Voices
Stephanie Perdew
My protector was not on the ballot this fall
I look to the hills, not to a politician.
Julian DeShazier
After every election, I turn to Tolstoy
His challenges to the left and right alike are devastating and timely.
Heidi Neumark
Advent in the squatters’ camp
As a human rights worker during Argentina’s Dirty War, I learned to read the signs.
Jonathan Tran
Keep swinging for the fences
My decades of church life have been full of the stuff one might expect from a place that promises God and only sometimes delivers.
Isaac S. Villegas
Divine silence
A Quaker colleague taught me how stillness exercises agency, how it acts upon worshipers.
Debie Thomas
Ancestral blessings
I attended a talk by a pastor who begins services by asking, “Who do you bring into worship with you?”
Brian Bantum
Stretched between life’s verses
The future is scary: we simply don’t know, and it flies toward us anyway.
Yolanda Pierce
Lessons from the land of lake effect snow
Life can be as unpredictable as the weather in upstate New York. But God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Samuel Wells
Mourning prayer
The church’s old cork board reminded me that our heartbroken cries go directly to God.
Heidi Neumark
Conspiracies of goodness
When I fear a dystopian future, I hold on to stories of everyday resistance.
Melissa Florer-Bixler
The gift of interfaith difference
At the Muslim community center, I felt the tension of our divergence. But I also sensed gratitude.
Julian DeShazier
Why church marketing won’t work with Gen Z
Equity requires people with power giving some of it up. What if we applied this principle to young adult ministry?
Alejandra Oliva
Vegetables that are fearfully and wonderfully made
My friend left me his CSA share for two weeks. It changed the way I look at labor.
Brian Bantum
Being salt
When I got into cooking, it changed the way I understand Jesus’ statement, “You are the salt of the earth.”
Isaac S. Villegas
The meaning of a sermon
I’m sure these faithful people have heard all of these words before. So what is my task here?
Debie Thomas
The hope I’ve arrived at
I used to put a positive spin on everything. The effort didn’t serve my children—or my own heart.
Debie Thomas
Which church is dying?
The church of empire might be. But I’m not ready to call time of death on the mystical body of Christ.