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

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

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

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

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

As clergy and congregations move toward Advent and Christmas, Black Friday offers an opportunity for self-reflection on a reality so omnipresent that it can be hard for people living in the United States to perceive. Like the air we breathe, consumerism saturates our imaginations. It shapes our identities, our desires, and the way we celebrate the holiday season.

Yes is the heartbeat of the incarnation story. Mary’s yes allows God’s promise to take flesh, Joseph’s yes protects and provides for their family, the shepherds’ yes leads them to the manger, and the magi’s yes draws them out in search of the divine mystery. There are so many points in this story where someone, or a group of someones, give a very significant yes.

Instead of enriching the world’s wealthiest, we choose to strengthen the places and people that make our communities whole. We choose local businesses struggling to survive, nonprofits caring for the vulnerable, and neighbors in need of compassion.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

That's the real scandal of so many of these calls: the cold remove on the other end of the line. You hear it from clergy, from office managers, and from whoever the office manager transfers the call to (presumably someone who's better equipped than the office manager to answer this sort of query). Flatness. These calls, and the bureaucratic sheen of cruelty, are excruciating: I'm sorry, we can't help you, click.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

In most worship settings, I have come to learn over time that my methods to cope with overstimulation is a social risk. What helps me (and many other people on the autism spectrum and/or with ADHD) stay focused and in-tune may come off to the congregation as disengaged, distracting, or even disrespectful. ... Often, I attempt to mask my discomfort by dissociating and building a world in my mind where I am safe and have space to be alone there.

Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness. 

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