If ever there was a time for soul force, it is now.

We are living in the midst of polarized times, political divides and inflammatory discourse, where bridge-building is not only needed but paramount today. This week as we continued our conversation around Reesheda Graham-Washington and Shawn Casselberry's new book, Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community & Change, we talked about moving from building barriers to bridges.

We, as humans, have a gift for erecting walls and building barriers. Sometimes these barriers and boundaries serve us well, keeping us from danger and harm. (Healthy boundaries are good.) And yet when we build barriers from places of unhealthy fear, they can destroy relationships, prevent us from learning and growing and can create huge divides between people.

In times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers.
-King T'Challa, The Black Panther Film

Jesus was always breaking through barriers and crossing boundaries to build bridges to the "other". Whether it was breaking the Sabbath rules to heal a man disabled and disenfranchised from society; crossing cultural, religious and gender divides to speak to the Samaritan woman at the well; eating with drunks and tax collectors or touching the unclean leper; we can see that the central theme of Jesus' ministry here on earth was the ministry of reconciliation. [2 Corinthians 5:18] And we too, have been given this message of reconciliation as ambassadors of Christ and followers of Jesus.

But what does it really mean to be people of faith in the midst of deep division? Can we stand with the marginalized without marginalizing those who don't agree with our stance? How can we hear our opponents rather than further isolating them? How do we address the barriers that marginalize and dehumanize others?

This week, our challenge is to practice bridge-building right here in our neighborhood. To practice the art of dialogue and listening to understand in our work places. To practice compassion, offering welcome and receiving the hospitality of those we are afraid of in our schools. To practice the gift of coming together in collaboration instead of suspicious competition in our communities .

And so as I attended the listening event for the Uighur people at our local Shoreline Bosnian Mosque this last Sunday, I saw all of these principles in play -- and it was a beautiful thing. Uighur Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Christians and concerned researchers and activists came together. We listened to the stories of the other, of our Muslim brothers and sisters, who have been persecuted and who are now experiencing untold suffering as over a million of their people have disappeared into concentration camps. [Learn more.] We experienced hospitality as we ate together and shared different cultural dishes. And we could not help but be moved by compassion as we looked into each other's eyes.

One young woman, I'll call her Adina, with the biggest deep, brown eyes and what I learned was heartache worn across her face, told us that her mother had gone missing nine months ago. I can't imagine the horror. Adina is incredibly smart with her Masters in Informatics at the University of Washington. She works downtown Seattle, loves to eat good Asian food and home-cooked meals, and is also a Muslim woman whose people are facing genocide. Compassion brings us together. Her eyes and her story haunt me, compelling me to pray daily for her and her family. This is how we build bridges. We must listen to the stories of those who are different than us.

And we were met with such warm hospitality by the Imam and many of the Muslims at the mosque who welcomed us into their worship space and humbly took the time to share some of their practices with us. One man talked about the centering nature of prayer five times a day -- and that when he was anxious or angry, he would return from prayer refocused and renewed in what was truly important. Another woman shared with me how it reminded her throughout her day to pause, to stop, and to remember God in the busyness of life. I shared that as a pastor, I would be so delighted to have my community praying throughout the day, and how in the Christian tradition, we also have fixed hour prayer. In fact, there has been a resurgence of interest in some of the ancient practices of prayer and spiritual direction in a world that never seems to stop. And so we found common ground in our desire to ground ourselves in love and peace in the chaotic swirl of life - which built a beautiful bridge between us.

So let us not build walls but bridges.

Let us not entrench ourselves in our camps with a growing divide between us and our enemy. Let us do the difficult and yet beautiful work of Jesus, Gandhi, King and many others who are wise enough to cross the divides and live in the tension.

by Jessica Ketola

From Barriers to Bridge Building
Live in tension. Commit to stay at the table and sit in the tension before the conversation begins. 
Live intention. Be thoughtful about how you are existing in yourself, in your relationships, and in your community. 
Ask why. Too often we ask what someone believes without asking why. Be curious. Ask questions. 
Share stories. People may or may not be moved by statistics, but they are almost always moved by story. 
Stay open. Be willing to learn from those you disagree with, and be open to changing your mind. 
Be humble. Having character and humility in how we talk gives greater credence to what we are saying. 
Find common ground. We may not be on the same side of every issue, but we can find commonalities with others. 
Examine institutional systems. Listen to the voices of people who are experiencing the detrimental effects of certain systems.
Taken from Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community and Change by Reedsheda Graham-Washington and Shawn Casselberry. © 2018 Herald Press

​People today are disrupted. No matter what your political, religious, or cultural affiliations are, we share a common experience. We are living in tumultuous times in our country. Divided we now stand. As followers of Jesus, our allegiance is not to a political party but rather to God’s good and loving kingdom, one that prioritizes the poor, that hungers for justice, that works diligently for peace, and that does the right thing even when it is costly (Matthew 5-7).
 
