Monthly Archives: May 2021

Monday Matters (May 31, 2021)

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Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,  who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
-Philippians 2:5-11

What do you think?

I came across a verse last week which I’d never noticed before: “Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless; give me life in your ways.” (Psalm 119:37) Centuries ago, I don’t know what the psalmist had in mind when writing about what was worthless to watch. Maybe the psalmist was predicting contemporary entertainment, social media, 24/7 news channels. Your guess is as good as mine.

The verse caught my eye because there’s a lot floating around which is available to watch, but that is probably not worth watching. There’s a lot floating around that is not edifying, to borrow a New Testament phrase. It may be okay, but it doesn’t build up. It’s not constructive. What we watch, what we pay attention to, what we think about shapes who we are. Don’t just take my word for it. Consider various scriptures.

Proverbs 23:7 for instance: “For as (a person) thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount put it this way: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) St. Paul coached the early church to think about what they think about: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Those truths have been picked up by others. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “You are what you think all day long.” William James said: “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” Jean Yves Leloup, writing about monkey-mind as part of his discussion of the spiritual dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity wrote: “The ego is like a clever monkey, which can co-opt anything, even the most spiritual practices, so as to expand itself.” Even Winnie the Pooh got into the act: “Did you ever stop to think and forget to start again?”

Think about what you think about. Think about what you watch. Is it worth it? Is it worthwhile? How is that shaping you? Maybe our culture’s focus on mindfulness has to do with setting an intention about where we give our interior life. We all have to decide what’s going to occupy our thinking. It’s easy to let that interior life be a place where resentments and grievances incubate. It’s easy to let anxiety dominate our thought waves. It’s easy to give into images that are not healthy or holy, let alone satiable. Toxicity abounds these days, easily accessible, at our fingertips. But we are not without options.

As St. Paul invited early Christians to focus on what is pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, we can always turn our thoughts to praise. Worship is really a matter of worth-ship. We can always turn our thoughts to thanksgiving, finding the healing power of an attitude of gratitude. We can always turn our thoughts to good intention towards others, even those who’ve done us dirt. Maybe St. Paul told us to pray without ceasing as an alternative to plotting revenge on the jerk who just cut us off in traffic. In all of life, we have the chance to turn our attention to the mind of Christ (see above). We have agency in this. And if we feel like we need help in this, we’re told that such help is available as well.

In Psalm 51, the psalmist asks God to create a clean heart, to renew a right spirit within us. As Jesus addressed the anxiety which comes our way, he reminded us to consider the lilies, the birds of the air, in other words, pay attention to something worth watching. (Matthew 6) As St. Paul contemplated the grace of God, he invited early Christians to a renewing of their minds.

Think about what you think about this week.

-Jay Sidebotham


Hybrid Church: A Way Forward

Join us for a conversation with the Rev. Tim Schenck
Wednesday, June 9 from 7-8pm EST

We’re all figuring out how to move forward, as we shift from the social distancing that has marked the past year and a half. What will the next chapter look like for our churches? How will we as church leaders navigate days ahead? What will we hold onto? What will we let go of? What have we learned? What will be different from the past? What will be the same?

We’re grateful that the Rev. Tim Schenck has agreed to be our presenter. He brings a distinctive mix of wit and wisdom to everything he does, and we’re excited that he will lead us when we meet on June 9.

RenewalWorks: Connect seeks to gather folks who want to continue to explore spiritual growth as priorities in their congregations. All are welcome.

Be sure to receive the Zoom invitation by joining the RenewalWorks: Connect email list. Click here to join.

Monday Matters (May 24, 2021)

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Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 
Luke 10:25-32

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” 
John 21:4-7

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.
-Viktor Frankl

The other side

The familiar story of the Good Samaritan came up in the daily lectionary last week. I tried to read it as if I’d not read it before. In doing so, I thought about who I would identify with most in the parable. The inconvenient truth was that I’m probably most like the Priest and the Levite who saw the man who’d been beaten and left to die. They saw the man and kept on going, for whatever reason. In my attempt at fresh reading, the phrase that came to me were the words: They passed by on the other side. That was their choice.

Who knows why they kept going? Maybe they were scared. Maybe they were concerned about religious defilement. Maybe they were really busy, an important church meeting to get to. Jesus didn’t seem interested in explaining why they did what they did. He just puts it out there. They passed by on the other side. That was their choice.

