Worship for December 13, 2020: Third Sunday in Advent

Worship for December 6, 2020: Second Sunday in Advent

I switched the first two Sundays' themes this year. It just made more sense to me. So: today we'll be talking about hope.

OnlineWorship for November 8, 2020:

November 1, 2020: "Veils and Walls"

Divergent Spirit Worship for October 25, 2020

Worship is Live at 11:30: October 11, 2020: "Kindness"

World Communion Sunday Service is live at 11:30

 

Yesterday's Service-- Revised

Worship is Live at 11:30

Divergent Spirit Worship Service September 20, 2020

 

Sunday Worship: September 13, 2020

 

Intergenerational Story Time Service

 

I designed this service and help serve communion.

CZU Fire Prayer Service

 

I officiated this service:

Canaanite Lives Matter

I preached the sermon for this service and officiated.

 

I Have a New Job

 So I am serving as Worship Coordinator at my church while we await the arrival of a new minister.  I'll share some of the services I worked on.

Conventions

 Okay, so we all know I'm a news junkie and I love national politics.  So some thoughts that have no productive intent...

What is wrong with Junior?  I dunno much about drugs, but that dude had, like, sweaty eyelids.

I don't even need to say anything about Kimberly Guilfoyle.  We all saw.

I think Eric is coming for Jr's spot as favorite son.  He looked way more sane, has his new beard going for him, and has a normal family.  Junior, on the other hand, seems to be dating Every Negative Female Stereotype (I hear she also goes by "Kim"), although I'm sure his infidelity charms his father.  

For some reason, I expected more from Tiffany.

Melania seems to, like, care about her historical legacy.  What a notion for the Trump family, who, in my perspective, are quite short-sighted in that respect.  

Anyway.

Yes, are evacuated.

My spouse and I were evacuated on Tuesday evening.  These are a few pictures from before we received our evacuation notice.  

We hope our hope survives, but we were able to get our cats and chickens out.  We have what matters.

 

Youth Offering: Buffy Group Week 6

Ana Maria Archila

"I found the courage in myself and I understood that courage is a currency that is contagious.  When you are in the presence of someone who is doing something difficult, something courageous, you feel invited to do the same.  When you are in a place where solidarity is being displayed, you find abundance in yourself and you, too, can participate in acts of solidarity.  And I think that's why I believe that even though we lost the fight around Kavanaugh, there was massive transformation happening in our country because people witnessed and participated in an act of courage and acts of solidarity that transformed their sense of their own power, and at the end of the day, that's how social change happens.  It resides not in the hands of politicians who failed, mostly, to lead with moral clarity.  It resides in the hearts of people who listen to the voice inside that says, I must do something."
--Ana Maria Archila, Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy, September 26, 2019 on "The Takeaway," from National Public Radio.

Youth Offering: Buffy Group Week 5

For adolescents and high school kids, I recommend watching Buffy and using these videos to talk about it:
Season 1, Episode 5 :

Youth Offering: Week 3 Buffy Group

Buffy Week 3 (for teens and their adults):

Worship for July 19, 2020: "Wheat and Weeds"

Youth Offering: Buffy Group Week 2

Season 1, Episode 2:

Resources Thru July 19

Spirit Stories Subscription Boxes

I’ve aimed to create “lessons,” which is to say: a story and activity you can do with your children at home or in a classroom. Each lesson is designed around a Bible story, includes a modern picture book story which can help explain and elevate the moral themes of the Bible story, and a craft that also explores the theme.

These are designed to be useful: many correlate to particular times of year– not just religious holidays, but cultural moments like “Black History Month” and LGBTQ+ Pride.

They are designed to be inclusive: Most lessons do not require children to be able to read, though their experience is often elevated when they are literate. The books are also chosen with care to include a diversity of characters and protagonists, authors and illustrators.

The crafts are also designed to be accessible for children who aren’t yet masterful artists (and for teachers and parents that may not be, either!).

The lessons are progressive. I aim to use inclusive language that does not shame or degrade your child’s identity. I do not use gendered language for God (I don’t call God “He.”). While some of the materials and books do use such language, I encourage you to replace “he” with other pronouns to expand your child’s understanding of divinity and the inherent worth of gender.

The lessons are also progressive in their theology. Bible stories are weird. I do not intend to “fix” texts that are uncomfortable, nor do I aim to tell anyone “how” to think about God. I try to approach these stories with a scholarly background, a firsthand experience of many holy land sites, a respect for the text and its authors and subjects, and an open way of understanding these stories.

STORY
The picture books that correlate with each lesson are not necessarily “biblical.” We don’t live in a world of burning bushes and temples and our biblical figures didn’t live in a world with cars or the internet. The picture books lift up biblical themes in ways that I hope can help young people think about Bible stories differently– in ways that lift them out of the dust and sand they seem to live in within our imaginations.

I want there to be room for differences in the ways we understand God and experience God’s presence, not to dictate anyone’s understanding. I hope that the lessons, stories, and crafts can help you and your child/ren explore God’s presence and role in your lives.

SNACK AND/OR CRAFT
Each lesson has a craft designed to help your children enjoy learning about the material, engage different skill sets and media to engage various learning processes, and create something to remind them of their own divine spark. Many lessons involve cooking something that corresponds with the Bible lesson. If there is no cooking/kitchen component in the lesson, there is a suggested affordable snack (usually water and matzah). If the lesson doesn’t include kitchen craft, it will include artistic crafts. These vary slightly in their complexity and cost, but are designed to be affordable, easy, and fun. We know not everyone can afford a $25-per-child curated craft each week. Most of my supplies are from the dollar store or a closet.



