Farming and Congregations
Roxburgh reflects on COP26, the environmental crisis and how a recent book by Lake District farmer James Rebanks can help us understand what is happening to our congregations.
The Soil of Community
Somehow, somewhere, we seem to have lost our sense of belonging and connectedness. But this overarching sense of loss of community isn’t the only story. The Spirit of Jesus is at work in our neighbourhoods fermenting a new kind of community in all kinds of unexpected places. Our experiences of isolation are, in part, shaped … Read More
The Gospel and Identity
A Christian framing of identity begins with the confession that our identity, as a group or community, is formed and rooted in Jesus Christ. Thus, the shaping of identity in congregations in the midst of this great unraveling begins with the regular confession of who we are in God through Christ. This is why a … Read More
Learning from the 72
There is no “code to 21st Century Ministry” but there are practices rooted in our great tradition. The leaders we need contribute to forming a people who embrace the story of God’s agency and the Spirit’s re-weaving in the places where they live amidst the great unraveling. This has been as true for the 5th … Read More
Christian Imagination
Roxburgh reflects on the moment we are in. In the midst of the exhaustion, heaviness and hopelessness (even in our churches), how can we see with the eyes of Christian imagination?
Leading Forward
Over these past months we’ve been travelling through strange landscapes with little time to stop to see where we were. What pundits predicted six, or even three months ago now seems hopelessly naive. We’re tired. Too often we feel confused around how to lead institutions that once worked but now seem unable to adapt to … Read More
Roots Resist
There are moments in our lives when we encounter people who, through a story they share or a picture they paint, reorient our sense of the world. Over these last five posts, I’ve shared how this experience came to me through four amazing women writers. Five years after writing Joining God (2015), I’d become less … Read More
Freed from Nationalism
Alan Roxburgh reflects on summer, the Olympics and Nationalism. He recommends some reading as we put Nationalism in its appropriate place. Recommended: From Rodney Clapp’s new Book Naming Neoliberalism, the Chapter “Freed from Nationalism and Freed for Catholicity”.
Midsummer Pause
It’s midsummer. Alan reflects on how easy it is to be overburdened with worries and concerns in this heavy summer. But there is another way. Let’s live deeply into the wonder and beauty of this moment as the Spirit is working. We can take this time to listen to the rooted voices filled with hope … Read More
Your Job is to Hold Hands
I wasn’t prepared to be changed by a book on the dieback of yellow cedars in southeast Alaska. But that’s how God changes us – in completely unexpected ways. Several years ago I found myself reading Mary Jo Leddy, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Lauren E. Oakes and Simone Weil. Collectively, the Spirit was using their writing … Read More
Hard to Keep Going
Anyone else finding it hard to keep going these days? Roxburgh shares some reflections on the way forward when the world we live in is not working anymore. He points to a Dorothy Day quote shared by Stephanie Spellers on Facebook: Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing … Read More
God’s People and Resurgence
In this blog post I want to address the question: Within the communities in which we live, what does a Gospel response to the fragility of belonging look like? Another of my conversation partners in Joining God in the Great Unraveling: Where We Are & What I Have Learned (2021) is Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and … Read More