Reflection Roundup: Christian Community, Face-to-Face
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. “Were the first Christians big readers? In his book, Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus (2017), pastor and author Brian J. Wright argues against commonly held views, insisting that communal reading in the first century involved greater numbers of people from more diverse backgrounds than previously thought. His book raises important new questions about how the stories of Jesus were transmitted, the shape of book culture in early Christianity, the process of canonization, and how we got the text of the New Testament.” Earlier this week ACU’s Center for the Study of Ancient Religious Texts (CSART) hosted Wright for an online conversation about these questions and more. For more from Wright on the practice of communal reading, check out “Don’t Just Read Alone.”
2. “Have you wondered why so many megachurch leaders have been embroiled in scandals, or why there are so many Christian celebrities today? It’s not accidental. It’s the predictable outcome of the systems behind much of popular consumer Christianity.” On the Holy Post podcast, host Skye Jethani opens an honest conversation on “The Evangelical Industrial Complex with Love Thy Neighborhood” with Jesse Eubanks, exploring our authenticity as pastors. Jesus clearly warns against choosing the best seats for ourselves, and Eubanks reminds us this phenomenon is not very different from promoting our own messages for the sake of the kingdom (Luke 14:7-31). Our main influencers need to be people with whom we also engage in mutual permission, speaking into the lives of one another, asking one another hard questions.
3. In “How American exceptionalism is killing America,” Richard T. Hughes, author and scholar in residence at Lipscomb University’s Center for Christianity and Scholarship, describes the journey of writing Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories that Give Us Meaning along with what he learned while lecturing on American myths from James Noel.
4. For many Christians, Easter Sunday marked the first in-person worship experience in over a year. The Associated Press reports “Hymns through masks: Christians mark another pandemic Easter,” including not-to-be-missed photographic highlights of Christians across the globe celebrating the resurrection holiday. Many of our thoughts traveled to Jerusalem and the path that Jesus walked. In “‘Like a Miracle’: Israel’s Vaccine Success Allows Easter Crowds in Jerusalem,” New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley describes in living color what it was like to walk the Via Dolorosa this past weekend. “‘We have gained hope again,’ said George Halis, 24, who is studying to be a priest and who lives in the Old City. ‘Last year was like a darkness that came over all of earth. For others, there was a theological importance, as well as an emotional one, to being able to gather together again.’” We felt it too.
5. Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) presents yet another Kitchen Table Talk featuring painter Steve Skipper regarding Colors of Character: An Artist’s Journey of Redemption, the full-length documentary film about his life. “Steve Skipper is one of the most prolific artists in the realms of sports, civil-rights, equestrian, portraiture, and Christian artwork.” On April 20 at 6:30 p.m. Central, the Table Talk will be available with free registration. Additionally, the documentary is available for streaming on Fandango and AppleTV.
6. Guest N.T. Wright posts encouragement for Christianity Today’s The Exchange blog with Ed Setzer. Here in “Easter Hope for a Post-Pandemic World,” Wright poses modern questions regarding the hope Easter brings to us as we gaze down the post-pandemic path. Our present hope comes alongside that of those ancient followers who would have been asking themselves and one another what to make of Jesus’s life on that disorienting Saturday between death and new life. The fact remains that “resurrection isn’t just a long-distance, far-off hope. (Nor is it about ‘going to heaven’!) It is a person,” and a completely new reality hosted by God’s resurrection act within the life of this human slice of the Trinity.
7. Barna’s “What Churchgoers Missed Most About In-Person Services” reveals Eucharist and hearing a sermon live as two of the “most missed” aspects of in-person worship. While the elements of fellowship and “rubbing shoulders” were notably missing and difficult to capture in a digital world, Barna’s “data highlighted that nearly all respondents (90%) missed church for non-social reasons.”
8. This is a unique time for our youth and a good opportunity for a timely reminder from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that sharing faith with them requires no special skills. Andrew Root, author of Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker, reminds readers of our youth’s need to be enveloped deeply in the lives of our churches via regular partnership in the walking-around lives of her members. This place-sharing, this friendship with adult Christians, unveils the presence of Christ in our midst during times in which we all experience the normalcy of life. These moments reveal the reality and practicality of our faith to our youth. In “Take it from Bonhoeffer – there is no ‘Christian youth,’” Root describes this responsible privilege we all share, maybe now more than ever as our post-pandemic church communities reemerge.
9. Sometimes it’s short little bits of wisdom that resonate as they leave room for the hearer, the reader, to attach their own thoughts and experiences. This little parenting piece from Austin Kleon does the trick: “Give yourself what you needed then and give your kids what they need now.” May it echo in your thoughts, making a difference in your life and the lives of those you love and impact the most.
10. What to do when the pain of the world overwhelms? Isaya Otsuka admonishes, “Constantly take the posture of a receiver.” On Christianity Today’s the Better Samaritan blog, guest writer Otsuka writes “How to Be a Humanitarian Without a Savior Complex,” reminding us, “If God is the source of love and all that is good in the world, then it is only in receiving his gift that we can pass it on to others through our work.” Is this not evidence of the new creation ushered in at the resurrection?
