By Ekklesia Project

• King/Fool by Ekklesia Project (11/18/2016)
  This Sunday we recognize Christ as king. It is the end of the church year, bringing our story from Advent through Easter and all that ordinary time to a close. But there is nothing about the image of Christ as king that settles my stomach or makes sense of my expectations. Nothing about this coronation service feels like closure or victory. John Jay Alvaro's post from 2013 is our post for the last week of this lectionary cycle.  ...
• Election by Ekklesia Project (11/8/2016)
  On this day, as the season of election culminates in the U.S., our friend Stanley Hauerwas offers reflections on election, worship, and the slow formation of a people capable of speaking truthfully to one another. May it serve the church. ...
• Distraction Sickness by Ekklesia Project (10/3/2016)

  If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation.

  [image] Andrew Sullivan is a controversial writer who uses illustrations that may be offensive to some readers, but his article on modern struggles with technology is our latest link for the Signs of the Times.
• The Spiritual Dimensions of Justice Work by Ekklesia Project (9/21/2016)
  [image]Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, is leaving her position as a law professor at Ohio State University to teach and study at a seminary. Here, she explains her new directions. Something Much Greater at Stake...
• Trinity Sunday by Ekklesia Project (5/20/2016)
  The Ekklesia Project Lectionary Reflections archive is deep and wide, so when we don't have a new post for a week, it is not difficult to go back and find a previous post that is still rich and relevant. For Trinity Sunday of 2016, we have chosen three posts for you to re-discover. 2008 from Debra Dean Murphy 2010 from Ragan Sutterfield 2014 from Anna MacDonald Dobbs...
• Gospel Politics by Ekklesia Project (2/19/2016)
  The political dimensions of the Church and the Gospel it preaches are utterly lost on the US news industry until someone commits the faux pas of "mixing religion and politics." Catholic theologian Matthew Shadle reflects on the latest breach of decorum, Pope Francis' visit to Mexico, which was a back page story until Francis crossed the line....
• Northwest Regional Ekklesia Project Gathering 2016 by Ekklesia Project (2/14/2016)
  Friends and endorsers of the Ekklesia Project are invited to Portland, Oregon for a regional gathering. See below for the details.  [image]...
• God, Presidents, and the Running of the World by Ekklesia Project (2/2/2016)
  The Ekklesia Project does not endorse political candidates, nor does it take positions in partisan political controversies, but its friends and endorsers live in a world in which Karl Barth urged Christians to read both the Bible and the newspaper, interpreting the latter through the former. Debra Dean Murphy, an Ekklesia Project endorser and leader, takes Barth’s approach as the already tiresome political season enters a new phase.

  An excerpt: Would-be American presidents may always feel this pressure—either from within or without—to cloak themselves in religious garb, sometimes heavily, sometimes lightly; to see themselves as saviors of a sort, as those called to run “the greatest country in the world” and thus have a powerful hand in running the world. This seems laughab...

• A Multitude of Ruptures by Ekklesia Project (12/18/2015)
  The post for the 4th Sunday in Advent is Jim McCoy's post from 2012. The word “preachy” has never been a complimentary term, even less so these days. The ministers rightly highlighted in the national news who have been doing their vital and admirable work are described as “compassionate, not preachy.” Those of us who not only have to preach but believe we should preach have been faced with how in God’s name do we preach the last two Sundays of Advent 2012, and how to do so in such a way in which compassion and preaching are not pitted against each other. Read More......
• Waiting in a Violent Time by Ekklesia Project (12/6/2015)
  It has not been a peaceful Advent. The news of the past several weeks has been filled with guns, violence, death, and fear. What might we be required to surrender as we wait for the Lord? Who needs to change? Here are two reflections that use this Sunday’s Advent lectionary readings as a starting place: one by Matt Morin, and the other from Fritz Bauerschmidt. ...
• Am I Right or am I Wrong? by Ekklesia Project (12/2/2015)
  In this video, EP endorser Tim Otto discusses his book, Oriented to Faith, and ideas for how the church might move forward even when it seems unable to overcome serious conflict. From the Wipf and Stock page:

  Rather than embracing the conflict around gay relationships as an opportunity for the church to talk honestly about human sexuality, Christians continue to hurt one another with the same tired arguments that divide us along predictable political battle lines. If the world is to "know that we are Christians by our love," the church needs to discover better ways to live out the deep un...

