every day.
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.
Now and Forever
A new balance is being struck in modern weddings to incorporate religion, pre-marital counseling, and non-traditional officiants. This balance offers trust, communication, and sincerity in new meaningful ways for younger generations whose religious practices and expectations have changed.
Photo by Sandy Milar on Unsplash
Millennials have changed the way people think about weddings. Social media has replaced bridal magazines to influence attire, venue, and decorations. Millennials differ significantly from their parents and grandparents about where they married and who performed the ceremony. According to americansurveycenter.org, over the last ten years, only 30% of weddings were in a place of worship with a religious official, compared to 50% (parents' generation) and 72 % (grandparents' generation). With that rate of decline, will God even get a wedding invitation from the next generation?
Marty McGuire and Katy Rabenberg met in 4th grade in a small rural town in southern Minnesota. By high school they started dating and, after nine years, became engaged. Like many people in their mid-20s, Marty and Katy attended dozens of weddings of their friends and quickly learned what they didn’t want for their own. Marty explains, “We’ve been to weddings where there didn’t seem to be a connection between the priest or pastor and the couple. It was very impersonal.”
What made it more complex was the couple’s religious backgrounds. Marty grew up attending church, but as an adult, does not feel connected to God through his childhood church or its doctrine. He feels more in tune with God when he’s in nature, experiencing God’s creation. Katy had a positive relationship with her church in her early years but didn’t want to get married in her hometown church.
Six months into their engagement, Marty and Katie knew God would be a priority in whatever type of wedding they had. However, they preferred a personalized wedding ceremony without the constraints of the four walls of a church. But first, they had to tell their parents. “Marty and I always knew we didn’t want to get married in a church by someone who didn’t know us. So, we met with our parents and gave them our reasons,” Katy explains. The couple chose an outdoor ceremony and asked longtime family friend, Darcey Schoenebeck, to perform it.
Darcey has an extremely close friendship with Marty’s mom, Marina. She’s known Marty since he was a toddler, and she met Katy when she and Marty started dating in high school. Darcey and her husband, Jay, have spent nearly every weekend with Marty’s parents for almost 25 years. When Marty and Katy approached Darcey about marrying them, she said yes. Then, she got to work.
“I felt called to understand my role as officiant and make sure that the ceremony met the couple's wishes and the dreams and wishes of their parents. It’s a big day for everyone involved!” Darcey explains. Her first phone call was to Pastor Ben Hilding of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New Prague, MN. He informed her of the specific legal requirements for performing marriages. Darcey quickly learned the legal certification process to perform marriage was free and took less than 20 minutes online. “I was expecting to find a mini-seminary course or something more substantial. Pastor Ben assured me that becoming ordained online through Universal Life Church was all that was necessary, and it was completely legal,” Darcey says with a laugh.
After discussing the surprisingly simple ordination process, Pastor Ben Hilding couldn't help but bemoan one of his frustrations with the current state of weddings. Hilding says, "I told Darcey I was so glad that Marty and Katy asked her to officiate their wedding. But I also explained why I'm concerned about the trend of ‘asking a friend’ to officiate a wedding. Too often, there is a failure to complete premarital counseling. For me, that's the most important part. Preparing. Not for a wedding, but for a marriage."
With the conversation with Pastor Ben fresh in her mind, Darcey agreed to officiate Marty and Katy's wedding with one stipulation. They must complete premarital counseling. She encouraged them to meet with a licensed counselor, a pastor, a 3rd party, or someone they trusted. Marty and Katy looked at Darcey and asked, "how about you?"
Becoming a pre-marriage counselor was a completely different experience from her online ordination. Darcey spent hundreds of dollars on the training and found twenty hours in her busy schedule to become a trained facilitator through the Prepare/Enrich premarital assessment. “Jay and I participated in another couple's premarital counseling at the request of Pastor Ben, and I saw through that experience the importance of communication. No matter how far into the relationship, there is always room to improve and grow together. That certainly influenced my decision to get certified - I wanted to do it right, as best I could,” Darcey explains.
Next, Darcey met with Marty, Katy, and all of their parents for two hours to discuss wedding expectations, how God would be present, and the ceremony. Darcey reflects, “It gave everyone peace of mind that faith would be represented and well represented.” Marty adds, “My mom was very appreciative during the initial meeting and happy that her opinion mattered. We were very mindful of how prayer would weave into the ceremony.”
She met with Marty and Katy four times, and each session included homework. “I learned so much going through pre-marital counseling. I was surprised because we were together [for nine years] before getting married. I kept thinking, ‘how come we’ve never talked about this before?’” Katy explains. Marty continues, “It was easy to be vulnerable with Darcey because of our close relationship with her.”
Pastor Ben knew that Darcey would do an incredible job. "Darcey does not cut corners and gives her all in everything she does. She goes beyond that for the people she loves. To be honest, with the accrued training and her relationship with the couple, Darcey provided a better premarital experience than I ever could. It makes me second-guess my role as a pastor. Is it my job to always be the ‘holy figure’? Or is it my job to equip others who are already holy figures - to provide the necessary tools to do their called ministry to the best of their ability?"
Their wedding day arrived with perfect fall weather for an outdoor ceremony. Katy remembers, “I was so nervous walking down the aisle. I focused on Darcey, and seeing her standing next to my best friend helped calm me down.” Marty adds with emotion, “the entire ceremony was an awesome heart moment. Absolutely beautiful. Darcey had everyone laughing and crying at the same time. People commented afterward how meaningful the ceremony was.”
Darcey agrees with the happily married couple. “Marrying these two people - that I have known for almost their entire lives and whose parents are our dearest friends - was the honor of my life after marrying my husband and becoming a mom. Through this experience, I saw the importance and value of community when raising a child, seeing that child into adulthood, and instilling that you and God are there for them. Now and forever.”
Karen Taylor
Communication Manager, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, New Prague, MN
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.
Now Open Between Easter and Christmas
A congregation in the town next to ours has a new main outdoor sign. Recently the sign said, “Now open between Easter and Christmas.” I wondered what they meant by the phrase and why they used it?
A congregation in the town next to ours has a new main outdoor sign. Recently the sign said, “Now open between Easter and Christmas.” I wondered what they meant by the phrase and why they used it?
Yes, I know it is a common advertising phrase, “Beth’s bookstore now open in Bethlehem,” for example, but I wonder why a congregation would use these words as words of welcome.
They do not sound welcoming to me.
To whom are these words addressed? To those who do not attend worship except on Easter and Christmas so they might feel guilty and come to worship? To those who do attend worship regularly so they might feel smug because they do attend worship between Easter and Christmas?
If not these words, what information should be on a congregation’s main outdoor sign?
Before answering that question, it is important to understand to whom a congregation’s signage is addressed. Not active congregation members – they already know the information on most signage. Instead, a congregation’s main outdoor sign should address those who are not in worship, who may have never been in worship at your congregation or any congregation for that matter.
The information on that sign should be simple – as simple as your worship time: “Worship on Sunday, 9 am.” This basic information should be in the largest type size that fits on your sign.
Try this – drive by your congregation at the speed limit and ask your passenger to read your sign. If the speed limit is 35 miles per hour (and we know most folks drive above the speed limit at least a little), then the sign type size should be 6 inches high or larger.
Keep your signage basic – no inside language or churchy terms, such as “Praise time, 9 am” or “Nave, 10 am.”
If you have another line space available, a simple “Welcome” or “Everyone is welcome” is nice. That is assuming, of course, that everyone is indeed welcome!
What else should go on this sign? The worship time in large print is enough, but if you have more space, you could add the education opportunities for children and adults.
If you have more space, you could add the congregation’s website but only if it isn’t too long. “Trinity.org” works, but anything with initials instead of words or longer than 15 or 20 characters will be just too hard to remember (as you drive by at 35 miles per hour).
