By Brent Laytham

• In Memoriam - Brian Logan by Brent Laytham (5/2/2013)

  We give thanks for the life and witness of our dear friend and brother in Christ, Brian Logan (1961 - 2013), and  we grieve his loss with his wife, Suzie,  their children, Kolbe and Lydia, and the Church of the Servant King. Hundreds of EP'ers know Brian's gentle presence, humor, and grace from the many Gatherings he attended.

  May Brian's soul and the souls of all the departed faithful by God's mercy rest in peace.

  Here follows Brian's obituary:

  Born Febrary 24 1961 in Houston,Texas the son of John and Hildy Logan , Brian died Monday, April, 29, 2013 at his home in Eugene, Oregon. He was 52. Brian was raised in San Diego, CA graduating from Mission Bay High School in 1979. He attended Preston Road School of Preaching...
• “The Kingdom Will Prevail” by Brent Laytham (3/1/2012)
  Mike Bowling preached this slow church sermon on Mark 4:24-34 I’ve never quite known what to make of Mark 4: 24-25: ²⁴And he said to them,  ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the  measure you get, and still more will be given you. ²⁵For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’ It never occurred me that Jesus is contrasting this popular wisdom (“what you hear”) — which basically amounts to “the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor” — with the parables in the verses that follow.  The popular wisdom will not remain true; God is at work transforming creation, but the transformation is a slow one that starts with the tinies...
• One Big Happy Family by Brent Laytham (8/5/2011)
  Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Genesis 37:1-28 Typology has gotten a bad rap in modernity, but Scripture isn’t Scripture without it. So both Old Testament passages on offer this week invite theological reflection on a provident God who orders deliverance to and through Jesus of Nazareth. I'll concentrate on Genesis 37. “This is the story of the family of Jacob” (37:2)—our story, people of God. It isn’t pretty. Bad reports, preferential loves, internecine hatred, braggadocio followed by “even more” hatred (37:8), conspiracy to kill, deception, and betrayal for 20 pieces of silver. This story of the family of Jacob—our ecclesial story—puts ugly on display.
• Madmen, Destruction, and the Art of God's Patience by Brent Laytham (7/25/2011)
  Sometimes my worlds race toward collision in frightening, yet illuminating ways. Friday, I watched the entertaining story of a ‘madman’ thwarted on the brink of high-tech global genocide by Captain America. Later than night, 60 days of growing zucchini vines was destroyed in less than 60 minutes of torrential rain. Saturday morning, I heard the tragic news of a ‘madman’ who wreaked local carnage in Norway using a few guns and a truckload of fertilizer. In the aftermath, our temptation is to mouth platitudes about justice which are usually little more than vengeful sentiments in disguise. “A maximum sentence of 21 years? That hardly seems right!” What seldom tempts us in such reactive moments is the po...
• What it is, and is not, to be an EP Endorser by Brent Laytham (2/26/2011)
  Early on, we said that The Ekklesia Project was a "school for subversive friendship," an opportunity to discover friends you didn't know you had who were busy letting Jesus turn the world right-side up (dethroning the powers in the process). That was in 2000. Now, thanks to Web2.0 social media, it appears that discovering 'friends' is as easy as clicking "accept" whenever Facebook invites me to. I've accumulated 180 'friends' that way, some of whom I actually know. Facebook friending has its advantages. I can see pictures of friends who live far away, feel a bit more connected with persons that I care about, even stalk my teenage children. But it isn't the kind of relationship that could be described as a school for subversive friendship. Why? Because it doesn't really ask mu...
• Let’s Talk About Haiti by Brent Laytham (1/21/2010)
    As I wrote in our monthly newsletter, I’m confident we are already praying for the Haitian church and people "with our hands and feet, our sweat and tears, our time and money." This way of putting things, and deep wisdom about natural disaster, are found in Debra Dean Murphy’s eloquent blog. With agrarians like Norman Wirzba and Ragan Sutterfield in our midst, I’ve been mindful that Haiti’s crisis was made over centuries of political and economic injustice, culminating in decades of ecological devastation. Things didn't first go wrong when the earth shook last week, but in the last few decades as deforestation made the soil slide down the mountains and as the ...
• Fasting Against a Divided Body by Brent Laytham (8/1/2008)
  [image]One of the great joys of our EP Gatherings is eating together. We break bread with friends old and new, discovering at a common table our common life in Christ. That makes it all the more painful that many of us who endorse The Ekklesia Project cannot come together as one body at the Eucharistic table of our Lord. Several years ago, we spent an entire Gathering exploring that pain.by Brent Laytham (8/1/2008)

  Two days into Black History month, on the eve of the Transfiguration, it might be well for us to remember one key theme of Epiphany: Jesus gathers around himself a community of former strangers now become friends, a circle of former enemies now knit together as one family, a body where difference enlivens and diversity enriches. At the Society of Christian Ethics last month I attended a panel discussion that focused on the racial segregation of Christian worship in the US. Meeting in Atlanta, we took up Martin Luther King’s observation that 11 o’clock on Sunday was and still is the most segregated hour in America. One of the most challenging questions was posed by Bryan Massingale, who asked us when in the last three years we had heard a sermon that condemned racial div...