By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on February 8, 2018
I have found over the course of my short life that I have encountered moments in life that have caused me to decide to take a break or forced me into a place where I had no other options. In either of the ways in which I arrived at this place, the outcome has always…
By: Katy Drage Lines on February 8, 2018
Setting: Turkana, Kenya. It was late at night, the sky was clear & the Milky Way spanned from horizon to horizon. But I didn’t see it because I was crouched on the floor of our tiny kitchen, bawling. NW Kenya can be a quiet & isolated place, and that night I felt it more than…
By: Jay Forseth on February 8, 2018
[1] In the Introduction to Vincent J. Miller’s book, Consuming Religion, the author garnered my immediate attention when talking about the “voluntary simplicity movement” [2] and my mind immediately went to the “tiny home” movement as a worthy modern comparison. Many folks are weary of needless consumerism and the mindless accumulation of stuff, and are gravitating to…
By: Mark Petersen on February 8, 2018
I’ve been working professionally in Christian philanthropy for eighteen years. As time has passed, I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo of how high net worth North American Christians practice giving. I have a growing conviction that the way we practice Christian philanthropy is entangled with a consumer cultural orientation, and that it must…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on February 8, 2018
When my son was in middle school, his best friend moved away and he struggled to make new friends in a less than welcoming environment. It was heartbreaking to see his eyes well up with tears from the lunches and recesses he often spent alone, and I wished I could take this pain away. Yet,…
By: Chris Pritchett on February 8, 2018
When Jesus made his first visit to the Temple in Jerusalem, according to John (the synoptics only have Jesus visit Jerusalem once at the end of his life), he was upset (one could argue he was livid) that his Father’s Temple had been turned into a marketplace to buy and sell religious goods to pilgrims…
By: Lynda Gittens on February 8, 2018
just for the picture Author Shelley Trebesch’s book, Isolation, seeks to assist those in Leadership to understand the need to Pause and Refresh from their busy lives. In past times, one was always taught to work hard to succeed; the early bird catches the worm; you lose if you snooze; or while you…
By: Dave Watermulder on February 8, 2018
In his introduction to “Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture”, Vincent J. Miller writes, “this book explores how consumer culture changes our relationships with religious beliefs, narratives, and symbols… chapter 2 will present the core of the analysis. The basic idea is the ‘commodification of culture.’”[1] This book is both refreshing…
By: Stu Cocanougher on February 8, 2018
Our church no longer has a printed church newsletter. Instead, we have an online newsletter on our website called “The Latest.” In that newsletter we talk about things that are happening in the church, highlight ministries, and sometimes we even have book reviews. Upon reading Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of a…
By: Greg on February 8, 2018
At twelve thousand feet above see level it is hard to breath; especially in a line with 1000 people. In Lhasa, Tibet while visiting the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple, I stood in line with a friend to see and understand this site that Tibetans make pilgrimage to. After about an hour, our line moved into…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on February 7, 2018
Vincent Miller’s Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture was eye-opening, to say the least. Miller did an excellent job of presenting the argument that religious people have come to be consumers of religion much like we consume everything else in our culture. The chapter of the book that caught my attention…
By: Dan Kreiss on February 7, 2018
While the Christian ethic toward frugality, generosity and simplistic living has been inherent in the faith tradition from inception, the adoption of consumeristic ideology has been an incredibly powerful counterforce. Thus, for most in the US church God’s ‘blessing’ is viewed solely through economic terms and depicted in living a comfortable existence while making sure…
By: Mary Walker on February 7, 2018
Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of a Leader Building on the work of Dr. J. Robert Clinton, Shelley Trebesch explains a necessary part of leadership development – “isolation processing”. Dr. Trebesch gives the definition of isolation as “the setting aside of a leader from normal ministry involvement in its natural context usually…
By: Shawn Hart on February 7, 2018
Numerous books have been assigned for us to read up to this point, but Vincent J. Miller’s book, “Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture” is finally one that I can “buy” into. Sorry, I had to say it. I am sure as ministers and church leaders, we all have a myriad…
By: Jim Sabella on February 7, 2018
The photo you see is the “real” Jim Sabella. I am one who gains their energy and refreshing in times of quiet isolation. That’s one reason why I prefer, for example, fly fishing in the Owyhee river over fly fishing the Delaware River. Both are beautiful in their own way. The Delaware rises from the Catskill Mountains…
By: Mike on February 7, 2018
Vincent Miller’s Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture makes bold comparisons between religion as a commodity and religious people as the consumer. His narrative is framed for readers within the postmodern American society that has historically supported the paradigm that the US is a nation of consumers and a nation of…
By: Kyle Chalko on February 2, 2018
The Great Transformation by Karl Polyani is a landmark book describing the world’s transition that coincided with and was sparked because of the industrial revolution. Polyani proposed a few major ways that this revolution shifted the dynamic of the entire world experience. Primarily the industrial revolution changed the way the world (both government and people)…
By: Trisha Welstad on February 2, 2018
Karl Polanyi’s work in The Great Transformation gave me pause on multiple occasions. I am not an economist and I have not studied the history of the Industrial Revolution in any depth as to readily consider the effects of the market economy on modern society especially as pertains to leadership and the church. Yet, Polanyi’s…
By: Kristin Hamilton on February 1, 2018
“Many evangelicals themselves have little understanding of their own historical roots and little appreciation of the movement’s diversity across many cultures and nations.” – Lewis & Pierard[1] “History is but a fable agreed upon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte “For most of history, anonymous was a woman.” – Virginia Woolf I love history. In particular, I love…
By: Chip Stapleton on February 1, 2018
One of the most important and transformative experiences for me in my study to become a minister was (of all things) my seminary class on Church History. The class was so important and such a defining experience for me was because it was, intentionally, designed to be very different than the church history courses that…
