A friend of mine was walking through his neighborhood a few weeks before Christmas, years ago. As he approached one house, he noticed the Nativity in the front yard. Everything was in its place—shepherds, wise men, Mary, Joseph, a manger—only inside the manger was the baby Jesus wearing a Santa Clause hat: a fur-lined, red hat with that cool-looking white ball thingy at the top.
That’s the problem with Christmas. Many of us cannot see the difference between who Jesus was, what He taught and did, and the unhinged consumerism of America’s most gluttonous season.
‘Tis the Season to Be Consumers
This requires us to ask: What should we be thinking and doing at Christmas?
Before a renaissance in my…
When you are black and a woman in America, the struggle to know and love yourself and your community is real. From the time we enter this world as people created with promise and purpose from our Creator God, we…
A couple of months ago, I was with my friend JR Woodward and the V3 Movement as they had their conference in Philly, and the theme was Reimagining Leadership. JR’s colleague, Dan White, Jr., opened the time by saying, “We’re…
Advent is definitely not for sissies.
So writes Fleming Rutledge, the Episcopal priest, author, and theologian who penned Christianity Today’s 2017 Book of the Year, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. In her latest work, Advent: The Once…
Churches have histories. Or to put it more generally, the church is not just an idea, it is an actual social entity linked across geography and time. Hebrews 12 tells us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses:…
Partnerships are the fuel that Missio Alliance runs on, and we couldn’t be more excited than to announce our new partnership with Friends University! Friends University, with its profound commitment to Spiritual Formation, has a long history of spurring the…
This Week on Seminary Dropout…
Aaron Niequist is a liturgist, writer, in the New York City. After leading worship at Mars Hill Church (Grand Rapids, MI) and Willow Creek Church (Barrington, IL), Aaron created A New Liturgy- a collection of modern liturgical worship recordings.
What should church leaders do when caught in the middle of a conflict? Fitch and Moore discuss practices for navigating the conversation regarding human sexuality
This article was originally published at New Leaf Church Planting Initiative. Reposted here with their permission.
The New Leaf Blog is excited to offer a daily Advent Reader for 2018. Sign up here.
The Reader includes daily emails and blog…
Written by Emily Hallock, a blogger and mother of three who lives at Beech Grove, a Bruderhof in Kent, England. Originally published by our partners at Plough Quarterly, a magazine of stories, ideas, and culture to inspire faith and action.…
