Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 Series
(These fragments are from my notes and are quoted as I heard them, I hope they might be close to what was actually said).
“Be inventive in hospitality.” “Make friends with nobodies.” “If you see your enemy hungry, buy them lunch.” –Barbara Brown Taylor
“It’s time for a preaching renaissance.” “Words must be performed. All religion is performative if it is to be memorable.” –Frank Thomas
“We are narrative beings.” “Seminary–repository of the best practicals of the previous generation.” “Cultivate Biblical imagination.” –David Lose
“Make hope as tangible as despair.” “Can you see it now?” “Not the word Isaiah heard. The word Isaiah saw.” –Barbara Lundblad
“There’s a third church out there.” “The purpose of the church is not to meet your needs, but that God has specific need and calling that match your gifts.” “God as knitter…knit me together in my mother’s womb.” –Lillian Daniel
“Preaching is maintaining God’s sacred conversation with the congregation.” –Craig Barnes
“Replace ‘word’ with ‘story.'” “Words are not the language of culture. Images are.” –Len Sweet
“Expose and envision.” Speak a word out of place.” –Barbara Lundblad
“I get up every morning and write for a couple of hours. If you do that much for 50 years, it’s cumulative you know.” “The text is the residence of the holiness–in all it’s messiness.” “We need to learn how to grieve the loss of the ‘world we knew.'” –Walter Brueggemann
“Even liberation requires a certain amount of grieving.” “What is being preached matters.” “What happened 40 years ago where you live that shapes the place today?” –Anna Florence Carter
The line about seminary…! Funny and a little shocking all at once. Something to keep in mind as I/we navigate those waters.
I know… We all laughed, and then got quiet and pondered. He went on to remind us that it’s not that these practices are bad, they are best practices, but that we have to ask what it means to be faithful today in current culture.
I see a theme of re-birth through death – which involves grieving and CHANGE, both things that the Church as an organization tries to avoid with all its being. But as individuals, we have the opportunity to move forward in this birth and change and share that with other individuals, hoping that the church as a body will at some point catch up. And our best hope is that the church might find its voice in leading the way in this emerging movement of God. Thanks for sharing what you’ve noticed.