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...
3 days ago • 3 min read
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...
6 days ago • 3 min read
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...
10 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...
13 days ago • 3 min read
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...
17 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...
20 days ago • 3 min read
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,...
24 days ago • 3 min read
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...
27 days ago • 2 min read
Just Getting Started | Trans support resources The hardest thing about community organizing is you don't really know where it will end up. It's about asking questions and letting the answers guide you to next steps. So today I wanted to share with you a church that is just getting started. Who knows where it will go? -Liz Just Getting Started Every ministry starts somewhere. It's hard to remember, when you have something big going on, that first it was just an idea. First it was just someone...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
The Spirit Moves Us | The Power of the Collective The most important part of June is the arrival of Strawberries. There isn't a more perfect fruit. I'm impatient waiting for them -- in my neighbors garden, not mine, because I don't have the patience to tend to them. Sharing. It's delicious. -Liz The Holy Spirit Speaks Pentecost! The holy spirit comes down and fills us with the spirit. I've always liked this holiday. It's joyful and a little magical and speaks so directly to who we are today....
about 1 month ago • 3 min read