​The chaos continues this week in the aftermath of a presidential debate that devolved into a debacle of a shouting match. This and a million other issues under the category, “things gone wrong with the planet” threaten to incite ulcers, high blood pressure, anxiety disorders, or worse. We find ourselves living in dystopian times of plague, quarantine, civil unrest, demagogues, hurricanes, and fires. And as the election looms, the madness of divisiveness and power-grabbing escalates.

This disruption is rocking people’s faith. Many are leaving the church as the American Church is largely flailing and failing to step up to this moment — either by our silence, our complicity to white supremacy, our nationality posing as Christianity, or by our politics that seem to be the antithesis of Christ-likeness. I get it. This is madness!

But I urge you, don’t give up on Jesus. Because Jesus’ self-giving love is the antidote for the present-day ills in our society. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, even Gandhi practiced this powerful way of love, meeting injustice and violence with soul force. They believed that you cannot fight hate with hate — only with love. This ideology came from Jesus himself.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing right,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:3–10

This is why I implore you — don’t leave faith.
​Because faith, hope, and love are what the world needs more of right now, not less!

And don’t give up on Jesus either.
Because Jesus has shown us the way, defeating the darkest evil with love, forgiveness, humility, and sacrifice.

And please don’t walk away from the church altogether.
There are many followers of Jesus on the ground, living the way of love and peace in very ordinary and yet extraordinary ways. We’re here. You just got to find us. Love cannot exist without community. And we’re going to need each other to work together to create a better world.

For this is not the first time the human race has faced challenges. And as followers of Jesus, we understand that a whole new world is being birthed. In spite of all the suffering and the tumult of these times, our triune God who has set the world in motion is at the center of the universe pulling everything and everyone into Love.

Love is the most powerful force in the cosmos.

This is why now, more than ever, we need to ground ourselves in the love of God. Love is everything.

If this crazy world and compromised church have got you spinning, choose Love.

Love is the lens through which all of the gospel is to be interpreted. Jesus said it himself in his greatest commandment to love God with all of your being and to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37–40) All of the scripture can be summed up in this.

Love liberates the oppressed, heals the brokenhearted, bestows mercy to the undeserving, welcomes the outcast, embraces the untouchables, reverses power structures, and lifts up the poor. Love is why we signed up to follow Jesus in the first place. And Jesus’ revolutionary love is still as compelling as ever. So how are we to be faithful to love in such a time as this?

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” — Micah 6:8

DO JUSTICE
As the deep roots of racism and white supremacy have been exposed in this hour, the church must not be silent. When our own president refuses, we must unequivocally condemn white supremacy. It is demonic. And as the church, we must repent from our complicity to whiteness, defined here as a “death-dealing, anti-life, anti-God system of dehumanization (Deuteronomy 12:3).” Donelle Wyche [Read Full Article: In Search of White Partners: What BIPOC Need]

“Christ calls us to repentance…for allowing whiteness to exist, to flourish, to victimize, to terrorize, and to oppress. We need to repent of the ways we have remained silent as whiteness has destroyed God’s creation, God’s image-bearers, and God’s vision for humanity.”

It is not enough to merely acknowledge this present evil. The way of love commands that we do justice and act justly.

When there is so much animosity and fear towards the “other” — resulting in hate crimes, children in cages, and horror and violence of all kinds, the Biblical call to love the stranger and the alien is paramount. In this era when so many deny climate change and actively ignore issues of environmental injustice, our faith requires us to care for the earth and advocate for God’s love toward all of creation. When the rich continue to get richer off the backs of the poor in the face of rising poverty, displacement, and unemployment, the upending-powerful love of Jesus calls us to create new communities and economies where all can flourish. Love does not consume; it creates. Love gives up power for the greater good.

Self-giving love conquers evil. Jesus showed us the way.

LOVE KINDNESS & WALK HUMBLY
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (I Corinthians 13:4–8).

As we find ourselves in the midst of the mania of a heated and polarized political election, love is essential. For it is important to stay faithful to love midst the rising tensions. Eugene Cho, who wrote Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk: A Christian’s Guide To Engaging Politics encourages us.

