American Christians: Drop The Persecution Complex - Rachel Held Evans

A spirit of fear and entitlement does more to obscure the gospel than elucidate it.

Did you hear about the pastor who was arrested for not marrying a same-sex couple? What about the publisher that got sued for refusing to censor anti-gay verses from the Bible?

Both of these stories have been exposed as fakes of course, but that didn’t keep hundreds of thousands of conservative Christians from sharing them online this week.

When I pointed out to a friend that the story he had just shared on social media wasn’t true, he replied, “well it might as well be. Christians in this country are under attack.”

The persecution complex is not based in reality.

Not only do American Christians experience complete religious freedom in this country, we also enjoy tremendous privilege. More than seventy-percent of the population identifies as Christian, as do the majority of our representatives to congress and every single U.S. president. Our churches, whose steeples dot every cityscape and small town in the land, are exempt from paying taxes.

“[Christians] are manufacturing conflicts in order to have something to rally behind,” writes Neil Carter. “It makes them feel more in touch with the early Church’s tumultuous beginnings.  But it takes a lot of smoke in mirrors."

The persecution complex minimizes the very real suffering of others.

The persecution complex blinds many American Christians to their own privilege, which then blinds them to the challenges faced by the genuinely underprivileged in this country.

In spite of shifting views on same-sex marriage, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people continue to face incredible hostility here in the U.S. and around the world, often at the hands of American Christians.

What the persecution complex suggests is that conservative Christians only care about bullying, oppression, and discrimination when they think it happens to them. If it happens to LGBT people, or to people in other religious minority groups, it is of little concern (or is tacitly supported). American Christians guard their privilege ruthlessly, even if it comes at the expense of others.

When American Christians obsess over their own perceived oppression, it becomes incredibly difficult to engage in important conversations about religious, racial, and gender privilege that are necessary for creating a more just society.  How can we begin to recognize our own privilege and the harm it can cause when it remains unchecked if we believe ourselves to be an oppressed minority?

The persecution complex obscures the teachings of Jesus 

You know who was actually persecuted for their religious beliefs?  Jews under Roman occupation in the first century.

And you know what Jesus told those Jews to do?  Pay your taxes. Give to those who ask. Do not turn people away. Love your neighbors. Love even your enemies. 

And yet right now, some American Christians think that baking a cake for a gay couple is too much to ask. A spirit of fear and entitlement does more to obscure the gospel than elucidate it.

The full article is available here

We All Need Relationship - Jeff Wiersma

"Out of selfness we grow towards selflessness."

We all know that we need relationship.  As English author G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Two is not twice one. Two is a thousand times one.”

We all want to be known fully for who we really are, and yet that’s often just what we also fear more than anything else. We have our pride after all. 

We believe the cultural myths that we can make our own way in the world, that we can fight our own battles.We often don’t want a helping hand because it threatens our false sense of self-reliance. And this is where many times we end up getting stuck.

But that’s not how we’re hardwired.

Like God, whose image we reflect (Genesis 1:26: “let US make mankind in OUR image”), we are social beings. We’re designed to give and receive love in community.

As author Frederick Buechner wrote, community is. "[h]ow we, by grace ... little by little ... become human; become whole, become truly loving. Out of selfness we grow towards selflessness."

Yes, having relationships with people can be scary and it can be thrilling, it can frustrating and it can be fulfilling, but it’s what we need.

Reflection and Renewal: May We Weep As You Weep and Love As You Love (based Isaiah 1:17)

God,

We are often preoccupied with ourselves, with what we want, and with what will make us feel comfortable. With our focus zoomed in ourselves, those who are suffering and need help are often totally off of our radar.

Remind us again of the things that you require of us; to learn to do good; to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan and to plead for the widow.

Forgive our short-sighted vision. Enable us to see this life as a gift from you to be shared. Fill our hearts with your love for all who suffer oppression, injustice, neglect and poverty, even if it means moving us beyond our comfort zones.

May we weep as you weep and love as you love. Deepen our connection with you and all that surrounds us.

Amen

Call to Worship: We Have Come Seeking (based on Psalm 34:8)

God of peace, we have come seeking. Your life-giving spirit is nourishment for our souls. We have come in search of meaning, connection, and togetherness. Help us to be open and to lean into your presence, which is always moving within and around us.

You are good. Your care and compassion know no end. For this amazing gift, we have come to give thanks together.