• A Dangerous Prayer by Ekklesia Project (11/27/2015)
  You may have heard of the decision by a film distributor in the UK not to screen a short video featuring the Lord’s Prayer before the new Star Wars movie this December because some viewers may find it offensive. You may have also heard how this business decision has been received. You may not have heard from the Anglican Bishop of Sheffield, who considers why the powers and principalities have good reason take offense. Perhaps it's a worthy reminder of Strangers and Aliens by Ekklesia Project (11/19/2015)

  In the wake of the Paris attacks last week, a majority of US governors have stated they will not permit the resettlement of Syrian refugees in their respective states. Several 2016 presidential hopefuls propose barring all Syrian immigrants or selectively admitting only Christian refugees. It may seem odd that descendants of immigrants and refugees should so forcefully oppose welcoming immigrants and refugees, but here, too, there is nothing new under the sun. The Bible, however, is rather clear on the matter: Reign of Christ by Ekklesia Project (11/18/2015)

  For the last Sunday in ordinary time, we have two posts from the archive. In 2012, the last time through the cycle, Janice Love wrote

  It is possible to not be afraid because we as confessing Christians have been made aware of one of God’s great gifts: a telos – an end, God’s intended end.

  You can read her post here. Doug Lee, in his 2009 entry, wrote

  Instead of assuming that we can do what is ultimate, what if we gave ourselves to embracing the basic, the flawed, and the provisional as the way forward?

  You can read his post here....
• Pope Francis in America by Ekklesia Project (11/4/2015)
  In September, the news industry lavished attention on Pope Francis' visit to the United States. Now, autumn has settled in and news outlets have returned to the usual suspects: politics, sports, and turning a profit for the holidays. EP endorser Barry Harvey reflects: A few weeks ago I received an email asking if I would like to contribute a brief reflection on the Ekklesia Project website on the significance of Pope Francis’s recent visit to North America. I was particularly intrigued by one of the questions in the email that served as a prompt: “In what ways did he fall short or fail?” I would say not only did he indeed fall short, but that the way he failed was a good thing too. Well, maybe not a good thing, but not surprising either. There is little do...
• In the Shadow of Charleston by Ekklesia Project (7/23/2015)
  Syndicate Theology’s current symposium, “In the Shadow of Charleston: Politics, Religion, and White Supremacy,” asks difficult and urgent questions of the church, questions faithful Christians in the United States ignore at great peril. ...
• Classic posts by Ekklesia Project (6/23/2015)
  For this week's lectionary, we have two great posts from previous trips through the cycle: Debra Dean Murphy's  "The Hemorrhaging Woman"  from 2009 and Brian Volck's  The Encounter More Than the Cure from 2012....
• Only by Ekklesia Project (1/20/2015)
  Third Sunday After Epiphany Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Psalm 62 Mark 1:14-20 By Grace Hackney My husband and I do not normally worship at Duke Chapel, but after the events of the previous week, we felt compelled to go last Sunday. We needed a “word” following the cancellation of the Muslim call to worship scheduled for the previous Friday from the top of the Chapel’s tower. It had been a challenging week, with this news following on the heels of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and resultant reactions. With security guards sprinkled throughout the Chapel, Dean Luke Powery began worship by reading a pastoral letter regarding the recent week’s drama to the cong...
• Year B links by Ekklesia Project (11/24/2014)
  We've been doing bLOGOS for a while now. The 2014-15 bLOGOS posts will be our third cycle of lectionary reflections for Year B. This list is the complete collection of previous posts for Year B. Due to calendar changes and times when authors were unable to submit, there may not be two posts for each week, but we hope this set of links will be helpful. The authors for the two years, mostly by order of appearance were:  Jesse Larkins, Jake Wilson, Erin Martin, Doug Lee, Ragan Sutterfield, Kyle Childress, Debra Dean Murphy, Joel Shuman, Brian Volck, C. Christopher Smith, Janice Love, Halden Doerge, Mark Ryan, John Jay Alvaro, Danny Yencich, Jenny Williams and Heather Carlson. A pdf file of the complete reflections can be Sanctification and Time by Ekklesia Project (11/19/2014)