“Stay engaged. Remain hopeful. Love anyway. Walk with integrity. Fight for the vulnerable, and bear witness to the love, mercy, and grace of Christ. For it’s not only WHAT we believe, but HOW we engage.”

The end never justifies the means, lest we become the very thing we hate. This is why Jesus called us to the radical act of enemy love. Love is supreme. For we do not put our hope in political parties or empires, but we put our hope in the loving and peaceable kin-dom of God. And we follow Christ’s example to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.

It is time for followers of Jesus to reclaim this revolutionary way of Love, to reimagine a new kind of Christ-follower, and to come together to work toward a new world.


by Jessica Ketola

We’ve been going through the Beatitudes for Lent, and it is so freakin’ unbelievable how  “opposite” this crazy kingdom of God is. I mean it challenges everything. And I mean e v e r y t h i n g. Our own pursuit of happiness, our comforts and our consumption, our hobbies and the ways we spend (or waste) our time and money, our attempts to make something of ourselves and to be successful, liked and admired. Jesus says all of this will leave us empty.
 
The life Jesus offers is the living water that satisfies our every thirst, the love and goodness that chases us down all the days of our lives, and the mercy of God that pours out like oil over our brokenness. Jesus says that we will be happy, blessed, joyful, fulfilled and whole, in the sense of everything coming together as it was meant to be, heaven coming to earth, when we pursue his kingdom first. And so it’s opposite day. It’s the upside down kingdom that turns the world right side up.
 
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. - Matthew 6:33

Sadly, it’s true that we often seek his kingdom last, not first. After all the demands of our jobs and families, our schoolwork and responsibilities. After we have some down time and some play time and some “me” time. After we have paid the bills and spent our monthly budgets. And well, this makes sense, right? Yes. But NO. You see, there is this upside down nature of the kingdom that should challenge how we as the church live into God’s dream for our communities and our neighborhoods. For church is not something to be “added” to our already overloaded, busy, stressed-out lives. It is not a Sunday event or a community social club.

The church is the hope of the world. And we are called to give our whole lives.
 
Excuse me if I am wrong, but isn’t this what Lent is all about? This journey to the cross and our whole-hearted surrender to Jesus? Dying to our desperate need for security, control and affirmation? So that. We might LIVE: A beautiful invitation to repent and realign our hearts and lives to the plumb line of God’s mercy and grace. For we are to seek God’s kingdom first.
 
And yet, this seems hard to do, especially when it seems we do not have enough. It is precisely in these moments that we are invited to practice hilarious generosity. For when we clench our fists tight instead of opening our hands wide, we will always struggle with “not enough.” I believe when we practice the kingdom first, it breaks the tyranny of never enough. As a pastor, I have heard countless stories of not enough time, not enough energy, not enough money, and not enough resources.
 
This is why people opt out or are taken out of the game. They simply can’t. Well, I challenge this assumption and this way of thinking. Reading our sacred text reminds me that all things are possible and that God gives freely to those who give freely. Sure, we may only have two fish and five small loaves in a multitude of need, but it is God’s to multiply. Ours to give.
 
This week, as we opened our arms and our wallets to a refugee family in the midst of our own financial struggles as a small faith community, I felt a shift. We put a stake in the ground to give generously out of our lack. To be more concerned with the call to love our neighbor and to welcome the stranger than our own interests, comfort and security. And I believe that God will bless us richly with more than enough.
 
You see, I believe when we put God’s ways first, whether it is our money, our time, keeping the Sabbath or our call to love neighbor, our lives come into kingdom alignment. And we experience the blessedness of the Beatitudes. For we don’t want to merely give our leftovers and complain about how we are stuck in life, never having enough, never satisfied. Instead, what would it look like for us as followers of Jesus to invest the whole of our lives? Not an hour or two on a Sunday morning. But to live into an alternative narrative of the kingdom, embodying the compassion of Jesus in our neighborhoods. Where we see every conversation, every mundane task, every connection, every challenge, and every need as an opportunity for God’s love to break in.

