Getting The Shape Of God Right - Richard Rohr

One Sacred Universe - Richard Rohr

The Sad Irony of Refusing Refugees

Following Jesus Is A Way of Resistance - Mark Van Steenwyk

Getting to Know Your Muslim Neighbors - The Banner

Our faith moves us to embrace people who are different from us.

I know a lot of Christians who are interested in relating with Muslims these days.

Some are learning Arabic or visiting mosques. Others are striking up conversations with Muslim business owners in their communities. While their approaches differ, all of these folks seem to be compelled by the same motivation: Christ’s call to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We don’t need to be experts on Islam to relate to Muslims. In fact, relationships are the best way for us to learn about Islam. While our brokenness makes us good at “othering”—ascribing evil motives to those who are different from us—our faith moves us to embrace our neighbor.

How magnificent it is that a Reformed theological understanding of the world affirms and encourages this kind of engagement!  Our faith moves us to embrace people who are different from us.

The full article is available here

God Of Infinite Abundance - Richard Rohr

Let Us Go Out With A Divine Dissatisfaction - Rev Martin Luther King Jr

Quotes from Southern Christian Leadership Conference address on  August 16th, 1967.

Let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

Let us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security. Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family is living in a decent sanitary home.

Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol houses a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy and who will walk humbly with his God. Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied.

The road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair.

Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.

Inaugural Lament - Janel Apps Ramsey

An Exhortation To Action On Inauguration Day - Richard Rohr

The Church Needs To Actively Participate - Rev Martin Luther King Jr

True Religion Cares About Humanity's Social Conditions - Rev Martin Luther King Jr

Prayer Is Listening - Henri J Nouwen

Jesus of Nazareth vs American McChristianity

A Suffering God - N Gordon Cosby

A Creative, Compassionate God - Richard Rohr

How To Help Church Move On From "Praise & Worship" Music - Jonathan Aigner

Even by its own standards (i.e., number of butts in the seats) commercialized, contemporary praise & worship is a failed experiment at the congregational level.

I see the 3 main reasons for the decline (if not demise) of the commercialized "Praise & Worship" model.

(1) Younger generations are seeking old ways of doing things. This thankfully means an increasing rejection of the church of the 1990s and 2000s. More emphasis is being placed on liturgy and community, and less on using corporate worship chiefly as a contrived evangelistic tool. There is a burning desire to move past the shallowness of contemporary evangelicalism.

(2) Contemporary worship is an unstable and non-theological movement. To be thoroughly contemporary necessitates a slavish allegiance to the new, the current, the hip, the cool, and the commercial. It requires a thorough rejection of what is old, passe, not current, not cool, and what doesn’t make money. The bright shiny objects that get butts in the seats must continue becoming brighter and shinier. This bait-and-switch tactic is wearing thin.

(3) It's a failed construct. Even by its own standards (i.e., number of butts in the seats) commercialized, contemporary praise & worship is a failed experiment at the congregational level.  While it may fill ostentatious megachurches and suit their money-changer business model, it is an AstroTurf approach when congregations work best with grass-roots approaches.

Here are a few ways we can push forward toward a more profound understanding and experience of corporate worship.

• Choose music that can be sung well by a congregation. Corporate worship is about a time of gathering together, not about conformity to commercial forms. The "Praise & Worship" music that the Christian industry produces deemphasizes the human voice, and emphasizes soloistic interpretation, affected vocal production, and contrived performance.
• Stop conditioning attendees to be spectators. Look for liturgy, not entertainment. Worship is supposed to be the work of the people, not the jesusy entertainment of the masses. Music in worship isn’t supposed to be a vehicle for emotional manipulation, sensory gratification, or hooking an audience. Be a church where music serves the liturgy, not the masses.
• Reduce the influence of the commercial worship industry. It should disturb us greatly how much of contemporary worship is driven by money. It leads to a Sunday morning flood of poor compositions, both musically and theologically. It leads to what Michael Raiter calls “Hillsongization,” when everyone sings the same songs in basically the same way. It leads to the quality of a church’s “worship” being judged solely by how good their cover band is. It leads to a further loss of the importance of gathered worship, and the understanding of “worship” as more than just cool music. It leads to the mentality of, “With my iTunes, I can worship anywhere!”

It’s not really about music; it’s about the very purpose of gathered worship. It’s about theology, not experience. It’s about participation, not consumption. It’s about liturgy, not jesusy entertainment. It’s about being a church for the world, not getting butts in the seats.

The full article is available here

The Incarnation Shows The World Is Good - Richard Rohr

Awakening To Faith - Diana Butler Bass