I think many of us these days vacillate between utter despair as we stumble to the coffee pot in the mornings carrying the weight of the world -- and stubborn hope, as more and more we find ourselves in huddles, rubbing shoulders with others who are heart broken too but determined to resist and to rise up in spite of fear. For it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the public discourse and the magnitude of justice issues today - whether it is education, equity and inclusion, immigration, mass incarceration, #metoo movements, gentrification, or climate change.
 
If ever there was a time for soul force, the time is now.
 
This is why I am excited as we begin a new conversation around Reesheda Graham-Washington and Shawn Casselberry’s new book, Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community & Change. Because transformation is what is needed today. Is it not? We want to be a part of a revolution, a reformation, a movement -- which is the kingdom of God -- that is bringing transformation, personally, collectively and societally.
 
What is soul force? 
soul force (noun):

• a spiritual energy, a vital force conceived of as constituting, residing in, or emanating from the soul
• from the Hindi word satyagraha composed of two Sanskrit words: satya, meaning "truth and love," and agraha, meaning "firmness" or "force"
• method of nonviolent resistance inspired by the life of Jesus and developed and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King

 
“Soul force is where the Spirit of God and our human resilience meet. The Spirit doesn’t override our will, nor does it bypass our humanity. The Spirit works in concert and collaboration with our ingenuity, gifts and grit. Soul force is a power that emerges when we align with the Spirit of truth, love and liberation. Soul force is an awakening to the realization that we have a creative force within us, because we all bear the divine imprint of the Creator. But so rarely do we tap into this power.”
 
“Soul force is an inner alignment with truth, a fortified internal strength that creates the capacity for courage and change in the face of great adversity. It is a commitment to integrity, truth, love, nonviolence, and community that leads to personal and social transformation. Gandhi and King utilized soul force in their contexts to ignite movements for social change, and we can utilize it for movement in our lives too.” [excerpt from Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community & Change]

“The kingdom of God is within you.” - Luke 17:21 
 
But how do we ignite our soul force within us? This essence of truth and love that shines brightly in the darkness? How do we tap into something extra inside, finding strength and resolve when others cower? How do we move from paralyzing despair to catalytic courage - to act in faith and hope despite our fears.
 
According to Reesheda and Shawn, the first movement or pivot is from fear to freedom. For fear can be an all-encompassing impediment to transformation. Fear cripples us and can keep us from taking risks. Soul force requires courage in the face of fear.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” - Nelson Mandela, The Long Walk To Freedom

The fears that hold us back are often lies that we have internalized from society, people, and wounds in our lives. Behind every fear is a lie that must be unmasked. And so what are your fears? And what are the lies that you believe?

As we look at what compels some to dig deep and find courage in the most difficult of circumstances, we can see the power of soul force. "For what compels a lowly shepherd boy with a slingshot to go up against a towering giant? What causes a privileged queen to risk her position and possibly her life, to advocate for her people? Or an unassuming Indian religious teacher to challenge the British Empire through nonviolent resistance? Or a Black Baptist preacher from the Deep South to show love in the face of racial hatred and bigotry?" [Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community & Change]
​  
Soul force frees us from the lies that enslave us into the glorious freedom in Christ. This is the power of the gospel -- to break the chains of oppression and to set the prisoners free. This is the transformative power of love that frees the creative force of the Spirit within us so that we can experience movement within ourselves and within our communities.

Now is the time for courage. Now is the time for nonviolent resistance and enemy love. Now is the time to resist, create, forgive, advocate, and bear witness to love in the midst of division, violence, greed and power. Now is the time to draw upon the soul force within us to act in faith and love despite our fears. Now is the time.

by Jessica Ketola

From Fear to Freedom:
Name the fears. Choose one fear. Peel back the layers as far as you can of how it came to be, how it still exists within you, and how it plays out in your life. How has it helped and/or harmed you? What would happen if you disengaged it?
Face the fears. What are some small ways you can live in the truth? How might you pivot toward courage and move from fear to freedom in your everyday life?
Find people to hold you accountable. Who are some people you know who are living freedom over fear? What do you witness in them? What might you embody in your own life as a result of what you learn from them?
Examine the rootedness of the fear. What people or places are you afraid of? How can you move into closer proximity to them in order to hear their stories? What about those people or places do you also see in yourself? Are there any commonalities? What do you share?
 
Taken from Soul Force: Seven Pivots toward Courage, Community and Change by Reedsheda Graham-Washington and Shawn Casselberry. © 2018 Herald Press

Last weekend, we attended the Love Thy Neighbor Ordinary Revival gathering -- and one of the critical shifts they talked about was moving...

from fragmented isolation to neighborhood presence.

We are all too familiar with our hyper-mobile, technological, consumeristic, and individualistic culture and the ensuing fragmentation. Fragmentation of neighborhoods, families and communities that leaves so many of us today suffering from anxiety, depression and loneliness. But what is our response as the people of God? And how do we begin to imagine what it means to be faithfully present weaving a fabric of care in our places? [stolen from The New Parish] For this move from fragmented isolation to neighborhood presence is such an important shift. For how are we supposed to be love incarnate -- to reveal what God is like to our neighbors -- if we are not present?

