Reflection Roundup: All Is Prayer

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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Unity with God means moving through the world in constant communion: every bit of news, each conversation, every gaze met, offered up in prayer.

1. All-seeing, all-knowing God, convict us to listen with honesty, to your Spirit, to ourselves, and to others. Refine us with a culture of confession in which we are free to admit our failings, to be truth tellers, and to pursue justice.

Last fall, ACU’s Baptist Study Center collaborated with the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry to produce a webinar with authors Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer on the topic of their book A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing, which remains timely as we continue to seek tools and training for discernment of culture within our churches. “Church Cultures of Care and Abuse” asks the question, “What does it look like to shift a toxic culture back to the goodness it was meant to be?”

May we be mindful to use our gifts as Christ did, to nurture identity and spiritual gifts, and to empower other people as Christ, our model, used all he was for the sake of others.

2. Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Richard Beck, Experimental Theology blogger, reflects on the abuse of power in our churches. He points out the similarity between the Mars Hill phenomenon described in the Christianity Today podcast I mentioned last week, and Pascal Pensées’s identification of “sinners who think they are righteous.” The Pharisee in Luke 18:11, praying a pious prayer of thanks that he was not a sinner, fell victim to the same game.

3. Oh, Lord, “I choose to believe that the world we hand to our children can be a little bit more loving and caring and liberating than the world that was handed to us.” This is only possible when we follow the lead of your Spirit in fearless obedience.

Danté Stewart pens these words turned to prayer in “When Everything Feels Fragile” for Sojourners. The tragic earthquake in Haiti is a breaking straw on the backs of all of us traumatized by the mounting vicissitudes of the last two years. Stewart allows the reader to peek into his own mental tensions as he reminds his young son of his presence and the rest this brings for his fears, and then resolutely chooses to believe.

4. Caring God, we join with the request that your care be reflected more commonly in the people who bear your image.

Alison Cashin and Rick Weissbourd of Harvard’s Making Caring Common, write “What Do We Need for Useful Political Conversations?” They posit that respect and the ability to see one another as people, fellow children of God, is the bridge across the political divisions in America. This piece for Cal Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center leads with the story of social media backlash that turned to empathy when one person realized the medical crisis in which his conversation partner found himself. Cashin and Weissbourd ask the reader to look around and notice if we’ve insulated ourselves within relationships with those like ourselves, and implore us to intentionally choose to befriend those different from ourselves in order to gain understanding.

5. Lord and lover, let us courageously trust you and tell the fullest truth we know, aware that this will reveal where you meet us in our shortcomings.

Author Vinita Hampton Wright shares the bullet list, “What Authenticity Is and Why It Matters” on Writing for Your Life, a blog targeting authors yet full of tips for all with a message to impart. “Authenticity is the new authority. Authenticity is the new cool,” yet overuse begs the question, “What does it even mean anymore?” Wright’s list reminds that the real and “not always pretty” is the beautiful canvas where God’s grace is revealed.

6. God of all, give us the courage to know one another, to not fear one another, and in turn to grow in our experience of the truth that you are knowable and that you are not scary.

In Lenny Luchetti’s “Listening to Listeners” piece for Ministry Matters, he confesses that “for empathy’s sake the preacher must find a way to listen to the people talk.” People were drawn to listen to Jesus because of his ability to perceive the tensions dwelling within them. This ability only develops when lives are joined, when pastor and congregant share experiences as Andrew Root notes in The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God. Luchetti cautions against allowing the specializations of ministry within our congregations to silo us from one another. The Spirit of God is relational, and we who preach the word must maximize the Spirit’s ability to touch and reach through our own hands, feet, and ears.

7. Spirit, thank you for wise guides, for continually nurturing them and giving them the courage to speak, and for those with ears. Let them hear.

“Reimagining Our Resources: Ready, Re-Set, Go” represents the composite work of Elizabeth Lynn, project director of Shifting Ground for the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Lynn shares survey results that indicate churches are “ready to focus on repurposing existing resources to produce a more streamlined and sustainable future.” This is exciting! Along with the brainstorm of questions like, “How do we start a conversation in our congregation about the use of our endowments or our aging buildings?,” she includes a list “of organizations and coalitions mobilizing to help congregations to engage hopefully with this moment” such as the S4 Program. Additionally, the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving is offering two free toolkits – one for clergy use and one for “congregational teams” – to gain information on how congregational resources might be used for the benefit of the local community. Here are the full results of the survey (PDF download).

8. Spirit! You lead our hearts and minds and empower all of our bodies, for which we are eternally grateful while we long for the perfection you promise.

Makyra Williamson, intern at the Christian Chronicle, reports on a Vacation Bible School offered to the community surrounding the Highland Church of Christ in Cordova. “Tennessee congregation has a vision for making church ‘a more inclusive environment’ ” describes a specially created heaven-on-earth environment for those people in the community, ages 5 to 41, who experience life with differing abilities. Hanna Thrasher, youth minister and Harding University special education graduate, led the charge after a mission trip to Camp Barnabas, a summer camp designed for those with special needs. The bug bit this crew, and they came home and did likewise. Good luck not smiling through this story!

9. Spirit, you invite us to listen; speak your truth to your beloved.

Henri Nouwen consistently reminds us that we must make space to listen to the breath and heartbeat of the Spirit in order to recall our true identity as beloved of God, and in “Silence as ear cleaning,” Austin Kleon directs the reader to those who do the same. John Cage performs silently, inviting the audience to truly listen. Kleon quotes composer Murray Schafer, who says, “Silence is a pocket of possibility.” It is in deep, patient, solitary listening that community and ministry-sustaining truth is received.

10. Abba, as you call us to prayer, let us find your speech ubiquitous in our surroundings.

In “Pandemic prayers,” Austin Kleon models a creative prayer practice in which the words of the prayer are revealed through the process of searching, praying. This discipline recalls Karl Barth’s admonition to, “hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other” (Time Magazine, May 1, 1966).