No need to list the pastor’s name on your sign – that’s not what people driving or walking by are looking for. No need for catchy phrases, either, especially ones that could be read as a put down. It is all about keeping it simple, straight forward and most importantly, welcoming.
A congregation’s signage can be an effective way to invite someone into your church building for the very first time if done well. Talk it over with your church leadership.
And now, I need to go find that new bookstore in Bethlehem, (Pennsylvania).
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer is Pastor-in-Residence for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. He has taught basics of church communication across the ELCA including seminars at all ELCA seminaries and at seminaries in Madagascar and South Africa.
Rev. Eric Shafer
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer was Senior Pastor at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Santa Monica from April, 2014 until his retirement in July, 2022. He is currently the “Pastor in Residence” for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
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.
Leadership Lab: Wesley Morris
Our first interview in the Leadership Lab series with Rev. Wesley Morris.
Over the past year the Church Anew team has been working to connect and build resources for church leaders to see what their colleagues are doing around the country. With that the Leadership Lab was born. We have interviewed several church leaders doing innovative and amazing things, and we want to share their knowledge and wisdom with the world.
Our first interview is with Wesley Morris, who was involved in our Enfleshing Witness project. He has roots in community organizing, and is currently serving as pastor of Faith Community Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. We were honored to have a Zoom conversation chock full of wisdom we wanted to share.
Church Anew: What is your ministry context?
Wesley Morris: I am the senior pastor of Faith Community Church. The second pastor of this church, the founding pastor, and pastoral team emeritus are my elders, my mentors. I still see them, and they are members of the church. I came to this work of pastor through being a youth pastor and a child of the church, and also being someone who effectively became disenchanted with the church for a while. Then I had a journey of self reclamation, raising my awareness of who I was, and who I was becoming. And so a lot of that was exploration into religious engagement, and understanding that when I came back to the church it was really under the salvific scripture of Matthew 11:28. “Come on to me, all you who are heavy laden and burdened down with care. and I will give you rest”. So that is part of my scope of ministry. There are folks who live in the continual need of rest. These are some inner needs that I think about when I think about our ministry. Our ministry is geared towards children, number one. Creating and having a sustainable viable environment where children get to be children. and don’t have to rush into adulthood.
Another aspect of our church is geared towards a justice ministry, a ministry of fairness, a ministry of looking that is not abstract, but practical. Attending our city council meetings, and protests [if need be], and calling in when you have the opportunity to speak out, and proclaiming liberty for those who have been bruised. That's the Lukean [Luke is often viewed as the social justice gospel] approach to Jesus’s ministry that we take in here. It's generational in nature, but also by circumstance because we are an older congregation. The Beloved Community Center is in our church, as well. It is a nonprofit that we have a very close relationship with. Sometimes people even say, Beloved Community Church, even though we are the Faith Community Church. Beloved is anchored in the truth and reconciliation work of the city of Greensboro and so is our ministry.
CA: What have been some challenges in your ministry area?
WM: The model of churches and of being a senior pastor. I was in seminary learning, and I thought a lot about Christian education and how I would deploy what I learned. But then it came to a point where I realized there are 52 weeks in the year, and that's 52 sermons. If you're one pastor, and then there's Bible study, and there's pastoral care. A lot of my peers, myself included, have to be bi-vocational.
There's a strong cultural impact of emerging as a church anew within a church that has a very strong, a very powerful ministry and history, and so I think I would name the challenges as the stretching, the tugs, and the pulls that happen in the pastoral position. The setup of a church, and the many roles of a pastor, are struggles that I still deal with.
CA: When did the Matthew passage really become part of your call and your ministry?
WM: Before I joined the Church in 2008, I had left and gone with other spiritual and faith communities. Those spaces I still highly honor, and they became integrated into what I do now. I was physically worn out. Looking at my life, I was zipping around traveling, organizing. I was intimate with burn out. That was an invitation from Jesus to let me speak with you and sit with you and talk with you. I often relate to the the man who was possessed. He was chained outside the the city limits by the tombs. The conclusion of that story was that Jesus related to him and just sat with him, and then they said he came to himself. Basically just sitting down and talking and acknowledging who he was, he was released from some of that burden.
I found myself needing rest for my body and rest for my soul, because while I was greatly impacted positively by my time with other spiritual traditions, it felt like I was kind of on a road trip. It didn't feel home. Coming back to that Scripture was where I found a renewed sense of self, and that helped me to start seeing my mentors living the Word of God differently. They told me, “We're gonna be rewiring how you understand some of the things that you hear and the things that you see, and that rewiring really was this re-description of love. In practice, what does love do in a housing struggle? What does love do in the middle of a tobacco field? When there are folks coming together? When people’s human rights are being abused? What does love do in the middle of street conflict?” Those are literal examples that I actually have by way of being with this community.
CA: Can you share some of the wisdom that you learned from your time at Union Theological Seminary either from mentors or your own spiritual journey?
WM: I went wanting to step back and to be more invested in the reading and research aspects of seminary, which was totally blown up in my first month because of the killings all throughout the country. My first month was 2014, and Michael Brown was killed by the police in Ferguson, and then Eric Garner was killed in New York, and that's where our school is. My first semester, they interrupted our studies, and we went out to Ferguson, Missouri by bus to bear witness and to answer a national call to join them. During this time, I'm studying with Dr. James Cone as my advisor, and he's teaching black liberation theology in this context. It was the election of Donald Trump, and the embattling of Republicans and Democrats, and all that. So my seminary experience was bookended by a city in total uproar, and a nation and a country pretty much full of conflict. Sandwiched there, I'm reading Bonhoeffer and the traditional seminary text and getting real-time application. That's one thing I took from this super-concentrated experience. It was a super experience, for folks who care about social justice for sure, but I learned there are so many nuanced ways of approaching liberation. That to be able to learn what liberation looks like in this part of the country, and to listen to classmates who came for that call was eye-opening. What I realized is that it's not the place. It's actually the people that venture there, and the spirit that they believe is there.
CA: How has your other vocation of community organizing informed your ministry?
WM: There's a phrase that I got when I was younger, that everything is one thing. When I'm doing a diversity of projects, or wrangling a multiplicity of ideas, I can settle back and say this is about community, or this is about building relationships. That's the one thing. It's about building relationships, quality relationships. So when I was a community organizer, it was on the front of homeless hospitality. It was on the front of economic justice and housing justice and peace treaty work, but in all of that we're just building community. I'm not shrugging it off, but it helped me to dial back, to focus.
CA: What advice do you have for pastors and ministers who are trying to broaden their outreach with congregations who may be more insular?
WM: I love this question because I always say the same thing. Go to the library, and look at the bulletin board, and see what people have questions about. Ask librarians what's their sense of the community? What's their sense of what's been going on or what's happening? The other thing is, I'm a child of working in community centers. The person that runs the community center, that's another person. Go talk to them. If you can just spend 30 min with them and talk about what's their sense of the neighborhood? Also watch the local news or the public access channel. Those are the things that have helped me when I go to other places and want to be respectful. The last two are things are something I just do. I don't necessarily recommend them. Whatever you like to do, whatever you want to do, it's happening somewhere in the place, and it's probably not too far away from you. And so when we're in meetings we can talk about these things and understand where everyone is coming from.
CA: What words of encouragement or challenge do you want to share with other church leaders?
WM: Do the best you can. Others have experienced what you're experiencing right now, so you’re not alone. Try to read. I read Howard Thurman and Renita Wes. They were writers out of the pastoral tradition that I think squeeze a lot out of it. It's like, you know, you squeeze an orange and a lot of juice comes out, but if you squeeze a little bit more, a little bit more will come out. I think they do the extra squeezing on the pastoral experience because I'm trying to be as gentle and nice as I can on understanding that part. Also, remember that it's okay to stop, and not do something. That it's okay to change your course. All those things, I think, should be said much, much more. Failure isn't what you think it is, you know. Don't think of yourself as a failure.