I recognize how I do that, not only in passing by people seated on the sidewalk or standing at an intersection, asking for money, though I do that often. There are other people I pass by, for all kinds of reasons. That passing by on the other side, a mark of privilege, can be an expression of indifference to the suffering of the world. It can be an unwillingness to engage. It can be an expression of fatigue. Problems are too grand or intractable or numerous. It can be an expression of fear. It can be an exercise in protecting boundaries. “I’ve done enough. I’m a priest, for God’s sake.”

I was bothered by the choice implied in those words “on the other side.” Where else had I heard those words? Here’s a slightly random connection. Related words surface in the end of John’s gospel when the resurrected Jesus shows up on the beach, scrambles some eggs for the disciples and gives those hapless fishermen some advice about how to do their jobs. (Note: The gospels never record the disciples catching anything without Jesus’ help.) The disciples had been fishing all night and caught nothing. Jesus tells them: Cast your nets on the right side, in other words, on the other side of the boat. They choose Jesus’ way and catch more fish than they know what to do with.

So I began to wonder, as I compared these two stories: Is Jesus calling us right now to cast our nets on the other side? We’re coming out of Covid-tide, probably fatigued, maybe fearful. In some respects, like the disciples, what we’ve been doing is not working so well. We may have been tempted like the disciples to go back to old ways, even if we weren’t very good fishermen.

These two stories present us with a choice. Going back to the Good Samaritan parable, choosing the other side may mean that we can stay in our safety lane, stay in our bubble, get to our next item on the to-do list without interruption. In that story, the other side means a pathway that dismisses or denies the needs that surround us. That may come out of a place of privilege, fatigue or fear. Where are you tempted to choose that path, for whatever reason?

Or we can hear a call to choose the other side to which the resurrected Jesus calls us. We can cast our nets for something different, something brave, something that bears fruit. As we come out of Covid, we don’t need to do what we always have done. We can hear Jesus’ invitation to something new, something beautiful for God. Where do you hear an invitation to that path this week?

-Jay Sidebotham


The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

RenewalWorks – Digital Catalog

Monday Matters (May 17, 2021)

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Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
-John 17:6-19

What would Jesus pray?

Around the church, we often say that praying shapes believing. What we pray, what we ask for, what we think about, determines where we give our heart, one way of describing belief. As Jesus put it in the Sermon on the Mount: Where is your treasure, there will your heart be also.

I often tell folks that if you want to know what we believe about a particular liturgy, about baptism or eucharist, marriage or burial, look at the prayers in the service. Do a deeper dive by looking at the verbs in those prayers. They tell a lot about what we affirm, why we even bother with the service, and what we hope to become.

Yesterday in church, we read a portion of John 17. That whole chapter is a prayer Jesus offers, for himself, for disciples gathered with him on that night before he died, and for those who would come to faith through the ministry of the disciples. (That’s you and me, kids.) It’s enlightening to see what Jesus prays. He prays for protection for the disciples, a recognition that the world is a dangerous place. He prays for joy (different from happiness), a sense of well-being undiminished by circumstances. He prays for unity, for oneness among his followers. He’s not expecting that they will all be the same, or even always agree. How boring would that be? But he prays that they will be pulling in the same direction, bringing their diversity of gifts to make the way of love the way of the world. And since the reading was a chosen for a Sunday to observe Jesus’ ascension to heaven, the passage suggests that Jesus continues to pray for those things for us.

What do you make of the prayer for protection? Where do you feel that need? As Martin Luther put it, we live in a world with devils filled that threaten to undo us. We need a mighty fortress. A pandemic caught us all by surprise, illustrating vulnerability, a stark reminder that we are not in control. Coinciding pandemic of mass shootings and other forms of violence make that prayer all too real. All God’s children, but especially right now Israelis and Palestinians, stand in need of protection at this hour.

What do you make of a prayer for joy? When have you experienced joy, perhaps especially when circumstances told you it made no sense? Who do you know that demonstrates that kind of resilient joy? What makes them able to navigate life with that attitude?

Where have you seen the unity for which Jesus prays? His prayer indicates that the unity of his followers will be a witness to God’s activity in the world. In a time of partisan division in our society it’s often difficult to imagine unity. The message of the New Testament is that the Jesus movement strives for that unity.

The question of what Jesus would pray is instructive. Perhaps an equally important question would be: Why would Jesus pray? The gospels tell us that Jesus was always going off to pray by himself. (When he went off to pray, as God among us, wasn’t he just talking to his holy self?) I often wonder why he spent so much time doing that. He was on a mission to save the world. He had three years to do it. Time was short. Was this the best use of his time? Apparently, he thought so.