SERVICES
FULL YEAR DELIVERY
Our most economical and environmentally-friendly option. All materials for a calendar year of weekly lessons included in a single delivery. Craft and recipe materials not included.

CHOOSE A SINGLE LESSON
Choose one of our featured lessons.

MONTHLY DELIVERY
Our most popular plan. Monthly deliveries with a lesson for each Sunday (or whatever day you use). Lessons are shipped the month prior to their intended use to allow time to purchase supplies and materials.

CHOOSE A SINGLE MONTH
Order one month (4 lessons) from our selections available.

USES

FAMILY EVENING @ HOME
If you are looking for a progressive home supplement to your church experience or wish to explore Christian scripture from a progressive lens with your children at home, our subscription boxes may be a great solution for your family.


CHURCH SCHOOL
Does your Sunday School classroom span a variety of ages? Is it hard to find projects and lessons that work well for diverse ages and families? Our lesson plans are designed to be accessible to grades K-5, but enjoyable for the adults, too. We take care to use materials that represent a variety of people in a variety of roles while being faithful to sacred stories.

Sunday Worship Playlist: July 12, 2020-- Still Here

Sunday School Lesson for July 12, 2020

Following is a lesson for this coming Sunday. Please look it over so you can make any preparations or purchases necessary.

Sunday School Lesson for July 12, 2020  Download

Youth Offering: Buffy Group

For adolescents and high school kids, I recommend watching Buffy and using these videos to talk about it:



Season 1, Episode 1:

Interconnection

This sense of God as inherent in all things, yet greater, is articulated in a diversity of ways within with Christian tradition and beyond it. While biblical texts can offer windows into this all-pervasive God, more recent theologians have articulated relation in more explicit ways. Alfred North Whitehead developed a cosmological system in which he insisted that all of life was intrinsically connected. This relatedness “...means that the value an actual occasion achieves is not merely for itself, but contributes to the value for others in the future, and for God.”(1) Each atom in our bodies is connected to every other atom in the universe in a way that requires us to consider what that means. If God is, indeed, inherent in every element of the universe, my kindness, love, and compassion must extend to all of God in a way that asks me to heighten my awareness of my actions and in a way that highlights the absolute importance of my life in my unique manifestation as a conscious, moral being. For economically privileged members of the Global North, like myself, this means curbing consumption, most specifically of products which serve to enslave and degrade our planet and the lives in the Global South.

As a first-person Whiteheadian, I see each of us as what Whitehead might call “actual occasions.” To illustrate, if we can imagine the two halfs of a Venn Diagram as actual occasions, God is the relational newness, growth, and transformation that happens when each of us “prehends” the other-- the space shared by two circles-- we absorb parts of each other and are forever different and more individually diverse and creative than we were before our encounter. This encounter with the tangible fecundity of life is the space in which the grandeur of God becomes real-- where the veil becomes thin. These moments of encounter in which we delve immersively into the world with the conscious intent of seeking God, elicit the emotional responses that convey a sense of transcendence. The gift of Process Theology allows me to glimpse a God that loves the most menial and intimate spaces of life, yet is also articulated by propensity for creative potential and transformation. The God with the unspeakable YHVH name beyond our comprehension is also the God that forms life out of mud in one of the foundational stories of our faith.

True Relationship-oriented faith must seek deep community engagement, but must also be aware of the ripple effects of our most mundane and seemingly meaningless actions on our distant brothers and sisters. It must engage our histories with our current world, helping us to understand how our theologies and church structures have engaged in the damage and good that make up our current world.

1) Dr. Donna Bowman and Dr. Jay McDaniel, eds., Handbook of Process Theology (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2006), 151.

Undoing Duality

I believe that our binaristic western categories sit squarely in many of our blind spots. Much of our world seems to be divided into (supposedly) disparate categories: male and female, spirit and flesh, revelation and creation, saved and unsaved, white and black, citizen and immigrant, human and nonhuman, among others. More often than not, one category is decidedly preferable, despite the reality that many biblical and spiritual sources will suggest differently. These places also often sit in our blind spots. While trees, people who look different than us, and dogs may be part of our everyday lives, we may seldom consider what it is like to exist as something else. As Whitehead suggests, “In some measure or other, progress is always a transcendence of what is obvious.”(1) Progress requires creative imagination and recognition of our interconnectedness.

In Trans-Gendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith, Justin Tanis highlights how Jesus' ministry and the Jewish tradition ask people to seek new and complex ways of viewing the world and scripture, to "tease out all... possible meanings so... [we have] the richest available knowledge of how God spoke, and speaks..."(2) Tanis suggests that, similarly, transgendered ways of being similarly call on all of us to look more deeply and consider the complexities of this world from outside the boxes of binaristic thinking. Not only does this ask us to open ourselves to new ways of being and thinking about gender, but it asks us to consider the ways that we limit our own thinking based on our societally-ingrained presuppositions about gender and what it means in our lives and world. Unraveling this binary allows us to see how we are not only arbitrarily defined by our sex organs, but by our species.