Special thanks to Elizabeth Schoen, one of our Church Anew interns over the summer, for her work to get the Leadership Lab series launched!
Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris is the Senior Pastor of Faith Community Church in Greensboro, NC. Also, he is a dedicated coach, facilitator, community organizer, chaplain and internationally recognized leader who uses his dynamic speaking talents to inspire all who have the opportunity to hear his voice.
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.
Lord, Help Me
It is up to people like us to reclaim and rebuild the commons, what we share of what God has given us. And some of that rebuilding is of institutions.
Photo by Nick Bolton on Unsplash
This post was originally shared as a sermon based on Matthew 15:21-28 on Day 1 . We share it with permission and with the hope that it is a source of inspiration and nourishment as you work to create vibrant communities of faith.
The Canaanite Woman who confronts Jesus in Tyre and Sidon is, along with Jesus, on the main stage in this week’s Gospel. I am old enough to remember when her story was the bracketed part, the optional part, of the assigned readings from Matthew.
She is a local woman, of the communities in the book of Exodus that would have been conquered by the children of Israel as they conquered and occupied their land of promise after liberation from slavery in Egypt and that long wandering in the wilderness. The Bible gives us hints that the people already there remain, and this is one of those jarring reminders that there were people there, and those people remain even to this generation.
The way they are “conquered” in this time is that, at least in words and religious philosophy in the time of Jesus, they are made outsiders, outsiders to the law, to purity, in their own place, by Jesus’ people. That doesn’t mean that we know who had more money or power or land. We don’t know if she was poor or wealthy or something else. It is reasonable to assume her town was thriving. I have read that she must have been educated because of the sophistication of the conversation, but I have met many extraordinarily intelligent and articulate people without much education. The storyteller has decided that the only thing we are supposed to know about her is that Jesus goes to her neighborhood, and she gets very close to him to tell him exactly what she needs.
Her daughter is possessed by demons. Jesus goes to her neighborhood after saying it is what comes from the heart that defiles, not what enters the mouth. And then he walks through an area where Canaanites live.
It was Vine Deloria Jr.’s God Is Red that opened my eyes to the Canaanites in the Bible. I had read right past them, because they did not fit my theology, the theology I had absorbed from reading the Bible with Christians. God promised the children of Israel that they would occupy the land of promise, and I assumed from that moment that it was so. I heard as I read that the land must be empty - God would not wish harm on anyone, much less cause it, right? - even as I read the story of the guys with the grapes on the pole coming out of Canaan, and every battle and siege.
You are probably a better reader than me. I’m a believer. I tend to lead with that, I tend to make things fit and leave out what doesn’t fit into the way I have been told life and faith work, until someone points out something else, insistently.
Today’s story is a hard one for me. Not because Jesus seems to change his mind and accept the Canaanite woman’s request. That idea is not unsettling to me, and it does appear to be just that. After calling out her request from a respectful distance and being ignored, after repeating it and being scolded, she gets very, very close and seems to beg - articulately and intelligently - but beg. And he sees her and gives her what she is asking for. Her daughter, possessed of demons, is healed.
I find it hard to read because it feels close. I know that feeling. I try to organize my life to avoid it, and most of the time I can, and sometimes I choose to be or have to be the one who insists, who will not let it go, until the blessing is granted. For some of us, it’s our superpower.
On May 18, I got to stand with Matt Oprendek, Matt Heyd, Stephen Breed, Bruce Jolly, Bob Jacobs, Stephen Lee, and the bishops of the Episcopal Church in New York for the launch of the New York Episcopal Federal Credit Union. A Credit Union is a community-held entity that is owned by its members and can loan on its own terms within its membership. It is a federally insured financial cooperative. Now, I might not be as proud of anything in my professional life as I am to have been a part of seeing it through to a charter.
In 2014, a small group of us from the Episcopal Diocese of New York took a resolution to our convention asking our diocese to permit us to explore the possibility of establishing a credit union. The diocese had attempted this before - it is New York after all; we know a financial institution.
The difference in 2014 was the big bank crashes had happened in 2009. The market crash that had to do with bad mortgages and inflated housing prices, the one that devasted so many pensions, had happened. The big federal bailout of banks had happened. Remembering there was no bailout for those pensions, the cynical or corrupt or unethical practices of banks had been exposed. One study at the time found that one-third of New Yorkers were unbanked or under-banked. At my parish in the East Village, I was meeting people with jobs that the local commercial bank would not serve with a checking or savings account. Every conference or meeting I went to about new inclusive financial services, like community lending apps, assumed you had a bank account. They were required. I remembered the Episcopal Credit Union in Los Angeles and their president, Urla Gomes, who told the stories of giving $500 loans to the woman who ran the tamale cart or a few thousand dollars for the house cleaners to get better supplies so that they could level up to grow their businesses.
A longtime member of St. James in Fordham, where the Credit Union opening was held, Raquel Davis, said many community members she talked to at the church’s food pantry while volunteering told her that they are looking forward to joining the credit union. “Most of us are not wealthy,” she said. “It’s impossible for us to get a loan from the commercial banks, so the only opportunity is to go to the loan sharks,” where the interest charged is “overwhelming,” she said. She said, “Thank you for the opportunity in the credit union because it’s giving us an opportunity to have control over our finances.”
Lord, help me, the Canaanite woman says, and she won’t stop asking.
A decade is not how long I wanted this to take. It took us time to understand how we could staff and structure this organization to serve those we wanted to serve. It took us time to agree to a model. There was an unfortunate time there when we got no response to our inquiries from the federal government. I am sure we were not alone in that. When the administration changed, again, so did the rate of engagement. We could not have done it without Dall Forsythe and Bruce Jolly who brought a lot of professional experience and persistence themselves.
There remains much work to be done to keep this thing capitalized and active. But I’m telling you this story because we need more. Adjudicatories of churches are a wonderful field of membership - the great and mighty among us, we ordinary people, and those left out of formal economy, in one group - placing our giftedness and need in relationship, the true fabric of our lives together, not in offering charity, but in building the institutions that empower those we have narratively erased - the losers. Every time the banks crash or the unemployment rate goes up or a politician decides that hating one another will help them get a few more votes, we are binding together what our public life insists must be separated.
There was a time when churches built institutions: schools, hospitals, later food banks and homeless projects. As our institutions are battered in this nation, what were once the common goods of life together - like housing, land, food, and banks - are all organized to maximize the profit of the investor, not produce the best product or service at a competitive rate with market appropriate compensation of employees. It is up to people like us to reclaim and rebuild the commons, what we share of what God has given us. And some of that rebuilding is of institutions.
At St. Luke’s in Atlanta, where I am now, it is literally also about creating more beautiful green space, maybe growing more food, gathering people in a divided city. Yes, and what if we put our resources to work for those possessed by demons today – the demons of sickness, of endless war that is like armed violence in our streets, the demon of being priced out of housing, the demon of jobs whose salaries cannot pay for the basic necessities of life, the demon of a marketplace that will take the most money from the people with the least, the demon of working children, the demon of hunger? Lord, help us.
Lord, help us and bless us with a portion of the Canaanites woman’s courage and persistence. Help us to find ourselves in this story. Maybe you are like Jesus, passing through this particular patch of suffering. Maybe it’s not for you. Are you clever? Maybe you are a disciple, disdainful of the inconvenience of this crap economy and its victims. You’re just trying to follow Jesus after all, or maybe you are like a woman whose child is lost, strategizing to get access to what you need.
