Nov 4

Nov 4 Reflection Roundup: Generational Trust

Each week we gather news stories, notable pieces, and other important items for Christian leaders today. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but may not concur. Here are 10 things worth sharing this week.

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Generational differences are a given; intergenerational trust is a must. It’s essential we listen to and honor the priorities of those going before us and those coming behind.

1. Aaron Niequist presents “The Lord’s Prayer (2020)” at A New Liturgy. Many blessings are here, including the reminder that the word our, with which Jesus begins his prayer, puts us in company with all of God’s children throughout time and history, Jesus himself included. Niequist and other artists provide beautiful contemplative moments in which to slow down and open afresh to Jesus’s words in this prayer. Poke around on the webpage; the full text and other resources are free to download.

2. I’ve been experimenting with the Ritual well-being app recently and am finding it too good not to share. Founded on a decade of research, the expert developers frame well-being in five categories: happiness, resilience, integrity, meaning, and connection. Heavy hitters including Kathleen Cahalan, Parker Palmer, Barbara Brown Taylor, Greg Boyle, S.J., and others from various areas of specialization, each offer a reflective series of short thoughts for consideration.

3. Clare Ansberry writes “Young People Say Disconnect Keeps Them From Church” for the Wall Street Journal, highlighting specific instances where young people perceive a lack of importance placed on issues important to them in their churches. For a generation who believes social justice issues are main ways Christians express restoration in the world, it’s a difficult pill to swallow when this building and renewal doesn’t pan out to be all-inclusive. Ansberry and others in the article point out the need for respectful conversation surrounding topics for which we can easily anoint our own perspective and experience as “right.”

4. The Christian Science Monitor has curated a wide ranging series, “Finding Resilience: Adapting in the face of adversity.” Within the series, staff writers Sarah Matusek and Erika Page share “For some seniors, pandemic trials have brought renewal,” detailing how particular octogenarians have overcome personal fears and regarding the fragility the pandemic has forced upon their generation. Sandra Bierman shares God’s creativity within her through painting once more. Malcolm Frazier returned to his monthly pulpit appointment in Asbury Methodist Village after recovering from COVID himself. Eduardo González called his own grandfather’s words to mind, picked up his guitar and, though masked, has not stopped sharing his music with fellow residents in his assisted living facility. These individuals have grown to be thankful for their experience with the pandemic, learning to add wisdom and empathy to that gained throughout a life filled with all sorts of ups and downs.

5. Sometimes, as ministers, we can get caught up in ourselves. We see God working, we join, and doggone it, we want to see the finish line! We want to see the difference we’ve made. Guilty as charged. Paul reminds that, whether we are planters or waterers, God gives the increase in God’s timing (1 Cor. 3:6). In Jen Bailey’s “Voices for Vocational Accompaniment: Leading, Mentoring, and Learning From the Next Generation” for Faith & Leadership, she writes of reading the signs of the times. She notes where the ache in the world connects with our own, wisely reminding each of us to “assess and discern how our purpose might be called to manifest differently in each new season.”

6. Dave Odom, executive director of leadership education writes “Cultivating trust is a crucial task for leaders” for Duke Divinity’s Faith & Leadership, encouraging leaders to be listeners primarily. Allowing people to express the reasoning behind their priorities, the ways their experiences have formed them, the way in which they read Scripture, and the traditions they value, is the creative stuff of trust. When people are used to having their views marginalized or trivialized, especially by privileged leaders, they will retreat or lash out rather than wrestle through opportunities for growth. Odom claims every situation is primarily about trust and offers five lenses through which to view conversation and action.

7. “When the mission is so clearly more important than the way you feel about each other, then you can make the team work.” Organizational psychologist Adam Grant brings “How to Trust People You Don’t Like” to the WorkLife podcast. Interviewing a team of astronauts whose trust in one another facilitates their ability to move through life and death situations as a part of their jobs, Grant shares important discoveries about trust that translate to all environments that require trust. It’s important to know how people will respond in stressful situations. Trustworthy people respond consistently and predictably. Trust has to be earned, and different people bestow the gift of trust to one another based upon what each person values most highly. Grant suggests we know what engenders trust within us when we think of a most difficult colleague or parishioner. What about them gets under our skin? They may not affect everyone this same way, but are demonstrating low performance in an area we highly value, making them difficult to trust. Self-awareness is key to growing in the ability to trust and be trustworthy.

8. Edie Gross, journalist for Faith & Leadership, writes “Incubator for discipleship” about an Austin church who asked the question, “What would it look like to fund – literally – your church’s vision statement?” Thomas Daniel of Covenant Presbyterian Church has been convicted for some time about the “bifurcated lives” of the parishioners. So much so that he suggested the church begin investing in ministry opportunities the congregants are passionate about, and that reveal themselves amid everyday life. Tod Bolsinger of Fuller Theological Seminary says, “Too often, church leaders are in survival mode, lurching toward quick fixes in search of one all-encompassing mission that will solve the world’s ills and energize the congregation.” Gross contextualizes Bolsinger’s comment, reminding that individuals can serve needs with their gifts and talents – needs that would be subsumed by a large church program. This church is coming alongside its members as they come alongside those within their community.

9. Trust begins with vulnerability, and this aspect of her writing and speaking was what endeared so many to the thoughts and heart of the late Rachel Held Evans, gone too soon at age 37 in 2019. For the New York Times, Elizabeth Dias writes, “She was able to approach her doubts and the things that used to be considered scary or bad in her faith tradition” in “The Last Words of Rachel Held Evans.” Death brings unknowing uncomfortably close as Evans’s widower Dan confesses to Dias how he’s learned to sit in that discomfort. Evans’s final book for adults, Wholehearted Faith, generously completed by friend Jeff Chu, released this week.

10. Denice Knight‐Slater writes “Using the Labyrinth to Foster Community Prayer and Devotion” for the Siburt Institute’s digital journal Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry, offering myriad ways to approach labyrinth walking and building, some of them creative and new, and well-worn yet as fresh as ever, invigorated by the Spirit.