This fall, there are going to be lots of opportunities for you to be present in your neighborhoods and communities. Whether that is a neighborhood dinner, a Muslim/Christian listening event, a social justice book club, a pub theology gathering or a 5K fun run, I encourage you to SHOW UP. Some of you have more bandwidth than others; and certainly, all of you have plenty of reasons why you don't have time, energy... yada yada yada ( I know I do!) But I want to encourage you, maybe even challenge you...to be present. In your neighborhood. At your local coffee shop. At the community forum. Your life will only be enriched.

I was talking with someone this week who shared how she was experiencing an increase in her quality of life -- the synergy and community that happens when you begin to run into folks everyday -- at the school pickup, the coffee shop, the grocery store and the local art show. It is an intangible gift until you experience it. The joy and beauty of belonging to a place, of feeling a sense of pride and ownership of the neighborhood, a feeling of being known and knowing others. This is the gift of presence in the neighborhood.

Of course, it will look different for each of us, depending on the unique contexts in which we live our lives, the demands of work and family and our passions and interests.

But no one is exempt.

You see, we don't get the privilege of talking without walking (it out).

Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup -- where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? [James 2:14-17 The Message]

For our faith must be expressed in action. This is why we are The Practicing Church. And formation doesn't happen just on Sunday. It happens on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. And so we don't get to talk about justice and healing and renewal in the world without somehow, even in very small ways, participating in this work.

So many of you are steeped in this healing work in the world as counselors, teachers, mental health workers and chaplains that you feel like there is nothing left when you get home. Others of you are beginning to experience the joy of neighborhood presence. Still others of you are not sure where to begin. And so if this idea of neighborhood presence feels daunting to you, start small. But do start.

Love your neighbor -- your actual neighbors. It is a tremendous gift that just keeps on giving.

Root in a particular place and allow God's dream to grow there.

Show up and be present. Learn the names and faces of your community. Listen deeply to their stories.

Open up your homes. Open up your hearts. Open up your lives.

This week, as I've heard beautiful stories of heartache and resilience that moved me to tears at a cultural community event, as I've thrown back my head and laughed with my Muslim neighbor, as I've participated in a community forum for my neighbors experiencing homelessness, as I've grieved with my neighbor experiencing a tragic loss and as I've made of fool of myself with the neighborhood kids at Turning Point, my life is so much bigger, fuller and richer. And I feel alive and connected to God's dream here.

For surely it is the work of the Spirit. All I have to do is show up.

by Jessica Ketola

This last Sunday we talked about how Jesus came to reveal what God was like.

LOVE INCARNATE. Divine love in human form. A God who meets us in the everyday longings, pain and hunger of our ordinary lives.

I am intensely aware of this as we serve coffee on Aurora at the methadone clinic amidst more suffering than I can fully comprehend. Beautiful and resilient spirits housed in bodies ravaged by addiction with dreams that seem forever illusive. God, where are you?

For since the beginning of time, we have tried to wrap our minds around what God is like -- and I think that most religion, philosophy and mythology is trying to answer this question. Is God like the violent and demanding pagan gods of the ancients? Is God full of wrath and judgment like the hell and brimstone preachers say? Is God distant and uncaring? Or is God absent, irrelevant and obsolete?

But Jesus answered this question, once and for all. God is love incarnate. Love is the essence of God. God loves as the sun shines: love expresses who God is. And through Jesus, love came in human form and laid down his life for us through the work of the cross, taking on our suffering, sin, sorrow and pain. And somehow, even in our secular culture, the cross remains a poignant symbol with the theme of sacrifice repeated again and again in the stories we tell. For somehow we know in our bones that the cross of Jesus was the ultimate revelation of true power and true love.

For we all feel our wounds and our sorrows, whether discreetly hidden behind the safety of middle-class garage doors or flagrantly blatant on Aurora Avenue. And so the image of Jesus on the cross speaks of the true God -- not as a distant, faceless bureaucrat, nor as a bullying boss, but as the one who has strangely come right into the middle of the pains, the agonies, the hungers and sorrows of the world and taken their full force on himself. In a sense, all of Christian theology, certainly theology of the cross, is the attempt to explain this very immediate, personal, visceral experience.

And so standing at the foot of the cross taking in the extraordinary lengths that God has gone for us, it almost seems impossible to NOT sense the wonder, the power, the miracle and the possibility in love.This is the force that has changed the world, and is still has the power to change the world if we as followers of Jesus could only catch it.

For what John says next is huge.

Beloved, if that's how God loved us, we ought to love one another in the same way. Nobody has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and God's love is completed in us. [I John 4:11-12]

Jesus is the example; now we should copy it. Yes, simple and straightforward, beautiful and stunning, and well, almost impossible to do. And yet through the power and unction of the Spirit, that which is impossible becomes possible.

