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In situations like this, it is controlled chaos. I wish I had the code to unlock Michael’s mind. But no such code exists. All I can bring to the conversation are my heart and my trust that God wants me in the midst of this chaos. The imprisoned are the poorest of the poor. If the heart of God is to be found anywhere, it is to be found in the hole.

Gary Smith • Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor

Connecting in Communities

Eddie Mosley

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Chapter 11 Live into Community

Mason King • A Short Guide to Spiritual Disciplines: How to Become a Healthy Christian

As public theologian and faith leader Rev. Jennifer Bailey has said, “change happens at the speed of relationships.” And yet, today, so much of our infrastructure is built — purposefully or not — to slow relationships down, making single-player mode the default and dooming us to the status quo.

Fancy • Multiplayer Futures

Our division in the church in America is rooted in disconnection from one another.

Eric Mason • Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice

Throughout volumes 1 and 2 I’ve claimed that Jesus Christ becomes present when we give and receive ministry person to person. Bonhoeffer can claim that Jesus Christ exists as church-community because the church-community is in the form of personhood, and Jesus Christ is present in and through personhood (this is deeply incarnational).

Andrew Root • The Congregation in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #3): Keeping Sacred Time against the Speed of Modern Life

While gathered environments (such as Sunday services and small groups) can grow the church, only scattered servants can bring life to broken cities.

Alan Scott • Scattered Servants: Unleashing the Church to Bring Life to the City

“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others” (Bonhoeffer, 1972, 382).

John W. Stewart • Envisioning the Congregation, Practicing the Gospel

What makes the pastoral (or better, the ministerial) remain significant, even up against these transitions, is its ability to host an encounter with personhood. It appears, both in lived experience and the tradition, that divine action comes in and through personhood.