One of the most nourishing parts of my work with the Missional Wisdom Foundation is the development of and my participation in the Incarnational Study Series.
Read MoreChrist is Life
Advent, Week 4
by Andrea Lingle
I just spent three hours cleaning up the room shared by my second and third children. I begged, threatened, and cajoled my children to help me. I lost my temper when I found a basket of washed, dried, and folded clothes carelessly upended onto the floor. Every time I clean up my home, I am filled with grating antipathy for the world of physical science. Could we not have been dropped into a universe that tended toward order?
Read MoreChrist is Mystery
Advent, Week 3
by Andrea Lingle
If Paul was a Jew among Jews, I am a first-born among first-borns. I live my life religiously. About twenty years ago, I went hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina with my family and some family friends. The place where we were hiking crossed a rocky bald where there were patches of sensitive lichen. A helpful sign instructed hikers to follow a trail of yellow painted dots to minimize the ecological impact of hundreds of booted feet. After a few minutes of ambulatory dot-to-dot, we sat down to look at the view. My mother, always aware of her children, had seen my careful attempts to minimize my lichen-impact, and teasingly asked if I was sitting on a dot.
Read MoreChrist is Love
Advent, Week 2
by Andrea Lingle
The flow of the love of Jesus is the atomic signature of the Christ. An atomic signature is a unique array of electromagnetic waves or signals that every atom emits and absorbs that allows persons with the right equipment to identify anything on an elemental level. The body of Christ, in all its diversity is known by love. I do not mean only love given or received in the name of Christ, but love. The love of the Jew, the Greek, the Muslim, the agnostic, the addict, the sex worker, the evangelical, or the Pope is the signature of the living Christ, incarnate in us, come again.
Read MoreWhat is Christ?
Advent, Week 1
by Andrea Lingle
What is Christ?
Jesus lived two thousand years ago and was called Christ. So, it seems clear that we could infer things about Christ from Jesus.
Read MoreCome, Thou Long Expected Jesus
by Andrea Lingle
The leaves are falling from the trees here in the western North Carolina mountains. There have been piles of people flowing through our little town as people pause their lives to come experience the spectacle of gold and red against a cerulean sky (that’s a fabulous blue color).
But I didn’t.
Does This Make Sense?
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Week 9
by Andrea Lingle
There is a petition going around Facebook in my area. A power company has been cited for excessive disgustingness at their coal plant, and they are being required to clean up. To defray the cost of said clean up, they have proposed an upcharge to their customers.
Read MoreReclaiming Wonder
by Rachel Wells
Though I was raised in a devout Christian home, our faith tradition did not really practice or observe Advent. Which is why, as a child - and even into adulthood - I did not understand much about this season of anticipation. My exposure was pretty much limited to the calendar that hung in our living room, with a cookie for each of us kids nestled in the numbered pocket for each day of December.
Read MoreAdvent
by Bret Wells
Our study of Shawn Small's The Via Advent is officially underway! Below is an excerpt from our online community discussion. It is not too late to join us - everyone is invited! See below for details on how to join the study.
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