No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. [John 1:18] This is remarkably profound. We don't really know who God is until we look at Jesus. And so what John is provocatively saying is that people around us really don't know who God is -- until they see it revealed in our lives as the people of God. Until God's love is completed in us. For the work of Jesus is meant to continue through us, the church.

This is phenomenally challenging and also achingly true. This is why I signed up to be a pastor and why I can't walk away from the church -- for this is our calling, our vocation and our mandate as the people of God. As disparaging as our current realities are and as far as we stray from this truth, it remains.

We are called to be LOVE INCARNATE.

And this week as I stood out on Aurora doing an inanely simple thing, a profoundly human and earthy thing, offering coffee, muffins and a smile to my fellow siblings, I was reminded by sages much wiser than I. Of the goodness of showing up. Of the beauty of presence. Of the gift of listening and seeing. One woman said, "Thank you so much for doing this, for being here. You know most folks don't even see us as people." And she offered me the gift of seeing what I couldn't see without her eyes -- showing me how we dehumanize, categorize, and ostracize, cutting ourselves off from the true lament of suffering with.

This is the kind of love that Jesus offers. Compassion. A love that suffers with. Us. In all our pain, flailing, acting out and struggle. And a love that suffers with our neighbor. Who we are tempted to classify and thus write off as "other". Somehow I know that as we attempt to connect to this divine love and to more fully embody it, those who we deem most in need will become our greatest teachers. For our arrogance is blinding and our independence crippling.

Somehow we as a community will have to find ways to embody this love, to live a way of love together in our neighborhoods and communities, to share life and meals, joys and pains, our dreams and our disappointments. We will have to begin to "overflow" with the love that we have received to those around us as we show up in our communities joining in justice, renewal, mercy and compassion. We will have to care about those that are perceived to be "other" or on the "outside", those who are oppressed, those who are hated. And doing this will take intentionality. It will take sacrifice. It will take proximity.

But what if...?

What if we could begin to be love incarnate? Love in human form. What if we could stumble and experiment and practice and embody love as the Spirit weaves us into something truly beautiful and stunning?

I hope you will join us this Sunday as we continue to wrestle with how we are called to live lives of love. For God is love and this love is so compelling, so true, so powerful that it can still change the world.

by Jessica Ketola

This week we were once again provoked by I John to love one another even as Jesus laid down his life for us. For this is how we've come to understand and experience love -- through Christ's sacrifice. This is at the heart of the goodness of our story and yet to follow in the example of Jesus is... well... just plain hard (to put it mildly).

Because Jesus DIED. He gave up his life. And as the famous saying goes, "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die." Nobody wants to die. But it does seem that there is a correlation between loving and dying. Ask any parent, spouse, sibling, child or human who has attempted to love. True love requires sacrifice, some giving up of our desire or preference, some dying to self. Some letting go of the life that I imagined for the life that we now share.

But here, the apostle John is not just talking about our closest friends and family. He is talking to the faith community and urging them to love one another this way. And well, today this is a hard concept to wrap our heads around. In a culture that is fiercely independent, fragmented, frenetically busy, and commitment-avoidant, it is hard for us to think in terms of the collective "we". And even more foreign to think about loving our fellow church members in this sacrificial way, no less our neighbors! And yet...isn't this the greatest commandment? To love God and to love our neighbor even as we love ourselves.

This is why I believe that we must reimagine our lives together as those who are seeking to follow the Way of Jesus. How can we ever begin to live out these challenging words without a context of sharing life, proximity, and meals together? It will take more than seeing each other a few hours on a Sunday to learn how to lay down our lives for one another. For love is more than an ideal or sentiment. It is lived out in the everyday, gritty realities of our lives. Love is far more than words. It is action. And we all sense this as we perceive the world around us -- we can only trust love that is proven, tested and lived. This is why John urges us in I John 3:18,

Children, let us not love in word, or in speech, but in deed and in truth. [NTE]

Somehow we have to move beyond the utopian ideals, theoretical debates, sanitized notions, and deluge of words and begin to live this out.

In real time. With real people. In real life.

Like choosing to show up and be present for someone when you're tired and spent. Like crossing the street to talk to your neighbor when you'd prefer to run inside. Like being vulnerable to share your anger when you'd rather hide. Like attending a "thing" that isn't your thing in your desire to know the other. Like sacrificing your scarce time, energy, and money to embrace the abundance of the community.

This is love ->  Love = life laid down.

This is not something that comes easy. It will take practice. But love, true love, has the power to transform us, heal us and uplift us. It is the essence of God and the reason why we are all here.

My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality.   
[I John 3:18 The Message]

by Jessica Ketola

My heart is full as we emerge from the whirl of our daughter's wedding. I mean, at first, it absolutely flattened us. We felt like we had been run over by a train, and indeed, we had. A wedding train! David and I were so exhausted, we mostly slept on Monday and then did some necessary self-care on Tuesday just to return to some sense of baseline. But, my oh my, what a beautiful weekend of goodness and beauty and love! It was hard to take it all in! It was one of those days that gives us a glimpse of heaven. Where we celebrate and feast, laugh and dance and remember what is most important in life -- LOVE. Connection. Relationship. Commitment. Family.