Laurel Schneider suggests that we need to move into "promiscuous incarnation," understanding God as unbound to a particular kind of body.(3) If God is not limited by these binaries, why should humanity, created in God’s image? The Church has suggested that God became flesh in one particular time, place, and body. Many churches still hold that those particularities are meaningful. Schneider offers a counterpoint: that this need to specify God's particularity reflects human tendencies and, furthermore, serves to reinforce claims of exclusivity and power. The Jesus of the Gospels is extravagant and promiscuous in whom he chooses to love, implying that God is likewise as promiscuous. The particularity of Jesus' body, then, at least as far as moral implications that can be derived from it, must be liberated. We must understand God as incarnate in all kinds of bodies in order to approach the kind of love that God truly conveys. This must, perhaps queerly, reach other animal and non-animal expressions of God.

If I see God as woven throughout and within creation, God loves as intensely and closely as is possible. Perhaps a panentheistic God can queerly return us to embodied intimacy with God that happens at a physical level, that thrives on physical contact with diversity. If we take this to heart, we can open to ours to how God is present in everything and to reading our scripture with fresh minds.

1) Alfred N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 9.

2) Justin Tanis, Trans-Gendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Pr, 2003), 177.

3) Laurel Schneider, “Promiscuous Incarnation” in The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity, ed. Margaret D. Kamitsuka (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010).

Sunday Worship

Context: You Are Here

As a United States citizen with white skin, I almost inevitably fall into the “haves” of global society. The average American consumes at such a rate that it would take four Earths to sustain us if everyone on the planet lived as we did.*  We can take this to mean that Americans’ global footprint is at least (on average) four times larger than it should be. In a post-election world, as I listen to “alt-right” personalities praise the legacy of the Western, Christian, Anglo-Saxon world, it seems clear to me that this praise is tied to a level of consumption.**  Our generations face a unique challenge in the history of the world because of this history of conquering and colonizing, as Richard Spencer might put it in an oddly positive way.***   Our planet is warming due, in large part, to the rampant consumerism of the Global North. This consumerism has plundered the earth; it threatens its peoples-- most especially impoverished communities of color who have continually fallen victim to racist and colonialist systems of oppression and whose own lifestyles do not have near the degree of impact as members of “Western Society;” it threatens the wellbeing of our planet and the species which inhabit it, including humans.

Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, predicts that the conditions for societal collapse will collide within the next few decades, resulting in what he expects will be a “future of significantly lower living standards, chronically higher risks, and the undermining of what we now consider some of our key values.”**** He goes on to suggest that the future is ours to determine; whether we resolve this crisis “in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice…”+ 

As a white American Protestant living in this time, I and other members of institutions of privilege and power must confront our role in developing the morality of a nation whose legacy includes slavery, colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, economic inequality, and systemic oppression and discrimination. We must also celebrate the prophetic legacy of our faith. In continuing the work of prophetic witness and justice, we must embark on the task of addressing the intersections of these issues of justice with our treatment of the Earth. We must begin the work of transformative eco justice.

Christianity has a long history of being co-opted by power structures. As early as Constantine, the violence of the cross, directed at Jesus, seemed to sanction further aggression, oddly enough, on his behalf. After a dream that led Constantine to believe that God approved of his military ambitions, he combined the symbol of the cross with his imperial advances and used the cross to conquer land and people. This dangerous coupling of Christianity with conquest would continue for hundreds of years via churches and governments. Most of our modern minds know that the violence of the Roman Empire and the countless other eruptions of violence supported and instigated by Christian religious institutions were tragic abuses of power that resulted in lives lost and ruined. Today Christianity’s entanglements with our systems is less overt.

Max Weber famously connected The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in his book titled such. As he draws from Puritans and early Americans, he elucidates ways in which our religious worldviews shape our interaction with the world. Indeed, for many, the lines between Christianity and capitalism are blurry. While Weber is somewhat reluctant to definitively ascribe capitalism’s success in America to Protestant ideals-- after all, society is complex and multilayered-- his study asks us those of us living in today’s world to flip that table and ask, “How might Christianity resist these systems we have built in order to reach a more just future that protects our planet and slows its warming?”

The American capitalist economy exists in ways which prize individuality over community in ways that I see at odds with Christianity. The for-profit model of capitalism, which measures success via profit and economic growth, cares little for what it deems external. By considering only the desires of the for-profit business and the individual consumer, communities and the environment are subjected to whatever repercussions result from the transaction. In order to maximize profit, companies increasingly outsource labor and supplies in an effort to avoid regulation set in place to protect human, animal, and plant communities (such as labor standards, environmental protections, and taxation designed to support government systems that take care of our communities). This has repercussions for people around the world, especially as our economies become increasingly global. Companies pollute and use irresponsible quantities of resources because it is most economical to do so.

One of the fundamental shifts that must be made is toward a less individualistic faith that does not prioritize personal consumerist desires over the direct and indirect repercussions on the many. American individualism presents a barrier to an ecological worldview. As long as our primary ways of understanding ourselves are as individuals, not members of various communities, we will lack a perspective capable of understanding the gravity of our lives. The core of Christianity can no longer be imagined solely as a personal relationship between oneself and the Divine/God/Jesus. While there are many good things that can come of this individualistic relationship, such a theological directionality lacks scope and leaves ambiguous our relationships with other bodies, perhaps especially nonhuman bodies.

