Jun 17

Jun 17 Reflection Roundup: Relationships Birth Understanding

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. In “Be rivers, not reservoirs,” the Christian Chronicle’s Erik Tryggestad opens a conversation asking that we give our adult Bible class time a careful look, one that reevaluates the intent and maximizes the intentionality available during and resulting from these gatherings. The pandemic opened our eyes to the availability of content and the versatility of our time during which this content can be accessed. We have also come to understand, at a deeper level, the power of gathering and offering the resources of our time and presence to one another and to God in service of one another. How might the Spirit be leading us to utilize this time as disciples to offer each other vulnerability and challenge?

2. Myles Werntz, director of Baptist studies and associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University, interviews author and speaker Jemar Tisby in “Three Words Should Guide Our Pursuit of Racial Justice” for Christianity Today. Tisby shared his book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism with the world in 2019, leaving many with the question, “What do we do?” His recent release and the impetus for his conversation with Werntz – How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice – addresses this question. Tisby’s offering centers around three words – awareness, commitment, and relationship – which he expands in this compelling conversation with Werntz. Find Tisby’s books here.

3. Serving my community as a PRN chaplain gives me first hand opportunities to see the truth that Sadiri Joy Tira expresses in “Mission Fields in the Northern Hemisphere.” Many people (including multiple readers here, no doubt) take on their hospital admission as a personal mission field and find unique spiritual ways to serve those who tend to them. Tira chronicles encountering hearts receptive to the message he carries, the reason for the hope he has. The medical profession brought the world to his doorstep, so to speak, and Tira met the call with a life of preparation for these opportunities. “I thank God for the struggle and pain that allowed me to enter these exclusive environments.” He looks forward to the relational open doors sure to come along with his and his wife’s next venture living in a home for senior citizens, a place of belonging as Tira describes.

4. In this season of slowing (right?), take time to check out yet another offering of the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry. Discernment is a journal in which scholars share their discoveries. Nathan Pickard reviews Pilgrims and Priests: Christian Mission in a Post-Christian Society by Stefan Paas, hitting the highlights from each section and charting the path Paas lays out for how the church must move forward in the world we currently inhabit. Paas aligns current realities with biblical exile, which surfaces some healthy questions. Pickard recommends, “This book is for those who recognize the shifting cultural winds and who understand the implications for Christian faith communities.”

5. Maybe this season finds you in a disharmonious state, one that doesn’t agree with the weather. Or maybe it does match the weather, to which our African and Aussie friends can attest! Corella Roberts, missionary blogger located in Thailand, offers a wealth of warmth for your soul, no matter the season. Her most recent post, “Is Your Soul in a Spiritual Winter?,” is packed with rich resonance with a season we all weather, emerge from, and inevitably face again as life rolls on. There’s something for every spiritual style in Roberts’s offerings. She connects directly to the heart of one of God’s greatest blessings for the people of God, and one of the greatest responsibilities that leaders must ensure: let the ground rest. Don’t miss her free 14-day Bible study, “Where Does Your Path Cross With Theirs: A Fourteen Day Wilderness Excursion Through the Bible” (PDF download).

6. In “Turning Toward Resiliency,” Carson Reed, executive director of the Siburt Institute, reminds leaders that resiliency is not a resignation, but rather a set of associated practices. First, Reed reminds that it “requires the recognition that I am not in control, and that I cannot fashion the future into my own image.” He encourages that “this is a good thing!” and proceeds to unpack what it looks like to “set aside what we know” and discipline ourselves according to a “listening stance” both to God and to the people God places in our paths. Look for more from Reed next week regarding the bedrock of resiliency, “On Reading the Bible.”

7. Randy Harris has an oft-repeated line, “Waste 15 minutes with God today.” Bridgetown Daily’s podcast episode on “Spending Time With Jesus” is a great way to do that. This 15-minute guided meditation provides a model, a scaffolding as such, for an encounter with Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, in our imaginations. Gerald Griffin facilitates in a way that reminds us of the truths of Scripture and reinvigorates our relationship with the members of the Trinity so that we are empowered once more toward community for ministry. Listen, and listen again. Bridgetown Daily is affiliated with the Bridgetown Church in Portland.

8. We are embodied creatures, souls with bodies. Relationally, we operate in multiple aspects. Matt Overton’s “We are physical beings – what if our ministries reflected that?” describes how his church connected the physical to the spiritual during the pandemic, particularly to the benefit of the church’s youth.

9. We are creators made in the image of the Creator. What does this mean for our churches? How can we facilitate a culture of thriving that offers “abundance for all people?” Makoto Fujimura poses these questions in this short video, “Art and Beauty Is All About Abundance.” The inherent slowness of the preparation process for the paintings Fujimura creates, makes for a more contemplative piece. I wonder, what tests my patience that I could reframe into a contemplative process? Access courtesy of Alabaster.

10. There was a rainbow in my town a few weeks ago, and I was stymied by it. It halted me in my path. It had been a long time since I had seen one in person – this concrete, visible reminder of the promises of God. Questing for pictures to share, I was led to photographer Warren Keelan’s blog via Ann Voskamp’s “Multivitamins for Your Weekend.” Keelan’s pictures of places difficult for many of us to access on the regular offer reminders of the brilliant creativity of our God and the love God has for all creation. All breathtaking, they are the stuff that leaves us, in Keelan’s words, “truly humbled.”