As I watched through tears the love that my daughter and her new husband share as they looked into each others eyes and committed their love for a lifetime. As I took in the deep affection that my children have for one another as they offered banter and support with plenty of laughter that eventually gave way to tears. As I took in the heart-rending dance as my daughter Anna sang the song she had picked to dance with her dad at the young age of 9. As I was blessed by all our family who traveled near and far just to be together. And as I witnessed this community that surrounded these two. I realized again that these moments of celebration, goodness, and delight are the most profound reality that we know. They are moments of sabbath - of shalom - of heaven here on earth that remind us who we are.

For God created us to live in these rhythms of Sabbath, rhythms of rest, play and delight to orient our lives around God's goodness in the world.

Some may think the Sabbath archaic as a ritual reserved only for observant Jews, no longer relevant in our 24/7, always-on, technological culture, but the Sabbath has never been more relevant. For we were created to live in harmony, connection and delight. And for the devout Jew, the Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; it is not just an interlude of rest and recreation to enable us to work all the harder during the week. Rather, the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is not just a break in the pattern of daily life but the whole meaning of it.

For this taste of heaven is the organizing force, that which orients all of our lives.
​
“The Sabbath, thus, is more than an armistice, more than an interlude; it is a profound conscious harmony of man and the world, a sympathy for all things and a participation in the spirit that unites what is below and what is above. All that is divine in the world is brought into union with God. This is Sabbath, and the true happiness of the universe." 
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath

Every year in August, it is my tradition to take a Sabbath. To rest and to take some time away from our community. And admittedly, this is hard for me. Of course, I enjoy the vacation, but it also is a discipline for me to let go and to trust, to remember that I am human and in need of rest, and to cease from my work to allow room for the Spirit's work. And so as I take a few weeks of Sabbath, I invite you to practice Sabbath as well! To enter into goodness, play, delight, and community. To let go of all the burdens and concerns, injustices and sorrows of the world for some moments of gratitude and delight and pure joy. Because these are the moments that we are living for. As the words of Saint John compel us, may we orient our lives around this love that is at the very center of the cosmos.

“Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath … one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.” 
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath

But if you are like me, you may struggle to cease from vigilance, performance and control. You may find it difficult to fully enter into rest, delight and play. You may have stories of harm that have dictated to you that you must never let your guard down, that you must stay vigilant, responsible, and in control, preventing you from fully celebrating goodness because you fear when the other shoe will drop. And while I hate to break it to you, the shoe will drop. Even on my daughter's beautiful wedding day, I am aware that there will be many more days of sorrow, difficulty and pain ahead. This is the way of life as we wait for the full redemption of all things.

And yet, on feast days, on wedding days, on days of magnificent goodness when we get a taste of heaven, these are not days for anxiety or grief or despair.

​These days are reserved only for deep gratitude, for profound joy, and for heart-singing delight!

And so my prayer is that you would experience the grace to practice for eternity when everything will be put to right -- and that you will taste moments of sheer goodness, delight and joy in the days ahead!

​by Jessica Ketola

We've been talking about going deeper in our understanding of the heights and depths, breadth and width of the love of God - and how our practices of worship and prayer put us in the way of grace to experience God in the everyday rhythms of our lives. This is where transformation happens. As we learn to integrate the presence of God and the reality of God's good kingdom that is reconciling everything and everyone into our sometimes harried and gritty lives. As we cease to compartmentalize our spirituality into a "God box" or a "Sunday box" and learn to see the Spirit at work, present to us, all the time. This is why the saints of old have cultivated "praying without ceasing" or what Brother Lawrence called the practice of the presence of God.

Yes, it is a practice.

​This is not a novel concept but embedded in our story from the very beginning. Brother Lawrence of the 17th century knew this. So did Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and many before her, including the early desert fathers and mothers and well...even St. Paul.

We are most deeply formed not by what we think or believe, or by what we think we believe, but by what we love and what we worship. For first and foremost, we are desiring, worshipping creatures -- in short, we are created to worship. And so whatever our hearts are aimed at points us toward a vision of the good life. And it is our practices, our liturgies, and our embodied rhythms that capture our passions, our desires, and our affections. Whether that is in the temple of the mall or the temple of HGTV or the temple of the sport's stadium or the temple of Wall Street.

And so what are our practices of prayer and worship and presence in our lives?

Deuteronomy 6 wisely calls us to these rhythms as we wake and as we lie down, as we eat and as we talk with our children and as we go about our day. Knowing that we need these touch points of worship embedded in our daily lives to continue to point our hearts towards shalom.

Do we start our day in the loving gaze of God as we drink our coffee in the morning? Do we pray while we work or do the dishes or ride the bus? Do we pause at fixed hours of the days to acknowledge the one who sustains our very breath? Do we have practices of gratitude and worship, reflection and meditation? Do we sit in the richness of the word and let it ground us in the truth?

