We face several world crises that could kill us all and end the human story. We also endure the immediate rise of a fascistic religious nationalism spearheaded by Donald Trump, which wants to destroy our American democracy.
What six hidden women can teach us about Jesus
Who is Jesus to you? What informs and shapes your view of Jesus and his work?
A Journalist's Academic Report on LBGTQ and Christianity
The book series provides solid arguments for inclusion of LGBTQ+ Christians in the world’s religious denominations. This book also examines the continuing exodus for those in the LGBTQ+ community and others who have no interest in being included in today’s mainstream churches.
Church and Christian community look a lot different than they did before the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic, racial trauma, and economic uncertainty revealed difficult truths about the wounds we carry. The damage caused by trauma is deep and affects every part of our lives together.
The image of the heart and the heart's desire
Maturing in the Religious Life is a book which takes us into a new world of psychoanalytic study and group analysis and the search for a living God. Spirituality and sexuality appear in a unity of life with philosophical and psychological amplification.
Bob LaRochelle has had a lot of experience with different churches. Raised a Roman Catholic, he was ordained a Permanent Deacon in that church. After a period of intense soul-searching, he left the Catholic Church and embarked on a career in ordained Protestant ministry.
People > Text, Mercy > Sacrifice, and Love > Fear
The Reconstructionist is about an earthquake of loss one pastor experienced that led him to identify three major fault lines running through the foundation of Western Christianity. You'll be invited to tour some of the wreckage as he names the fault lines and reconstructs a more sustainable faith.
Change is inevitable. Make it transformational. Find transformation in unexpected changes, in your life and your congregation
What the Pastor has been taught, What is preached from the pulpit, And ... why the difference!
Much, if not most, of what is preached on Sunday mornings is different than what is taught in reputable Christian colleges and seminaries. This disconnect is fast becoming the leading factor in the continued decline of Christianity in the United States.
(and everyone else!)
Every so often, I put out a "musing" that is a guide to my writings and videos. It's that time when churches make plans for their program year, so this is a good moment to share links to my materials for worship, study, and spiritual practice. Use freely. All I ask is attribution!
Beyond Resistance is a template for those devoted to the the idea that faith should be just, generous and inspire commitment to the common good.
For generations, the Bible has been employed by settler colonial societies as a weapon to dispossess Indigenous and racialized peoples of their lands, cultures, and spiritualties. Given this devastating legacy, many want nothing to do with it. But is it possible for the exploited and their allies to reclaim the Bible from the dominant powers?
Here are some of our resources about racism and the global protests in the wake of George Floyd's death while being restrained
In this volume of essays, I turn toward images of Christ on the cross. As I continue my exploration of the wholly holy female face of God, I ask a deeper question. What does God’s femaleness and blackness practically mean for my particular black female experience?
"Something new to say" is a collection of liturgy resources for the season of Advent and Christmas. Author Bronwyn White lives in Aotearoa New Zealand, where Christmas comes at summertime.
A compilation of modern call and response litanies intended for congregational use. Whether your community is liturgical and looking for fresh language, or contemporary and looking to incorporate liturgical elements, this volume contains relevant, reflective prayers that call congregations deeper into the story of Divine Love.
Most congregational leaders find it difficult to resist the dominant cultural expectation that different cultural and ethnic groups should stick to themselves–especially when it comes to church.
Awakening to At-One-Ment Volume II
These liturgical prayers feed my heart and my spirit. Grounded in the theology of baptism, and rooted in the ancient Christian and the Anglican-Episcopal traditions, Forrester’s liturgical texts will appeal to the weary pilgrim and the faithful church-goer, as well as all those seeking a deeper experience of the Beloved.
I Found God in Me is the first womanist biblical hermeneutics reader. In it readers have access, in one volume, to articles on womanist interpretative theories and theology as well as cutting-edge womanist readings of biblical texts by womanist biblical scholars.
"Ingenuity" introduces a theology and practice of preaching that emerges from the faith and wisdom of black women. Preaching has been resourced and taught from a narrow field of cultural or gendered experiences, historically. Without much support from established channels, black women are left to “figure it out” on their own, and others discern how to preach from a limiting scope.
How do churches build immunity from racial and ethnic tensions that threaten to divide rather than unite congregations? Jacqui Lewis and John Janka believe that the answer lies in the development of multiracial, multicultural communities of faith.
A Primer on Issue-Centered Education including sample lesson plans and supplemental materials
Written by RBTL Founding Editor Bill Dols, this primer explains the Maueitic (midwife) Method of The Educational Center and provides a learning experience that explores “the student is the curriculum.”
I Know What Heaven Looks Like: A Modern Day Coming of Age Story is the debut creative nonfiction novel by Lawrence Richardson.
Despite Jesus' prayer that all Christians "be one," divisions have been epidemic in the body of Christ from the beginning to the present. We cluster in theological groups, gender groups, age groups, ethnic groups, educational and economic groups. We criticize freely those who disagree with us, don't look like us, don't act like us and don't even like what we like.
Mainline Protestant denominations are dying, while conservative traditions are flourishing. "Nones" are the fastest growing religious demographic in the United States. A pastor and self-proclaimed former "none," Heath possesses an excellent understanding of church growth and the lack thereof, and frequently draws upon that experience when look for ways to welcome people to church.
Now a New York Times bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term "pastrix"(pronounced "pas-triks," a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.
Prostitute, apostle, evangelist―the conversion of Mary Magdalene from sinner to saint is one of the Christian tradition’s most compelling stories, and one of the most controversial. The identity of the woman―or, more likely, women―represented by this iconic figure has been the subject of dispute since the Church’s earliest days. Much less appreciated is the critical role the Magdalene played in remaking modern Christianity.
Joy Unspeakable focuses on the aspects of the black church that point beyond particular congregational gatherings toward a mystical and communal spirituality not within the exclusive domain of any denomination. This mystical aspect of the black church is deeply implicated in the well-being of African American people but is not the focus of their intentional reflection.
These are new prayers for a new age. They spark the spiritual imagination back to life and reorient us to a mystical unity with the universe, Spirit, and all of creation.
This suggested ‘southern hemisphere’ Lectionary (with a few Resources added) is being offered in parallel to, or even replacement of, the RCL which is in standard use by many. The idea behind it is it gives a choice on some days/Sundays of the year for the more ‘progressive’. But perhaps more than that, it is an attempt to be ‘landscape real’.