I want our small band of Jesus followers to seed our time and our energies not into programs or doing church stuff. But rather into God's work in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. As a community, we are making choices to live into the dream of sharing life together for the sake of others. Choices that affect where and how we live. And as a pastor, I am well aware that I could spend the majority of my time just running the church; and yet I want to make decisions to be faithfully present and to invest first in God's kingdom here. To tutor at-risk children at Turning Point, to give generously to those in need, to offer spiritual direction to those who are seeking, and to offer hospitality to the lonely and the stranger. 

Can’t make Sunday morning? Well, forget about it! Make every day! This is the call to us as the church today. To live extravagantly and generously in the kingdom of love so that people will know our extravagant and generous God.
 
​
Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; [The world of the generous gets larger and larger.]
Others withhold what is due, and only suffer want. [The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.]
A generous person will be enriched, [The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed.]
And one who gives water will get water. [Those who help others are helped.] - Proverbs 11:24-25 [The Message]
 
Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. - Luke 6:38
 
Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life. - I Timothy 6:17-19
 
by Jessica Ketola

​I talk a lot about the need for reformation today. In society. In culture. And most definitely, in the church. It seems we have lost so much of what is good. I mean what is truly good. The real thing. Not the artificial. What is good for our souls, our bodies, our hearts and our minds. What is good for our families and our neighborhoods, our economies and our environment. What is good for our communities and for the flourishing of all who live here. What is the picture of the good life? And what is it that we truly hunger for?
 
America has sold us a picture of the good life. And for years we have bought it. Hook, line and sinker. It involves fame. Success. Accolades. Climbing the corporate ladder. The power of the dollar and the bottom line. It’s about the powerful, the strong, the big story and the top dog. It involves suburbia. And individualism. Private lives. Privilege. The freedom of choices so overwhelming we need Xanax. The big house, the white picket fence, and good schools for the kids. And it involves stuff. Toys, gadgets and more stuff. Stuff that breaks so we have to buy more. Shiny toys that must be upgraded every year. Gadgets we can’t possibly live without and lots of plastic that overwhelms our landfills and infiltrates our eco systems. Not to mention that we eat food that no longer resembles food, filled with “crack” substances like sugar and corn syrup proven to be as powerful as cocaine. And turns out, it was all a plan hatched to turn us into consumers who would buy what we didn’t need, and who would eat more than our fill-- so that we would keep working, and buying, and consuming. And well, it has worked. We work, and we work, and we work. And we consume and we consume. But for what? What are we truly craving?
 
I think the gloss is wearing very thin on this picture of the good life. For we are tired of chasing after that which doesn’t satisfy. This Lent, we’ve been spending time in The Beatitudes, which offers a very different picture of the good life. This week’s text is...
 
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.
 
Filled? Satisfied? Is this even a thing? It seems foreign to the consumptive American appetite. Jesus offered bread to satisfy our hunger, water to satisfy our thirst, so that we would never hunger or thirst again. Whaaaat? What is this? And if this is true, surely our economy that is built on never ending consumption is doomed.
 
But I sense a hunger today. For righteousness. Said another way. There seems to be is a deep longing for justice, for shalom, and for peace. For things to be set right in the world. Another vision of the good life, Jesus’ vision. For the world to be renewed and for people to be made whole. For communities to be reconciled and for relationships to be restored. This is a picture of the good life. And one that more and more people are awakening to. The sham is over. The emptiness of consumption has been exposed and we are in the wake of a people and land raped by its insatiable appetites. It seems we are hungry for more.
 
But Jesus offers to satisfy our hunger with a very different vision of the good life. A life that is built around something other than what we have and what we can acquire or achieve. And the promise is that we will be filled. Satisfied. Whole. People today are hungry for a different vision for their lives, for their neighborhoods and for the church. And this is why we as The Practicing Church are so committed to learning, experimenting, and growing together as we seek to embody the words of Jesus in our neighborhoods.

​Hungry for more?

by Jessica Ketola