There is a depth of relationship, a depth of peace, contentment and joy rooted in the love of God that is indeed available to us. As Brother Lawrence has said, It is God who paints Himself in the depths of our soul. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. And so I encourage you not to "settle" and to continue then to be dissatisfied with the shallowness of your experience of God.

There is more.

The Spirit is here, with us. And because of the Spirit, there is more than enough!

by Jessica Ketola

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. [Eph 3:18 ]

Surely, the Spirit of God is at work in our midst! And the kingdom of God is much wider and deeper than we imagine...

This was plainly evident as a group of eleven from our faith community experienced the presence, power and provocation of the Spirit last week at the Vineyard Northwest Regional Gathering. I was so thankful for Rose Swetman's leadership and to be a part of this Vineyard family. It was sooooo good!

As I have been thinking about how to distill the richness of teaching, stories, encouragement, and experiences of the presence of God, I have returned to three themes that seem to be at the very core of our community.

The Journey Inward. The Journey Outward. And how we are called to Journey Together.

[Elizabeth O'Connor wrote about these themes extensively as she shared the story of The Church of the Savior; and as The Practicing Church, we also use the language around practices of Formation, Mission and Community that lead us into Faithful Presence.]

I believe that the Spirit is prophetically and provocatively calling us to Journey Outward: to realize that the kingdom of God is much wider than we can fathom. To let go of our fear, denial, complacency and even our complicity -- and to follow Jesus to the edges. Ray Bakke opened up the scriptures the first night in a way I have rarely experienced as he spoke about the inclusiveness, scandal and diversity of the church. Jer Swigart followed the next morning with a compelling call to peacemaking and loving the "other" as the central movement of the gospel. And so we were invited to the edge of our comfort zones, our world views, our theology and our practice. To rethink what it means to follow Jesus through the lens of our sisters and our brothers who are oppressed, who are suffering, those who are facing the unimaginable -- misunderstood, feared, abused and hated. We were called to lay down a version of the gospel steeped in Western Imperialism and to reconvert to the gospel of Jesus. And the punches kept coming through the radical stories we listened to. Stories of saying yes to working with children with disabilities, walking alongside immigrants and refugees, the experiences of injustice of people of color to why the millennials don't think the church cares about what they deeply care about. So many stunning stories. And I believe the prophetic call of the Spirit is challenging and provoking us to awaken from our lethargic and comfortable brand of Christianity to the dare of the gospel.

At the same time, I believe that the Spirit is wooing us, inviting us into the Journey Inward: to realize that the kingdom of God is much deeper than we know. As we encountered the Spirit of God again and again ministering to us through the times of worship and prayer, one thing was clear to me. We need the Spirit so desperately. We need to be immersed and deepened in our experience of the presence of God in our lives and in our community. David Ruis modeled this so beautifully as he spoke and led us in the movement of the Holy Spirit. This is the union we are created for, the water our hearts thirst for, and the life that will sustain us. So we are invited. To sit in the loving gaze of God, to bask in the presence of the Spirit, to worship as we were created to, to practices of prayer, solitude, and stillness, to invitations to listen, reflect, heal, grow and repent. To be vulnerable, to come as we are - in all our glory and our shame. To be transformed, sustained and renewed in the presence of God in the rhythms of our ordinary lives and as we gather together as the beloved community.

Which brings me to the Journey Together: to realize that none of this makes sense without the deep commitment and sacrifice of shared life along with the wide, extravagant welcome that acknowledges that no one is outside God's love. We belong to one another. We are inextricably bound together. One of the really sweet parts about coming together as the people of God is the sense of being connected to a larger family, belonging to this beautifully diverse community and being a part of something bigger than ourselves. Not only did we experience this with our Vineyard family across the region, we also experienced this with each other as we shared our hearts, our laughter and our longings around the fire pit each night. And I believe that this is a work of the Spirit for our entire community. That the Spirit is knitting us together in deeper ways as we share our lives -- our fears and our dreams, our wounds and our desires -- and commit to one another for the long haul. And even this past Sunday as a dear sister walked through our doors, who come to find out had been a part of our Vineyard community in Kenya, I was struck with the beauty of being family, part of this beloved, diverse community that will one day gather around the throne worshipping with one song.

My heart is full of so much gratitude and hope for what the Spirit is doing in our midst. Let us continue to allow the Spirit of God to wake us, provoke us, and stir us that we may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. That we would journey outward toward the "other" to love our neighbor as we journey inward deeper in our life and union with the Spirit, journeying together to learn what it means to see and be seen, to hear and be heard and to know and be known. That we would indeed know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

by Jessica Ketola

Resistencia Coffee. Resisting the forces of gentrification in South Park, replacing it with gente-fication by creating a place for the community. Cote, with sparkle in her eye and joy in her step believes. Anything is possible. Si se puede, for the Spirit is at work. Just ride the wave. Tim, also beaming with pride, offering pastries, welcome and hope. Colorful art painted on the wall, a welcoming play space for littles, the turquoise chairs on the patio, the open garage door that invites everyone in the neighborhood to come together, to share laughter and tears and stories, to resist empire and to live into a new way of love and community.