There is a temptation among white, Protestant Americans (although certainly others as well) to buy into the myth of individualism that leads people think of success as a personal achievement and our jobs and lives as siloed. I worry that this perspective disrespects and disregards the many lives that have helped us along the way, but furthermore fails to see the myriad of possible actions and outcomes before us that exist in those interrelationships we sometimes fail to think about. Part of uncovering these connections is undoing the binaristic paradigms that constitute much of western thought.

* “How Many Earths Do We Need?”  BBC News.  Last modified June 16, 2015, accessed December 10, 2016.  http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
**As well as a fundamentally dishonest and/or ignorant understanding of history, although that is not the topic of this paper.
***Richard Spencer interview with Al Jazeera.  Last modified December 9, 2016, accessed December 15, 2016. https://youtu.be/ni_6sISHnqQ
****Rasmussen quoting Diamond in: Larry L. Rasmussen, Earth-Honoring Faith: Religious Ethics in a New Key (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 326.
+ Ibid. 327

Resources Thru July 5

Ecotheology: Improvisation on a Theme

"Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development."— Alfred North Whitehead

I once heard it said in an undergraduate classroom that “the Bible is true and some of it happened.” I loved the quote immediately; it articulated a truth that many of us identifying as progressive Christians understand: that the Bible is moving, powerful, and meaningful and speaks truth to our souls, but it is not (entirely) a document whose purpose is to historically and particularly document events as they literally happened. The continuing challenge of religious communities is not to retell the stories of our faith with precision accuracy so as to recount them factually, but to improvise on a familiar melody in order to bring a message alive in a new way. The most talented of musicians know their instrument well enough to play and tinker in a way that does not become cacophonous, dissonant noise, but can communicate a melody uniquely for its moment.

This particular moment in history requires something new from us. As our planet warms, Christianity must learn to improvise. Our spiritual ancestors could not have imagined modern industrialization or internet technology. If God is real, however, God surely can. The work ahead of us is the work of tension and reconciliation, repetitions in the history of our world-- contractions in the ongoing creation of our world. Just as Jesus reimagined his tradition and critiqued the ways it had “sold out” and been used to further those in power, we must do the same. While the complicities and corruptions of our current situation are similar and dissimilar, we follow the tradition of a queer-thinking religious revolutionary who challenges us to continue flipping over tables of injustice and the ideas that sit atop it. If our work as theologians is, in many ways, counter-systemic work of resisting cultural normativity in search of the interstices where divinity lives, then we should also seek lenses of resistance by asking where resistance is in our time and place (and others) to ask how their lenses might inform our search and how that search might help us to embolden active resistance in the world. In coming posts I will discuss our current dilemma and the context from which I speak from and for. I hope to uncover ways that Christianity has contributed to this dilemma as well as develop theology conducive to transforming our relationship with the earth by exploring the Bible and the theologians who have improvised on it. It is my hope that an ecotheology of relatedness can transform hearts and minds toward ecological change.

I'm Doing a Thing

I've launched a website.  Some of it is aspirational in that it features services I would like to offer, but it is live and I plan to launch worship in July.

Pride

Watching progress in the ways our culture treats queer justice and queer lives has been a lived lesson: transformation happens, hearts and minds CAN change in this country and world, backlash is real, and God stands with the oppressed and seeks liberation. Thank you to my LGBTQ brothers and sisters for the ways you have taught the world about authenticity, radical love, civil rights, the intersections of oppression, and what solidarity looks like. Let’s continue queering church, academia, and the world with leadership from those who have taught us us much and still have so much to teach us. Thank you for letting me walk beside and learn from those for whom these lessons are lived in ways I can’t fathom. May we all stand in solidarity with those who work to liberate God’s world and demand true freedom and love. #myccsm #ucc #unitedchurchofchrist

My Most Recent Sermon

Resources for Spiritual Growth Thru June 28

Bible Reboot: Genesis

I just finished my translation of Genesis!  Are you interested in reading it?  Let me know.

Books in Process

BIBLE REBOOT: GENESIS
Scripture hasn’t had a system update since the 1980s, which means it’s about as functional as your Apple II-C. With updated language and contextual information, the Book of Genesis is understandable and relatable for a new generation. Includes TL;DR (“too long; didn’t read”) summaries to help you understand (or skip!) confusing or boring passages… because let’s be real– the Bible has those.

CHURCH IS BORING. JESUS IS COOL. DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO THINK.
A potty-mouthed pastor challenges the church by looking at its role in history and the modern world and offering critique and vision for a new way forward for a new generation of spiritual people living in a post-science world.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: BUILD A SPIRITUAL LIFE
Do you want to develop a spiritual practice without going to church or appropriating foreign, whitewashed practices? Begin a journey into yourself, your culture, and your ancestry to find the spiritual journey that fits your life.

I'm also writing a novel.

This time finds us all in tender moments during which we grapple with learning how to navigate novel challenges. Without wanting to be alarmist, I wanted to share storybook resources-- a core of how we discuss and learn in Sunday school-- for grief.

Much like Jesus looked over Jerusalem and wept for what he knew would come, many of us are experiencing an unease and anticipatory grief. Many of us have begun to experience loss. Mindful of what the statistics and experts tell us about what is to come in the next few weeks, I wanted to make available a couple of books that may help your children understand and process this time and the loss that may well accompany it.

