Reflection Roundup: Painfully Simple
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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God desires to be found, to be known. Though God is not far from us, God doesn’t make God’s will difficult to discern; we do.
1. Some people say the word of God is tricky because it’s always saying more than it’s saying, take Paul for example. But after we’re done complicating matters, and once we’ve gotten the message, we find it to be painfully simple. We are imprinted with it so that, unless we work to prevent it, God’s message will leach out into the world around us. Kimberly Fosu writes “Avoid Jumping on the ‘Church Is the Problem’ Bandwagon” for Medium, speaking through the medium of a secular publication with clarity about the church. Fosu admonishes the church to cease attacking herself, quoting Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and joining with him in the acknowledgment of the true enemy of the church. This enemy has a plan, and it’s to ruin the bride’s reputation before the wedding. Fosu asks that we lay down our stones. Let’s instead trim our lamps and strengthen one another in active anticipation.
2. When we focus on pillars of relationship, healing begins, and then learning follows. This is Baltimore English teacher Kelsey Ko’s wise advice in “Classroom Time Isn’t the Only Thing Students Have Lost” for The Atlantic. You may wonder what this has to do with church. I’d say, “Everything.” In her piece, Ko’s data tells the story of the relational trauma we’ve each experienced over the last year and a half. The people and places that contribute to our feelings of groundedness and love have all been shaken up. Personally, my family is reaping benefits from the relational emphasis our church poured into her youth this summer. In order to move forward with God’s mission together, we must tend the ties that bind.
3. Carey Nieuwhof is not messing around in his blog post “How the Church Today Is Getting Discipleship Wrong.” He writes, “Christian maturity is about Jesus and about others.” Yet we stand around wringing our hands at the immature discipleship we see all around us in our churches. Maybe “we” ought to remember the manner in which Jesus addresses these types of comparisons. Nieuwhof poses a list of woes that leaders bemoan locating within the lives of their congregants, yet Paul addresses the very same in the lives of the members at Corinth, a church he loved. Next time we say, “God uses sinful people all the time,” it might need to be while looking in the mirror.
4. Rhaina Cohen speaks further into the practicalities of tending relational ties in “The Secret to a Fight-Free Relationship” for The Atlantic. As ministers who offer relational counsel, our usefulness to the kingdom in this way is equivalent to our relational integrity in the eyes of those sitting in the front rows of our lives. Relating to our spouses and our children is the laboratory where our reliance upon God is tested. The question is never whether we’ll disagree, but how to do it well, and Cohen offers a strategy on which one couple ran their own longitudinal study. If you read it, I think you’ll find it makes enough sense to try and to share.
5. Karen Cooke writes “Learning to Love Our Neighbors Across Time and Space” for the ACU Graduate School of Theology’s blog. In the writings of Christian classic author John Chrysostom, Cooke discovered an extra-biblical opinion expressed therein that sidelines women. Cooke writes of how she turned to face this text and moved methodically through the issues it raised alongside a holistic view of the message of Scripture. Unafraid of uncomfortable conversations, Cooke models how to lovingly engage a neighbor (who happens to be an ancient writer), offering notes of how we might practice the same with our contemporaries.
6. Rob Kranz writes, “The Deconstruction Zone” for his blog, narrating his own journey of spiritual disorientation and questioning that often results during seasons of intense study and growth. Kranz normalizes the experience, relating it to heroes of our faith who have undergone the very same, as a close reading of Scripture reveals. Exploring different types of deconstruction, Kranz surfaces consistent truths and ways to handle ourselves and sit with others who are experiencing the disquietude that new information and experience often bring.
7. Adding Kara Lassen Oliver to the mix, God is bringing more and more people out of the woodwork of my experiences, sharing the benefits they experience in taking care of plants as a spiritual practice. In “Resilience As a Spiritual Practice,” Oliver shares the restoration she’s witnessed, and invites the reader to participate in an online retreat offered by the Upper Room, Resilience: Healing Practices for Mind, Body, and Spirit.
8. Zane Witcher interviews Justin Gerhardt, pulpit preacher turned podcast pastor, in episode #54 of the Onto Somethin’ Pod. Gerhardt is definitely onto something, and it’s called Holy Ghost Stories, a podcast delivering stories from the biblical narrative of the Old Testament. Convicted to allow each story to speak on its own, Gerhardt shares in character, honoring their real lives and reminding the listener these are real people with whom God has a relationship, and whom we will get to meet someday. Gerhardt presents a few snapshots from God’s “wallet” as Yahweh sidles up to the willing ear and says, “Here, let me show you a few pictures.”
9. Here’s a little more about Gerhardt from his newsletter archives, which subscribers to the Holy Ghost Stories podcast receive. In this particular issue, “Where We’re Moving: And why I got Samson wrong for so long,” Gerhardt journeys the reader through material he explored in bringing the Samson story off the flannel board and into the adult world where it was born and really belongs. Gerhardt also puts together the pieces of his relationship with Zane Witcher, who was Gerhardt’s preaching intern in 2014 and now succeeds him in the pulpit as preaching minister. Thus continues the stories of the people of God.
10. The folks at Alabaster have done it again. Again, they’ve brought forth a beautiful, concrete, artistic expression of Scripture, yet this is their first full-length musical collaboration. With each song inspired by one of the fruits of the Spirit, Fruit is a great backdrop for study, writing, cooking, fellowship, or really any creative activity the Spirit inspires. What does kindness sound like? Listen and see if you agree.
