Dropping the Mic: Reflections on Jesus Feminist by Adam McHugh We are shaped by the voices we choose to listen to. I know that everyone is seeking to “find their voice” these days, that unique contribution and perspective each person brings to the world, but sometimes we neglect the communal aspect of the discovery. WeContinue reading “Adam McHugh – IM Book Thoughts: Jesus Feminist”
Category Archives: IM Recommended Reading
The Pastor: Remembering the Poor
…when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which wasContinue reading “The Pastor: Remembering the Poor”
The Pastor: Waiting Tables
Christianity is a meal fellowship. And ministry is table service. This is the focus and content of a remarkable chapter in Gordon W. Lathrop’s book, The Pastor: A Spirituality. And this is the chapter that, most of all, sets the liturgical traditions apart from the free churches. This is what many of us who fledContinue reading “The Pastor: Waiting Tables”
The Pastor: Preparing to Preach through Attention and Imagination
Today, a rich quote from Gordon W. Lathrop on preparing to preach. This is not so much about the “nuts and bolts” of preparing a manuscript but rather about how preaching grows out of the pastor’s life, prepared through paying attention and engaging his or her imagination. I want a pastor like this. I wantContinue reading “The Pastor: Preparing to Preach through Attention and Imagination”
The Pastor: Prepared by the Lord’s Prayer
Let the pastors of the assemblies know this priesthood of the assembly on behalf of the world. Let them know with sympathy and love how they are not distinguished here from the rest of humanity, but are rather a voice of need and prayer. Let them thus know where they actually are and what timeContinue reading “The Pastor: Prepared by the Lord’s Prayer”
Trashing a Treasure
On the nature, worth, provenance, and cessation of New Testament tongues, much is obscure and must remain so. Various interpretations on key points are viable, and perhaps the worst error in handling the relevant passages is to claim or insinuate that perfect clarity or certainty marks one’s own view. The texts (Acts 2:4-11; 10:46; 11:17;Continue reading “Trashing a Treasure”
The Pastor: Tasks, Titles, and Texts
As a part of my studies toward ordination, I have been reading Gordon W. Lathrop’s fine meditation on the ministerial life: The Pastor: A Spirituality. Lathrop states that he hopes his book will provide “a moment of deliberate delight in the central matters of Christian ministry.” Indeed, I have found it to be so. ForContinue reading “The Pastor: Tasks, Titles, and Texts”
Full of Years
I ask’d thee, “Give me immortality.” Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presenceContinue reading “Full of Years”
Facing Aging
The way of the righteous is like morning light that gets brighter and brighter till it is full day. – Proverbs 4:18 (CEB) Remember your creator in your prime, before the days of trouble arrive, and those years, about which you’ll say, “I take no pleasure in these”— before the sun and theContinue reading “Facing Aging”
Hell, You Say?
If we are going to understand what Jesus and the authors of the New Testament meant when they spoke about the wrath of God or judgment or Gehenna, we have to come at the matter with an entirely different frame of mind. We have to read historically and contextually rather than theologically and abstractly. WeContinue reading “Hell, You Say?”
The Internet Monk Archives 