If you wish to purchase the books, they are:

Ava's Poppy by Marcus Pfister

and

A Last Goodbye by Elin Kelsey

If that isn't in your budget at this time or if the YouTube videos have been working well for your family, I have made readings available on YouTube:

Ava's Poppy

A Last Goodbye

These times will continue to challenge us. I hope you are able to deeply experience Holy Week this year and draw comfort in the reality that we are all progressing through Holy Week in a unique kind of solidarity this year.

Continue to be with each other and find ways to savor each other's presence and nurture each other with grace.

Current Vision

I envision a storefront (a bookseller/spiritual items/ethical and alternative gift shop) with space to lounge, read, and enjoy community conversation and silence with coffee and tea.

I hope to sell curated books for children and adults, assembled curricula, items for worship and spiritual growth (candles, stones, sage, altar cloths, communion sets, journals, etc.), and assembled gift sets. Items should be ethically sourced. The prevalence of stores and items for sale like this in the San Lorenzo Valley leads me to believe that there is a market for this. Changing demographics also lead me to believe that there may be a shifting religious dynamic and a generation of progressive millennials whom the church has not yet engaged.

I envision selling at-cost plain coffee and tea (with self-serve sugar etc.) catered from the local coffee shop. I hope to convince them to purchase a fair trade roast.

I hope our website/online store can be successful and that it can launch “Subscription Boxes.”

I plan to host worship on Sundays.

I envision the name “Divergent Spirit” on signage; “Divergent Spirit” is the name of the shop; “Divergent Spirit Church” is the community name. I imagine using the space to assemble and sell Spirit Stories subscription boxes/ in-house assembled gift sets.

We may be able to rent/sublet the space on evenings to local organizations and nonprofits.

I hope that this project can generate fair wage jobs in the community and operate as a nonprofit that promotes literacy in its business, worship, and fundraising activity. Profits will subsidize curricula for churches and families that demonstrate financial need.

I also hope to publish my own work, including A Bible Translation/Paraphrase (Tentatively called the “Bible Reboot”).

Bio?

Joliene grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is proudly the 6th generation of her family to live here. Born and raised in San Mateo, Joliene is “hella Bay;” She has spent her life living and studying in San Mateo, San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and the San Lorenzo Valley.

Joliene grew up in a non-religious family with Irish Catholic and Mormon roots. She considers the cultures of these traditions part of her upbringing. Joliene began studying religion independently as an adolescent and formally at university. She joined the United Church of Christ, a progressive Christian denomination, in 2006.

Joliene’s multi- and non-religious upbringing in a working class family placed in a multi-cultural and economically diverse environment, gives her a unique perspective and ability to “translate” theological ideas and concepts to those of us who don’t spend our lives studying spirituality. She is passionate about bringing mainline Protestantism out of the 1960s and into the 21st century.

Joliene believes strongly that a spiritual practice can elevate all aspects of your life. She is an avid reader and learner and is passionate about helping others find resources for their own spiritual journey and practice, as well as updating spiritual practices to meet our modern moment.

She also pastors Divergent Spirit Church, a spiritual community in Boulder Creek, CA. We worship on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. at ____.

Joliene’s ministry helps fund spiritual and emotional literacy for youth by distributing educational materials to churches and families with financial need. Knowing God’s love and preference for the disenfranchised and impoverished, she believes firmly in working for a better world.

Why I Am Working on Lessons

(besides the fact that I am creating them to use at work)

In trying to teach progressive Christian lessons to children, I have found a few problems:

1. Many Sunday School lessons are designed for specific age groups, but many Sunday School classes are K-5 (or higher). This means that practically, lessons may be too difficult for some children or uninteresting to others.  
2. Many Sunday School curricula are expensive, while many churches have limited financial resources.  
3. Many Sunday School lessons are heavily theological in their interpretations of the stories told. While many of us whom have grown up in the church may not notice this, I believe this removes much of the creative thinking and mystery that can be engaging and wonder-provoking for children.  It also makes them less usable for the diverse settings of our congregations.
4. Many lesson plans require significant training and/or preparation, while many churches lack the resources or staff to accommodate such requirements.  
5. There are few progressive curriculum, in general, let alone that can accommodate churches with fewer than 200 members (a small number of children, spanning the elementary school age brackets), a small budget, and a limited staff, which is many (if not most) mainline protestant churches and many non-denominational churches.  
6. Many progressive, value-driven families aren’t even going to church.  

Of course none of us can solve all of the world’s problems, but I think I have found a space in which many churches are under-serving our children and youth, not for lack of care, but for lack of resources.

Additionally, many parents desire ways to talk to their children about God and spiritual themes and stories, but feel ill-equipped to do so and reluctant to bring their child to church, whether due to their own unfortunate experiences in church, the lack of a good fit for their family nearby, or simple scheduling difficulties. The typical American family no longer has a stay-at-home parent, standard 9-5 hours, or easy commutes, yet our churches are still designed for this world.

I’m not here to convince you to go to church. Don’t get me wrong-- I love church, but I know how boring and lame so many are, even when they aren’t horrifyingly offensive in the kinds of things they teach.

TL;DR: WTF is this?

I’ve aimed to create “lessons,” which is to say: a story and activity you can do with your children at home or in a classroom. Each lesson is designed around a Bible story, includes a modern picture book story which can help explain and elevate the moral themes of the Bible story, and a craft that also explores the theme.

These are designed to be useful: many correlate to particular times of year-- not just religious holidays, but cultural moments like “Black History Month” and LGBTQ+ Pride.