May Jesus meet you where you are and go with you as you find your power to heal.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life. Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Rev. Winnie Varghese
The Rev. Winnie Varghese is the rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
She co-hosts the (G)race podcast with The Rev. Azariah France-William and has been a contributor for Church Anew’s Enfleshing Witness events.
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 Story of Abraham and Family Trauma Part 2
The stories, like that of Abraham and his descendants, enable us in our modern times to understand that stories of family dysfunction are not at all new. These stories give us much with which to wrestle with as we learn and ponder them anew.
Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
The older woman was frail; months of cancer treatment had taken their toll. But she was undeterred as she made her way to a microphone, before more than two hundred family members, representing four generations. She began feebly, but her voice grew stronger with the recounting of her story. She spoke of a day –when she was no older than fifteen years of age – on which her father had taken her to a man on a nearby farm. She’d not understood that her father was selling her body for sexual favors to the man – until the man had done his deed and her father was pocketing the money the man had paid as he walked away. Violated, confused and physically hurt, she walked home with her father. But she knew that day that she would leave, and he would not continue to hurt her that way.
Her story was met with silence and tears. A sister, two years younger, stood at her seat, and with a tear-streamed face told the gathered family members that the same thing had happened to her. A child resulted from her encounters with the man. Her stepmother threw her out of the family home, and another family member took her child and refused to return him. He grew up in another household, without his mother, the man she later married, and his eight siblings.
So many lives had been affected.
This family story isn’t just any family story: It is my family’s story – the story of two of my Aunts and potentially others – perhaps even my own mother. It is a story that caused our family to reflect on all of the stories we’d heard from older family members about my grandfather. We’d all heard older relatives describe him as “evil,” “brutal,” “cruel” and “mean”; we’d heard that he’d physically harmed my grandmother, and two of my uncles told their own stories about how he’d beaten them, thrown axes at them.
What we saw that day was incomprehensible pain and suffering. As a priest and pastor who walks journeys with families who are broken, scarred, grieving, and fractured, I realize that stories of family trauma are as old as time itself – and that our scriptures tell us much about the ways in which we have struggled with one another, in the presence of a faithful God.
I wonder how the Church can be more supportive – and preach and teach the scriptural texts that have been given to us with more honesty and transparency.
7 This is the length of Abraham’s life, one hundred and seventy-five years. 8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, 10 the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with his wife Sarah. (Genesis 25:7-10, NRSV)
A short text from the Book of Genesis appears to wrap the story of Abraham and his family in a lovely package with a bow on top: He lived a long life, was gathered to his people, and was buried with his wife, Sarah, by his sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
If only Genesis didn’t offer painstaking detail about the rest of Abraham’s life, this would seem to be a lovely epitaph. But Genesis does offer painstaking detail about Abraham’s life – from the time that God calls him to leave his father’s house and go to an unknown land that God would show him, until he had become an old man full of years.
The Book of Genesis reveals much more to us about Abraham’s family. Struggles with infertility plague at least three generations of the family – and Abraham’s firstborn son, Ishmael, is the product of his relationship with a slavewoman named Hagar, who with her child become expendable – and are left to die – after Sarah bears a child of her own. Abraham’s second son, Isaac, is left to bear the scars of nearly being sacrificed by his father. After the attempted sacrifice, Sarah leaves to find a home of her own, away from Abraham. When she dies, Abraham remarries and begins a new family – at well past 100 years of age (Genesis 25).
So after his wife has died, after his relationships with Ishmael and Isaac have been fractured, after he has started another family, Abraham dies, and Ishmael and Isaac – after more than 70 years apart – come together, in spite of the scars they both bore, to bury their father in the place where Sarah had been buried.
I want to believe that these sons could, when they are reunited, share their experience of their father, learn from one another how both had suffered, find some bond in their suffering, find some way forward together. That would make for a neater and tidier ending to Abraham’s story.
Genesis doesn’t tell us that any healing takes place when these two estranged sons meet again to perform the duty of burying their father.
Indeed, the suffering in Isaac’s family doesn’t end with his near-death experience. Isaac’s own family would be torn apart when the younger of his twin sons, Jacob, would trick his infirm father and cheat his older brother, Esau, of his blessing and birthright. Jacob’s family would be torn apart with the story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50).
The suffering continued through at least three generations.
But, whatever Ishmael and Isaac believe that they have learned of Abraham, and whatever perceptions they have taken from their own final encounters with their father, they have seen something very powerful about Abraham’s God: They have seen that Abraham’s God is unquestionably faithful. Abraham’s God keeps God’s promises – showing up in the desert to renew the covenant with Ishmael, showing up at the altar to provide a sacrifice in place of Isaac. Abraham’s God is faithful – even if it might appear to his sons that Abraham has not been faithful to them. Ishmael and Isaac would go on, in their own way, to embrace the story of a faithful God and pass that story along to their offspring – a faith story that has lived on, in the faith traditions of Jews, Muslims and Christians.
More than 50 years after a father who had sold his daughters’ bodies had died, a dying daughter came to a family reunion to tell her heartbreaking story of how she had been violated and harmed. A sister was empowered to speak and tell her truth, as well. They told a story of family trauma that has no neat, tidy wrapping, a story that has affected multiple generations. They came with scars – theirs, ours, those of our ancestors – and unspeakable heartache, pain, and grieving, the reality of our humanity etched into our souls. Our family came together with great need to see those scars, and to hear and bear witness to each other’s stories.
Our hopes and expectations for neat, tidy epitaphs may be unrealistic. But in the moments that we are brought together, there is opportunity for healing: for engaging in hard dialogue, for respectfully and lovingly hearing one another’s stories, in diligently working to see the image and likeness of God in one another and in those who came before us. For indeed, it seems that it is only in coming together to share the painful truths that we can find our way forward in healing and love.
Funding Forward: Sustainable Practices for Funding Ministry
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
This post originally appeared on the Faith+Lead blog and we are sharing it here to introduce you to Grace Pomroy, one of our collaborators for Stewardship In A Box, a resource created in partnership between Church Anew and Faith+Lead at Luther Seminary.
An interview between Arlene Flancher and Grace Duddy Pomroy of the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary.
Arlene: For our readers who don’t know what Funding Forward is, can you give us a short description?
Grace: Sure! Funding Forward is the process of finding more economically sustainable models for ministry that emerge organically from the congregation’s mission. People often think funding forward is about “saving the church” or just bringing in more money for money’s sake to line the church’s pockets. In fact this process is a lot more about mission than it is about money.
A: When did you become interested in Funding Forward?
G: Before coming to Luther Seminary I worked for Portico Benefit Services, the benefit ministry of the ELCA. During my time at Portico, I heard from a lot of church leaders who said their congregations simply couldn’t afford our benefits any more. So, they would slowly reduce these benefits over time, cut them entirely, or strongly suggest that a pastor go on their spouse’s insurance. I also heard from pastors who were seeking part-time calls and hired for half-time calls, then being asked to work 40+ hours per week for a half-time wage in the name of ministry. It was clear to me that the current economic system of having a full-time pastor with full benefits was becoming less and less feasible for many congregations. While I think congregational leaders were doing the best they could to find ways to cut the budget and to get as much ministry as possible from a half-time salary, I also knew that this series of small cuts was alienating clergy and that it could eventually lead to congregational closure. I wondered if there might be a way to address the root cause of these concerns, the church economic system as a whole, rather than continuing to put bandaids over the problems in the hopes that they might heal on their own.
A: Can you share a little bit about how you collected data during the Funding Forward research project?
