We made it to Friday!
Hope this week was kind to you, and if not, we hope you find a way to make up for it this weekend somehow. Feels like April disappeared into thin air and suddenly we’re rocketing through May as well. Here’s to slowing down and enjoying these last few days of spring.
Just a reminder that you can always hit reply to this emails if you want to get in touch or comment below. We’re not great at responding all the time, but we definitely read each and every email and it’s encouraging to know these issues aren’t just disappearing into the void!
Much love,
Gabby and Chris
Are We TOO Keen to "Break Fellowship"?
By Chris Llewellyn
I’ve been thinking a lot about the people in Jesus’ inner circle.
There is incredible diversity.
We see everyone from fanatical religious nationalists (the terrorist “Simon the Zealot”), to working class men (Simon and Andrew), to rich and powerful women (Joanna and Susanna), to Roman sympathisers like Matthew and Zacchaeus.
If Jesus felt like his role was creating uniformity in terms of politics and worldview, he apparently didn’t do a great job.
But He did create a culture of unity. There seems to have been a remarkably high tolerance for differences of opinion on these kinds of issues.
His priority was ensuring that His disciples were renowned for loving one another, not that they were carbon copies each other.
I sat in a room this week with Christians from all backgrounds to discuss Roe v. Wade, in a safe and non-judgemental space.
The embarrassed, halting, vulnerable speech, from people on both sides of the aisle was so startlingly different from the tone of the memes and one liners that I’d seen all week online.
It was human. Visceral even.
Not the sort of thing that made you want to write a new bumpersticker slogan or change your profile picture.
No, it was the sort of thing that made you want to lean in, whisper words of comfort and reassurance, and share in the sacredness of their sobbing.
Agreeing or disagreeing didn’t really seem like the point in that moment— although there was space for that.
Love was the point.
Moving beyond the issue to the person— the image of God within them.
This kind of faith, that sits in the mess of divergent perspectives, is the kind I want.
Not the kind that creates a new church every time someone gets offended. (We have a hilarious number of denominations now…we don’t need more churches: we need to fix the existing ones!)
Not the kind that is all too keen to “break fellowship” over the latest hot topic, quoting “come ye out from among them and be separate”.
Not the kind that brands the other side demonic and uses that as an excuse to no longer love them or consider them a neighbour.
The love of God is a vast canopy that shelters BOTH the left and the right.
If there isn’t room for everyone, it’s too small for a God who “so loved the WORLD”.
To Read
Harper-Collins Study Bible— A widely respected and highly academic study Bible with no denominational or evangelical bias…honestly it’s been very eye opening. Many of the resources I’ve trusted for years have been shielding me from what the Bible actually says to make it fit more tidily into the evangelical worldview. (The NIV for instance has a very heavy evangelical bias to the point of being called “unreadable” by NT Wright— a prominent evangelical scholar!) Before you ask: I don’t have any thoughts about the apocrypha. It just happens to be included (because the Catholic Church and Orthodox traditions respect it.)
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner— Beautifully written, a memoir about death and grief and food. Only halfway through but I can tell it’ll be one of the best books I’ve read this year.
To Watch
Arcade Fire on SNL— Always enjoy what these guys bring to a their live performances. This one was particularly joyful.
Other Stuff
The Monk Manual journal— This has been a game changer for my mornings and even winding down at the end of the night. If you’re looking to cultivate an easy, achievable and meaningful journaling practice, we definitely recommend this.
Evolving Faith Conference just announced tickets for their 2022 online conference are now live and available for purchase. We’ll likely be tuning in ourselves this fall and would love to maybe even connect over Zoom with you all after a few of the sessions— we’ll see how it goes once the twins get here!
We are still reading On Living Well: Brief Reflections on Wisdom for Walking in the Way of Jesus by Eugene Peterson. Trying to give people more time and space to enjoy these books instead of rattling through them every month. This is a collection of never-before published short essays that have been turned into devotionals. So they’re already bite-sized and you’ll probably get a lot out of the book even if you just read a few of the chapters.
Additionally, we put out a call for submission for Storied from all of you. We’ve received a few so far, but wanted to remind you that the window for submissions closes at the end of the month.
Essays should be about 500-800 words max and must be turned in by the last week of May. While we can’t promise we’ll feature all of the submissions we receive, we strongly encourage you to send them in. In our community survey last month, one of the biggest pieces of feedback we got was that you all wanted to get to know EACH OTHER more. So if that’s you, definitely consider sending in your story.
You can email submissions to gabriella.llewellyn@gmail.com
The image for this month’s mixtape was provided by one of our very own Storied members, Lydia. It’s a picture of flowers grown from her OWN GARDEN. Hope you enjoy this month’s mixtape. It’s a little chilled out and hopefully provides a good soundtrack no matter what you’re up to during the day.
It greatly comforts me that you guys and I have similar music tastes. 🥲
I’m also really grateful to have had a safe place to discuss our thoughts on the impending reversal of the Roe v. Wade ruling because my feelings on it are so complicated. I’ve been thinking a lot about Stanley Hauerwas’s writings about what it means to be a peaceable kingdom, and this space plus Erin Moon’s Swipe Up blog have been the closest things I’ve found. I’m really grateful that my in person church community is trying to be that place too, however imperfect we are.