When Patriotism Becomes Idolatry - Zach Hunt in Relevant Magazine

There is NO space for the flag next to the bread and the cup on the altar of salvation. They are two radically opposed visions for the world.

Christians were a people who, under the threat of death, boldly professed allegiance to a kingdom that called Jesus, not Caesar is Lord. 

And yet here we are some 2,000 years later. We’ve brought the brass eagle home to dwell among us.

How far have we fallen as a Church, how lost are we in patriotic idolatry that we’re worried about offending people if we remove a symbol from our sacred space that demands our allegiance to something other than the God we’ve come there to worship?

What makes patriotism an idol in the Church, and not just bad theology or bad story telling, is that the political ideology it brings with it can push out the need for Jesus and leave no space for the Gospel.

When “Americanized Christianity” takes over and the Gospel gets refined in the fires of patriotism, the story of the empire ultimately wins out and becomes a new story of faith.

We may continue to profess allegiance to Jesus, but our lives tell a much different story, one in which the Gospel has become supplanted by American political ideology such that theology seems strangely like a political agenda. When this happens, debates begin to rage about caring for the poor, the sick and the immigrant, debates which would be incomprehensible in any other era of the Church.

When patriotism becomes an idol, the poor can become our enemies, the alien among us can become someone to be feared and the outcast can become someone we actively seek to marginalize. When patriotism becomes an idol, the “other” whom we despise is the least of these.

Because of the truly radical nature of the Gospel, there is no space for the flag next the bread and the cup on the altar of salvation. They are two radically opposed visions for the world.

We have to choose which story we are going to be a part of.

The full article is available here

Reflection and Renewal: Having Faith That Love Wins (based on James 1:22)

God,

It can easy for us to say we have faith or that we believe that you are love, but it can often be much more difficult for us to actually live that out in everyday life.

Sometimes it's difficult to have faith that you are love when we see the brokenness within and around ourselves. It is easy for us to forget that this brokenness is not the last truth about the world, but only the next to last truth.

Other times we reflexively say "God's in control" or "just have faith," perhaps brokenness in others reminds us of our brokenness and difficulties. This can lead us to avoid confronting the harsh realities of suffering or to distance ourselves from responsibility for the lostness and madness of the world; to try to hide behind a mask of certainty.

But faith isn't either of those things, so we come asking for forgiveness.  

Help us to have true faith; to believe that in the end your love wins ... while also realistically acknowledging the existence of suffering, as well as being willing to travel alongside of all who are hurting, struggling, abused, oppressed, or neglected.

Faith is supposed to be the eye of our hearts, but we often struggle to see that way. Help us to do more than merely paying lip service to the truth that you are love.  Help that truth to positively affect our thinking, actions, and decisions.

Amen

Reformers in the Church - Krause Corner

Awakening to Reformation
by Leslie Young Marks

Change is inevitable.  Our choice is to be agents of change. 

For many in the church today, there is a feeling that things are not right, not as they should be. Those who seek to change this status quo may follow one of three pathways; anarchy, iconoclasm or reform.

“Anarchist” is a pejorative label for many people, a designation implying lawlessness and amorality. “Iconoclast” is a milder designation, implying a particular vendetta on a volatile issue. “Reformer” has a positive aura, but can imply hopeless and unending do-goodism, talk without results.

A reformer sees the inefficiencies and offensiveness of a system and seeks to repair or replace corrupt elements, thereby revitalizing the whole.

A reformer does not see the current state as irredeemable, but also knows that reform is a never ending process, that we can always do better.

The reformer’s agenda is never-ending. Tough questions are asked and hard answers are given. Yet as with any organization, reform is slow and can be frustrating.  

Karl Barth wrote, ecclesia semper reformanda est, the church is ever-reforming. The church we grew up in was not the church our grandparents grew up with. Change is inevitable. Our choice is to be agents of change.

The full article is available here

The Pope's Environmental Encyclical - Cal DeWitt in Do Justice!

Francis mirrors his namesake from Assisi and with a biblically and scientifically founded proclamation invites everyone to enter “a dialogue with all people about our common home.”

The long-standing Stewardship Tradition—emerging in antiquity and continuing into the 18th century until it flickered and was extinguished in the heat of the industrial revolution—has been remarkably rekindled!