G: In the fall of 2022, we surveyed over 100 congregations in the U.S. and Canada who have experimented with more economically sustainable models for ministry that are aligned with God’s mission for their community. I shared some of my “ah ha” moments from the survey findings in this article from Feb. 20 and this one from Feb. 27. This winter and spring, my research team and I conducted interviews with key ministry leader(s) and a group of lay participants from 12 of the surveyed congregations. Our goal in both the survey and interviews was to answer two primary questions.
What conditions are necessary for a congregation to shift its economic model?
What practices might congregation leaders use to facilitate that shift?
A: What are some stories from the interviews that will stay with you?
G: In an interview I did with a small, rural congregation. During the lay group interview, I could sense tension in the room. A few years ago the congregation had transitioned from a full-time to a half-time pastor. While the congregation’s first half-time pastor gave them full-time ministry for the price of half-time, their new half-time minister was setting up clear boundaries around his time and inviting the lay members of the congregation to take ownership of their ministry in new ways.
One interviewee was really taken with this idea and started exploring new opportunities to connect with the surrounding community and partner with different organizations to find a more sustainable future.
Another interviewee was less optimistic, sharing that every time the church had a good idea the surrounding community seemed to steal it and secularize it. For this member, there was no hope for partnership.
I watched as the more excited member empathized with the more pessimistic one while also naming the hope that she was seeing. She shared: “we shouldn’t look at the other parts of the community as competition. We should look at it as, ‘How can we all work together to make our whole town?’ Everybody has gifts, each different organization has a different gift, and our Jesus has given us all gifts. So why can’t we combine those gifts? … [I believe the town is] looking for something and we can be a partner with that and not in competition.” This conversation reminded me of the importance of lay people who are willing to step in and lead in new ways. Often, they can have the greatest influence and impact in getting other lay members on board. Similarly, this congregation was looking to open up their building to rent space to the community; they would never be successful at renting space if they saw these renters as competition, not partners.
I also had the opportunity to talk with a lay group from a small, new start ministry in active discernment about who God is calling them to be. A key part of their mission is cultivating a network of 23 partners who rent their building, as well as embodying hospitality for all who enter their space. Given that the group who participated in the lay interview included at least one rental partner who wasn’t religious, I wondered how they might receive the final question of the interview: “Where did you see God in the process of creating and/or shifting the financial model?” Surprisingly, it was a partner from a non-religious organization who spoke up first. He spoke about the way he experienced God in the first collective meeting of the building partners in two ways. First – through a spiritual meditation ritual that started the meeting and second, through the partners’ conversation as a whole. He said,
“And being someone who grew up in the church and doesn’t attend a church regularly now but tries to stay in touch with spiritual communities, it felt like healing for me. And I think that’s a cool thing that happens for the people involved – whether they’re in a choir or attending a concert or just coming for a workshop or something. It’s the less visible parts. It’s not the cross on a building, and it’s not a Bible in someone’s hand. It’s nothing like that. And that’s really what most people I know nowadays are connecting to. [It’s the spirit of the place.] It’s subtle and not labeled.”
He also said, “It feels like that warm hug from the auntie that’s going to provide you some tea and a biscuit or something. That energy is really important, and most venues, most churches don’t have that actually. It’s somewhat rare, unfortunately.”
He appreciated that this church embodies hospitality and a calm spirit without asking every partner to share their same view and beliefs. This partner uses the sanctuary space as a concert venue. While his organization is not religious, this is a space where he felt that he and the concert attendees could engage in the spiritual practice of experiencing music together.
In a context where so many are done with or disconnected from religion, I wonder what it looks like for the church to be a place of peace and hospitality where people can experience God together in new and old ways?
A: What’s one thing you learned that surprised you?
G: Funding Forward is deeply rooted in stewardship and generosity is a key practice in this work. I have been passionate about stewardship since 2010 when I started at Luther Seminary. I believe stewardship is about using everything God has entrusted to our care to love God and our neighbors, and generosity is an important (although certainly not the only way) we can live into our call as stewards. I have often worried that this focus on funding forward would take me away from my passion for stewardship ministry. And yet, the interviews reminded me that this work is deeply rooted in stewardship. I saw how congregations were living into the three movements of stewardship: seeing the ways God had come down to them in love, looking in to identify the unique assets God had entrusted to their care, and looking out to see how God was inviting them to use these assets in new ways – creating sustainability not only for them but their neighbors.
Similarly, generosity was a key theme that came up in the interviews. We heard about:
A working class congregation that raised $1.4 million dollars (just from their own congregation) to transform their building and create affordable housing
A landlord who gave part of his building away to a congregation to create a community center for trans and gender-diverse people to gather, grow, and flourish
A large, anonymous donation that was used to create a social enterprise for nourishing Christian leaders and igniting communities of faith by setting an inclusive table of belonging and developing resources for a fresh, bold, and faithful witness in the world
Generosity was not a side project. It was a central component to making these ministries happen.
A: Based on what you learned in your interviews, how would you answer your two primary research questions?
G: First, I’ll talk about the conditions necessary for a congregation to shift its economic model. I went into this project believing that there would be parameters about how much money or what assets a congregation might need to have to get this process started. I didn’t find that to be the case. In fact, we talked to a few congregations within a year from closure when they shifted their model. While finances may have been one motivator for this work and it was sometimes what pushed the congregation to make a bold change, it was usually not the primary motivator. Overall, the congregations we interviewed had these things in common:
They had a clear understanding of God’s mission for their congregation in this time and place.
They had listened to the people God had called them to serve outside of the four walls of their congregation and had an understanding of their needs.
They had a sense of the unique assets God had entrusted to their care that they might use to both live out God’s mission and meet these needs. This might be a building or a segment of church property but it could also be the abilities of people in their community (farmers, entrepreneurs, etc.).
They were open to change and were emboldened to take risks.
As far as the things that helped them to actually make this shift to a new model, these were the four that came up most often:
a network of partnerships with organizations outside of the congregation, and community relationships
trusted pastoral leadership
empowered lay leadership
generous support in time, talent, and treasure
Outside of these four, my research team was surprised by how much discernment, communication, transparency, and consensus-based leadership came up throughout our conversations. This was not something a small group engaged in on the side, they were intentional about bringing the whole congregation along every step of the way. Similarly, I was struck by the deep spiritual nature of this work. There were 20 spiritual practices (prayer, Bible Study, listening, naming God’s action, etc.) named throughout the interviews and it was these spiritual practices that kept the congregation going when they encountered challenges.
Used by permission of Faith+Lead at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.
Grace Pomroy
Grace Pomroy is a financial educator, speaker, and blogger. She helps couples transform their relationship and deepen their intimacy by having open and honest conversation about money. She empowers them to connect their money and their values so they can create a more fulfilling life together. In 2017, she became a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI). She lives with her husband in Gig Harbor, WA. When she's not talking about money, you'll find her exploring new cities, hiking trails, or in her kitchen perfecting her sourdough recipe. She is currently the Director of the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN and co-owner of Embracing Stewardship, LLC.
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 Story of Abraham and Family Trauma Part 1
The stories, like that of Abraham and his descendants, enable us in our modern times to understand that stories of family dysfunction are not at all new. These stories give us much with which to wrestle with as we learn and ponder them anew.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Year “A” of the Revised Common Lectionary offers worshippers the chance to re-visit the stories of Abraham and the next three generations of his descendants These texts from the Book of Genesis are shared with our Jewish friends, as well, and some people – Christians and Jews alike, find these texts traumatizing. To some extent, they are. However, the stories, like that of Abraham and his descendants, enable us in our modern times to understand that stories of family dysfunction are not at all new. These stories give us much with which to wrestle with as we learn and ponder them anew.
When Abraham settled in Canaan, God entered into a covenant with Abraham and promised him more descendants than the stars in the sky and the sands on the shore (Genesis 15). There was just one problem: Abraham’s wife, Sarah, appeared to be barren. They were advancing in years, and Sarah had not conceived and borne a child.