Jesus becomes our teacher in prayer. We could do worse that to follow his example and pray for protection for all God’s children, to pray for the joy of abundant life, to pray for the unity of all God’s children, a sign of God’s love at work in the world. Pray for those three things this week with specificity. From what specifically do you sense a need for protection? What do you imagine would be a source of joy? Where is there division that can be transformed into the unity that points to God’s activity in the world?

Make time for prayer. It’s a Jesus thing. Not because prayer changes God’s mind, but because prayer changes us.

-Jay Sidebotham


The mission of RenewalWorks is to help churches (and individuals in them) refocus on spiritual growth and identify ways that God is calling them to grow. Now is a great time to engage this process and chart the course forward. We would love to help you on that journey. Contact us if you would like to learn more about RenewalWorks, or if you have other thoughts and ideas about fostering spiritual growth as we emerge from the pandemic.

RenewalWorks – Digital Catalog

Monday Matters (May 10, 2021)

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As they were watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
-Acts 1:9-14

What next?

Later this week, we will observe the Feast of the Ascension, celebrating the story told by Luke in his gospel and in the book of Acts, the story of Jesus ascending into heaven. The feast falls 40 days after Easter, which means it’s always on a Thursday, one of the reasons it doesn’t get as much notice as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. I consider this feast to be underrated. Where would we be without it?

It’s important as a feast because it answers questions about what happened to Jesus, and where he is now, and how we should live in light of that. It opens the way for our understanding, our confidence, our hope that Jesus’ story is not just a matter of history. Jesus is is still very much with us and will be with us to the end of the ages. Our faith is more than memory.

No doubt about it, it’s a strange story which may also contribute to its underrated status. How do we make sense of it? It’s possible to get caught up in the logistics. Can modern people really believe that such a thing happened? What were the physics involved? Was gravity suspended?

Someday, maybe they’ll be answers for those logistical questions. For me, maybe the more important question is the one I imagine the disciples asked each other. They realize Jesus is gone, so what do they do now? How do they move forward? There may be times when we ask these kinds of questions.

What are the experiences that have caused you to ask: Where do I go from here? What’s next? Those kinds of questions surface when we’ve come down from a mountaintop experience, in the wake of exciting life changing events. A joyous occasion like a wedding or the birth of a child. A powerful spiritual epiphany. The same questions may come when we emerge from a valley. A relationship ends. You get fired, or experience betrayal. I’ll always remember being with a woman in the ICU as her husband of more than sixty years died. She looked up at me shortly after monitors indicated end of life and said: What do I do now? She was talking about a lot more than contacting hospital staff or funeral home.

Maybe you’re asking some version of these questions this morning. The questions are especially appropriate as we come out of Covid. This may be a season in our common life when we need the message of Ascension Day more than ever, as the feast causes us to ask: Where do we go from here? How do we arrive at a new normal? Like those disciples, we don’t know what lies ahead. It’s a pretty safe bet that our road ahead will take us to new places. New life will emerge but a lot will not be as we remember it. Maybe we’re nostalgic for a past that actually wasn’t as rosy as we wish it was. Maybe, just maybe, the old normal is not a place to which we ought to return.

The disciples heard angels’ instructions. They went back to Jerusalem. They stuck together. They prayed. They waited. They held on to promise. In due time, they experience the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, the powerful presence of the Spirit. Maybe there’s a word in there for us.

As we navigate emergence from COVID:

  • How can we stay together in community, counting on each other for support? What community can you count on these days (even if it’s still on zoom)?
  • How can we hold prayer at the center of our forward movement, recognizing our need for God’s gracious help? What will be your prayer? What will you ask for?
  • How can we express our trust in the living Lord who promises that we will not be left alone? What promise from Jesus sustains you?

If we can do these things in this unusual season, maybe we can celebrate Ascension Day by saying that things are looking up.

-Jay Sidebotham


Our Churches After Covid:  Wednesday, May 12 at 7pm EST

Our monthly conversations resume with a discussion of where we’ve been over the last year and where we might be headed. To help us address those questions, we welcome three gifted clergy leaders:
  • The Rev. Chris Harris, Associate Rector, Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield, Michigan
  • The Rev. Edwin Johnson, Rector, St. Mary’s Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts
  • The Rev. Marissa Rohrbach, Rector, St. Matthew’s Church, Wilton, Connecticut.