  "The ethos of the sabbath goes much deeper than an individual commitment to prioritize worship. It includes all of those sacred practices, both affirmations and prohibitions, that have been kept alive in Judaism and are being fitfully recovered by Christians." Benjamin J. Dueholm Ekklesia Project endorsers and friends may be interested in the Christian Century article quoted above which addresses the decline of rest in our society: The War Against Rest. EP has explored this topic in a variety of ways. Phil Kenneson discussed the church and rest in a talk (among other practices) at the EP Slow Church gathering and in hi...
• Airbnb, Hospitality, and the Gift Economy by Ekklesia Project (8/14/2014)
  [image]Chi-Ming Chien, EP board member and blogger, examines the tension between the economy we live in and the economy which God calls us to participate in:

  "It’s ironic that, as we participate in the sharing economy, more and more of our lives get ceded over to the domain of the transactional. Where previously we might have a couch or spare room for a guest to crash in, now we rent it out. Where previously we might have offered an unused desk space in our office for a friend needing a place to work, now we list it and charge by the ho...

• A What or a Who? by Ekklesia Project (6/11/2014)
  EP's Brent Laytham reflects on promises made by prominent acolytes of technology:

  There’s an eschatology of sorts in the hubbub — indeed, in the hubris — that attends so-called technological revolutions. Apocalyptic always makes epochs determined by “before” and “after,” whether it’s the apocalyptic imagination undergirding the New Testament (e.g., “but in these last days…”; Heb 1:2, NRSV) or the one animating digital utopians like Edward Castronova (Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality [Palgrave, 2007]). The core question is whether that which dramatically changes everything is a “what” or a “who.” For Christians, even those entranced by the bewitchments of technological change, the answer must finally be who — for we know that grace...

• Nearly there... by Ekklesia Project (3/29/2014)
  Absent a lectionary commentary this week, let this reflection on the practices of Lent (written by EP Coordinator Brent Laytham) serve instead. Written at Lent's beginning, it may help remind us what we're about on this Laetare Sunday, more than halfway to Easter. ...
• Northwest Ekklesia Project Gathering 2014 by Ekklesia Project (2/19/2014)
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• Scapegoats and Torturers by Ekklesia Project (2/25/2013)
  Two messages of interest to EP endorsers come this week from the University of Dayton. The first, from Katherine Schmidt, a UD graduate student in theology, considers stranded cruise ships and the persistence of scapegoating. The second, from UD Professor and EP board member, Jana Bennett, looks at the Transfiguration, torture, and the ethical formation found in a series of small moments. ...
• Year C collected by Ekklesia Project (1/9/2013)
  [image]Since we've now worked through the three year lectionary cycle, we have links to all the previous year C posts (2009-2010) here. But, if you would rather see the reflections in one document, it's now available as a pdf. The authors for the year C bLOGOS reflections are:  Ragan Sutterfield, Brian Volck, Jenny Williams, Doug Lee, Kyle Childress, Debra Dean Murphy, Halden Do...
• Previous Year C links by Ekklesia Project (12/31/2012)
  [image]We've been doing bLOGOS long enough that we are now posting our second set of Year C lectionary reflections. We'll have new posts every week, and there will be links to the previous posts, but here's the complete list of links for those planning ahead.Year C Advent 1 http://dev-ekklesiaproject-or...
• Being Church: Reflections on How to Live as the People of God by Ekklesia Project (9/17/2012)
  Ragan Sutterfield reviews John Alexander's book for the Englewood Review of Books:

  "The job of the church, the most significant work we have to do, is to love one another, celebrate and welcome one another’s gifts, and be Christ’s body in the world. Of course we all know that most churches are nothing like this...Why is it so hard for us to be church?"

