Reflection Roundup: Where’s the Learning Here?
Within the Siburt Institute a wide array of resources flows across our desks and through our computer screens each week. This new initiative seeks to curate and dispense more broadly news items, books, blog posts, notable opinion pieces, and more that address the work of ministers and other church leaders. Listening widely expands our capacity to listen well to God and to our ministry contexts. We believe the items we share each week are useful and important for leaders to know about. We ask also that you recognize that we may share news or resources that you (or we) don’t necessarily agree with. Yet, that too, can be important for us to know.
So without further ado, here are 10 things worth sharing this week:
1. Our undergraduate students at ACU are grappling with how to respectfully engage with those whose values differ from their own. Dillon Daniel, one editor of The Optimist, on-campus publication gone digital, conveys students’ deep desire in this article. Dehumanizing hatred that sees another only through their stance on an issue must be eliminated. “To defeat that, we need to start taking steps toward understanding each other no matter how repulsed we may be initially.” In “How to Disagree Without Screaming at One Another,” an Intersection webinar from the Siburt Institute, Vic McCracken and Cole Bennett offer practical tips on engaging in meaningful conversations when we don’t agree.
2. Carey Nieuwhof constantly probes both leaders and culture, asking, “What’s your biggest challenge?” His “7 Disruptive Leadership Trends That Will Rule 2021” encapsulates much of what we might anticipate. “It won’t be the light switch you hope for (and suddenly, we’re all back!). Instead, it will be a gradual emergence into whatever our normalized future looks like. Going back to normal only works if normal still exists. Normal as you knew it, appears to have died.” Neuhoff anticipates the forms normalizing may take, and there’s definitely a bright side.
3. Conspiracy theories, fuel for unrest, can be difficult to tease out when shared among trusted voices. This “Study reveals half of pastors say they’re hearing conspiracy theories in their churches” while “Christian churches resolve to be places focused on the truth.” On balance, this NY Times opinion piece calls out the sought after commodity – power – and the dangers of the current revivalism. “Their goal is no longer to persuade the public of their religious and moral convictions; rather, their goal has become to authoritatively enforce behavioral guidelines through elected and non-elected officials who will shape policies and interpret laws such that they cannot be so easily altered or dismissed through the vagaries of popular elections. It is not piety but policy that matters most.” Give this one some time; it’s an important read. Where’s the learning here?
4. God has always been about “creating a culture of renewal” among the people of God. Pre-pandemic, churches felt the need for revitalization. While presenting some of the most difficult challenges some individuals have ever experienced, the global crisis ignites revitalization in particular ways highlighted in “5 Ways to Revitalize During a Pandemic.” How might the people of God join in the Lord’s creative work with reference to our worship? And if you need them, here are “Seven Reasons You Must Not Abandon Your Online Services.” Okay, I’m convinced!
5. How do the emotional responses rising up from within reveal what we hold as sacred, and how do we tend that which captures our spirits? You’ve seen the photo of Andy Kim’s response to the Capitol riot, but these few words on “Humble Leadership” recall the other-worldly power of the one whom Christians follow (Phil. 2:7). David Lipscomb’s University’s Richard T. Hughes puts some meat on Kim’s action, saying, “‘Christian America’ sought to retain control by force. The irony, however, is what Jesus taught us 2,000 years ago: If you want to live, you must die; if you want to be first, you must be last; and if you seek to prosper, you must become a slave.”
6. Story has always been one of the most effective means of sharing ideas. Great truths couch themselves within simple narratives, firmly implanting themselves in our minds. This young Dallas couple shares their story of taking the idea for a manufacturing business for camera hardware, Wooden Camera, to the stars (literally). The birth of GratiFILM has provided a means by which those who would have no other way, can tell their stories.
7. This Latino church in Colorado is doing the best they can, and their best turns out to be pretty great. May we take encouragement from this story and the ways in which our experiences mirror one another’s, and may we keep our hearts’ doors open and in conversation together. For an actual conversation, check out the Siburt Institute Intersection, “What Is God Doing in the Brown Church?” with Alejandro Ezquerra and J. Omar Palafox. You can watch a video, listen to just the audio, and download related resources for further reading.
8. “For generations, faith communities have not only been houses of worship, but also places of refuge where people of every background can come together in good and difficult times.” Sanctuary provided by churches is currently threatened. “Their hopes dashed by a Texas judge, immigrants living in churches wait for a reprieve.” Congress pleads with Biden to “safely open the doors of our sanctuary churches.”
9. And this from a favorite author and fellow seminary student Ann Voscamp’s recurring post “Multivitamins for Your Weekend.” Breathe deep, visually drink from the cool waters, let the familiar lyric flow through your mind. “He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul” (Ps. 23:2).
10. Shall we join in declaring 2021 the “Year of Hypomone”?
