We are not in a contemporary or temporary “exile.” Such language made sense to a generation that came to leadership in the 1970s, but for the generations that followed, this is not some strange exilic land.

How do we discern what God is doing ahead of us in our neighborhoods and communities and join with God there?

Christianity is an embodied way of life, not just an institution or set of ideas.

Curating is guiding a process in which others make the decisions for themselves. If the minister proposes recommendations, people will generally agree, but they will not own them in the long run. Curating involves creating spaces for interacting, listening, sharing, and making decisions the people can own and invest in implementing.

Institutionally and ideologically, materially and morally, we need not have ended up where we are. Human decisions were made that did not have to be made, some of which turned out to be deeply consequential. Patterns were established, aspirations justified, expectations naturalized, desires influenced, and new behaviors normalized that need not hav

People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen.

• Based on the listening we are doing, where might the Spirit be inviting us to join with God in our neighborhoods? • Are there some concrete steps we can take to test out this sense of the Spirit’s invitation?

Taken together, these proposals were driven by a conviction that if you could bring together a mixture of a) the moods, music, and ethos of contemporary (that is, Baby Boomer) culture with b) the essential, Biblical form of the church, and c) invite the Holy Spirit to stir the mixture, then d) the churches would be fixed and could return to their p

A paradigm is a belief system that lies deep inside us as a group or society,