"I feel like a Hospice nurse," I sighed as I set down my bags. I had so many funerals in my small congregation that I had little time for anything other than caring for the dying.
This will be the fourth year of UNCO. We’ve gone from a small handful of people who really wanted to meet one another after interacting on Twitter to meeting on two coasts, conconting dreams and implementing creative projects. If you are interested in working toward the future of the church with action that moves beyond hand-wringing and an institutional nostalgia, then by all means, go to UNCO. You’ll find kindred souls there.
We had a week of frightening headlines as each day greeted us with a new horror. Yet, the chorus soothes my troubled soul as I inhale and imagine God filling me with peace in the midst of all those dreadful dispatches.
Who do you consider to be part of the "new generation"? What do you think draws you to advocate for this new generation? What do you think are some of the greatest challenges this generation faces?
When a friend got a major scar, the doctors asked her what kind of plastic surgery she wanted. She laughed at the question, responding, “Are you serious? Do you really think I’m going to give up these bragging rights? I earned this scar!”
Since Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, has been urging us to lean in, conversations have been buzzing about what it means to be a feminist. I’m always thankful for the opportunity to revisit the question.
Technology is changing the nature of our selves. Yet, when I travel among different religious communities, many leaders focus on whether they ought to be on Facebook or not. I'm worried that our theological imaginations have not kept pace with our technological developments and I hope that in the decades to come, we can begin reflecting theologically on how our identities evolve.
We can't predict the future, but we can look at the interesting things that are happening now, and we can dream about where God might be calling us. When imagining what might be coming, there are a few approaches or attitudes that can orient us.
Though I sympathize with those who feel weary when talking about what is to come, I forge ahead because the "future" is not far off, planning is vital, and I care about a new generation.
I thumbed through a stack of Xeroxed images, looking at the multiple faces of Jesus that a friend compiled for her theology paper. She had gone to the library and photocopied profiles from around the globe.
How has the "myth of the model minority" affected the lives and work of Asian-American women? How is the myth used in our society? Please join Derrick Weston and I as we talk with Mihee Kim-Kort about her book Making Paper Cranes.
Even as a Reformed minister, who is a product of the regrettable history of iconoclasm and who warns that our minds can be "factories of idols," I know every worshiping community has sacred items.
If life is the most important thing in a political and theological belief system, then why would a person support the death penalty, back wars and oppose gun violence prevention?
