Every Sunday, we’ll be posting articles and links that are saying something important about church, culture, and mission. Here’s what resonated with us this week on the web:
Church & Theology
Rachel Held Evans shares an excerpt from her upcoming book, Searching For Sunday:
It’s strange that Christians so rarely talk about failure when we claim to follow a guy whose three-year ministry was cut short by his crucifixion. Stranger still is our fascination with so-called celebrity pastors whose personhood we flatten out and consume like the faces in the tabloid aisle. But as nearly every denomination in the United States faces declining membership and waning influence, Christians may need to get used to the idea of measuring significance by something other than money, fame, and power.
In this sermon clip, Greg Boyd endeavors to explain hell in a nutshell:
Is hell for real? Is it what we have been told it is? Does an all-loving God really torture people there forever? These are a few of the questions that Greg Boyd touches on in this weeks sermon clip.
John Frye writes at Jesus Creed about closing a church:
As the ministry entered into its final two years, issues in the church’s DNA, frictions with members, and the inability of the church to negotiate healthy change, the church entered into what our denomination calls an “at risk” status. Using a medical metaphor, the church went into cardiac arrest and was on life support in the last eight months to a year. It’s hard to get a church on life support to become more missional. Energy levels drop and morale flounders. I came to a hard realization: churches do die and this one was dying under my care.
News & Views
Matt Smethurst at The Gospel Coalition asks Tim Keller what’s on his bookshelf:
What’s on your nightstand right now?
I’m reading Augustine’s Confessions very slowly in two different translations and using a commentary on the Latin by J. J. O’Donnell. I’m reading a bit every night using all of those.
Ta-Nehisi Coates writes at The Atlantic in response to The Ferguson Report:
Darren Wilson was given the kind of due process that those of us who are often presumed to be gang members rarely enjoy. I do not favor lowering the standard of justice offered Officer Wilson. I favor raising the standard of justice offered to the rest of us.
Scot McKnight responds to Brian Zahnd’s recent post about America and the Church:
Brian Zahnd, that prophet-like pastor and author on the edge of Missouri, is no stranger to calling American Christians to distinguish between America and the Christian church. It’s not that he wants Americans to abandon the country and head north to Canada or south to Mexico. No, he wants us to grasp that what we often think is “Christian” is only Americanism conceived as Christianity.
Favorite Podcasts
N.T. Wright on the RELEVANT podcast.
Scot McKnight on the Seminary Dropout podcast.
Alan Roxburgh on the Fresh Expressions US podcast.
Partners & Resources
Discover How Fresh Expressions Really Begin, by Fresh Expressions US.
How Crisis Reveals Your Spiritual Gifts, by V3 Movement.
On The Missio Blog
On the blog this week, we continued our ongoing series on the topic of #TrulyHuman:
VIDEO: #TrulyHuman Plenary Speaker MaryKate Morse On Stewarding Leadership And Power, by Missio Alliance.
How Does The Church Differ From America?, by Brian Zahnd.
What Happened When I Stopped Being A Senior Pastor, by Karina Kreminski.
Primped: Letting Our Hair Down As Leadership, by A.J. Swoboda.
Missio Alliance Comment Policy
The Missio Alliance Writing Collectives exist as a ministry of writing to resource theological practitioners for mission. From our Leading Voices to our regular Writing Team and those invited to publish with us as Community Voices, we are creating a space for thoughtful engagement of critical issues and questions facing the North American Church in God’s mission. This sort of thoughtful engagement is something that we seek to engender not only in our publishing, but in conversations that unfold as a result in the comment section of our articles.
Unfortunately, because of the relational distance introduced by online communication, “thoughtful engagement” and “comment sections” seldom go hand in hand. At the same time, censorship of comments by those who disagree with points made by authors, whose anger or limited perspective taints their words, or who simply feel the need to express their own opinion on a topic without any meaningful engagement with the article or comment in question can mask an important window into the true state of Christian discourse. As such, Missio Alliance sets forth the following suggestions for those who wish to engage in conversation around our writing:
1. Seek to understand the author’s intent.
If you disagree with something the an author said, consider framing your response as, “I hear you as saying _________. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, here’s why I disagree. _____________.
2. Seek to make your own voice heard.
We deeply desire and value the voice and perspective of our readers. However you may react to an article we publish or a fellow commenter, we encourage you to set forth that reaction is the most constructive way possible. Use your voice and perspective to move conversation forward rather than shut it down.
3. Share your story.
One of our favorite tenants is that “an enemy is someone whose story we haven’t heard.” Very often disagreements and rants are the result of people talking past rather than to one another. Everyone’s perspective is intimately bound up with their own stories – their contexts and experiences. We encourage you to couch your comments in whatever aspect of your own story might help others understand where you are coming from.
In view of those suggestions for shaping conversation on our site and in an effort to curate a hospitable space of open conversation, Missio Alliance may delete comments and/or ban users who show no regard for constructive engagement, especially those whose comments are easily construed as trolling, threatening, or abusive.