Six New Things – Week of June 09, 2025

We shape community: with stories, theologies, histories, acts. Let’s embrace the church’s power to shape communities and cultures grounded in Divine Love, grace, compassion, and basic human decency.

ONE

This month we celebrate Pride and remember the long history of Black enslavement and the powerful story of freedoms won. But many are not allowed to live proud of their own personhood or enjoy freedoms others take for granted.

Are You a Friend of Dorothy?: The True Story of an Imaginary Woman and the Real People She Helped (Simon & Schuster) recalls ‘a woman named Dorothy’ who ‘helped a community find connection and care amidst adversity’.

Why Juneteenth Matters: Teaching Youth about Freedom and Liberation (Illustrated Ministry) is introduced in this blog, which offers a free downloadable mini-lesson on the history and importance of Juneteenth.

Find more in our Gender Justice: 2SLGBTQIA+ and Juneteenth lib guides.

TWO

As POTUS ramps up the military to escalate violence and fear in search of power, control, and grandeur, understanding How Violence Works: An Introduction to René Girard’s Mimetic Theory (Cascade) may sound like a daunting read, but it’s timely: it ‘uncovers how violence stems from our desires’ and ‘explores why we compete, envy, and sometimes escalate conflicts into war’ and looks at how Jesus, ‘uncovered the scapegoat mechanism and… offered a viable path to peace and an end to violence’.

For a brief introduction, see Rev. Cameron Trimble’s What Lies Beneath the Violence post, which asserts that, ‘Every act of violence, every wave of hatred, is shaped by a relational field thick with history, ideology, displacement, dehumanization – and a profound, unmet longing for dignity, belonging, and repair’.

And/or read Heather Cox Richardson’s May 31, 2025 post, where she quotes Senator Cory Booker stating, ‘We the people have to make our politicians fear the consequences of… doing wrong more than the fear that Donal Trump will run a primary against them, or put $100 million, or troll them on the internet. This is… one of those moments when we are not going to see change in Washington unless more of us have said enough.’

Find more in our War & Genocide and Peace-Making lib guides.

THREE

To support leaders in this time of systemic shifts, check out the trio: Leadership, God’s Agency, and Disruptions: Confronting Modernity’s Wager (2021), Joining God in the Great Unraveling: Where We Are & What I’ve Learned (2021), and Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (2025; all Cascade), which, respectively, invite leaders into ‘practices which lead to more faithful participation’; ‘dialogue with people who have been marginalized to see how they… reenter their formative stories to discover ways of remaking themselves in the unraveling’; and ‘three practices formed out of God’s engagements with God’s people… that direct us toward forming communities of hope’.

Find more in our Leadership: Change/Conflict, Reimagining Church: Reorienting; and NEW Organizing Congregations lib guides.

FOUR

Naming what ‘is’ can be scary. And it can inform, inspire, and shape where we are headed.

Culture Creep: Notes on the Pop Apocalypse (Mariner), ‘is a swirl of nostalgia and visions of the future, questioning why, in the face of seismic cultural, political, and technological shifts… we cling to the icons and ideals of the past’.

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (HarperCollins), examines ‘the psychology and rhetoric that makes cults such a formidable presence – from actual cults to groups exhibiting cultish characteristics’.

Find more in our Pop Culture and Cults lib guides.

FIVE

Avoid culture creep and cultish norms as you Read the Bible like a Mystic: Contemplative Wisdom and the Word (Broadleaf) which invites us to read the Bible in the ‘third way’ to ‘bring together the wisdom of the written word with the wisdom of the contemplative life and the call to foster peace justice, and equality’; and/or study The Bible with and without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (Abingdon), which ‘shows how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, illuminating the Bible’s ongoing significance’.

Find more in our Mystics & Saints and Bible Study: Adults, Intergenerational, Tweens & Teens lib guides.

SIX

Bring the stories and histories, the fears and the hopes, together with prophetic witness, grounding worship, and transformational ministries.

Impassioned: A Guide to Progressive Preaching (Skinner) ‘draws on resources that are religious and secular, artistic and dramatic, psychological and philosophical, to offer a range of techniques and inspiration to help each preacher find their path forward’ as it ‘shows exactly how progressives can- and why they should – preach with feeling and force’.

Grounded: Summer to Go – Volume 2 (Church Anew) offers ‘readymade worship & formation resources to guide your community through a 5-week series on creation’ as an antidote to the ‘disorienting season in our world and in our churches, in our communities and our families’. The toolkit provides sermon prompts, music ideas, liturgies, CYF content, graphics and spiritual formation resources.

A Little One Shall Lead: Small Congregations Create New Ways of Being Church (Pilgrim), shares ‘encouraging stories of congregations that – despite limited worship attendance and financial resources –  have outsized community impacts with their ministries… Small is mighty!’

Find more in our Worship: Prophetic Preaching / Written Elements and Reimagining Church: Reclaiming Rural/Small lib guides.