Student
Harvard Divinity School
Intern (2009-2011) at Life Together
September 19, 2011
A Lesson from AA
In his forthcoming book, Breathing Under Water, the Franciscan
theologian and spiritual writer Richard Rohr deems Alcoholics Anonymous,
“America’s most significant and authentic contribution to the history
of spirituality.” Rohr’s assessment offers confirmation from a far more
experienced observer of something that has been gnawing at me,
especially of late: the church has something essential, even vitally
necessary, to learn from AA.
Looking at AA, and a number of other twelve-step or focused self-help
programs, what strikes me is how clearly and unambiguously they make a
promise of transformation...
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Founder of Godly Play
Senior Fellow of the Center for the Theology of Childhood
September 13, 2011
Tom Beaudoin was right in his recent blog. There is something about Christian language in the air!
The “age of the rage for literacy” has arrived at all levels of the
Christian conversation. There is also a rush to “describe and denounce
religious illiteracy,” but neither advocating for Christian literacy nor
decrying illiteracy is very helpful if you can’t describe the next
step, so that is what I intend to add to the conversation.
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President and CEO of Clergy Strategic Alliances, LLC
September 02, 2011
Around the age of ten years old I remember adults beginning to ask me an
odd question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child
living in poverty, to me the answer was a no brainer. “I want to be
rich” was always my answer; most of time it was received with laughter.
Sadly I think too many young people start out life thinking about what
they want to become in life based on what they want have in life.
Rarely do we say that we want a life and a career that will allow us to
have joy, peace, fulfillment, and balance. We typically think about a
career that will allow us to buy things that we hope will give us joy,
peace, and fulfillment, and then we later learn these items can’t be
purchased.
Over the years I’ve learned that...
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FTE Congregational Fellow ('11)
Pacific School of Religion
August 23, 2011
It has been almost two weeks since I along with 9 other young
preachers participated in the FTE and The Academy of Preachers produced
preaching camp, yet I still feel the residue of this experience upon me.
We stayed up all night writing and sharing sermon ideas, I will never
forget the time dedicated to helping shape our preaching skills, from
the suggestions of peers and that of our mentors. I enjoyed all the many
times of assisting and encouraging us in the art and presentation of
preaching.
In the midst of all the tips and lessons on strengthening our preaching,
I learned a powerful lesson about the Gospel in which we preach. It
was in community with 9 other fellow preachers from various faith
traditions, socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexuality, and not to
mention theological viewpoints, yet we gathered in love without any
strife and we proclaimed the Gospel. I must admit as one who considers
himself quite liberal, I often find myself avoiding conservatives
because of our differences...
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Associate Professor
Graduate School of Religion
Fordham University
August 16, 2011
In pastoral research, we are firmly in the age of the rage for literacy.
The consensus is striking, the baton relayed from one domain of
ecclesial expertise to another: from pastoral workers, to seminary and
graduate theological school faculty, to some of the most influential
sociologists of religion and practical theologians, and finally to young
adults and teenagers themselves, the urge to describe and denounce
religious illiteracy has become both diatribe and truism in almost any
discussion of the practice of faith today in Christian circles.
A whole vocabulary of spiritual insouciance is marshaled to frame common
practice and to symbolize the tendency of the larger secularizing
American society: teenagers and young adults are said to be
“uncatechized,” “poorly discipled,” they constitute a “domestic mission
field,” they suffer from any number of deformations of
faith-imagination.
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FTE Undergraduate Fellow ('11)
Occidental College
Wesleyan Church
August 12, 2011
One of the very first lessons I learned working with churches is how
lonely a road ministry can be. Being set apart by God to serve His
people is an inspiring but scary responsibility. To meet young people
who understand that, share those sentiments and agree to join you in the
growing process has been invaluable. Dr. Dwight Moody and Wyndee
Holbrook of the Academy of Young Preachers, and the FTE staff did a
great job of creating a space where learning and development could take
place both as preachers and as the people who have been called to
preach.
Now, the shock is gone. The late nights and early mornings have passed
as we now head back to our colleges, seminaries, grad programs, jobs,
and churches. As one of the preachers D. Darnell Fennell preached, our
job is now to move “Beyond an 8 Minute Sermon”. To take such an amazing
experience and build on it. Stay friends, preaching partners, and young
people committed to serving Christ and His Church. What we have been
given is a gift from God.
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FTE Congregational Fellow ('11)
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
August 03, 2011
This week, thanks to the unimaginable generosity of the Fund for
Theological Education, I am in Atlanta, GA, at a preaching camp hosted
by the Academy of Preachers.
I am two days into a five-day camp, and my mind has been kneaded and
sculpted so much in these short hours that I feel my brain must resemble
a beloved can of Play-dough. The kneading is a result of love and
affection, and it is with the endless possibility of my new intellectual
“toys” that I have begun to discover something I can hardly believe I
didn’t notice before.
There is no escaping tension.
Entering a group of ecumenical preachers for the second time in a few
short months, I thought for sure that I would be struck by the
boundaries that separate one Christian denomination from another...
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