  Read the full review....
• Choose Wisely; Remember Well by Ekklesia Project (8/19/2012)
  Thanks to a campaign organized by Mennonite pastors, there's reason for those of us in the United States to look forward to November 6 as something more than the official end of a nasty and dispiriting secular political cycle: whatever you choose to do on Election Day in the US, take time to consciously celebrate the unifying communion of and in the Body of Christ. Among the goals of this Election Day Communion Campaign is "...to build unity in Christ despite theological, political, and denominational differences." Commenting elsewhere, Julia Smucker echoes the campaign's recommendation that readers celebrate the Eucharist on US Election Day, ...
• There is No They by Ekklesia Project (8/6/2012)
  Author and blogger J.R. Daniel Kirk brings this helpful reminder to the church:

  When you are part of a church, especially in leadership (but not only then), there is no “they” who will or will not do something. In those moments when what needs to be done butts up against the policy, or when what they’ve done embarrasses us, deferring to “them” is not going to convince the person in front of you that you are not part of that “them.” That person will only be convinced that you are different when you act, when you do what is right.

  Read the full post....
• Rethinking “Rethink Church” by Ekklesia Project (7/3/2012)
  "You have to include the story of Christ for being in a Christian community to result in any kind of personal conversion into Christian discipleship. Church has to be more than just “making a difference” and “finding a place where you fit.” When you make church inoffensive by cutting out the story of Jesus that makes church what is, you have also made church uncompelling as a result." Morgan Guyton, Rethinking "Rethink Church"....
• The Anguish of Imperfect Communion by Ekklesia Project (6/28/2012)
  by Julia Smucker For about the past five years, I have been a participant in the Mennonite/Catholic ecumenical movement known as Bridgefolk – first as a Mennonite drawn toward communion with the Catholic Church but also strongly connected to my ecclesial heritage, and now as a Catholic seeking to maintain that connection with the church that formed me.  I had agonized over the choice I was presented with in the unavoidable reality that joining with one communion would mean breaking with another, and wondered whether I could do so without it being tantamount to a rejection, a cutting off of my roots.  And then I discovered a group of people who had been agonizing over this division for years before me.  In the many honest and in-depth discussions I’ve been a part of since, it’s been clea...
• Feasting Michael Sattler by Ekklesia Project (6/1/2012)
  Julia Smucker reflects on another, much needed, sign of hope: "On this anniversary of the 1527 martyrdom of Swiss Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler, his witness is being commemorated in a new way: not for the heroism or heresy (depending on who you ask) of breaking with the Catholic Church, but for his uncompromised commitment to social justice and nonviolence that now serves as a rich foundation for bridging the Anabaptist Mennonite and Catholic Benedictine traditions." Read the rest here....
• CFI and Slow Church by Ekklesia Project (5/2/2012)
  reflections by Todd Edmondson Every community has its own language. Any time a group of like-minded people comes together to discuss what is important to them, it is critical that each person understands what another is saying. They develop a kind of shorthand among themselves, and cultivate ways of sharing information, interests, and convictions that are particular to that group. A gathering of accomplished cooks can exchange recipes and discuss culinary technique with one another without much effort. Experts in auto repair can discuss parts and technical procedures in ways that elude the layperson. To enter into the conversation requires a grasp of the language that is employed. The same is true for the church. It is not that we, as disciples of Jesus, consciously seek to u...
• Reading the Bible with Trayvon Martin by Ekklesia Project (4/2/2012)
  [image]Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove reflects on the murder of Trayvon Martin and the practice of reading Scripture--and being read by it--in Christian community. The constant stream of news this week about Trayvon Martin has re-ignited a national conversation about race–a conversation that has been, in my estimation, neither this public nor this intense since the controversy surrounding President Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, during the 2008 presidential campaign. The deep pain at the center of this conversation reveals a wound that we often try to hide, despite the fact that it will not go away. Our history of race-based slavery colors eve...
• Slowing Down and Reflecting Cross-generationally by Ekklesia Project (3/26/2012)
  [image] Jason Fischer reflects on Slow Church: "...I find it appropriate to confess that as a youth and family director my divided heart has been tempted to compare the programs I have created at church against those in other churches. The youth directors over at the other church always seem to have so many kids, small groups, and elaborate worship services while I struggle to keep cranking out the multitude of marginally-attended events at my own congregation. Maybe Pastors have been double-minded in this w...
• The White Savior Industrial Complex by Ekklesia Project (3/22/2012)
  [image] Teju Cole is the author of Open City, which won this year's PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He expounds on the sentiments behind his tweets regarding the Invisible Children / Kony 2012 videos at The Atlantic website.

