Category: Watershed Discipleship

Irma and La Tuna, Charlottesville and North Korea: The Voice Under the Voice, Still Unheard

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment
KidRockTrump
Detroit, Michigan: Six sold-out shows to open up the new $800 million Little Caesar’s Arena

Dr. James Perkinson, Ecumenical Theological Seminary (Detroit, MI)

The signs of our time shout! Harvey hammers Houston and the entire Gulf Coast camps out in a boat or a grave. Then comes Irma with Jose and Katya in Her wake, raking an entire peninsula with rebuke. While fire ungraced with gendered traces of naming, blisters the west. All on top of Charlottesville, itself evoking Trump, chopping restraints militant and policing, channeling a large chunk of the dominant demographic of the country! As I write, Kid Rock readies his concert of hate in downtown Detroit, as front for the Ilitch family take of Motown turf, faking concern, raking in tax dollar support, celebrating white vituperation in the gala opening of a new ice hockey stadium at the core of an 82 % black city. Little Caesar indeed! But what do all of these events have to do with each other? How might a community aspiring to some measure of humanity and morality “hear” what these events sound out? I do not yet even dare to say, “Respond.” Continue reading “Irma and La Tuna, Charlottesville and North Korea: The Voice Under the Voice, Still Unheard” →

Join Us Into Your Movement

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CircleBy Joshua Grace, a report from Circle of Hope

Philadelphia, PA

At Circle of Hope, we have the advantage of being small (over 50 cells – circles of 10), medium (5 congregations of 100-200 people), and large (we get together several times per year). Some of our expressions happen when people form Compassion Teams (we have 20 right now) that lead the church in an effort according to the passions, gifts, and limits of the folks who lead. Our most recent Love Feast, where people from all cells and congregations gather, was an expression of the Holy Spirit breathing life into all levels of the body. Continue reading “Join Us Into Your Movement” →

A Surprising Moment of Wonder and Gratitude

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Sabbath Economics, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

thumb_IMG_0336.JPG_1024By Kyle Mitchell

*This is the second post in a series on Wednesdays exploring components of a mealtime spirituality.  

Cleveland, Ohio

One of the most treasured traditions that I took from growing up in a Christian family is the mealtime prayer. Even now when I go back home for holidays, I know that we’ll gather in a circle before the meal, grasp hands, and ask who’s turn it is to give thanks. My 6-year-old nephew summed it up pretty well last time when he prayed, “Dear God, thank you for everything. Amen.” Continue reading “A Surprising Moment of Wonder and Gratitude” →

Wild Lectionary: “Fire in the Earth: Burning but Flourishing”

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

imagesThirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17 (22)

Exodus 3:1-15

By Rev. Matthew Syrdal

“There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it was not consumed… “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”

And we know, when Moses was told,
in the way he was told,
“Take off your shoes!” He grew pale from that simple

reminder of fire in the dusty earth.
He never recovered
his complicated way of loving again

and was free to love in the same way
he felt the fire licking at his heels loved him.
As if the lion earth could roar
and take him in one movement…
-all poetry excerpts from David Whyte, Fire in the Earth

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: “Fire in the Earth: Burning but Flourishing”” →

Discipulado de la Cuenca

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JoLo, GreyReyThe following is the first page of a new primer on Watershed Discipleship that has just been translated into Spanish and published by the Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana in Costa Rica. Josh and Grecia Lopez-Reyes (right) are in San Jose, CR today making a presentation at a public event debuting this publication. The booklet will soon be available through www.ChedMyers.org and https://watersheddiscipleship.org/espanol/.

Discipulado de la cuenca*: Una introducción a la fe y la práctica biorregionales

By Ched Myers

Resumen. Este manual básico introduce y explora el discipulado de la cuenca (drenaje natural), un nuevo (y antiguo) paradigma para la teología y la práctica ecológicas que, en mi opinión, es la clave para hacer frente a una nueva (y antigua) crisis que enfrenta la civilización humana.1 Este enfoque es radical en su crítica de los paradigmas políticos, económicos y culturales predominantes, es contextual en su práctica, y es constructivo en sus propuestas alternativas. Continue reading “Discipulado de la Cuenca” →

Wild Lectionary: Joseph—God’s Agent or Agent of Empire?

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Field Egypt Farmer PeopleEleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 15(20)

“God has made me lord of all Egypt…” Joseph, son of Jacob (Gen 45.9)

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” Paul of Tarsus (Rom 8.19)

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

A decade or so ago, we spent two years of our monthly Saturday teaching/retreat series with the book of Genesis. Folks eagerly engaged Genesis’ anti-city perspective and its all-too-human characters. But when we got to the Joseph story, several rebelled angrily against our starting characterization of Joseph, son of Jacob, as a self-absorbed, manipulative power seeker, who “succeeded” by teaching Pharaoh how to manage famine for personal profit. What is it about Joseph that leads so many to want to see him as a heroic expression of faith? Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Joseph—God’s Agent or Agent of Empire?” →

Wild Lectionary: The mixology of Faith and Fear

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment
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Erazo-Paris Family Archives, circa May 1969

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 14 (19)

1 Kings 19:9-18 & Matthew 14:22-33

[Elijah] answered “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 1 Kings 19:10

26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Matthew 14:27

By Priscilla Paris-Austin

Faith and fear seem to reside right next to each other in our world. I don’t know about you but I find this to be true in my family story over and over again. While the two seem incompatible, as I look back I can see how closely they are aligned, one driving me to the other, or moving me through its companion, until I find my way back to God’s enduring and steadfast love.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: The mixology of Faith and Fear” →

Wild Lectionary: Come to the Waters

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Photo by Wendy Janzen Grand River, Southwestern Ontario

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 13 (18)
Isaiah 55:1-5

By Wendy Janzen

 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters…”

Canada is a land of abundant fresh water. Ontario, the province in which I live, contains one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. Ontarians love our lakes and rivers.

This summer has been a wet summer here. I’ve hardly needed to water my vegetable garden, and my small patch of lawn is still a lush green from the regular, soaking rains. Some rains have come with too much rain falling too quickly, causing streams and rivers to overflow their banks. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Come to the Waters” →

Developers Are Trying to Build a Pipeline Through a Watershed. These Nuns Built a Chapel in Its Path.

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship4 Comments

unnamedBy Rose Marie Berger, Heidi Thompson. Re-posted from sojo.net.

LANCASTER, Penn. — More than 500 people gathered in a hot and dusty Pennsylvania cornfield yesterday afternoon to join the Catholic sisters of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ for the dedication of a new outdoor chapel, built on land about to be seized from them by a corporate developer planning to build a natural gas pipeline.

The chapel is an outdoor arbor built by a local craftsman, Jon Telesco, and contains an altar surrounded by wooden benches. (The tradition of building “booths” in the wilderness to mark prophetic presence has a long history in biblical tradition, including the “brush arbors” used by enslaved African Americans for worship.) The sisters dedicated the sacred space on Sunday by reading from their community’s land ethic adopted in 2005. Continue reading “Developers Are Trying to Build a Pipeline Through a Watershed. These Nuns Built a Chapel in Its Path.” →