A few days ago, I was asked what I dream of for the church. It came just after an unrelated discussion about this event. The truth is, I couldn’t answer that question at the moment. I’m still stewing over it; it involves something along the lines of a place where we can share our joys as well as our brokenness. I want church to be a place not that caters to individual whims but which draws in all followers of Christ and transforms us one by one. I want it to be a place that always leaves me slightly discomforted. I want the church to be a place that deals more in the spheres of grace than of legalism.

I’m not attending the gathering at Hesston College, but I do like their questions on the web site, so I’m going to steal a few, and toss them at you all. How would you re-imagine the church? What do we really care about, and how can we make that happen? Of what do you dream?

Ohh…internet blog sites. I’ve never tried one…this is my blog cradle. I will be nurtured here — or shaken out of my comfort to my metaphorical baptism by carpet-burn. And I choose to sign my name to YAR, because I think it’s got potential. The potential to hurt and heal – to annoy us in our comfort, challenge us in our disregard and sooth us in our ailing. It could just be annoying, though. I’ve thought about that. And I’m mostly fine with that too. Especially because recently a friend challenged me to start saying stuff — even if I don’t think I have it right — because, we’re doing this as a community right (like those Anabaptists we keep clinging to), and if I get something wrong, eric or Lora or Michael J will call me on it — and then we’ll have a conversation and someone will learn something.

So, that’s why I’m a young Anabaptist radical — cheap right. Later we might define all those terms. For now: engage as you feel drawn or estranged by any part of that title. I’m still trying to figure out if I like young people or Anabaptists or radicals and when I think of them all together, I get real worked-up. But I’m young and occasionally radical and I try to be Anabaptist — so me blogging here sort of makes sense. I come, at least, from an historically Anabaptist church in Harrisonburg, VA. And they used to be radical, Anabaptists, I mean — but probably my church too.
(more…)

One of my old professors teaches a course on international development in which he instructs his students in each of the three theories of development (read: why people are poor and what they need to be not poor). At some point during the semester, he requires his students to decide which theory of development they like best, and use the Bible to back up their position.

We read the Bible through cultural lenses. This explains, to some extent, why there are Christians who swear by free trade, others who’ve literally written the book on liberation theology, and still others who insist that Jesus was a warrior despite that whole bit about loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek. It is in that spirit that we bring you the Bible verse of the day, which may or may not end up being regular feature. We hope you’ll enjoy it, and remember that if the Bible were to be made into a movie, it would probably be rated NC-17.

A gem from Proverbs 31, for all of you who’ve given up on being (or finding) a “Proverbs 31 woman”:

“Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.”
Proverbs 31:6-7