Guadalupe House, the Tacoma Catholic Worker in the changing Hilltop neighborhood. Paul and Elizabeth’s warm welcome and commitment to this place. Nora’s wisdom. Tales of being with the vulnerable, being human, and being formed. Gus, living among, creating spaces for music and art and conversation. The Madrinas, offering their fierce and tender care for this community. Papusas, lumpia, the nourishing food from garden to table, the cozy living room with the shag carpet, the history of saints who have gone before − here in this place, a story of faithful presence over decades. It is stunning. The vibrant murals, the shelves of canned delights, the handsome chickens, the expansive gardens, the quiet spaces of reflection, the big, long tables on the patio, indicative of the wide welcome and hospitality of this place. The beams of wood that have been stretched and bent in the winter seasons just like the Catholic Workers who live here − to be a garden of peace and beauty, a place to sit down and rest, and a fountain of life. 

Trinity Presbyterian. Church of the Stranger. Matthew and Rod. Over a century of rootedness in the Bryant Neighborhood, like an ancient tree offering shelter and hospitality for all. The history of a dying congregation catching sight of a new vision to serve the community, tutor children, offer soup, relationship and hospitality. A brick and historic structure now falling down, a journey of deep listening, another big, bold and beautiful dream emerging for The Bryant Neighborhood Center. Stained glass windows in which the light of God shines through illuminating the paths of the neighborhood. Surely God is here. Here for good. 

Eloheh Village Farm in the quaint and rural community of Newberg, Oregon. Randy and Edith Woodley welcoming us around the fire. Hospitality is the new missiology. Bourbon and drinks, forgotten s’mores, a beautiful folk song, laughter and slumber parties. Traditional wisdom, shalom, the harmony way for the community of creation. The permaculture of indigenous wisdom enriching the soil, huckleberries, walnut trees, ancient squash, three sisters, a sweat lodge, the wonder of a greenhouse with tall artichokes, ancient watermelon and a new variety of tomato plants. Listen. I believe in the seed. Listen. We are family. Listen for the ancient wisdom. Honor the land. Look for what is invisible. God is vulnerable. To follow Jesus is to be vulnerable. The opposite is indifference and superficiality. Look for what is forgotten, for it is the wisdom needed.

The Oregon Public House in North Portland. Where everyone knows your name. The first nonprofit pub in the nation. Drink a pint and change the world. Local craft beer; tall, welcoming booths; delicious Reuben’s and sweet potato fries. A wall of pint glasses inscribed with the names of founders who had faith to see what was yet unseen. The Play and Swap Co-op. The Village Ballroom. Children’s concerts and community events. A center of life for the Woodlawn Neighborhood and The Oregon Community. Ryan Saari and his team, just foolish and audacious enough to imagine another way to be the people of God. Where neighbors living out the way of Jesus together are the sign of the kingdom -- no need for the A-Board. 

James Helm in the reclaimed Rocky Butte neighborhood of Northeast Portland. A fire in his belly to follow the way of Jesus and to love his neighbor. The scourge of 82nd reinterpreted through new eyes of hope. A Zen Garden that makes paths through the wilderness once deserted by the people of God. A slow work, a faithful work. Of front yard barbecues, a community garden, a street mural, a neighborhood newsletter, a farmer’s market, and a dream of a coffee shop. All on the streets once known for violence. Faithful presence that invites prayers with neighbors for peace, small dogs and the redemption of this place. 

I loved this article by Karina Kreminski, author of Urban Spirituality​, Embodying God's Mission In The Neighborhood, on a recent Missio Alliance Blog and asked her permission to repost it here. 

                        __________________________________________________________________________________

NT Wright has written:
Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s prayer is about.

We’ve just come throught the season of Eastertide in which we continue to think about what it means to “practice the resurrection” in our daily lives. What does it mean to live daily as people who are a foretaste of the kingdom? What does it look like to embody the fragrance of heaven here on earth as we wait for the consummation of the reign of God?

In my last article I wrote:
Instead of practicing a Gnostic Christianity, or holding to an eschatology that leads us to thinking that we will ultimately live a disembodied existence in a ghostly place called heaven, we must see this world as our home and engage in homemaking practices or habits that will help us work with God to bring his rule on earth. And we must do this locally because the local space is where God has placed us to be God’s shalom to our neighbors as we work together for God’s rule to manifest.

If we are to work with God’s mission to proclaim and embody his shalom in our world, then we must see this world as our ultimate home that God is bringing to restoration. This means that instead of primarily seeing this earth as our place of exile, which is a popular Christian metaphor for our relationship to the world, we see ourselves as homemakers in a reconstruction plan that is God inspired and designed.
​
If we are to work with God's mission to proclaim and embody his shalom in our world, then we must see this world as our ultimate home that God is bringing to restoration.

