By: Esther Edwards on February 27, 2024
In 2022, our family took a long-awaited trip to Germany, the country where my father and mother grew up. As my uncle, now in his 80s, gave us a tour of Hameln, where my mother’s family originated from, we came across garbage lining the fencing of a well-traveled park which also was not kept up.…
By: Adam Cheney on February 27, 2024
A is for Anchor (Not so veiled attempt at anchoring my grade)[1] This week’s reading of Daniel Kahneman comes at a great time as I reflect on a meeting last week. In my meeting I had a quick System 1 reaction, followed by slowly processing it with System 2 thinking.[2] Though Kahneman’s book covers multiple…
By: Pam Lau on February 27, 2024
“Anyone who sets [themselves] up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless…
By: Glyn Barrett on February 27, 2024
The Bat and Ball illustration[1] took me longer to get right than it should have, but that is probably the point. My impulsive System 1 took control, and intuition led me to the wrong answer. How could the answer not be 10 cents? So much for “Don’t think Blink![2]” When System 1 encounters a…
By: Kim Sanford on February 26, 2024
Kenan Malik, writing from a distinctly British perspective, seeks to put our current social and political issues into their historical context. He effectively takes his readers on a journey to understand the history of racism and how it has gotten us to where we are.[1] In his own words, “One theme of this book is…
By: Joel Zantingh on February 26, 2024
I have plenty going on in my personal life to react to. I have trauma-impacted family situations that require my full non-anxious presence [1] and dynamics beginning to launch a network for peacemaking and reconciling work among Evangelicals which feels like offering a new map in an opposite direction from some more traditional routes churches…
By: John Fehlen on February 26, 2024
I have been to the Holy Land of Israel nine times. I started touring there when I was in my mid-20’s and my most recent trip was leading 40+ people on what was called “Moses to The Messiah” – a journey beginning in Egypt, then crossing the Sinai desert, up into the Wadi Rum of…
By: Tim Clark on February 26, 2024
This week we read Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics[1] by Kenan Malik; this book was about how our society has come to think about race and the growing acceptance of race-based and identity-based ideology. We also explored the tension between diversity and equality, and pondered…
By: Jeff Styer on February 26, 2024
After reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow I feel like the peddler in Esphyr Slobodkina’s children’s book Caps for Sale. In this book, a peddler who sells caps is having a day of no sales, he is tired and goes out into the countryside and falls asleep underneath a tree wearing all his…
By: Jennifer Vernam on February 26, 2024
In his book Not So Black and White, Kenan Malik is preaching a message of “universalism”- an idea that a lot of us can relate to, even if we are not familiar with the term. Universalism is the belief that everyone should be treated equally, regardless of their race. The first part of the book…
By: Travis Vaughn on February 26, 2024
In Not So Black and White: A History of Race From White Supremacy to Identity Politics, Kenan Malik wants to “turn the common sense argument” around racism “on its head.”[1] Instead of the commonly held perspective of racial inequality as treating people “unequally because they belong to, or are seen as belonging to, distinct races,”[2]…
By: Jennifer Eckert on February 25, 2024
Last week, Nex Benedict, a sixteen-year-old non-binary student was beaten up at school by fellow students, and later died. The following day, when asked his thoughts on the matter, the Oklahoma State Senator for that district, Tom Woods, responded, “We are a religious state, and we are going to fight it to keep that filth…
By: Noel Liemam on February 25, 2024
This book, ‘A FAILURE OF NERVE’ by Edwin H. Friedman is a bit difficult and cumbersome for me to grasp for my week’s reading. So, I went back and forth between what others said about it, while doing my reading. This process helps me a lot. But I would still need more time to fully…
By: Jana Dluehosh on February 23, 2024
Our brains, a territory yet to be fully discovered, and underutilized. I came face to face with truly understanding how very little we actually know about our own brains as a parent who has had to journey with all three of my children having some sort of neural divergence. My oldest having…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on February 23, 2024
I started this Doctoral journey being very intentional about connecting the assigned readings to my NPO. There were a few books where it was a bit challenging to relate them to my research but in most cases I was able to find a point of connection. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow was one of…
By: Daren Jaime on February 23, 2024
In this week’s writing, Edwin Friedman speaks to the anxiety of America and the emotional regression that ensues from a failure of leadership. Fast forward to 2024. It is hard to move the needle on the climate of America as there is still plenty of room for anxiety. A quick glance at today’s headlines and…
By: Akwese on February 23, 2024
Anxiety and overwhelm weren’t big issues for me until recently, after a build-up of chronic stress that had me in the hospital almost every week for a year and a half. While everything in me wanted to focus on helping myself, there was always work to be done, so I did what any “hard worker”…
By: Dinka Utomo on February 23, 2024
“God’s sovereign searching of our hearts, and then His call to leadership, are awesome to behold. And they make a person very humble.” -Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder- Allow me to start this article by reciting a poem entitled “The Pastor”: If he/she is young, he/she is considered to lack experience But if his/her…
By: Todd E Henley on February 22, 2024
JESUS AND RARE LEADERSHIP In John chapter 8, the religious teachers show great disrespect to Jesus and those in the synagogue by interrupting Jesus’ teaching and bringing in a woman in front of the crowd who was caught in adultery.1 But Jesus is a RARE leader. According to Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, RARE means:…
By: Christy on February 22, 2024
This week’s reading, A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman [1] came with high reviews, both from my lead mentor, Dr. Jason Clark and pastors who have utilized Freidman’s teachings in their ministry contexts. The word “utilizing” might be a bit of an understatement. “Those who have been transformed” might be more appropriate. The Very…