In his beautiful yet powerful encyclical letter, Laudato Si’—On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis gifted all people with a remarkably comprehensive letter. It is a letter that brings substantial hope as it bridges across both all creation and human society, inspiring everyone to envision an “integral ecology” for which creation and human society have been waiting in eager expectation.

In this, Francis mirrors his namesake from Assisi and with a biblically and scientifically founded proclamation invites everyone to enter “a dialogue with all people about our common home.”

Pope Francis reminds us that the biblical texts are to be read in their context, with an appropriate hermeneutic, recognizing that they tell us to “till and keep” the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). “Tilling” [avad] refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” [shamar] means caring, protecting, overseeing, and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.”

The pope’s encyclical is wide-ranging as it is powerful. Covering climate change, loss of biodiversity, degradation of the oceans, pollution of the air we breathe, human and social degradation, and more, it simply must be read by all. Most importantly, the approach of integral ecology—the theme of the encyclical—must now hear “both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” Francis perceptively identifies “an excessive anthropocentrism” that in disguise “continues to stand in the way...”

The full article is available here

Reflection and Renewal: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector (based on Luke 18:9-14)

God,

We seem to struggle with the same things over and over again.  For some of us, it's brokenness and failure, and we think that keeps us from being able to connect with you.

For some of us, it's judgmentalism and lacking spiritual humility that keeps us from being honest about not having it all together.

We're grateful that you strive for connection with us despite the things that we put in the way. It’s thanks to who you are and what you do that we can connect with you.  You took human form and lived among us to bridge the gap between us and to show us how to follow your way of life.

And even though we often have our attention fixed on how bad we think we are or how great we think are, your Spirit is continually making itself visible all around us.

Help us to be both honest about our failures and to not disqualify ourselves because of them ... so that we can relate to you and connect with you.

Amen

Building Nests For The New Community - Kayla McClurg

The Gospel Is A Journey - Father John Dear

How We Can Choose Love - Henri Nouwen

When We Pay Attention - Rick Fields

Pray Without Ceasing? - Jeff Wiersma

Spirituality isn’t mountaintop experiences and other-worldly bliss far from the cares and concerns of life below. Rather, spirituality is part and parcel of our everyday lives, as hectic and imperfect as they are.

Have you ever struggled with the idea of prayer, let alone actually doing it or "praying without ceasing" like the Bible mentions in one verse?  Maybe you wouldn't know what to say? Maybe you think that you're too messed up to even know where to begin?

I know I that I've certainly felt and thought things myself when it comes to prayer.  I've especially had difficulty with the idea of praying to ask God for something or to do something.  It always felt too transactional to me.  God isn't a vending machine and doesn't just suspend the natural laws of the universe if we but ask.

I think the root of the problem is two-fold.

One: our post-enlightenment culture has all the different aspects of life divided into rigid compartments (we have this mind set to blame for the false dichotomy of "Christian" and "secular”).  Among those, spirituality is often perceived as residing in a distinct compartment that is other-worldly and transcendent.

Two: we think of prayer as closing our eyes, folding our hands, bowing our heads, and conversing with an invisible entity (more on that later).

David Steindl-Rast wrote, "Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life."

Somehow we get the notion that spirituality is the luxurious, top floor, executive suite of our existence.  I suppose that's to be expected when so much of Western Churchianity has been expressed that way for centuries and marketed that way within the last several decades. 

Steindl-Rast continues. "But rightly understood, spirituality is an all-encompassing awareness."

Another way of saying that would be to describe spirituality as the lens we see all of our universe through.

So spirituality isn’t mountaintop experiences and other-worldly bliss far from the cares and concerns of life below. Rather, spirituality is part and parcel of our everyday lives, as hectic and imperfect as they are.

One way that I’ve found to be helpful in thinking about prayer is to see it as “connecting with God.” Here's how I’ve experienced that playing out:

• Just like spirituality and our everyday lives are interrelated and interconnected, so are God and everything in the universe. 
• Because we’re all connected, we can learn to see God in everything we’re connected to. 
• All that’s required for us to be connected is to have a mindset of awareness; to always be on the lookout for God in anything and everything on a daily basis.

What a relief! I mean, if the only way to pray without ceasing was to continually have one’s eye closed, head bowed, and hands folded  ... then the dishes wouldn't get done, the kid wouldn't get their lunches packed, your boss would certainly fire you before long, etc.  Obviously I'm exaggerating, but I'm trying to show where the logic leads us.