  I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than "making a difference." There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that ...

• The Problem with Rowan Williams by Ekklesia Project (3/21/2012)
  [image]From Australian theologian Ben Myers who writes at the blog Faith and Theology: It is often said that Williams is an unusual churchman - too scholarly, too ponderous, too sensitive to complexity - but it should equally be said that he is an unusual scholar. Although he has made important contributions to several academic disciplines - not only theology but also history, political philosophy and literary criticism - his deepest commitment has always been to the cultivation of community rather than to any particular intellectual project. If his critics complained that he was an unusually ...
• What Space Must the Church Occupy? by Ekklesia Project (3/10/2012)
  by Craig Wong  [image] At a 50th birthday party my dear wife recently threw for me, Pastor Bill Betts waxed eloquent about the “Greek, Roman, and Jewish phases of our lives.” The first phase swirls with lofty idealisms…dreams about our future and the world we hope to change. The second is where we take on the world with concrete energy, striving to make our mark. It is in the Jewish phase, however, when we realize that, when all is said and done, it is our friendships, family traditions, how we’ve lived our lives with one another that ultimately matters. Bill’s words provided food for thought for many of us that day. While I’m still somewhere in the seco...
• Submerging Church by Ekklesia Project (2/21/2012)
  This blog by EP Endorser Lee Wyatt is running on the Slow Church website run by Chris Smith. Though we live (or have lived) in the age of the Emerging/Emergent Church, I have a different proposal for a new vision of church. I call it the Submerging Church! Am I serious, you ask? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe both. Read on and see what you think. The Submerging Church, as I see it, is radically subversive, relentlessly incarnational, and ruthlessly hospitable. It dives deeply into everyday life, sharing it with others, while at the same time questioning and critiquing the conditions of that life we share. Since this community lives from its center, the risen Jesus Christ, its boundaries are porous and permeable with arm...
• Why Do We Build the Wall? by Ekklesia Project (10/2/2011)
  EP endorser Tony Hunt offers this meditation on a theme from this past summer's gathering: Immigration, the Church, and Hadestown Since the Ekklesia Project Gathering this summer, I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on how immigration is explored by one of the better records of 2010: Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown, a folk opera that reinterprets the classical story of Eurydice and Orpheus. The opera opens with anxiety over Eurydice’s and Orpheus’ imminent marriage. She’s unsure whether they’ll be able to pay for everything. Though Orpheus assures her that nature’s abundance will provide, she remains doubtful, plagued by fears of economic scarcity. Soon, however, we’re introduced to Hades, Lord of the Underworld. Hades, the “King of m...
• The God Who Fits Our Agenda: 9/11 Then and Now by Ekklesia Project (9/11/2011)
  Debra Dean Murphy reflects on how Americans framed 9/11 to make the Creator of the Universe into a useful deity. ...
• James Hunter, Neo-Anabaptists, and the Ekklesia Project by Ekklesia Project (8/23/2011)
