From Pity to Compassion
Author: Andrea Lingle
Being missional or sent out is tricksy. It is tempting to go out in one’s strength toward those considered needy. We, here in the safety and security of privilege, come to you, there in the lowness and dislocation of your need. If the people of God move out, missionally, from a place of certainty, then a missional way of life just becomes another, hip crusade. It is the way of pity, and no one wants to be pitied.
Read MoreConclusion - One Year:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 10
This journey into the life of the Spirit has been both revealing and cursory. I could sit and type for years and never nail down the proper metaphor. There is no book to study, no theology to memorize, no sage to question that could reveal the truth of the Spirit. We could never meditate or contemplate long enough or well enough to truly see what the Spirit is.
Read MoreReceiving the Spirit with Humility:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 9
by Adam White
Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
For me, I would much rather give than receive. I have gotten better with this over the years, but my preference to giving and my aversion to receiving are two issues I still wrestle with every so often. It is not that receiving something from others, be it help, complements, or a gift, is above me. I get that we all need help, remember?
Freedom from Failure:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 8
by Adam White
Nobody likes to fail.
Even just reflecting on the words “fail” or “failure” bring back memories from school assignments, sports performances, and life moments that still find ways to linger in my mind. You have heard of a cloud of witnesses; I think of this as a cloud of failures. I think we each have our own cloud of failures that arise and follow us around during certain periods of time. This cloud can stay with us for quite a while if we let it hover over us and pour down things like doubt, insecurity, and fear.
One in the Spirit:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 7
by Adam White
It may be hard to admit, but I have not always paid the closest of attention to the lyrics and meanings behind the hymns and songs that are sung in church. However, in the last year discovering their meaning has been a practice I have attempted to grow as a form of prayer. Regarding our missional relationship with God’s Spirit, I don’t think there is a song that better captures that dynamic than the hymn “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”1
It has everything! Within the hymn text we find the unity of our identity within the Spirit and a prayer that our worldly divisions might be restored...
Living In, Guided By, and Bearing Fruit of the Spirit:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 6
by Adam White
We all need help.
I do not know specific predicaments you may face, but needing help is a truth for all of us. I don’t think I truly embraced the reality that I needed help, holistically, until I met, and committed my life in sacred union with my partner, Blair.
Hear me out—I knew I needed help before that time and sought support from others for certain issues that surfaced throughout my life. For instance, I desperately needed help with math during high school and sought out a tutor—Thanks, Mrs. Pyle, for making sense out of Algebra for an ADHD teenager, no easy task! Or when I struggled with the pain of my mother’s suffering due to dementia, I needed support from friends, family, and ultimately a counselor.
Joining the Dance:
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 5
How, then, shall we live?
For me this is the central question of all theology. If we spend ten breaths talking about what the Spirit of God is, we should spend ten hundred talking about how that understanding should shape our behavior and ten thousand walking, along with Christ, doing whatever it is that our theology calls forth from us.
Truly, how, then, shall we live?
The Holy Spirit is like the breath.
The Holy Spirit is like the womb.
The Holy Spirit is in the swirl of the Trinity's dance.
Read MoreThe Womb
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 4
by Andrea Lingle
When I was a kid, I could beat seminarians in Bible trivia. It depended on the version, but most of the time, I could win against a team. This was not the social boon you might imagine. I read through the entire Bible, including the genealogies, before I was twelve. I memorized piles of Bible verses. Incidentally, many of them focused on obedience and kindness; well played, Mom, well played. I had the answers. I could recite creeds, prayers, and doctrines, and I knew they would keep me safe.
Read MoreThe Breath
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 3
Do you know what I find frustrating? When people tell me to try something without a great deal of explanation. I want to know what I should be looking for. I want to know what I am in for. I want to know.
But that is not how we learn to breathe is it? When you emerged into the world, covered in the paraphernalia of birth, you had one task: to breathe. You coughed, snorted, and wolfed down lungs full of the one thing your body cannot go an hour without. Air.
The Dance
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 2
By Andrea Lingle
You know those moments in life that expose you for the faker you are?
I have no clear understanding of the Trinity.
There. I said it.
I have an understanding of God as an unknowable entity to whose operations we apply different names.
God is...
A Life and Death Matter of the Holy Spirit
The Active Presence of the Holy Spirit, Week 1
By Adam White
“Theology is truly a matter of life and death.”
This is what my then-professor, Dr. Joerg Rieger, said to all of us students on the first day of our Systematic Theology class at Perkins School of Theology in the fall of 2012. My immediate reaction was thinking – “I don’t think I signed up for the right course…I wonder if there is enough time to still swap classes. I hear Prayer and Spirituality is being offered this semester.”
Prayer, God's Daily Multivitamin of the Holy Spirit
The Rule of Life, Week 2
by Adam White
What expectations and intentions are you bringing into prayer?
Be honest now! Prayer can be a difficult subject to approach because of the weight of the expectations and intentions we carry with us.
Read More