We’re grateful for the insights these three will offer, and we’ll make sure to have time for comments and questions.

RenewalWorks: Connect seeks to gather folks who want to continue to explore spiritual growth as priorities in their congregations. All are welcome.

Be sure to receive the Zoom invitation by joining the RenewalWorks: Connect email list. Click here to join.

Discipleship Matters: Building cultures of discipleship in the Episcopal Church

What’s next? Our churches after COVID
A conversation with three parish priests about where we go from here.

As part of our series called RenewalWorks: Connect, we’ll gather by zoom next week to talk about how we have navigated COVID and what we expect moving forward. Specifically, as we come out of a year of pandemic with all the longings and losses that have accompanied this unprecedented time, we’ll explore these questions:

  •  What will you hold onto?
  •  What will you let go of?
  •  What will you do differently?

We’ll begin our time by hearing from three gifted leaders in the church. Then we’ll enter into conversation with each other, fielding questions or comments you may have. We’re grateful to be guided in this conversation by these fine priests, introduced below:

Wednesday, May 12 at 7-8pm (EST)

Click here to join the RW: Connect email list so you will receive the Zoom invite to join us!

The Rev. Chris Harris serves as Associate Rector at Christ Church Cranbrook, coming most recently from San Diego. Chris serves on the Board of Directors of The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS) and as a member of the steering team for Invite-Welcome-Connect, a national evangelism ministry. Chris is also the creator of Living Wi$ley, a faith and personal finance ministry and is a national speaker on congregational development topics, including The Consortium for Endowed Episcopal Parishes (CEEP), The Episcopal Church Foundation (EFC), and Evangelism Matters. Chris is married to Joe, a native of Sterling Heights, Michigan. Chris and his husband have two twin girls, Gianna and Aleena.

The Rev. Edwin Johnson is a self-described “smiling-dancing-Jesus-freak” who has served as Rector of St. Mary’s Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts since 2013, aiming to “inspire and empower God’s people to live into and bring forth God’s diverse, just and joyful Kingdom.” A graduate of Tufts University and Church Divinity School of the Pacific, he now provides liturgical, pastoral, visional and missional leadership in a multilingual, multicultural urban context. Under his leadership, his parish has been revitalized, through preaching and formation for all ages, empowering lay people, establishing systems to support parish life and growth. He brings considerable skills in church planting and fundraising for new ministries, and shares his gifts for music and dance. His engagement with the wider church includes leadership in Beloved Community implementation and support of racial reconciliation throughout the Episcopal Church. Edwin and his partner Susan have two sons, Francisco and Santiago. As a family they enjoy getting out into creation and spending time with extended family and friends throughout the U.S., in Central America and the Caribbean.

The Rev. Marissa Rohrbach serves as Rector of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Wilton, Connecticut. She has served around the Church and in the diocese of Connecticut in a variety of ways, including as Chair of the Commission on Ministry, a consultant for parishes, and is currently serving on the Bishop Search Committee. Marissa is particularly fascinated by the formation of lay and ordained people as disciples, liturgics, and French Renaissance literature. She loves Jesus and is grateful for the privilege of serving God’s people. Marissa lives in Wilton with her wife, Lyn, and their beagle, Becket, who is named for the saint and martyr.

Please join us for this important conversation, a conversation that will be enhanced by your presence. And feel free to invite others! Click here to join the RW: Connect email list so you will receive the Zoom invite to join us!

RenewalWorks: Connect is intended as a way to build community for those who have participated in RenewalWorks, those who might be thinking about participating, and for any who simply want to explore with others what it means to be a disciple today in the Episcopal Church. We welcome all who are interested to join us. Contact The Rev. Jay Sidebotham with questions or comments.

 

Monday Matters (May 3, 2021)

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May God give you grace never to sell yourself short, grace to risk something big for something good, and grace to remember that the world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.

-A prayer attributed to William Sloane Coffin

 

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
-John 8:32

IN SOLEMN REMEMBRANCE OF THE ENSLAVED PERSONS WHOSE LABOR CREATED WEALTH THAT MADE POSSIBLE THE FOUNDING OF ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, HAMILTON SQUARE, 1810.
Christ have mercy.

