Last year, Join or Die was released. The film explores America’s civic unraveling through the journey of scientist Robert Putnam – of Bowling Alone fame – whose research on the decline in American community lights a path out of our
Bellevue’s Comprehensive Plan is updated about every 10 years. The 2024 update, to guide Bellevue’s development through 2044, is now underway. The update includes an environmental impact statement as a requirement of the State Environmental Policy Act. The EIS includes
Last month The U.S. Surgeon General released an important report outlining the nation’s loneliness epidemic. Among other things the report demonstrates that loneliness has a equivalent impact on one’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes’ a day. The report provides some
My friend Forrest Inslee recently introduced me to the important work of Dr. Petra Kuenkel. Petra has amassed a very impressive CV investing her life as a leading strategic advisor to pioneering international multi-stakeholder initiatives tackling themes of local and
Thanks be to God, an American police officer was held accountable for murdering an African American man… George Floyd. The officer was found guilty of all three charges. May this nation not turn back from the much overdue reform of
How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us. Fred Rogers Growing up in Canada when I did, I watched and loved the Mr. Dressup show. I’ve come to learn that Mr. Dressup was
I am so grateful to be fully vaccinated from COVID-19. I was actually surprised at how hope-inducing the experience was. The teams of medical professionals and volunteers delivering the vaccine had an air of the elves in Santa’s woodshop and
In the late 2000’s (maybe 2009?) at Washington State’s Sasquatch Festival during a performance by Santigold of her hit, “Unstoppable” a lone guy starts dancing on a hill. Derek Sivers made this video famous by using it to illustrate the
“For unless love becomes tenderness—the connective tissue of love—it never becomes transformational. The tender doesn’t happen tomorrow . . . only now.” Gregory Boyle The Tacoma Catholic Worker newsletter which graced my mailbox yesterday referred back to some of the
There is a free conference being held in Durham, NC (April 15&16, 2010) bringing people together in discussion around the themes raised in the outstanding new book by Tim Conder & Dan Rhodes, Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible In
MHGS is hosting an important daylong race and ethnicity workshop on Thursday, November 12th, for all faculty, staff, students, alumni, and our significant others. The workshop seeks to acknowledge the voices of MHGS faculty, staff, students, alumni, and significant others
Some more “relationality” recommended readings. For one of my prior lists, click here. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds Wendell Berry, What Are People For? Walter Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant John
My father-in-law forwarded a very cool webcam link that is streaming an eagle’s nest with parent and two eggs. Eagle & Child is also the name of the Giles Street pub in Oxford, England, where The Inklings met. The Inklings
The other day I was asked for a working definition of “interpersonal relations” within an educational environment. I hummed and hawed and stumbled a little longer than was necessary to reinforce my buffoon-tendencies. Of the many possible responses which have
A Community of the Spirit by Rumi There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street and being the noise. Drink all your passion, and be a disgrace. Close both
Bold Love, by Dan Allender Linked, by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi Holy Trinity, Perfect Community, by Leonardo Boff Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Sanctorum Communio, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Nexus, by Mark Buchanan I and Thou, by Martin Buber The Love of God,
Lynette, Pascal and I invite you to spend a weekend with them our home. Spend time talking and sharing lives, discussing relational ministry and relational church-planting. And spend time with their Christ-commons (Quest). Connecting weekends are a great retreat and stimulus
After sitting with the question of “the nature of leadership” for some time, I find myself moving toward a very simple understanding. Is leadership is about conversation. Leadership has less to do with the clarity of vision, and much more
To say that the internet is changing web of life in an understatement. The once, assumed claim that Americans are largely isolated individuals is certainly being emailed, IM’ed, live-journaled, blogged, gamed, webbed, surfed into new territory. Tim Bedner’s “We Know
I enjoy making soup. I literally have a pot of soup on right now. So see a few months back Lynette and I made a ham. And in my mind, any ham meal has a soup chaser. I put the
Special thanks to Amber for recently directing my attention to “Sobornost.” Sobornost is a Russian Orthodox social church theory. It is a communal unity by free association in Christ finding expression in gathered church where harmony is attained by free
Do leaders exist ontologically? I know that some church traditions claim an ontological ordination but that just seems to set us up for abuse of power, (of course the church would never abuse its power). Most leadership literature speaks more
I think that of all people of all time I am blessed. God is so good to me. Here I am sitting in my studio, hearing my partner and son singing upstairs, I’m surrounded by great books, and art. Augie
A couple of weeks ago Mark Humphries – Winnipeg artist, spiritual innovator and community curate – emailed me regarding how I might define ‘relationality’ within the rhythm of community gathering. Mark’s email, alone is a testament to his generosity… I
All the senses are vital to relationship. Yet the eye is arguably the most easily deceived; slight of hand, smoke and mirrors create illusions that feel true. Vision can only take a person so far. Its interesting to me that
I find it odd how much I struggle – at times – to know how to bring the complexity of my self to this site and this online platform. I am the pastor of a fellowship of Christ-commons dubbed “quest“,
I have been appreciating some of the recent “leadership” literature emphasizing that leaders are not made nor born as much as they are situationally called into existence. I’ve been telling my community for years that the clearer the sense of
Let me start off by saying that I am a person in transition. I was raised in a fundamentalist dispensational post-Mennonite evangelical church, throughout college and seminary I shifted to a more reformed position, and now I am finding myself
