Six New Things – Week of November 25, 2024

Blessed Thanksgiving – or National Day of Mourning – or Other Alternative. We are a diverse body of faithful people, seeking right relationships with God and our neighbor. This is complicated. And full of New Life. With gratitude for the heavy lifting leaders are doing these days, here are a few resources to lighten your load:

ONE

Thanksgiving snuck up on some of us (like me). Fortunately, The Crayons Give Thanks (Penguin) and show the rest of us how it’s done: with humor and finding reasons for gratitude, ‘everywhere we look!’

Diana Butler Bass has some good advice, too, in her Thanksgiving Sampler: Rules for a Non-Partisan Thanksgiving’, a prayer when you aren’t grateful, and some inspiration to keep you going.’

Find ideas for decolonizing your Thanksgiving and/or join an observance of the National Day of Mourning through our Thanksgiving/Alternatives lib guide.

TWO

If Thanksgiving snuck up on you, maybe Advent is, too. You’re not alone: three people contacted me to start their Advent search – on November 25… Hop to with resources from our Advent/Christmas lib guide: links have been updated! (Thanks Rev. Will!)

The PTCA’s, Short Practices for a Long Advent: Breathing and Being with True Peace, Love, & Justice, are suitable for worship or sharing through newsletters. Sign up here to receive each week’s practice.

FYI: Our annual MN-based Christmas Pageant (think, ‘Intergenerational Reader’s Theater’) should be ready by the end of this weekend (if all goes to plan…). Based on reflections of HOPE found in the Christmas narrative by Zion ELCA/Blackduck’s creative kids and Berne Church/Zwingli UCC’s inspired adults, it’ll be a pageant like no other – from dinosaurs to dragons and everything in between (literally, we’ll cover the entire ‘long arc of justice‘+). I hope to post it next week; keep an eye out.

THREE

‘Hope’ is a little word with a big job, these days. We are called to use ‘hope’ – and sentiments, like peace, reconciliation, and love – with justice, grace, and intentionality. And to find and act on hope with others.

The two most powerful congregational resources I’ve seen in response to the election are:

• Rev. Dr. Cameron Trimble’s, Futures Toolkit: Who Do We Choose to Be in the Age of Collapse? (Convergence), which invites congregations to, ‘choose how we ride out these challenging years ahead. We have agency, resiliency, and the capacity for organized, meaningful resistance’. DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!! It’s an entire game-plan.
• Rev. Anna Kendig-Flores’ (PTCA Antiracism Coordinator), multi-pronged kit, including:
  • Reflections and Resources for Preaching and Praying in the Post-Election Season
  • Gathering & Brief Reminders/Grounding re: Direct Congregational Responses (How Do We Do Community Action, Advocacy, and Ministry in These Times?)
  • Statements from the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness and the United Methodist Council of Bishops 
    • See also the UCC’s GMP Offers Post-Election Message to ‘Live Love Boldly’
    • Woven Together: A Post-Election Message from ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton

Find more in our Conflict/Division & Reconciliation lib guide.

FOUR

The economy and our social divides played a huge part in this election. Creating an economy – and society – that enables all humans and creation to thrive will take imagination and transformation.

To that end, we’re preparing a book study of Building a Moral Economy: Pathways for People of Courage (Fortress) – for any and all, and in preparation for this Spring’s EcoFaith Summit. Details coming soon.

Robin Wall Kimmerer shares her brilliant, nature-inspired vision in The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (Scribner). We’ll probably have to read this one together, too.

In the meantime, check out:

• Grace Abounds: God’s Abundance against the Fear of Society (WJK)
• ‘They Just Need to Get a Job’: 15 Myths on Homelessness (Beacon)
• What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate (Beacon)
• The Gap in God’s Country: A Longer View on Our Culture Wars (Cascade)

We’ve just created a Free Speech/Independent Journalism lib guide – it’ll be a huge topic in coming months.

FIVE

Our PC(USA) friends have been busy: The 2024-2025 PW/Horizons Bible Study, Let Justice Roll Down: God’s Call to Care for Neighbors and All Creation, encourages us to ‘care for neighbors and God’s creation with all our hearts, with particular care for society’s least powerful members’ and reminds us, ‘to urge our society to act for just transitions in this fast-changing world’.

A specific lens on creation care can be found in the award-winning documentary, From the Heartland, ‘which chronicles the journey of Feikema Farms of rural Luverne, MN, transitioning from conventional tillage to a regenerative/soil health model of managing cropland’. Find the Watch Party Toolkit here; register your usage (required) here.

Find more Climate & Sustainability ideas in our lib guide.

SIX

None of this is possible on a depleted or empty tank.

Take care of body, mind, and spirit with time in nature.

Bring along family, friends, and/or Seasons of Wonder: Making the Ordinary Sacred through Projects, Prayers, Reflections, and Rituals: A 52-Week Devotional (Penguin); it’s designed to ‘help families and friends discover God enfleshed in the world’. Kind of perfect to begin during Advent or Christmas.

Rev. Traci Smith’s latest work supports family practices, too: The Faithful Families Toolkit, ‘is designed to be used in groups but can be used individually’ – for parents who want to see ‘real spiritual growth within their family’; based on Smith’s popular book Faithful Families: Creating Sacred Moments at Home.

Other Creation-Oriented and Family-Oriented Spiritual Practices can be found in our lib guides.

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The Ministry Lab is in a time of significant transition. We’re seeking input from far and wide to help us shape the ministries and offerings we share. Your responses will help us determine learning, networking, and spiritual practice opportunities into 2025 and beyond. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and vision! (P.S. This survey does not include a request for financial support!)