  EP Endorser and former regular bLOGOS contributor, Mark Ryan, shares his review of a book likely to be of interest to many in EP. James Davison Hunter's To Change the World (Oxford, 2010) begins with the claim that Christians are called to do just that: change the world. This vocation is grounded in Christian identification with the creating and re-creating God of scripture who issues what Hunter calls “the creation mandate.” Asserting that modern persons understand world-change primarily as cultural change, Hunter launches into a sophisticated, clear discussion of culture and the dynamics of cultural change. In the first of the three essays that make up the book, Hunter debunks conceptions of cultural change which trade in some form o...
• For God So Loved the World... by Ekklesia Project (7/28/2011)
  For God So Loved the World He Sent Nahum A sermon shared with us by John C. Nugent of Delta Community. Michigan pastor, Rob Bell, recently made a splash in the media by going public with his "unorthodox" position on the afterlife. What has raised the hackles of several readers is Bell's insistence in Love Wins that, when it comes to eternal destinies, God's love overrides our sinfulness—not just for the elect (which would be orthodox for some), not just for those who say the sinner's prayer or are immersed into Christ (which would be orthodox for others), and not just for those who actually seek first God's kingdom with their whole life (which would be orthodox for still others)—but that God's love overrides the sinfulness of all ...
• Jeremiah and Park 51 by Ekklesia Project (8/27/2010)
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  Jeremiah 2.1-13; Psalm 81 Over the last few weeks, the media has been abuzz with the news of Park 51, a proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque just a few blocks from ‘Ground Zero’ the site of the national...
• And Now, Please Rise… by Ekklesia Project (2/10/2010)
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  Andy Alexis-Baker at Jesus Radicals calls our attention to a disappointing change in policy at Goshen College. Please consider Andy’s suggested responses in the concluding update....
• The Koinonia Story in a Nutshell by Ekklesia Project (9/25/2009)
  Thanks to Church of the Servant King in Eugene, Oregon Koinonia Farm Director Bren Dubay and Ekklesia Project Director Brent Laytham met during Pentecost 2008. Bren was visiting the folks in Eugene to learn how another community shares life together. Brent was there as a guest speaker celebrating the birth of the church with Church of the Servant King. Inspired by Brent’s teaching, Bren promised she’d attend the 2008 Gathering. This led to her coming back in 2009 and co-presenting a workshop, “Doing Business for the Kingdom or the Empire,” with Chi-Ming Chien of Dayspring Technologies. Many of those involved in the Ekklesia Project know of Koinonia Farm and Clarence Jordan. Clarence, his wife Florence and their friends Mabel and Martin England founded Koinonia (Greek for A Great Gathering by Ekklesia Project (7/16/2009)

  [image]Thanks to everyone for a great gathering. One sign of how important our topics were is we began conversations much larger than we could carry on during the time allotted. We're hoping we can continue our work together through an ongoing sharing on bLogos and FB. Wealth, especially money, divides the church. It can and does also become part of our sharing, our communion (
• Paving Stones on the Road to Hell by Ekklesia Project (7/16/2009)
  [image]Andrew Bacevich looks to novelist Graham Greene’s The Quiet American for insights on US Foreign Policy....
• Dan Brown's America by Ekklesia Project (5/19/2009)
  [image]From the New York Times: The movie treatment of his novel, “Angels and Demons,” is cleaning up at the box office this week. The sequel to “The DaVinci Code,” due out in November, might buoy the publishing industry through the recession. And if you want to understand the state of American religion, you nee...