But if prayer is a mindset, an awareness, an attitude ... that sure sounds like something anyone can do. 

Then prayer wouldn't be just for someone who has endless hours to sit in solitude and pray. Prayer isn't some spiritual super power that only someone who has gone to church their whole life can wield. It wouldn't be just for someone who seems to have it all figured when it comes to prayer, not just for someone whose life doesn’t seem to be pock-marked with failure and brokeness like mine is and yours probably is too.

Obviously it’s vital to work to heal the brokeness in our lives and to make time for stillness and contemplation. But you don't NEED to be some kind of a saint and you don’t to make a retreat away from everyday life to some spiritual oasis to pray.

You can come as you are and pray where you are. It’s as simple as being on the look out for God, honestly and sincerely.

Are we paying attention?

Integral Joy: God Is Everywhere - Carl McColman in Shalom Institute

God is everywhere: in the celestial regions as well as the underworld, and of course everywhere in between. Perhaps this is why we can say with confidence, all are related: because everything is knit together in the silent presence of God.

A phrase from the Lakota language, mitakuye oyasin, means “all are related” or “all my relations.” It’s a way of seeing: of recognizing that we exist not as some sort of isolated cells over and against our environment or are communities, but that our existence, our very lives, are indeed integrally bound up together with all other beings, with the world and the cosmos. We are all related. We are all connected.

This in turn reminds me of Julian of Norwich, who wrote “the fullness of joy is to behold God in all.” So not only are we connected to all, but that if we learn how to see, we can behold God in all to which we are connected. In scripture we read, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there” (Psalm 139:8).

What all this means, of course, is that silent prayer or contemplative practice cannot be divorced from the rest of life. Spirituality is not something apart from everything else we do; it is knit into the fabric of our undivided lives, the same way that breathing is. In silence we pay attention to our breath, and then for the rest of the day we continue to breath, whether we attend to it or not.

In contemplation we rest in God’s presence, whether we feel or consciously experience it or not. Likewise, throughout the day we rest in the Divine, regardless of how attentive we may be to this fact. But the invitation is more than just cognitively acknowledging the Divine, but rather to enter into the fullness of joy. Learning to see God means learning to find joy.

Now, in truth, much of life may seem anything but joyful. We suffer, we hurt one another, we encounter disease or abuse and death. Where’s the joy in all that?

I don’t believe God calls us to rejoice in suffering itself, but rather to rejoice in God even in the midst of suffering.

The full article is available here

Let's Partner Towards Reducing CO Emissions - CRC Network

Climate change is one of the most pressing moral issues of our lifetime, but when it comes to offering lament, seeking forgiveness, and working toward solutions, the church is often nowhere to be found.

In a warming world where local fisheries are collapsing, soil is degrading, sea levels are rising, and more and more people are being driven from their homes, why has the church remained so quiet?

The Christian Reformed Church believes that the global church has a crucial and necessary role to play if the world is to begin adequately addressing the threat of climate change. It’s high time that the church stands up and is heard, and the CRC is planning an exciting campaign to begin to do just that. Here are the basics:

Governments from all over the world will be gathering in Paris in November/December, 2015 for the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21), where a potential global treaty on carbon emissions will be negotiated.The CRC will spend the summer and fall of 2015 recruiting 30 congregations in the United States and Canada and providing them with resources to educate themselves on creation care in general and the COP 21 process in particular.

In November, a group of 3-4 CRC members will travel to Paris to represent the CRC and participate in the negotiation process. They will also communicate regularly with the 30 congregations back in North America with on-the-ground updates and analyses.

After COP 21, these 30 congregations will be empowered to engage in a number of advocacy efforts to make sure that the progress emerging from the meetings in Paris is translated into concrete policy back home.

The full article is available here

Precious Lord - tribute to B.B. King

instrumental with piano playing vocal melody parts

How Christian Music Sanitizes The Wilderness - Chaplain Mike in Internet Monk

The Christian life is not all sweetness and light.  People know this, but praise music doesn't often help them know what to do with that knowledge and the feelings that go along with it.  We live in real wilderness.  We do best to acknowledge it.  Sanitizing it helps no one.

Praise music is especially weak when it comes to giving voice to the full spectrum of human experiences and emotions.  Today's church has largely embraced a theology of glory and neglects the trinitarian reality of the suffering God. It shows in Praise Music.

Psalm 42 was the basis for a winsome little song "As The Deer." The song exemplifies a big problem Praise Music has when it comes to using imagery from the Bible, especially the book of Psalms.