-Text of plaque near entrance to St. James’ Church in New York City

Jesus came to comfort the afflict and afflict the comfortable.
A saying originally attributed to journalists about their work,
but adapted to the Christian context by Martin Marty in 1987

Standing on sacred ground

“We don’t know what we don’t know.” That’s been a key principle in our work with congregations, based on the idea that as disciples (a.k.a., students, learners), there is always more for us to discover in the journey of faith. We can always go deeper. That means we are ready to find new dimensions of the good news of God’s amazing grace. It also means that there can be difficult learnings about ourselves along the way, as light shines in darkened places.

Over the past couple of months, my spiritual journey has been shaped by a series of discussions called Sacred Ground, an excellent program put together by the Episcopal Church. It helps us reflect on where we’ve been, where we are and where we are called to go as church and society, based on our nation’s grim history of racial divide.

I’ve always prided myself (an attitude which usually doesn’t end well) on being a student of history and politics. I watch a lot of news. I consider myself well-informed and fairly enlightened. (Again, red flags should be going up.) But what I learned in this series has challenged and chastened me. There’s a lot of history I either didn’t know, was not taught, chose not to know, or benefited from not knowing. Separation of children from parents in indigenous communities in Maine, as just one expression of a war on Native Americans. Apparent perpetuation of de facto slavery long after the Emancipation Proclamation, through Jim Crow and mass incarceration. Chinese workers ostracized and denied opportunity to start families on the West Coast. Mexicans in Texas and California whose land was taken from them. As I traveled these ten weeks with others, the group of folks in these discussions repeatedly confessed that there was a lot we hadn’t known. Were we asleep? Were we misled? Were we too busy savoring privilege?

This Monday morning, I’m sharing the experience that I was woefully ignorant or willfully blind to histories of violence and abuse, prejudice and injustice, dynamics in which family and friends participated (as well as yours truly) for this reason. I believe that my ignorance and/or willful blindness are fundamentally spiritual issues, issues of discipleship. In RenewalWorks, we speak of the importance of pastoring the community. Addressing these issues in a pastoral way is key to the vitality of congregations, to the healing of the world, to the healing of my soul.

On recent Sundays, we’ve been reading from New Testament letters attributed to John. They talk about love, which is sweet, but with this edge. They say if you say you love God but dis your neighbor, good luck with that (my translation). Until we recognize the truth that good church people (like me) have participated in the tragic brokenness of human relations, in the systemic denigration of whole groups of God’s children in our own history, there will not be healing.

A theme in the last of our ten sessions was truth and reconciliation, the most notable example being work led by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu as apartheid fell apart in South Africa. Since that time, others have taken on this work in other contexts, based on the premise that reconciliation, healing, wholeness will not emerge without first being truthful about what has taken place. That’s true for societies, for nations. It’s true for churches. The church where I am serving here in New York put up a plaque for passersby to see. It’s a small step, but it speaks truth. (See text included above)

That’s true for us as individuals, in family relationships, in neighborhoods and workplaces, in relationships with people who differ from us. Our liturgy provides an opportunity for weekly (and if you so desire, daily) individual truth and reconciliation commissions, as the Confession invites us to consider what we have done that we ought not to have done, what we left undone that we ought to have done. The Confession offers the following statement which is true every day of my life, true before my feet even hit the floor when I wake up: I have not loved God with my whole heart. I have not loved neighbor as self.

The prologue to John’s gospel tells us that Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth. Lord knows, we need both. Later in the gospel, Jesus tells those with ears to hear that the truth will set them free. I’m grateful to have discovered a few of my own growth opportunities through Sacred Ground. Now I’m wondering: what are ways I can keep learning and then participate in reconciliation and healing? How would you answer that question for yourself this week?

-Jay Sidebotham


Our Churches After Covid:  Wednesday, May 12 at 7pm EST

Our monthly conversations resume with a discussion of where we’ve been over the last year and where we might be headed. To help us address those questions, we welcome three gifted clergy leaders:
  • The Rev. Chris Harris, Associate Rector, Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield, Michigan
  • The Rev. Edwin Johnson, Rector, St. Mary’s Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts
  • The Rev. Marissa Rohrbach, Rector, St. Matthew’s Church, Wilton, Connecticut.

We’re grateful for the insights these three will offer, and we’ll make sure to have time for comments and questions.

RenewalWorks: Connect seeks to gather folks who want to continue to explore spiritual growth as priorities in their congregations. All are welcome.

Be sure to receive the Zoom invitation by joining the RenewalWorks: Connect email list. Click here to join.