Reflection Roundup: Unbounding Imagination
Each week we gather news stories, notable pieces, and other important items for Christian leaders today. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but may not concur. Here are 10 things worth sharing this week.
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1. Contemporary theologians Carson Reed and Randy Harris, both of Abilene Christian University, join journalists Cheryl Mann Bacon and Bobby Ross Jr., both associated with the Christian Chronicle, to discuss a sentiment familiar to readers of Karl Barth: “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.” The “Light, Truth, and Fake News” webinar puts the rubber on the road – truly an Intersection: Where Theology and Practice Meet. Harris reminds listeners that we’ve “made a commitment to read the news through a certain lens, and that’s the lens of a crucified and risen Messiah.” Ross also highlights the webinar here, describing the panel’s aim “to help stressed-out ministers make sense of the news in a time of polarization and conspiracy theories.”
2. Setting aside traditional notions of how church “should” look, this Worcester, Massachusetts, group of Christians steeps monthly in a holy scrub, simultaneously surrounded by the divine aroma of stains lifting from clothes and from hearts. “Pray and wash: Finding church in unexpected places” describes Laundry Love, a modern day well where folks come with dirty laundry, and love shows up sudsing and folding with presence and prayer. “The lack of church packaging is by design. The idea is that having people gather around a practical project in an informal setting embodies the Gospel in a way that’s comfortable, especially at a time when secularism is on the rise and many Americans remain leery of organized religion.” Leaders, here’s an invitation to imagine and a studied exploration of meeting people where they truly are.
3. “A good leader draws from the past to lead innovatively into the future.” L. Gregory Jones, incoming president of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, unpacks his term traditioned innovation in “Why good leadership is like jazz.” Jones draws comparison between music and ministry, between melody and the leadership learned through intense study and experience. This experience must mingle with the creative riffs flowing from the instruments of those around us and from God, who is always up to a new thing. Jones values our institutions and reflects comparatively on the vineyard they represent, one Christ constantly grows and prunes. Through practical highs and lows, Jones lays the principle of traditioned innovation alongside the lives of people who have chosen to lead while holding the best of the past and seeking to explore God’s imagination for the future.
4. Thinkers we are, up in our heads, convinced knowledge brings peace yet consistently finding true understanding ultimately elusive, and settling feet of clay down into the same old dirt shoes. “I’m a philosopher. We can’t think our way out of this mess,” the eighth installment in the Christian Century’s “How My Mind Has Changed” series, reveals hope for thinkers. In short, philosopher James K. A. Smith has shifted his focus. “I used to imagine my calling was to defend the Truth. Now I’m just trying to figure out how to love. It’s not that I’ve given up on truth. ... But I’ve come to believe that the grace of God that will save us is more powerfully manifest in beloved community than in rational enlightenment.” Smith explores the “the irreducible intelligence of love,” gets vulnerable, and goes deep, inviting the reader to ride shotgun on the road out of his personal depression.
5. Mother Teresa said, “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved and uncared for. We can cure physical illness with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair and hopelessness is love.” In “Maybe your church needs a minister of loneliness,” Erich Bridges expounds on the power of simple, daily interactions alongside his personal testimony of growing from loneliness to community and then transitioning back to solitary living. “Not all singles are lonely, and not all lonely people are single. Christians talk a good game about creating community,” but Bridges asks that we invest and exemplifies some practical ways to lay eyes, hands, and feet on this growing reality.
6. “Traditioned innovation” meets children’s ministry in Cheryl Mann Bacon’s “Learning as you’re running” in this week’s Christian Chronicle. Digital demands have required all of us to integrate new skills into our daily routines. “Jennifer Schroeder, children’s minister at North Atlanta Church of Christ, a multicultural congregation of about 1,000 members, said pandemic isolation has left kids ‘clamoring for connections.’” Taly Barrera of Chicago’s Elgin Church of Christ “said young families needed flexibility amid all the responsibilities the pandemic has wrought.” Bacon offers many illustrations of creative ways ministers across the nation have maintained relationships while exercising all the cautions the pandemic requires.
7. Erik Tryggestad, Christian Chronicle president and CEO, shares “Encouraging faith in Tanzania,” briefly chronicling Steven Hill’s recent mission to encourage East African churches. Hill ministers with Sullivan Village Church of Christ in Lawton, Oklahoma.
8. No matter where you are on political or religious spectrums, “You Need to Take the Religious Left Seriously This Time,” according to Zach Stanton’s interview with Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York. Their conversation provides fuel for reflecting on the intersection of theology and practice as they exemplify holding up Christ as a lens for reading current events, exploring a variety of topics with personal connections. Jones quips, “My theology informs the way I see everything all the time. I’m a theologian, what can I say?” Then more seriously emphasizes, “My faith gives me the courage and the strength – in fact, the moral demand – that I not turn away, but actually move towards the suffering and the sins, knowing that ultimately the love of God surrounds all of us, saints and sinners that we are.”
9. “Lent amid the pandemic: Turning away from despair and toward God” offers beautiful, practical steps to pause and refocus. This article explores the fact that benefits extend beyond spiritual recentering, reaching physical health and beyond. Lots of good, practical suggestions here.
10. Lots of us lead. We speak, we sing, we administrate, but when it comes to praying, publicly opening up this connection with God, it’s different. The topic of prayer offers possibility for endless exploration; this week fresh insight comes from the pen of someone who doesn’t, at present, believe. Here, practical theology intersects the tension flowing from our real conversations with Christians and non-Christians alike. Austin Kleon admonishes that we let go of what we call ourselves: “forget the nouns, do the verbs.” The struggle is real as reflected in “On praying, whether you believe or not” – an honest perspective worth considering. “Learning to pray with James Martin and Mary Karr” offers lots more to explore. Also look for more on prayer from Houston Heflin, author of Pray Like You Breathe, via the Siburt Institute’s upcoming Intersection interview on March 16.