Rather than meditating on the Psalmist is actually using imagery, it is interpreted in a way that is easily grasped in our culture - in romantic fashion.  That is manifestly NOT what the imagery refers to in Psalm 42.

The psalmist is NOT longing for God because he has a precious "personal relationship" with God and wants to celebrate that.  Rather, HE PINES FOR GOD BECAUSE GOD CAN'T BE FOUND! 

The deer in the psalm can't find a stream.  It is dying of thirst and desperately concerned for its very life.  This is why the psalmist is thirsty for God.  He is dying of thirst for an ABSENT GOD.

Even when today's songwriters make use of the Psalms they tend to transform the raw, earthy language that describes our complex, often messy relationships with God and others into easily digestible spiritual sentiments. 

This is similar to what today's Christianity does to the Bible.  It takes one image from a rich, profound, complex and realistic description of life and latches on to it because the image evokes a simple, devotional sentiment that prompts an immediate emotion.

The Christian life is not all sweetness and light.  People know this, but praise music doesn't often help them know what to do with that knowledge and the feelings that go along with it.

We live in real wilderness.  We do best to acknowledge it.  Sanitizing it helps no one.

The full article is available here

Heaven Is Not "Up There" Somewhere - Chuck Queen in Patheos

Heaven is up, down, and all around. Heaven is where God is, and God is the very Spirit in whom “we live, move and have our being.”

Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (HarperOne, 1998) prompted me to rethink my views about salvation, the kingdom of God (which was the central theme in Jesus’ preaching and teaching), discipleship and the spiritual life, the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross, and the reality of heaven.

While I don’t agree with everything Willard teaches—such as his view that the Bible is inerrant, for instance—he helped me to realize that heaven is not just up there somewhere, but is, rather, right here and now.

He writes:

The Old Testament experience of God is one of the direct presence of God’s person, knowledge, and power to those who trust and serve him. Nothing – no human being or institution, no time, no space, no spiritual being, no event – stands between God and those who trust him. The “heavens” [he noted that heaven in the Greek is usually plural] are always there with you no matter what, and the “first heaven,” in biblical terms, is precisely the atmosphere or air that surrounds your body. (p. 67)

Such words from Willard came to me as living water when I was in a dry, parched land. At the time I desperately needed to know that God was that close. That the world is immersed in the Divine and the Divine pervades the world came to me as very, very good news.

Heaven is up, down, and all around. Heaven is where God is, and God is the very Spirit in whom “we live, move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). Heaven is now as well as later. It is where we experience conscious union with God and all of God’s creation.

In Falling Upward the progressive Franciscan priest and mystic Richard Rohr expresses the symbolic meaning of heaven this way:

Heaven is the state of union both here and later. As now, so will it be then. No one is in heaven unless he or she wants to be, and all are in heaven as soon as they live in union. Everyone is in heaven when he or she has plenty of room for communion and no need for exclusion. The more room you have to include, the bigger heaven will be.

It’s when and where we recognize that we all belong, that we are all connected.
The full article is available here

Revised Lyrics: Rock of Ages by Sandra McCracken

the Indelible Grace version

Revised Lyrics: Lead Us Back by Sojourn Music

the original version

Revised Lyrics: All Creatures by Enfield

the original version

"Where's God When?" Loss, Doubt and Church - Catherine Woodiwiss in Sojourner's

"Loss is a common language, but it isn’t a language inside our faith communities that we learn to speak very well."

What’s it like to share your stories of loss to a room of hundreds? Wm. Paul Young (author of The Shack), Reba Riley (Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome), and Christian Piatt (PostChristian) are about to find out — and help others do the same. The three bestselling authors are launching a two-stop tour — "Where's God When..." — in Seattle and Portland on May 16 & 17, to help others hear, and share, their own stories of grief, heartbreak, and healing.

Wm. Paul Young, author, The Shack: The language of loss is something I’m quite familiar with.

The older I get, the more I’m cognizant of the fact that loss is a common language, but it isn’t a language inside our faith communities that we learn to speak very well. A lot of times not even in our homes. For a lot of us, it was not safe and not allowable to do so.

So this is an opportunity to sort of put our arms around a community of people. I think that’s the direction we have to go to find some healing, for not just ourselves but for our communities and for our world. We’ve got to be able to talk about what we have in common.

