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Society & Institutions
Borders & Fences
Beginning to think about all of the visible and invisible boundaries that surround us can make one feel downright claustrophobic. Is freedom discovered in crossing or obeying boundaries? How do we know when to tear down fences and when to build them?
Do This
Some churches reserve it for special occasions or limit the frequency of its observance in order to maintain its specialness. Other churches define all of their worship services by it, believing the community has not truly come together unless it was around the table. Why communion?
Bigger Is ...
Even those of us whose financial and vocational lives largely revolve around the efforts of large corporations often express suspicion of those institutions. Is bigger inherently better…or inherently worse? What are prophetic voices saying about the direction of a world steeped in global capitalism?
Trust Fall
Those who grew up in the Christian church could kvetch for hours about goofy exercises and discussions supposedly designed to enhance the teen spiritual journey. What’s good about youth group? What’s not so good? Where do we see imaginative work being done to engage teen-agers in the Church?
Men (Manly Men)
In deference to movements of the oppressed, men (particularly white men) are encouraged to submerge their needs and voices beneath their unearned privilege. Certainly, there’s a time for listening, but what kinds of anxieties and pathologies develop like scar tissue around guilty silence? What does the Church offer in the way of liberation or imprisonment for men struggling to discover a live-giving sense of identity?
Life Abundant
If we’re faithful, God will bless us with material wealth. If we’re faithful, we will live in voluntary poverty. Christians past and present argue and live both of these positions with equal tenacity…so what is abundance and what is its relationship to scarcity? What does prosperity look like in the Kingdom of God?
Duck, Duck, Goose
Kids’ attempts to fit in can be transparent—from the right shoes to the wrong attitude. Some adults never lose that quality, while others make a comfortable outpost on the fringes of their communities. On our attempts and failures, intentional or otherwise, to fit in.
Women’s Worlds
As much as social structures and roles have changed with regard to gender equality, deeply ingrained ideas remain about what is feminine. Are these aspects of the 21st century to be embraced or resisted—or some combination of the two?
Color Positive
One might say, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who don’t ever have to consider the color of their skin and those who must consider the color of their skin every day.” Stories about the pursuit of an anti-racist society.
When I Grow Up
Some people know what they want to do with their lives at an early age and that desire never changes. Others search their whole lives for vocation and identity. Stories about the certainties, pressures, questions, opportunities, wisdom and mystery encountered on this path.
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