They are designed to be inclusive: Most lessons do not require children to be able to read, though their experience is often elevated when they are literate.

The crafts are also designed to be accessible for children who aren’t yet masterful artists (and for teachers and parents that may not be, either!).

The lessons are progressive. I aim to use inclusive language that does not shame or degrade your child’s identity. I do not use gendered language for God (I don’t call God “He.”). While some of the materials and books do use such language, I encourage you to replace “he” with other pronouns to expand your child’s understanding of divinity and the inherent worth of different genders.

The lessons are also progressive in their theology. Bible stories are weird. I do not intend to “fix” texts that are uncomfortable, nor do I aim to tell anyone “how” to think about God. I try to approach these stories with a scholarly background, a firsthand experience of many holy land sites, a respect for the text and its authors and subjects, and an open way of understanding these stories.  That said, not every subject or scholarly explanation is understandable to children.  I aim to tell the choose and tell stories in ways that help your children learn and grow in the spirit without shaming or boring them.

Story

The picture books that correlate with each lesson are not necessarily “biblical.” We don’t live in a world of burning bushes and temples and our biblical figures didn’t live in a world with cars or the internet. The picture books lift up biblical themes in ways that I hope can help young people think about Bible stories differently-- in ways that lift them out of the dust and sand they seem to live in within our imaginations.

I want there to be room for differences in the ways we understand God and experience God’s presence, not to dictate anyone’s understanding. I hope that the lessons, stories, and crafts can help you and your child/ren explore God’s presence and role in your lives.

Craft

Each lesson has a craft designed to help your children enjoy learning about the material, use different skill sets and media to engage various learning processes, and create something to remind them of their own divine spark. The crafts vary slightly in their complexity and cost, but are designed to be affordable, easy, and fun. We know not everyone can afford a $25-per-child curated craft each week. Most of my supplies are from the dollar store, second hand store, or a closet.


So Maybe Try It?

I don't know if these are right for you and your family, but the kids I work with have fun and the families are pleased with the material.

Also:  the picture books are pretty awesome.  I have found some amazing authors and illustrators whose work will hopefully encourage a love of reading in your kids while telling stories of value.

Meditation Sounds 23: Bagpipes

I invite you to meditate for 10 minutes using the sound of bagpipes:

Bagpipes

Process

Vlog for Week 2

When people try to explain why they want to call God "He"

 

seekinguncertainty:

When people try to explain why they want to call God “He.”

(via churchofbuffy)

I Made a Website

So I am trying to start developing my ministry and I'm starting to see how it might come together.  Meeting with our conference minister to start the ordination process next month.

So I made a website.  It advertises things that aren't yet happening, but I'm trying to start putting things into the world.  So:

Divergent Spirit Ministries

I Fixed It 2.0

Okay, so slightly revised headcanon for GoT:

The series re-opens shortly after the events of Season 8, with Daenerys' body nestled with dragon eggs and nurtured by Drogon. 

They are in Valyria.  The priestess from Qarth prays and performs rituals in a nearby cave.

Daenerys is resurrected by fire when the baby dragons hatch.  4? 

Daenerys lives, but is weak.  The priestess takes her out of old Valyria on a boat (a la Jorah and Tyrion) with the baby dragons as Drogon flies above....

oooooooh, where are they going?

..

Bran is a crap king BECAUSE HE IS EVIL and his cabinet is crap.  I mean, why is Bronn master of coin?

Winter is not leaving King's Landing.  Things continue to cool and Winter continues in the South.  Bran starts squabbles with Sansa about where boundaries and borders are and about resources.

Meanwhile, Sansa is arranging a political marriage with Gendry and Gendry is planning to secede and join kingdoms with House Stark. 

--

Arya make landfall WEST OF WESTEROS and finds Daenerys living among the egalitarian tribes of SuperWestLand with her adolescent dragons. 

One of the tribespeople-- a teenage girl-- is a warg.  She is able to control the dragons and is able to talk to them and communicate with them in a way that has domesticated them, or at least made them controllable/trainable.  They fly freely, they hunt from wild herds, and they have designated animals raised for agriculture. 

The red priestess and Daenerys have converted members of the tribe to the Lord of Light.

After a short time in the new land, Arya returns to find Jon Snow and tell him what has become of Daenerys.

...

When Arya arrives in the North and finds Jon Snow, she finds that the North is warming... essentially, the climates of the North and South are shifting in a new age in which the South becomes cold and the North warm.

Sansa also arrives shortly after Arya to enlist the help of Jon and the Wildlings in keeping their freedom and resources by joining forces against Bran, who is coming for their lands (especially now that the North is becoming more temperate).  There is some drama regarding Sansa's pending marriage with Gendry, but Sansa assures Arya that the arrangement is purely political and Arya concedes that she still has no interest in settling.

Jon agrees to go with Arya to SuperWestLand and he brings some other fun friends.

They successfully enlist the help of Daenerys and her new people.  It takes some time for them to engineer and build the ships to bring their numbers to Westeros.

Jon starts developing a relationship with one of the women in the people of SuperWestLand.

----

Meanwhile, Bran is spying on Sansa with animals and learns of what is happening.  He begins to weaponize animals.  He tries to turn Nymeria and her pack against Sansa, but Nimeria is able to resist once he tries to make her attack Sansa.  She protects Sansa from the wolfpack and Bran is no longer able to control her and he finds that he is unable to control magical animals.... because....