It was probably good that Sarah didn’t conceive early in their marriage: Twice (Genesis 12 and Genesis 20), Abraham passed Sarah off to foreign kings as his sister, so that Abraham would not be harmed because he was traveling with his beautiful wife. Twice, these foreign kings took the beautiful Sarah, whom they believed to be Abraham’s sister, for themselves – for a time, that is, until their households were punished because of their relationships with Sarah. Genesis reveals quite a bit about Sarah and her opinions (She is far from silent!), but readers are not told how Sarah reacted to having been placed in the hands of Pharaoh and King Abimelech. Maybe she expected to have to commit herself to whatever she needed to do to keep Abraham safe. Maybe she felt betrayed, violated, and ashamed. Maybe she wondered if her inability to conceive might have resulted from her having been taken as the “wife” of other men.
When Sarah and Abraham continued on their way, and still no children had been born to them despite God’s promise of descendants, Sarah took matters into her own hands, offering up her Egyptian slave woman, Hagar, to Abraham so that he might have children through her. Hagar conceived and bore Abraham a son, named Ishmael (Genesis 16). But as Genesis also teaches us, humankind really hasn’t changed much over the ages, and as we might imagine, conflict quickly arises between Sarah and Hagar. Ultimately, Sarah – at age 90 – does indeed bear a child of her own, who is named Isaac. With Hagar and Ishmael’s “usefulness” having ended, Sarah demands that Abraham remove them from the encampment (Genesis 21). And, so, the last encounter recorded in Genesis between Abraham and his firstborn son, Ishmael, takes place on the fateful day that Abraham takes Ishmael and Hagar and leaves them in the desert, with a single skin of water, ostensibly to die. Ishmael is a young teen by this point – old enough to understand, and certainly to be scarred by, the fate to which his father is leaving him and his mother.
All won’t go smoothly for Isaac, either: We are told in Genesis 22 that God tested Abraham in asking that Isaac be sacrificed. The last encounter between Abraham and Isaac recorded in Genesis takes place when Abraham bound Isaac on the altar, preparing to sacrifice him to God. For all of the arguments that Abraham had previously given God for sparing the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah when God is preparing to destroy them, Abraham met God’s request to sacrifice Isaac with seemingly little to no resistance.
Hebrews 11:17-19 extols Abraham for having trusted in God when he prepared to sacrifice Isaac. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps a broken Abraham wonders the price that he must pay for what he has done to Ishmael and Hagar. However Abraham has received this request from God, we fail to ask how Isaac has been scarred and traumatized by this episode. Isaac is old enough to understand that there is to be a sacrifice – and even asks Abraham about the lamb for the sacrifice. Does he truly understand when he is bound and tied that he is the intended sacrifice – until, that is, God steps in and provides a ram? What does Isaac tell Sarah when they return home? How does a mother begin to understand a husband’s need to follow a command from God to sacrifice a child for whom she’d waited 90 years?
There are no further scenes of Abraham together with his family after the sacrifice. Sarah leaves Abraham’s encampment, and dies in another land, where Abraham purchases land for a burial place. Isaac settles in another land, as well.
The suffering doesn’t end with Isaac’s near-death experience; it continues through at least three generations.
Isaac married his kinswoman, Rebekah, who also struggled to conceive. When she finally became pregnant, she gave birth to twins who emerged from her womb embroiled in their own battle. The older twin, Esau, grew up to be an outdoorsy hunter and gatherer. The younger twin, Jacob, received his name because he literally was born holding on to Esau’s heel. Jacob’s envy of his brother as heir would ultimately tear apart their family, when Jacob (at his mother’s urging) tricked a then-infirm Isaac and cheated his older brother, Esau, of his blessing and birthright.
Jacob made a life for himself apart from Esau, and settled with his mother’s brother, Laban. Believing that he had married his true love, Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel, he had been tricked by his uncle, and had married older sister, Leah, instead (“This is not done in our country – giving the younger before the firstborn.” Genesis 29:26). Although Leah bore several sons for Jacob, his favorite son was Rachel’s firstborn, a son named Joseph. Joseph became the target of his older brothers’ jealousy and rage – and while the older brothers plotted to kill Joseph, they ultimately chose to sell him into slavery, pocketing twenty silver coins for him, and representing to their father that he had been killed by wild animals (Genesis 37:22-34). Jacob, too, would know separation from the son he loved.
All was not peaceful or happy among Abraham and his descendants. All is not happy in many families. If we tend to feel alone in family dysfunction, we remember that even the family of our ancestor most chosen and loved by God, Abraham, struggled. Faith persisted, even amid that struggle.
Announcing: Stewardship In A Box
This post originally appeared on the Faith+Lead blog to promote Stewardship In A Box, a resource created in partnership between Church Anew and Faith+Lead and Luther Seminary.
In 2022, Church Anew launched a new resource aimed at congregations and leaders, called “Lent In A Box.” The idea behind this resource was an acknowledgment that Lent often adds more on top of already busy preaching and teaching schedules, and sometimes it’s nice to be given a theologically trustworthy bit of help. Instead of each church community writing, planning, teaching, and creating everything from scratch, Church Anew designed, created, and offered helpful tools and themes for the Lenten season.
Lent In A Box was a complete success, utilized by and connecting over 350 church communities across denominations, states, and church size. We even had a few international participants! (We see you, Norway and Canada!)
With this success, the team at Church Anew decided to double down and create another “In A Box” resource around the topic of stewardship – this time in partnership with the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary. We are excited about this partnership and look forward to August when we will bring you: Stewardship In A Box.
Stewardship has long been a challenge in the life of many congregations and their leaders but never more so than in recent years. With attendance and giving both down, it is more important than ever that we are not only clear with what we are asking, but are also clear with our why.
Just as stewardship is a challenge for congregations, we also know this subject can also be challenging for people of faith. For so many of us, even hearing the word “stewardship” can conjure up images of pastors begging for money, congregation leaders shaming people into giving more to a deficit budget, or biblical narratives about money that don’t seem to align with how we use money today. What would it look like to use a stewardship season to help people unpack some of their baggage around money while also helping them better align their faith and their finances?
The resources in this virtual box are meant to help with all of this. They will:
Alleviate the stress and fear for leaders by giving them practice making a clear and compelling financial ask to their community
Help congregations pay attention to the Spirit’s work in their midst, naming the dreams and the needs of their community while making a case for financial support
Build skills among professional and lay leaders for effective stewardship leadership
Invite people of faith to get curious about what it means for each of us, youthful and elder, to be generous from the abundance that God has entrusted to them
Using tried and true methods from fundraising experts and stewardship leaders, this resource will help congregations from the beginning to the end of a stewardship campaign. This is not an “all or nothing” resource, that everyone follows exactly and word for word. It is meant to be more of a “choose your own adventure,” setting each congregation up for stewardship success in the way that fits their context best.
Our inaugural Stewardship In A Box theme is “You Have Heard it Said…” This worship and spiritual practice series will help people of faith unpack some of what they have heard about money and generosity, reflect on how God might be calling them to use all of their money (not just the portion they give away), and discern how people of all ages might participate in God’s mission in their congregation financially and otherwise. Drawing people of all ages into conversation, it will make a compelling case for developing a spiritual practice around all forms of generosity.
A ready-made resource for congregations of every size, Stewardship In A Box will include:
Preaching Prompts for pastors, deacons, lay-preachers, synodically authorized ministers (SAMs), and anyone sharing a sermon. (preview here)
Worship and Liturgical Resources including song/hymn suggestions, calls to worship, and prayers of the day.
At Home Practices for households of every size and shape that center Christian faith in ordinary moments of life.