To Join God’s Mission is to Be a Homemaker

To be a homemaker does not mean that we can become comfortable. In our culture, homemaking can have connotations of settling down, insularity, and becoming complacent. Rather, homemaking from a missional perspective means that we discern the Spirit of God who is on mission in our neighborhoods where God has placed us. We bring affirmation to the places that represent the shalom of God. We disrupt and subvert the places that do not.

So what are some homemaking practices that we can be engaging today in our local neighborhoods? Here are three of them: celebration, re-enchantment, and placemaking.

1. Celebration

When we celebrate, we challenge the status quo which mocks us by saying “This is all there is.” When we celebrate, we embody hope—which is a subversion of our culture of despair.

Everyone on earth is acquainted with death, grief, and despair. We live in the “in-between times” where we wait for the consummation of the reign of God. There must be more room in Christian worship for lament, solidarity with those who suffer, and righteous anger towards the dark powers in our world.

However, we must not forget that our ultimate posture is joy because of the victory of Jesus Christ over those dark powers which cause such despair. As the authors of Slow Church write:

The resurrection of Jesus relieves us of the fear of death. ‘Where oh death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?’ (1 Cor 15:55). But the fuller story of the New Testament is that God’s people have been resurrected as the body of Christ. Just as Jesus is the embodiment of the shalom that God intends for creation, the church’s role in the drama of creation is likewise to be the embodiment of God’s shalom, albeit in a form that hasn’t yet been fully realized.

A characteristic of this shalom? Joy and celebration. These are foundational for God’s people as we make our pilgrim journey in our ultimate homeland.

As we work among the poor and the marginalized, we will often be plagued with feelings of inadequacy. The challenges of ministry in these broken places can be overwhelming. Most missionaries in these grief-filled contexts also make a habit to practice celebration—not only to create a positive atmosphere, but to prophetically embody the coming kingdom when we will see the death of death.

We can celebrate the progress that our neighborhoods are making towards God’s shalom. We can affirm people when they take small steps towards healing and breakthrough. We can celebrate community groups as they work to relieve inadequacies such as homelessness.

What if Christians were known for hosting and attending the most parties and events that celebrate the life of your community?

Where can you see God’s shalom peeping through the darkness in your neighborhood—and how can you then celebrate that?

2. Re-enchantment

In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor writes that the sacred has been stripped from the daily stuff of life. Contrary to Christendom—where church bells rang to call the faithful to prayer and buildings were designed to inspire awe of the merged power of state and Church—today we have no daily reminders of the sacred in our public life.

However, there are still traces of the sacred in the midst of a secular society.

People in our neighborhoods may not find these sacred spaces in churches or liturgy, but there are places in our neighborhoods that can provide context for the sacred.

Madeleine L’Engle has said in her book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art:
There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.
​
If we believe that our neighborhoods are sacred in that they are places where God’s Spirit is at work, then what does it mean to bring about “re-enchantment”? Phillip Sheldrake in The Spiritual City: Theology, Spirituality and the Urban says:

Re-enchantment seeks to make public space more than a context for human socialization created purely by consumerism or tourism. Rather, we should work imaginatively and experimentally with public space to make it the medium for a transformation of imagination and behavior through protest gatherings (non-legislative politics), art, education, and entertainment.

This means paying detailed attention to our place. It means working to redeem broken spaces in our communities. It means creating objects, activities, and gatherings that are helpful for people to connect with a sense of their own spirituality.

What does it mean for you to “re-enchant” your neighborhood?

How can a sense of the “sacred” be made visible for your community?

3. Placemaking

​Re-enchantment leads to placemaking as a homemaking practice.

Again, this is about the practice of an embodied, deeply incarnational theology that understands that this world is our ultimate home.

Placemaking relates to the humanizing of a city or a community. Often designers plan cities with technology, cars, and production in mind.

But placemaking seeks the betterment of the city by advocating a more humane approach to design and planning—through mediums such as art, community consultation, and even action-research.

There is continuity between this world and the next. It is our responsibility and privilege to be placemakers in our local neighborhoods, redeeming what is needed and affirming what already exists that is good, just, and true.

In every sense, place-making is about beautifying, engaging with, and contributing to the local city neighborhood for its good. We can do this by engaging with local community groups involved in the design of our neighborhoods. We can also do this by making friends with local artists who work to bring beauty to the places where we live.

Making A Home in Your Neighborhood

What is the vision of “the good neighborhood” God would have for your community once you tell and embody the story of the reign of God in that place?

If we engage in homemaking practices, then we will be at work with God on his mission to bring his shalom into our world. We will then be the fragrance of another reality in a world that longs for the manifestation of a hope that can truly be trusted.

Homemaking from a missional perspective means that we discern the Spirit of God who is on mission in our neighborhoods where God has placed us. Here’s three practical ways we can enter into that work.