By: Dinka Utomo on April 11, 2024
I am proposing that the only way to overcome the Powers is through imitation of Christ, in particular his desires, which always leads to how we act. -J.R. Woodward- Scandals in the leadership of clergy in the church are a phenomenon that has existed for centuries and occur in any part of the world…
By: Adam Harris on April 11, 2024
I’m currently in Washington, DC attending an educational workshop at the Holocaust Museum to foster healthier Christian-Jewish relationships, biblical teaching, and interfaith dialogue. My group has around seventeen members and consists of Jewish rabbis, pastors, priests, seminary students, lay people, and chaplains from around the United States. The first thing we are required to do…
By: Todd E Henley on April 11, 2024
“If the light inside you is not greater than the light upon you, the light upon you will destroy you.” – Scott Dickie’s mentor. The above quote is an excellent summarization of the book, The Scandal of Leadership by JR Woodward. I will soon tell you why the quote resonates with the book, but first,…
By: Cathy Glei on April 9, 2024
“Will we become a scandal to those who look to us as leaders, or will we choose to imitate the scandalous way of Christ? If Christian leadership is primarily about being Christ-like examples, it is imperative that we understand how the Powers seek to undermine us as leaders, as well as examine the lives and…
By: Jenny Dooley on April 9, 2024
Years ago, as I began preparing to leave Jakarta to move to South Sulawesi, an Indonesia friend and member of our church told me she had been watching me. I panicked a little, wondering what she observed. I secretly prayed it was something good. I was keenly aware that my every move was a curiosity…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on April 9, 2024
“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” [1] What an interesting time to read a book about the scandal of leadership. I have been thinking a lot about flaws, challenges, and failures of leadership in recent weeks. Admittedly, it has been a tough year for me. Leading an organization in transition for…
By: Kim Sanford on April 8, 2024
A quick google search of science and mimicry turns up countless articles on the subject. There are examples of mimicry in nature all around us. In humans, copying facial expressions is even considered a milestone of infant development.[1] Clearly, we are creatures designed to imitate something. Furthermore, we know tacitly that we imitate that which…
By: John Fehlen on April 8, 2024
The legendary Christian Rock band PETRA recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary. They were formed in 1972 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is pretty close to when and where I was formed: 1971 in Osceola, Wisconsin. In 1981, at the age of 10, I was introduced to PETRA, with the vinyl of Never Say Die. NEVER…
By: Dinka Utomo on April 5, 2024
“It is only through love that a warfighter can flourish as a warfighter qua just warfighter” -Marc LiVecche- Some Christians have an understanding of original sin, the sin resulting from acts of violation of God’s commands committed by the first human parents, Adam and Eve, as something that has a destructive impact, not only…
By: Todd E Henley on April 4, 2024
Monday, July 12, 2021, my new client showed up to his first session and the first words out of his mouth were, “I heard you can help people heal from the devastating impact of trauma. I am going to tell you things I have never told anyone. After you hear my shitful story, I am…
By: Adam Harris on April 4, 2024
My best friend, who I’ve known since kindergarten, was in the U.S. Marines. If you’ve ever seen the show Reacher, he is a leaner more charismatic version of Alan Ritchson’s character from the show. We attended the same church, went to the same school, and played football together in a “Friday Night Lights” kind of…
By: Mathieu Yuill on April 4, 2024
I found Portland Seminary when a classmate from the masters program I attended posted some really interesting thoughts online about an assignment she was working on. I messaged her to find out what she was doing and she told me about the doctor of semiotics she was perusing. She encouraged me to take the same…
By: Kim Sanford on April 4, 2024
Then he rose, grenade in hand. He was pulling the fuse. He cocked his arm back to throw— and then he saw me looking at him across my rifle barrel. He stopped. He looked right at me. That’s where the image of his eyes was burned into my brain forever, right over the sights of…
By: Jenny Dooley on April 3, 2024
I read The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury, by Marc LiVecche on my flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia last week. I then watched We Were Soldiers. I understood the film to be an accurate representation of the impact of war not only to soldiers on both sides of the Vietnam War, but that…
By: Cathy Glei on April 3, 2024
I have never served our country as a Veteran. My dad was a Chaplain in the Vietnam War and my son-in-law served seven years in the military. My oldest son-in-law comes from a family of Army Generals (his dad and grandfather both served; frequently moving from base to base). Several of my close friends have…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on April 2, 2024
This past week has been so peaceful and filled with so many joyful interactions. I love Holy Week; it is my favorite time of the year with Thanksgiving being a close second. I welcomed the week off from class, readings, and posts as I desperately needed the week to not be on a schedule. I…
By: John Fehlen on April 1, 2024
Remember back to when the “internet” first became a thing? We had AOL and the famed “You Got Mail” voice prompt.[1] MSN Messenger and Yahoo were kind of a big deal. Viral videos were just becoming something we talked about and shared via email on the internet; both things that in 1994 the hosts of…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on March 28, 2024
“Baptism is the dramatic or episodic representation of the act or ritual of initiation-or, at least, stands midway between the entirely “unconscious” or procedural forms of initiation and their semantically abstracted symbolic equivalents. Baptism is the spiritual birth(rebirth) as opposed to birth of the flesh.”[1] I preached last month on Renewal, and as I…
By: Kim Sanford on March 27, 2024
I know we’ve often been advised to not only read the books we’re assigned but also read about the books we’re assigned. That is, we’re meant to read reviews and the like, but I can’t say I always do. This week, though, for whatever reason I decided to start with some reviews of Jordan Peterson’s…
By: Dinka Utomo on March 23, 2024
And even if you’re a rationalist, say, and a cynic and a nihilist, and you say, well, nothing has any meaning, you still run into the problem of pain. Because pain undercuts your arguments and has a meaning. So there’s no escaping from the meaning, you can pretty much demolish all the positive parts of…