Stewardship Basics for church councils, stewardship committees, or rostered leaders looking to grow their toolkit.
Stewardship Campaign Tools that help church leaders communicate God’s work in and through their congregation and ask for financial support
Customizable Campaign Material that centers the mission of your congregation, shares a message from your leader(s), features photos from your church, and has a clear call-to-action for financial support.
Equipping Events
Register to attend an Equipping Event and get access to all the resources.
Online Equipping Event 1: Thursday, August 10, 2023 from 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM Central Time
Online Equipping Event 2: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 from 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM Central Time
In-Person Equipping Event: Thursday, September 21, 2023 from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM Central Time.
We hope these resources give you the support you need for a stewardship campaign.
Used by permission of Faith+Lead at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.
Rev. Natalia Terfa
Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”
Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Is Your Congregation Being Disruptive or Disrupted?
In the context of congregational disruption, leaders have two options: 1) lead in a manner that disrupts the status quo that is going to be disrupted by culture anyway or, 2) allow the disruption to determine the future of the congregation.
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
This post was originally written for Ignite the Church, a grassroots church renewal movement. Learn more about Ignite the Church on their website.
When I was getting ready to begin seminary in the fall of 2011, a mentor of mine said to me, "Eric, seminary will be great. You will learn a ton. Just understand that the Church, as it is currently, is built for a world that no longer exists."
This was not a critique of seminary education but a recognition that the changing world was disrupting congregational life and yet, in many contexts, there was a strong desire to maintain the status quo. It would be necessary to understand the foundations of that status quo in order to lead and care for people in the midst of that disruption.
Over ten years later, the disruptions have intensified. Congregations that did not adapt to the disruptions have grown increasingly fragile or have closed entirely. In declining congregations, the anxiety about the future is palpable.
However, I'm reminded of the old saying, "You're either the hammer or you're the nail."
In the context of congregational disruption, leaders have two options:
1. Lead in a manner that disrupts the status quo that is going to be disrupted by culture anyway or,
2. Allow the disruption to determine the future of the congregation.
One option is "the hammer." The other is "the nail."
At the 2020 Ignite the Church Conference, Pastor Joe and Deacon Jess Liles of The Neighborhood Church in Bentonville, AR offered attendees a process for beginning to be disruptive:
1. Name, and then question, the status quo.
2. Observe growing and vibrant churches.
3. Network with organizations that create change.
4. Pursue small, fast, and bold experiments.
5. Listen to complaints, respond, and innovate.
For example, a declining congregation identifies that they rarely receive visitors coming to check out their worship life. Like many established congregations, this congregation lacked intentionality around promoting personal invitations to worship. As leaders question why that is, they learn that, while many in the congregation come to worship out of habit, the experience has grown stale. Sunday worship is no longer an event members feel would be attractive to their non- or de-churched friends.
In response to this, each member of the leadership commits to visiting a growing and vibrant church in the community for Sunday worship and reporting back their observations. When the leaders regather, they find that, in each case, these churches, which varied in worship style, have invested time, energy, and resources in making sure the experience of worship was characterized by excellence.
The leaders of this congregation reach out to a local college's music department and recruit students to help raise the level of musical excellence in worship. New liturgies are crafted and the pastor experiments with different styles of preaching. Rather than preaching from the lectionary, she launches a sermon series on a topic close to the heart of many in the congregation. Even communion gets a boost as volunteers bake bread to serve instead of the dry wafers the congregation has used for years.
Armed with confidence brought by the refreshing of worship, leaders challenge members to give professional-designed invitation cards to their neighbors and talk about their own experiences of the benefits of church participation.
As these changes are made, the leaders begin to hear grumblings about the various changes. A certain portion of existing members found comfort in the previously-used liturgies and so some of those elements are brought back into worship while maintaining some of the other innovations. Other members valued the rhythm of the lectionary, and so, when Advent rolls around, the pastor builds a sermon series based on those texts (you can find a great resource for lectionary-based sermon series here).
In this example, the congregation begins to reverse its decline by providing meaningful worship that attracts invited visitors while honoring some of the desires of those already present. The leaders have acted disruptively rather than simply allowing the congregation to be disrupted. They have chosen to be the hammer instead of the nail.
That is a choice you likely face as you lead your congregation through disruption. If so, here are some questions to consider:
1. What is the status quo in your context and why?
2. Who around you is experiencing growth and vibrancy in ways you are not?
3. Who can help you experiment with ways that are disruptive?
4. How will you handle the complaints and accommodate those struggling with change?
If you aren't sure how to answer these questions, the team at Ignite The Church stands ready to walk with you in discerning the answers. Send me an email and sign-up for our email list.
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.
Multi-Vocational Ministry: Part 2
Churches, leadership, and denominations should begin by seeing ministers as complete human beings with a variety of gifts to offer inside and outside the church, rather than sort of widgets to fill in to particular parish settings, while adding in a part-time job or “bivocational ministry” heading to pay the bills.
Dear Readers,
Welcome back to the second edition of my column on Multi-Vocational Ministry!
I was so grateful to read the many responses you sent to the first column, as Church Anew seeks to open a space for us to talk about the many pressures, new ideas, and challenges of doing ministry in this ever-changing era.
In my first piece, I wanted to begin to expand our thinking from the more commonly heard “bi-vocational” ministry to see all of our work in the world as multi-vocational, a term that for me more accurately reflects the way so many of us ministers and leaders move throughout the world.
As part of my last column, I shared the many vocational roles that I’m balancing in my life, whether it’s working on a new book, writing my Substack, speaking about my previous book, preaching in my local congregations, and of course serving in multiple family caregiving roles as a spouse, parent, daughter, and sister.
At least one of you reached out to say that initially as you read my different vocational roles, it made you feel a little bit overwhelmed, or like I didn’t fully grasp the financial challenges of bi-or-multi-vocational ministry. Even as you said you’d re-read the article to realize that it’s probably because of those financial challenges that I’m doing so many things at once (you’re right!) I still thought it was important to use this second edition to talk about the very real financial realities and challenges of doing multi-vocational ministry in a Church world that too often sees vocation in a narrow way.
Additionally, quite a few of you who reached out shared personal stories of marginalization and limited opportunities in traditional parish ministry work, and most of you who shared these stories occupy distinct identity spaces that have often been marginalized and even disallowed for leadership in the church. There’s a reason why many of us who are blazing new trails in multi-vocational ministry are women, LGBTQ+, people of color, and/or people with disabilities.
For a long time in the history of America and most of the world, and still in many American Church settings, ordained ministry roles were open only to straight (or closeted) men. In my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, it’s only in the past 15 years that churches have officially been able to call LGBTQ+ people as pastors, and it’s still the case, again, in my denomination, that women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people have longer waits for parish calls than straight (or closeted) white men.
It’s important to acknowledge that, particularly for Mainline denominations in the U.S., the denominational push toward bivocational ministry came at the same time as pulpits were being opened to formerly marginalized folks.
As the Rev. Heidi Carrington Heath wrote to me on Twitter: “We see this happen in other professions as well. When it is painted as "a woman can do it," it becomes less valuable societally. The Church is not immune from it.”
Absolutely. I’ve traced similar trends in my other profession, journalism, which as it opened more to women and people of color, wages tended to increase and more job responsibilities fell onto journalists, who were soon expected to not only write stories, but also take photos, make videos, and post on social media. All for diminishing wages, of course.
So I think it’s important for ministers ourselves, as well as denominational and church leadership, to distinguish between a trend toward bivocational ministry as a solution to a financial problem in the Church, and the reality of multi-vocational ministry as the Church becomes de-centered in most communities and ministers find ample ways to use ministerial gifts inside and outside church walls.
