Charge to Pastor

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

debGiven by Dr. Deborah Conrad, Pastor at Woodside Church in Flint, MI at at Installment Service for Denise Griebler.

Denise has asked me to deliver the charge to the pastor today, so I’m happy to share with you these thoughts rolling around in my head:

Work hard; in fact, work all the time. Don’t go bowling or see a movie if there is something else more ministry-like that you should be doing. Set goals and don’t stop until they are met. Take failure personally. Let the anger of one person outweigh the joy of 99 (because isn’t there a parable about that?). Set high standards and never let yourself off the hook. Be innovative. Start new traditions. Buck the system. Maintain a high level of righteous indignation. Stay up on the news. Be creative, spiritual, humble, well-loved. Be an excellent preacher. All the time. Seriously, 52 weeks a year, plus festivals. One single mediocre sermon is beneath you and will undo all the good you are trying to accomplish here. Be relevant, empathetic, deep, engaging, confident. And hip with young people.
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The Pedagogy of Place: The Whisper of the Wind

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

DSC00079By Tommy Airey, the final post in a series about how we learn from our location about what is truly Divine
————–
In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.
Toni Morrison

Immediately, he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side…
Mark 6:45

The wind is deceptive in Detroit. When it is at your back, you forget it’s even there. On the bike, on my way to the church, the electronic marquee at the Prince Valley Supermercado registers 25 degrees. I doubt it. I’m traveling fast and I’m working up a sweat. But at the end of the work day, trekking west back to the block, I have a stubborn epiphany, once again, that the wind was there all along. Now it’s 40 out, but the wind is blustering my face off, cracking my lips into a pot pie crust. It’s virtually impossible to complete the journey without cussing. A lot.
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Twas Grace

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race1 Comment

black christBy Lindsay Airey. Originally published in the Detroit Catholic Worker paper On the Edge. Lindsay is a marriage & family therapist, radical disciple, and recovering AlAnon member, living and working alongside her husband Tom, the Larkins St. Community, and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Her activist work has been focused with We The People of Detroit, organizing around the ongoing water struggle.

“T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.”      -John Newton, Amazing Grace

If not for grace, I could never meaningfully engage the inner work of healing and repenting from white supremacy. This “taught my heart to fear” kind of grace is what compels me into this work. It is also what keeps me in it. Perhaps understood most deeply by recovering addicts and abusers, this “amazing” grace is foreign to the distorted, cheap & enabling grace vended on the daily at your local mainstream, white-dominated, suburban and affluent Christian church. Meanwhile, on the outer fringes of the (c)hristian tradition, this slave-trader-turned-abolitionist kind of grace may be the penultimate anti-white supremacist/anti-racist “program” we Christians have uniquely to offer the struggle for racial equity and reconciliation in America. Continue reading “Twas Grace” →

Guest Ethics

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

CPTFrom John of Christian Peacemaker Teams

For the last year, I have lived as a guest. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Since I graduated college last May, taking that so-called next step into “adulthood” (whatever that is), I have lived as a guest in other people’s spaces. Talking with other people who have also just finished college, there is something inevitable about this – whether you move to a new city, move back to your parent’s place, or stay in the place you went to school, you’re not really “at home.” To attend a residential college, as I did, is to already be living in someone else’s space – a college campus or a dorm can be “ours,” the student body’s, but because each of us spend so little time in it, it is never really “mine.”
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Reflections from a Jesuit Volunteer

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harryHarry Huggins is a Jesuit Volunteer in Detroit serving formerly homeless residents of a supportive housing building. When he’s not serving the residents at work or his roommates at home, he writes.

Bud dealt heroin and cocaine before and while he lived on Detroit’s streets. He’s wheelchair bound now, and he’s one of the social hubs of the supportive housing building where I serve. Last Thursday, Bud stopped me in the hall outside his apartment to pitch a project idea.

“I’m gonna tell you something,” he said. “I used to deal drugs. I was damn good at it. Heroin. And you know why I was good at it? I noticed things.”
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The Pedagogy of Place: Psalms & Seinfeld

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

DSC00005By Tommy Airey, the 2nd post of a 3-part series about how we learn from our location about what is truly Divine

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
Jerry Seinfeld

When I met Reggie on a Tuesday morning a few weeks ago, he was beaming a world-class smile. He was copping a holy swagger. After his second cup of coffee, he hollered at me from his seat 20 feet away: “is it the 7th?” His curiosity was cut off by another guest asking me for a cup of hot tea with sugar. Reggie flew into a spontaneous fit of rage. Shortly thereafter, he approached me to apologize for the outburst: he just needed a confirmation of the date, he explained, so he could resume his daily reading of the Psalms.
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Your tears know where they come from.

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

lix nBy Sarah Matsui

For: Liz Nicolas, one of my dearest people and one of the most distinctly human individuals I know.

Dear friend, your way of seeing can be
as much burden as gift; I know
you know.

—

When tears threaten to swallow you whole:
Know you will not be overcome. Learn and relearn to
find the counterweight you need. Continue reading “Your tears know where they come from.” →