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Act! Be Church Now

Elizabeth Mae Magill

Join this newsletter to help your congregation be part of the resistance. You will get ideas for sermons, for actions, and for how to be church in a time such as this. Join to hear what other churches are doing. Join to focus on mission. Join to appreciate small church. Join to wrestle with poverty and wealth. Join to care for the those on the margins. It is time to Act! Be Church Now.

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Featured Post

Be Church Now: Following Jesus is Risky

Hide or Standout? | No Kings Day I just found out that a food I am eating is probably causing a symptom I dislike. It is both a relief to find an answer and sad to give up the particular food. Which is part of my struggle in general. I always want both sides of the issue: to hide from knowledge and to know it all, to listen and to cover my ears, to take risks and to be safe. While in one minute we can do one thing, and in another chose something else, once we decide for risk we probably can't...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read
A black and white photograph of people lying in the road. The words Resistance Art in Purple over it.

Creative Forms of Protest | Photography I'm at music camp and taking a course on songs for the justice and peace. They are really hard to write! If we pull it off (the group is writing a song together) I'll let you know. In the meantime, resistance is about all the arts. Painting, photography, acting, dance, music, and more. We must involve our whole selves. -Liz Photography and Resistance On our free day in Edinburgh Ken and I went to the National Museum of Scotland: Modern Two to see the...

1 day ago • 3 min read

Balancing Reflection and Action | Song: Chop Wood, Carry Water I'm at music camp this week. Performing music is not my gift, but I love to sing, love to listen, and love to support my husband who is a musician. One of the things I do at camp is take songwriting classes and use the time to hone my skills. Songs require a story to be told succinctly, and to involve all of our senses. Songs encourage me to find the poetic language for my prose writing. I love the challenge to use my existing...

5 days ago • 3 min read
a pile of scrabble tiles spell out Hope and below that it says "is Resistance"

Original Sin/Original Blessing | Active Bystander Training I mostly listen to podcasts to avoid being overwhelmed by the news. But some of those podcasts point right back to where we are in the world today! -Liz Original Sin/Original Blessing I believe we are good. Some call that God's original blessing. We are created good by God; we are created in God's image. God is good, and thus, so are we. I believe in original sin. Not so much that sinfulness is passed on through sex, and certainly not...

9 days ago • 3 min read
Dark blue sky with lower white clouds, mess of bare branches, and words Who is my neighbor? in white.

Who is my neighbor? | Follow-up to No Kings Events I'm home from a great trip to Scotland. I'll have some photos coming, especially from an amazing exhibit on photography and resistance movements. For now I'm trying to get on the East Coast time zone and to get plenty of rest to recover from all my travels. -Liz Who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? The story of the good Samaritan addresses the most basic of Jesus’ messages—who are we do care for? I want to read this story as being about...

12 days ago • 3 min read
four siloutted figures pull each other up a dark rock, with blue sky and clouds in the background

Care for Members | Universal Basic Income Perhaps the most dramatic thing church could do in this time and place is to be radically the church. Share our money. Preach on the square. Make it obvious that whoever is in this church is fully cared for. Care for Members Financially The earliest commentaries about Christians are critiques of their ridiculous practice of providing for one another. The Christians, the writers offer, are fools, and are being taken advantage of. Perhaps the story of...

16 days ago • 3 min read

Sending the 70 | Speak out in Public Places We've finished our tour and are now settled in a hotel in Glasgow. There is so much to see! And we are tired! Just a few more days on the road. -Liz Be Church: Speak Out In Galatians 6:9-10 Paul urges us to do what is right, and to not grow weary of the work. We are to work for the good of everyone, especially, but not only, those in our faith family. Whenever we have the opportunity! I can't help but wonder if they had the opportunity less often...

19 days ago • 3 min read
The words "Just a Little" and Action in chalk with a lightbulb for the "o"

Ezra Klein on Chaos | Small Churches Big Impact I'm still in Scotland! Here is an article from three months ago. I'll be back at it in July. -Liz Do! A Little! One important point is that the best reaction to the chaos is to take a deep breath and figure out how to do well things that churches do well. The name Act! Be Church Now is something I thought of in terms of the current crisis in our government, but Be Church and the idea Act! are essential to my ecclesiology.The internal work of...

23 days ago • 3 min read

Imperfect Allies | Overcome Your Fear of Mistakes We will spend today exploring Skye. If my nephew had been a girl she would have been named Skye. I was surprised to learn how important the Islands were to the early life in Scotland. You can see pictures of our trip at my facebook page. (I wrote this post before I left for vacation. Everyone on our tour is struggling to balance vacation and the idea that the US has bombed Iran. Ken is searching for BBC news. I have nothing to add except...

26 days ago • 3 min read
Text reading "ACT! Be Church Now" is overlaid on a colorful mosaic background. Below, it says "ELIZABETHMAEMAGILL.COM".

Preaching | Making Way out of No-Way I'm in Scotland for vacation. I love it, and also recognize that it probably isn't safe to travel for immigrants and trans people right now. While I'm seeing historical and geographical wonders, and listening to local music, I'm rerunning an article from March. -Liz Preaching To Be Church When bad things happen in our local community, and in our national news, there is always some social media that demands your outrage. "If you aren't preaching on this,...

29 days ago • 3 min read
A variety of bread loaves and slices are arranged on a wooden surface. The text "Feed People" is overlaid in red letters.

Micro Practices for Justice | Being a Trans Ally Neither Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Male and Female. Galatians seems like the obvious text for Sunday worship in this time. I mean, its kinda the whole point of our faith, right? Maybe I'm just tired, but I ended up with Elijah instead. -Liz Elijah Takes A Nap It's a hard time for prophets. Or maybe prophets always have a hard time. Elijah is desolate from the little change he sees when he is calling on his nation to do better. In biblical...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read