Let me be clear: I don’t think bivocational ministry works as an urged strategy from denominational and church leadership. I don’t think pushing ministers to be bivocational is the role of church and denominational leadership. Rather, as we all know, vocation is a complicated discipline, resulting from deep discernment, within prayer and community, between an individual and God. Vocational choices are a response to the needs of the world and the leading of God, rather than a response to financial need, increasing health insurance costs, and dwindling church budgets.
The results of pushing overworked parish pastors into “bivocational” ministry situations simply to pay the bills - rather than as a result of looking for ways their ministry gifts could be used in multiple vocational situations - are dire. I heard a few stories from burned-out parish pastors, many of them working in rural churches on a tight budget, who were sharing full-time positions with their clergy spouses, as well as parenting young children. They wrote about trying to hold down multiple part-time jobs as well as attempting to meet the needs of a church that in the past had been accustomed to a full-time, well-compensated pastor who had a stay-at-home spouse who often spent a lot of time volunteering in the church - as well as a large stable of likewise stay-at-home spouses (mostly women, of course) to fill volunteer roles at the church that, increasingly, pastors are expected to do themselves.
One woman pastor wrote: “There isn't much time left for family at the end of the day. Any ‘day off’ I might've had was filled with other jobs or sometimes vocations. This constant 'going' leads to burnout, even when doing things I'm called to, and things that inspire and bring life. I seldom feel I have enough time to do anything well because there is always something else calling for my attention.”
Does this sound familiar to any other readers? This pastor shared a sentiment I’ve heard before from other overworked pastors, saying that she rarely felt creative or free on her “work” days, and thus had to move her sermon writing to her one precious “day off.”
As everyone reading this knows, there’s no easy solution to these problems. Health insurance costs and benefits costs in general for clergy continue to rise, pricing out many small and rural congregations. Many clergy continue to graduate with seminary and educational debt, necessitating a paycheck that can afford basic needs as well as loan bills. And most churches still have expectations for a church that ran like it did decades ago, with requisite programming, despite large drop-offs in staffing, volunteers and attendance.
Where does multi-vocational ministry fit into this mix? For my contribution, I think it’s important that we see multi-vocational ministry as a starting point - sort of a preexisting condition. Churches, leadership, and denominations should begin by seeing ministers as complete human beings with a variety of gifts to offer inside and outside the church, rather than sort of widgets to fill in to particular parish settings, while adding in a part-time job or “bivocational ministry” heading to pay the bills.
And not only this, but people who are not “professional church leaders” or ordained clergy should also be reminded that they too are full, multi-vocational human beings, with many gifts and roles they play each day of their lives. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Church could take the lead in valuing the fullness of what human beings bring into the world, rather than just their capitalist-centered financial output?
Thanks for reading the second edition of Pastor Angela Denker’s column on Multi-Vocational Ministry. This column will be taking a summer break in July and August and will be back in September with more personal stories from multi-vocational ministers, as well as practical information, data, and trends about how to integrate multi vocational ministry and ministers into the Church at-large. If you’d like to be featured or share your story, or share an idea you’d like Angela to address in this column, please message her at https://angeladenker.com/contact.
Angela Denker
Angela Denker, author of Red State Christians: Understanding the Voters who elected Donald Trump (Fortress: August 2019), is a Lutheran Pastor and veteran journalist who has written for Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, Christian Century, and Christianity Today. She has pastored congregations in Las Vegas, Chicago, Orange County (Calif.), the Twin Cities, and rural Minnesota.
Twitter | @angela_denker
Facebook | @angeladenker1
Blog | https://angeladenker.substack.com/
Website | https://www.angeladenker.com
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Digital Communities Are Embodied Communities
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
I recently had the honor of listening in on some seminary students defending their theses, and it reminded me of two clear truths:
The emerging leaders are alright.
Challenging the status quo/institution/empire has not gotten easier.
After an entertaining and engaging defense on the importance and necessity of digital ministry, a professor pushed back on the idea of digital ministry altogether and said that digital spaces “didn’t speak to embodiment.” This was a sticking point for him, and he didn’t think embodiment in a digital space had any theological grounding.
The student did a really great job of pushing back, but all I could think of as I left that zoom room (by the way, a fully digital space) was how disappointing and even ridiculous it is that even now, almost exactly three years after the pandemic moved us all into digital spaces in a way no one expected or was really prepared for, we are still stuck on this one point. Somehow it all hinges on “embodiment.”
Oof. All I could think was - really? Have we learned nothing during Covid?
First, as someone who feels called to and actively leads digital ministry through my podcast and podcast community (of which there are thousands, across the entire country and globe), I have an obvious bias and no small amount of skin in the game. But also I feel like it needs to be said loudly and clearly: Digital Communities ARE Embodied Communities.
Next, I feel I should be clear that the embodiment I practice and believe in is likely very different from that professor’s idea of embodiment.
I believe embodiment is not just “having a body.”
I also believe embodiment is not just “having a body in a space where there are other bodies.” When I’m on Zoom and you’re on Zoom, we both still have bodies.
When I’m on Marco Polo and you’re on Marco Polo, even if we’re not on there at the same time, we both still have bodies.
When I’m on Facetime and you’re on Facetime, we both still have bodies. Do none of those count because we aren’t sharing physical space? Good gosh I hope not. Believing we aren’t fully embodied when we’re online or in a digital space is dangerous. We have all learned (or experienced) how to fully disconnect from the whole person on the other side of a computer screen. It’s how people can say things online that they would never say face to face.
“I can’t even see them.”
“They aren't real.”
What a small and limited view of embodiment that is.
I have been taught and believe that embodiment is the full integration of mind, body, and spirit. Embodiment is more of a holistic state of being than just having a physical body near other physical bodies.
For me, some of the most holy moments of the past three years have happened in digital spaces. Thank goodness for them and the people who met me there.
They have saved my faith. They have saved me.
The community and connection that saved me happened BECAUSE of the digital space, not in spite of it.
Digital Communities ARE Embodied Communities.
Simply sharing physical space does not equal embodiment.
In fact, for many people, sharing physical space does the exact opposite. We could have a room full of physical bodies in the same physical space. Each and every one of them could be totally disconnected from their body and their spirit and somehow we’re calling that the best we’ve got?
I will continue to argue vehemently that when we interact in the digital space, we are embodied. If we are more than physical bodies - and I think we could all agree that we are - any time we are fully who we are, connecting, engaging, and together, we are embodied. Even when it’s online. Even when it’s through a screen.
Our ecclesiastical tradition actually has a lot to say about this.
Embodiment in digital spaces IS actually grounded in deep and beautiful theology. Or, as the student stated in her thesis defense: “The church has always been virtual.” Peter wrote letters to churches from far away and praised the continued relationship and communion he shared with those communities - even when he wasn’t physically able to be with them.
Every time we gather around the communion table we talk openly and clearly about how we join together in this meal across time and space with the whole communion of saints, past and present.
We are about to celebrate Pentecost, where the spirit shows up as wind and fire - not as a body - and we will celebrate and rejoice in the ability of God to be in all people and places and time.
How can we believe all of this, and yet have no space to believe that ministry in a digital space is also embodied and incarnational and just as valid as physical, in-person gathering?
What if we stopped being so afraid of the digital space, and started meeting people there instead? What if we stopped telling people that the safe space they have created doesn’t quite count as much as the in-person space? What would happen if people connected with each other and with faith communities in whatever way allowed them to remain fully embodied?
What if we believed and supported and encouraged digital communities as fully embodied communities?
This is not a threat to but an expansion of the kingdom of God into more abundant life. It’s one I am so thankful to be a part of. And one I will keep fighting for because of those who have experienced embodied community in digital spaces. They matter. We matter.
Digital Communities ARE Embodied Communities.
Rev. Natalia Terfa
Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”
Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.