Where's the Good Stuff this week?
Friday 5/1/26 roundup of what I've discovered on Substack
‘Good Stuff’ = articles I’ve read this week that inspired, educated, entertained, or moved me.
Which for a Free Range Priest, means reading more amazing, inspiring things about God, the church, the universe, and running.
Here’s this week’s roundup:
God stuff
‘The Wolf in the Pew’ by Megan Costilow.
’There are people who meet the wolf and run. There are people who meet the wolf and try to kill it. And then, every now and then, there is someone brave or stubborn enough to say, “Come here. Sit down. Eat something. Stop biting people.”‘We Weren’t Created to Experience Everything All At Once’ by Daniel Harris.
“There is no other life I would have rather chosen for myself than the life I’m currently living.” Why? Because it is a gift from God.’
Church stuff
‘The Mainline Church is Running out of Pastors: Part 2’ by Loren Richmond Jr.
’We often hear about a “pastor shortage,” yet the systems designed to connect pastors and churches can be slow, opaque, and difficult to navigate.’‘Lingering in Church Graveyards’ by Ross Byrd.
’The old church buildings and services of our grandparents’ childhood may have appeared boring and irrelevant—designed as they were for prayer and silent reflection, weddings, baptisms, and funerals—but since our present churches have been optimized for entertainment and advertisement, we’re beginning to feel the loss.’
Other stuff
‘Confluence’ by Adrien Gehring.
’We are all a confluence of streams and the resulting flow of our lives is enriched and shaped by all the energy we absorb and engage’.‘20 tips for people who make art’ by Rey Barceló.
’The greatest joy in life is to nurture what’s alive in another.
Nurturing someone’s art is a way of telling them that you love them.’
What I wrote this week:
‘No one is looking at your static church website.’
’A church with closed doors and empty buildings on a lonely road is not going to have people passing by or dropping in. So it is when church that builds a website, puts up their service times and some lovely pictures, and then... nothing else. They’re languishing in a dark corner, unseen’.‘Be still and know that I am God’.
‘We came home with a sense of God’s presence, God’s calling, and the adventure of moving forward in faith - even though it’s hard, even though we don’t know exactly what that looks like yet (and that’s ok).’
And finally…
At Free Range Priest, we’re bringing church to people.
Bite-sized ways that YOU can re-imagine ministry and get ‘unstuck’.
Right now. Today.
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Thank you for the shoutout! 🙏