----

[[Warg Girl from SuperWestLand]] is able to communicate with animals and among magical animals, has created a sort of culture/allegiance to the Lord of Light and Team Daenerys/Stark.

----

When Daenerys, Jon, Arya, and company arrive back in Westeros, they're in time to help Sansa and Nimeria battle Bran and company.  Gendry loses his territory, but Winterfell is not lost. 

Gendry is all feelings when Arya returns and Sansa begins to fall for Daenerys.  He is jealous of Daenerys, though his relationship with Sansa is formal (though friendly and loving), and he still pines after Arya, who is content to hook up with him, but isn't interested in settling down and making babies.

Sansa and Daenerys develop a deep relationship.  It appears that Sansa is also unable to have children as she and Gendry continue to be unable to have children.

Arya takes Brienne hostage.

And...

Arya becomes pregnant by Gendry.  They decide to hide her in the crypts during her pregnancy and claim the child as that of Sansa and Arya. 

----

However, while Arya is out of commission, Bronn sneaks into Winterfell and kills Brienne.  OHHHHHHHHH I know.

-----

Anyway, Arya, Sansa, Jon, and Daenerys (and Drogon and babies) defeat Bran and Company (yes, including Tyrion), but Jon gives his life in the process  and a couple baby dragons go, too (PRINCE WHO WAS PROMISED?).  Sansa raises Arya's baby and Arya goes back to her travels.  Sansa and Daenerys' relationship is an open secret.  Gendry is sad about Arya forever. 

God Thought 8

Each of us is called to serve the Universe in a different way.  We have to find the song we can't keep from singing-- the passion we can't help but pursue.  It will be different for each of us.  It is a sacred meeting of time, place, and your gifts and passions.  If you can align them well, your life cannot help but have meaning for you and others.

It can be a privilege to both find and live out our joys in a way that meets our context, which is why it is our responsibility, once we find that freedom, to help others pursue their own free spirit in a way that beautifies and heals the world.

It is your job to contribute.

Family Evening @ Home/Lesson: First Sunday of Lent

Link to Lesson

Curriculum Texts Used:

 1. “Children of God Storybook Bible”
2. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”

Special Text Used:

1. “God’s Paintbrush” by Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

CO-CREATING: Stardust Footprints
Materials

1. Colored paper
2. Glitter
3. Scissors
4. Tape
5. Glue
6. paintbrush

craft

We will make footprints to help us think about our own walk with God during Lent.

Divergent Spirit

Divergent:

adjective

adjective: divergent

1. 1.

   tending to be different or develop in different directions.

   "PSYCHOLOGY

   • (of thought) using a variety of premises, especially unfamiliar premises, as bases for inference, and avoiding common limiting assumptions in making deductions.
2. 2.

   MATHEMATICS

   (of a series) increasing indefinitely as more of its terms are added.

Spirit:

noun

noun: spirit; plural noun: spirits

1. 1.

   the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.

   • the nonphysical part of a person regarded as their true self and as capable of surviving physical death or separation.
2. 2.

   those qualities regarded as forming the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person, nation, or group or in the thought and attitudes of a particular period.

   • a person identified with their most prominent mental or moral characteristics or with their role in a group or movement.
     the attitude or intentions with which someone undertakes or regards something.
     the quality of courage, energy, and determination or assertiveness.
     the real meaning or the intention behind something as opposed to its strict verbal interpretation.

     
     

Transfiguration Doc Year A

Transfiguration Year A

Curriculum Texts Used:

 1. “Children of God Storybook Bible”
2. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”

Special Text Used:

1. “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Marjorie Williams

CO-CREATING:

We will make Jesus suncatchers!

God

God

God is perhaps most manifest in love and compassion. Our most authentic “godding” is in acts of compassion and love. We are most in line with Interrelatedness and mutual concern when we act in love and compassion… In being cognizant of interrelatedness, we are most aware of our Godness and thus living in our best potential.

The Third Miracle

What comes after GoT.

Daenarys is resurrected by fire.

The North Begins to warm. 

Sansa is at war with Bran/Tyrion WHO WERE EVIL THE WHOLE TIME WTF GUYS

In Arya's travels, she finds Daenarys, who is living among a people like Native Americans.  She and Drogon are living there with Drogon's BABY DRAGONS.  Arya is like WTF and returns to the North to find Jon and tell him about Daenarys.  They go together (with some other fun folk) to find Daenarys and bring her back to fight Bran with Sansa.

Daenarys and Sansa fall in love (they're not related, right?), but of course that's not chill with folks in Westeros, so Sansa is politically married to ... Gendry.  And it causes problems with Arya, but like hello, you turned him down and it's politically advantageous.  So Gendry's kingdom has aligned with Sansa against Bran and his army of animals that are magically controlled or something.

Return of Nimeria and direwolves and dragons, which are magical enough that they can resist Bran.

Meditation Sounds 22: Canyon Drone

I invite you to meditate for 10 minutes:

Canyon

Lent

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent. Lent is about reflection and introspection. The season leads up to Easter.

Penitence.

Abstinence.

Fasting.

Darkness and Wilderness.

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.

Spiky plants, rocks, sand.

Remembering our mortality.

Getting ready for resurrection.

Purple.

Royal connotations.

Counter-cultural themes in the stories of Lent.

Holy Thursday. Good Friday.

Holy Saturday.

