It’s Friday, October 23. 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.
☕️ It’s a new season.
It finally feels like fall (thankfully). But that’s not what I mean. I’ve been talking about and pushing for and exploring church change for a decade - and it seems like it’s finally starting to happen.
When I first started Free Range Priest in 2016, most people had no idea what I was doing, or why. Heck, I had very little idea! I just knew the institutional church was struggling, and we needed to look critically at the organization. And focus more on the faith, and less on the administrative stuff.
Now it seems like this is no longer a radical thought!
It’s exciting to see how others are approaching - even inviting - the kinds of change that are necessary to move forward as the church. Even though it hurts. And how our faith is giving us courage.
Some very Good Stuff…
This week’s theme: finding Good News beyond bad news
So much change in the church (and related fields like Christian journalism) is truly heartbreaking. And also necessary. We are letting go of things not because we want to, but because what was built in another age is not fulfilling the same mission today. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t grief…
☕️ ‘Why I Left Christianity Today’ by Bonnie Kristian.
‘You could start an evangelical media outlet right now and get a bigger audience, bigger staff, and bigger budget and it still could not match the legacy and heft of Christianity Today. It’s just not possible to replicate the conditions of Billy Graham in 1956: his goodwill and cachet and the high religiosity and monoculture media environment that made a magazine of his founding such a heavyweight not only within the American church but in the wider discourse.’
It seems to me that we have been in denial for a long time about how many congregations are dwindling and dying. Now I feel a shift - we’re much more open to facing this truth. And the hope there is beyond our sadness.
☕️ ‘Church Closings Are Reshaping America’s Spiritual Landscape’ by Mike Turner.
‘When churches die, it leaves a hole in the hearts of the congregation and in the surrounding community. But church decline and death aren’t the last word, and in today’s vibrant and creative time of gospel ministry who knows what might be in store? While America’s past spiritual landscape is changing, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The future landscape may be even better.’
‘Not changing’ is not the same thing as ‘staying the same’. It’s happening. A new era of church is being born. Will we embrace the pain of change, or endure the pain of resisting it?
☕️ ‘Growth Equals Pain’ by Roger Ross .
‘The choice facing every church is not no pain or great pain. It’s pain that leads to death or pain that leads to life.
There is no scenario that offers a pain-free option. It doesn’t exist. Our only choice is which kind of pain we will embrace.’
And in the midst of it all, we are still called to bear the love of God in the world. We can’t save the church. But we can love our neighbors, and ease their suffering.
☕️ ‘On Retreat’ by Jeff Chu 朱天慧.
‘I have been going on retreat from things I can’t control, situations over which I have no influence, circumstances that are beyond me. Most of us have neither the calling nor the capacity to love from a great distance. With so much seemingly at our fingertips, our attention is constantly being pulled north, south, east, west—further and further. The sense of overload is real, but it’s also deceptive. To feel powerless in the face of the world’s woes can often trick me into forgetting how much I actually can do to care for the little corner I inhabit and bless those who are in my closer circles of community and cultivate goodness nearby.’
And always, we are being called back to the center of what really matters: Jesus and his love for us…
‘The coin bears Caesar’s image, it belongs to Caesar. You can give him that. And no matter what the coin says, he’s not god. And what really matters is that you bear God’s image. You belong to God. And the point of your whole existence is to give yourself to the God who created you.’
Because I feel this, too - and I’m grateful to Drew Brown for the courage and clarity, warmth and humor in saying it out loud…
☕️ ‘This past week my heart burned’.
‘This past week, I experienced this. Two of my dearest writer friends got an opportunity I didn’t, and my heart burned. I genuinely want them to be happy, and I genuinely want them to have all the success in the entire world, but I also want to reject it out of covetousness, out of bitterness. Why did they get that opportunity and I didn’t?’
This week at Free Range Priest:
☕️ I published a book!
Ok, self-published. and ok, kind of guide, not a ‘book-book’.
But still. It’s on Amazon and Apple! I kind of feel legit :). You can get the book directly - or you get a free copy when you become a paid subscriber of Free Range Priest (and paid subscribers, if you didn’t get your copy, let me know. The link is also in every Tuesday email…)
I’m excited about this not just for the ‘book’ part, but because I finally managed to put all the different guiding principles I’ve learned and discovered as a Free Range Priest into one place.
Like:
Rubric 12: Give up trying to save the institution!! (the exclamation points are key…)
andRubric 8: Wondering where God is in all of this
If you’re ‘stuck’ in your ministry, the Rubrics give you a framework, a way to think differently about it, a new practice, and a ‘try this’ section. Institutions can’t change themselves - but individual ministers and ministries can change!
Substack Seminary is community for Cage Free Ministers
And this Quarter, we’re talking about Technology and Collaboration
This week we’re specifically discussing: ‘How do strangers become community members?’
We’re focusing on both technology and collaboration by thinking about our ‘About’ pages, welcome email sequences, and subscriber (donor, pledger) paths to membership and belonging.
Creating these technical paths requires us to look honestly at how people are engaging in community and how we’re fostering that. And we’re starting with ourselves.
Loren Richmond Jr. spells it out:
☕️ ‘Joining is easy. Belonging is harder’:
We want this [Substack Seminary] to be a place where people are not only learning from us, but also learning from one another - sharing ideas, asking questions, experimenting, and building relationships with others navigating similar challenges in ministry.
…
So we’d genuinely like to hear from you.
What’s working for you in online communities? What isn’t? What have you experienced in other groups that makes you want to keep coming back?
And perhaps most importantly, what could we be doing here at Substack Seminary to help you feel more connected, engaged, and part of this community?
Your weekly Trexo ‘Hearts up!’ moment:
He counts the number of the stars
and calls them all by their names.
Psalm 147:4
I stepped outside to see Orion balanced perfectly above the lake. And was reminded of God placing the stars in the sky.
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.
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