Loss is no respecter of religion. It’s an equal opportunity offender. It’s belief-resistant — it doesn’t care whether you believe in God or not. That’s the framework that we enter into and tell our stories. Loss is a common language, even more so than faith or church or God or any of that. It’s a much more common language.

The full article is available here 

Reconciling With The Church Through Worship - Shannon Hollemans in do justice!

How can we show people Christ when the church is keeping them away from Christ?

Like many, I am a Christian both in spite of the church and because of the church. So how can we show people Christ or disciple them when the church is keeping them away from Christ?

Reconciling worship can be characterized by what happens outside of worship as much as anything that happens within it. It is not about a sermon series or carefully crafting congregational prayers.

This is a DNA issue.

It is one thing for the church to be heartbroken over injustice; it is another for the church to practice justice—in the decisions of those with power and in the life of the congregation. It is about us, all of us, being the church, together.

1. Reconciling worship embraces and celebrates the diversity of God’s people. This means that the images used convey that everyone is represented and reflected before God in worship. This mean it is a way of seeking participation from members representing every walk of life, not merely making room for diverse expression and participation, but actively pursuing it.

2. Reconciling worship remembers the causes of the hurting and oppressed. If there is any sin of which the North American church needs to repent together, it is our apathy. Oftentimes, the hurt caused by the church is not a result of what the church does as much as what it does not do. Great pain is caused when the church is silent. When people are devastated and dumbfounded and at a loss for words, that is where the Church should be—offering comfort, lamenting injustice, remembering, and speaking hope.

3. Reconciling worship recognizes and addresses the need for community. Much of worship music implies a “me and Jesus” understanding of our relationship to God. But in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 we read that it is not my body that is a temple of the Holy Spirit but the body, us.Reconciling worship has both vertical and horizontal aspects because worship, at its heart, is about communing with God and one another.

4. Reconciling worship fosters space for lament and grief. It should speak to the hearts of the many who come to worship with emptiness stemming from loss. Reconciling worship creates space that leaves room for diverse expressions of lament.

5. Reconciling worship nurtures repentance. There is immense power in confession, particularly when we do it as a community.Worship can only offer us comfort when it speaks to our very real pain, often as the result of sin. It is in turning and returning to God that the broken, all of us, can meet the God of heaven and earth face to face.

6. Reconciling worship uses language with care. Our hearts are revealed in our language, both verbal and nonverbal. And all too frequently, so are our biases. Reconciling worship avoids “us” versus “them” language, like “believers” and “nonbelievers”. It recognizes the diversity of the people in the pews, and of the people that they love. It's all about not allowing our biases to speak when leading worship. It’s about asking ourselves: how do my biases come through here? If person X were in the crowd, how would she or he hear this?

7. Reconciling worship cultivates restoration and hope. Reconciling worship turns our lens from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to the Tree of Life. It is for both the wounded and the one who has done the wounding. Our hope in Christ is the source of our unity in our diversity. When the focus is on God, not on us, it is much easier to find hope. [It should focus on the kingdom coming and God's will being done now through restoration and renewal.]

As followers of Christ we are meant to be ambassadors of reconciliation. It is an overwhelming task that we have the privilege of participating in through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The full article is available here

Immigration Preaching Challenge - CRC Office of Social Justice

Preaching about immigration is a way in which we can respond to God’s call to be truth tellers, to make the gospel relevant to our context today, and to be aware of the burdens that the body of Christ is bearing in our midst.

Did you know that only 16% of evangelicals have ever heard about immigration in church? As a result, fewer than 10% think about immigration primarily from the perspective of their faith.

The theme of immigration is woven throughout the biblical narrative. Still, immigrants find themselves on the margins. Society projects its struggles onto new immigrants. Xenophobia, stigma, and myth tend to color the reception of newcomers.

A quick study of the history of U.S. immigration policy reveals that misinformation has resulted in harmful immigration laws that are not based on reality. The majority of new immigrants are Christians--and when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer.

Preaching about immigration is a way in which we can respond to God’s call to be truth tellers, to make the gospel relevant to our context today, and to be aware of the burdens that the body of Christ is bearing in our midst. Your congregation is hearing about immigration from lots of places--but they need most to hear about it from you.

Take the challenge! Submit a recording (with a written outline) or a complete manuscript of a sermon you preached about immigration to osjha@crcna.org by September 30, 2015.

The full article is available here