It’s Friday, October 9. This is Friday Good Stuff: Things that inspired, motivated, challenged, taught or amused me on Substack this week + what’s new at Free Range Priest.
☕️ My life has been dominated by 60 lbs of 4 month old puppy this week!
This is Cash - my sweet shadow. He’s the best boy, who just wants to snuggle - and eat! The vet says he is going to be big - probably 150-160 when he’s full grown. So my husband and I are deep into socializing him - taking him nearly everywhere with us, which he loves.
Helping this gorgeous beast get used to human life and circumstances has me thinking about how animals and humans are alike - and so different. So I’m grateful this week to run across Haley Baumeister’s article (below), which introduced me to the book ’Neither Beast Nor God’ by Gilbert Meilaender.
It’s about human dignity - how we think about it, how we define it. What it has to do with our relationship with God.
And how much we struggle with socialization ourselves!
From the ‘epidemic of loneliness’ to the rise of childlessness to most of us having fewer friends and romantic relationships than we used to, it seems like we’re forgetting some of the steps of getting along. How? Why? What can we do about it?
This week’s theme: learning to be human
☕️ ‘Small Talk Is King’ by James Taylor Foreman.
I love small talk! It’s a mini chance to connect with anyone, everyone. But lots of people find it useless, or just feel awkward about it. That’s because, like many simple yet profound social activities, there’s an art to it…
‘As you practice it, your intuition comes online again. Suddenly, even you will be surprised by the things you say. People will laugh just because of the way you say what you see. Whatever occurs to you becomes magic. It’s a way of letting go of all the pre-planning and the subsequent anxiety, and just being content with it all being boring, if it is. That way, you’re always ready to ride a wave when it emerges’.
☕️ ‘The Basics of The Mainline Conundrum’ by Chad Brooks.
I’ve long thought that church decline is in some part caused by our reluctance to engage in deep relationship. How often do we really talk about our relationship with God in church? Maybe it says less about our theology and more about our capacity for creating healthy community…
‘I had a UMC colleague be told once that discipleship was something for conservative churches. This scenario shows part of the conundrum: a failure to admit we don’t know how to organize people, create healthy churches, and propel them into ministry in our communities.’
☕️ ‘on dignity’ by Haley Baumeister.
This article helps me understand why so many people think of their dogs as ‘children’, and so many are literally planning on being immortal. It can be painful to feel and understand our human limits.
‘Living within the grain of our reality can feel like suffering. To not eliminate the potential of hardship can feel like suffering. Yet as Mary Harrington wrote in First Things, “Jesus could have made stone into bread, but he chose not to violate reality just to fill his belly. Instead, he made bread into his own body, to fill our hearts.”
We can live into our own reality because Christ did.’
☕️ ‘Abundance Requires Capacity’ by Alex Elle.
The challenge of living our lives well is a theme I appreciate. There’s a place where we wish for good things to just drop into our lives - without considering that we need to have a place to put them…
‘The rosemary & basil’s leaves were green, fragrant, and perfectly fine. They simply couldn’t remain where they were under the new conditions. I stood there with a little pile of fragrant herbs on my cutting board (overthinking, of course) about how rarely we allow this to be true in our own lives. How often we stay in the waters of life longer than we should, waiting for something to go completely bad before we trust that it’s time to make a move.’
Because I find pretty much everything Ryan Burge writes interesting…
… and because community is something we seen to struggle with throughout the church. Even the biggest churches aren’t seeing members show up in person.
☕️ ‘What Can We Learn from the 100 Largest United Methodist Churches?’ by Ryan Burge.
‘In the full sample, 40% of all attendees in the largest UMC congregations were not attending in person. Here’s a staggering figure to consider: Among the 100 United Methodist congregations with the largest membership, the median weekend attendance is slightly less than 600. There are a total of 19 United Methodist Churches that have an average weekly attendance of 1000+.’
This week at Free Range Priest:
☕️ ‘Cage Free Ministry’ Bite-sized ministry.
Cage Free Ministry is 12 rubrics built around:
the System: how we organize ourselves as the church.
the Community: what we do and believe as the church.
the Minister: how lay and ordained leaders serve God and the church together.
You’ll learn them the way we’re learning them:
by practicing, discovering, and building sustainable, JOYful ways of bringing church to people.
☕️ ‘4 tech tools I’m using in ministry right now’ by Loren Richmond Jr..
Substack Seminary is back in session!
The Q4 theme is Technology and Collaboration - and we are the case study! Join Pastor Sierra Ward, Loren, and myself as we talk about the tech tools we use - and how we support each other in ministry.
Your weekly Trexo ‘Hearts up!’ moment:
What have I missed?
I can’t always read 400+ newsletters.
And there’s lots of great Substackers I haven’t met yet - especially those who are just starting, and who may not have that many followers yet.
PLEASE share the Good Stuff you’ve read this week in the comments below.
And PLEASE restack this post so others can see - and subscribe to - this Good Stuff.
At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.
Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Subscribe to re-discover ministry JOY.