Possession and Temptation

One of the struggles of Bible study is coming to terms with the reality that we cannot and likely will not be able to really know what happened in many circumstances. The Bible speaks again and again of supernatural occurrences, many of which we can easily understand scientifically in today’s world. Most of the time, we can look at those passages and see that the point of the story is seldom the specifics of what happened as much as the “moral of the story.”

Much of today’s understanding of “belief” is fundamentally flawed. The Greek word translated as “belief” in English is not belief that, but belief in. Believing in Jesus’ ministry should not be centered around the specifics of what Jesus physically did. Whether we believe Jesus actually performed miracles is irrelevant to what his ministry was about. Jesus didn’t do great things to simply prove that he could in a petty effort to boost his or God’s ego (I should hope). In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether or not those acts are historically true, because belief in Jesus is not belief that he did those things, but belief in his ministry and his person. Each of Jesus’ acts can be seen as challenges to the ineffectual requirements of the religious institution or acts of radical compassion. Belief in Jesus is better understood as belief in what was behind his acts, not the acts themselves.

Whether or not we can perform miracles in today’s world, we can try to offer healing, compassion, and understanding.

Lesson/Family Home Evening: Lent 1A

Opening Check-Ins

We support each other no matter what.  Invite everyone to share something that made them happy and/or something that made them sad this past week.  We are here to support each other in prayer and presence.

Centering in Silence and Song

If you have a household altar, I recommend using it.  If not, a sense of ritual and sacred time can be initiated by lighting a candle and ringing a bell (three times is usually a good way to help everyone settle into silence). Share a few minutes of silence together. You may sound the bell again when silence is over.  Children often enjoy the responsibility of these tasks (and should be supervised and assisted as appropriate).

You might invite each person to share:

any lenten practice.  Giving something up? Trying to do something special each day?

You may also listen to this song and discuss what it brings up for each of you:

Prayer of Jesus

If you have a particular version of the prayer that you use, you are encouraged to use it.

This is the "children's translation" that I wrote and use with my students:

God all around us with many sacred names
We roll up our sleeves to create a beautiful world with you
Please care for us and our needs and forgive us when we don’t do our best
Please help us to be forgiving of others, too.
Help us to be good, loving, and safe so we can help create a loving and safe world for everyone.
Amen.

Sacred Story

Background:

This is the first Sunday of Lent, a new season in the church year. Last time in Sunday School, we talked about Ordinary Time.

In church, we have different seasons, kind of like there are seasons in Nature. Seasons in nature let us know what to expect about weather and maybe let us know what holidays are coming. The church calendar is similar. The church calendar can also tell us what holidays are coming, but we might think of church seasons as seasons of the heart, times during which we talk about certain kinds of stories and feelings.

The season of Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.

Lent is a “contemplative” season, which means it is a season in which we think about our life and its meaning. The color for the season is PURPLE. People often give something up for Lent (like not eating sweets). Sometimes we might set a different goal, like to read a big book during Lent or to start meditating every day. This helps us to think about our life and how we would like to be be better.

Lent lasts 40 days (plus Sundays). Forty is an important number in the Bible. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 days, Jesus was secluded in the wilderness for 40 days, the flood rains lasted 40 days and nights when Noah was on the ark. Forty is a number that means “completion,” or readiness. When we see the number 40 in Bible stories, we might ask “What new change is coming?”

Easter comes after the 40 days of Lent.

On Ash Wednesday, many Christians have a smudge of ashes placed on their forehead. We often say, “Ashes to ashes” or “dust to dust.” In one of our Bible stories, God creates a human from dust. It reminds us we are all made of the same things, that we are all made by God, and that we are, in some ways, eternal.

Today sometimes we say “you are made from stardust” because we know now, with the knowledge we have about science and outer space, that everything in the universe, including you and me, is made of stardust. EVERYTHING is made of stardust, so we know that we will ALWAYS be made of stardust because everything is!

Bible Story:

Read together “Jesus in the Desert” in Children of God Storybook Bible (p. 70-71).

Special Story:

Read together "God is night." in Images of God for Young Children (p. 14)

Read together “You Are Stardust” 

Conversation:

How do our bodies change over time? We grow, our hair grows, our nails grow. Our skin sheds.
How do other bodies on the earth change over time? Trees grow. Leaves fall and regrow like hair.
How does space change over time? Space expands. Stars explode and new stars are born.
Can remembering that we are made of stardust help us to remember that we are brothers and sisters to animals and nature?



Craft:  

As we think about how we are made of stardust, we will make stardust bags.  They are good for young people’s development of motor skills, but can also be a tool for keeping hands busy for older children.  It is sometimes good to busy your hands so you can focus your mind (maybe like a fidget spinner).  

quart size ziplock bags
Clear hair gel (16 oz)
Star-shaped confetti
Black poster board
glitter

clear packing tape

Empty the contents of the clear hair gel into the gallon storage bag.  Shake in the star confetti and glitter. Before sealing your bag, lay it flat and squeeze out as much air as possible. 

To make the stars really shine, cut the black poster board to the size of the ziplock bag and tape the bag down to the poster board.

Closing Prayer

Read together the prayer by St. Richard of Chichester in First Prayers (p. 120).




Curriculum texts used:  

• Children of God Storybook Bible by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• Images of God for Young Children by Marie-Helene Delval
• First Prayers by Caroline Jayne Church

Special Texts used:

• You Are Stardust by Elin Kelsey