Common Ground or Conflict: Choices for Churches

In her book Leaving Church, Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her time as a parish minister, serving Grace-Calvary Episcopal Church in rural Georgia. She writes,

In a big city they might have found homes in five markedly different parishes, but in a county with only one Episcopal church they learned to live together—the Yellow Dog Democrats, the National Rifle Association boosters, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the League of Women Voters. Once, when I asked a newcomer what had brought him to Grace-Calvary, he shook his head. ‘I know people who come to this church,’ he said, ‘and I finally had to come to see for myself how they got through a Sunday morning without assaulting each other.’

Perhaps as you did, I found myself taken aback by the newcomer’s response. That’s a fairly strong and negative image that this newcomer harbored about the idea of people who differ occupying the same pews. Just like the Corinthians, just about any congregation today has a variety of people under the same roof and with different convictions, perspectives, opinions, and biases. And, yes, there are many opportunities for diversity to become a stumbling block rather than the mark of good ecclesial identity.

The challenge for congregations, however, is not to figure out who is right or wrong. It is whether or not they begin from a place of common ground. Paul begins treading into difficult conversations with the Corinthians by reminding them of why they are together, called to be saints, the people of God, followers of Christ Jesus. When we remember our identity, we can begin talking about our differences.

It is frustrating when churches become mirrors of the same tensions and anxieties that drive our society to privilege or enable the partisan behavior out to capture votes. Indeed, when this happens, churches are mirrors all right: those carnival funhouse ones that distort the real image of who we are. We become less like the One who made us.

At such times, the problems that often get named immediately are a matter of opinion, bias and sometimes denial or anger. What I wonder is when a time of conflict arises, is it really for Christians a case of collective amnesia, as people forgot to seek that common ground first before wading into more troubled waters.

When Paul wrote a letter, he followed the custom of his day: a word of salutation as well as closing remarks, and he filled most of his epistles with responses to the situations occasioning his writing. Before the teaching, however, Paul offered a wonderful word that is indeed well named: he indulges in a bit of thanksgiving. In Paul’s day, letter writers would offer thanks for the recipients of the letter. In the midst of the praise, Paul put things into perspective: 

 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  (1 Corinthians 1:3-9)

I find this an uplifting word, even if we’re just eavesdropping a bit on the conversation between Paul and these early Christian believers. Paul reminds us that we have this great blessing found in each and every member of the fellowship. We gather together as believers from different walks of life, yet we are enriched and nurtured by the grace of God given to us in Christ Jesus. Paul offers a word that reminds us that our strength is grounded in God.

This is such a good word when oftentimes many congregations operate out of a sense of lack. We think about the pews being half-empty, when we have such good folks already in the pew gifted by God. We sometimes wish for more and worry about having not much, and we fall into the trap of thinking it all depends on a key figure or two, or a healthy cash flow, or the right “fill in the blank”.

Congregations thrive when they are able to move from a deep appreciation of the Spirit working in their midst, kindling diverse gifts, the ardent desire to follow Christ, and attentiveness to the signs—seen and unseen—of God’s measureless grace.

The Corinthian church needed to hear this word wounded and fractured by controversy. There are some who hold some strong views, and others who are left out of the fullness of the fellowship because of the controversies at hand. Yet here is Paul, addressing the factions from afar, offering a word of greeting: To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Despite the anger, the conflict, the splintering happening to the Corinthian Christians, Paul claims at the end of the day, God is the one who brings us together. The lifeline that Paul throws the floundering Corinthian congregation is not “advice” but “good theology.” Remember your identity as believers in Christ and let the grace of God shape your fellowship and its inner life.

The Pope and a Table full of Baptists

Over the years, I have read a great deal of theology, particularly in the various branches of liberation theology, which arose first in the late 1960s/early 1970s among Roman Catholic scholars, particularly in Spanish speaking Latin American countries. Gustavo Guiterrez's landmark Teologia de la liberation (A Theology of Liberation) continues to resound as a major moment in late 20th century theology, an engagement of "history, politics and salvation".

Like my native Baptist tradition and its mixed acceptance of the writings of Social Gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, the Roman Catholic Church has its varying level of embrace for such connection of faith and the social justice found in Gutierrez and the many theologians who continue to explore these connections.

With the arrival of Pope Francis, a native son of South America with European heritage, the Roman Catholic Church and the rest of the world has been surprised, stunned, inspired and certainly challenged by the different approach of this new pontiff. Indeed, Gutierrez himself has been a much more welcome figure in Rome, recently participating in events held at the Vatican. One wonders what the retired Pope out in the back gardens made of this development, given his role during the John Paul II papacy with increasing scrutiny of liberationists.

This week in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, the Pope offered a powerful speech at a gathering prompting Jesuit journalist Fr. James Martin, SJ, to post it on his Facebook account with the following commentary: "A stunning speech, Pope Francis has just used the strongest language I can remember a pope using about the rights of the poor and of social justice, called "land, lodging and labor" "sacred rights" and apologized, clearly and forcefully, for the "grave sins" and "crimes" that the church committed against native peoples during the colonialist period. Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you to read this entire talk, which is sure to be a landmark of his pontificate."

In the speech's conclusion, the Pope writes,

In conclusion, I would like to repeat: the future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organize. It is in their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this process of change. I am with you. Let us together say from the heart: no family without lodging, no rural worker without land, no laborer without rights, no people without sovereignty, no individual without dignity, no child without childhood, no young person without a future, no elderly person without a venerable old age. Keep up your struggle and, please, take great care of Mother Earth. I pray for you and with you, and I ask God our Father to accompany you and to bless you, to fill you with his love and defend you on your way by granting you in abundance that strength which keeps us on our feet: that strength is hope, the hope which does not disappoint. Thank you and I ask you, please, to pray for me.

The full speech is available: http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-speech-at-world-meeting-of-popular-mo

The Pope's words resound well with my Baptist formed heart, which leans with Rauschenbusch and his inheritors. This past month at the ABCUSA Biennial and Mission Summit in Kansas City, I participated in the Mission Summit Conversations, helping facilitate two table discussion groups. The conversations centered on issues of Poverty, gathering together pastors and lay leaders who care deeply about God's call to serve neighbors in need. I appreciated the chance to hear about the different ways local churches and their community/ecumenical/interfaith partners are addressing the income inequality, access to affordable housing, food and healthcare needs and other challenges affecting persons of all generations.

Baptists historically have referred at times to themselves as "the gathered people". In the Pope's speech and a few Baptists gathered around a table, I hear powerful words about the importance of connecting faith and common good. While our institutional structures and their aims and purposes sometimes turn inward or "miss the point" of the world's deep need, I am deeply grateful when people of faith, Catholic, Baptist and otherwise, live out a faith that seeks to be engaged in the world and share abundance where scarcity otherwise might reign.

Pondering the 4th weekend sermon or Sabbath

On the road home from the ABCUSA Mission Summit in Kansas City, I have little time to write given the long haul drive between Kansas and upstate New York.   I am preaching at FBC Hamilton, NY, this Sunday morning, which falls on "4th of July" weekend.

For many clergy, a civic holiday weekend can be a little bit like small-town football. One year the home team shows up. The next year it's mostly traveling away games.  I tend to cover civic holiday Sunday services as part of my ministry to our regional pastors. It can sometimes be the only time the clergy family can get away as a spouse may have the Monday off.  

For the 4th of July,  I tend to cover civic holiday Sunday services as part of my ministry to our regional pastors. It can sometimes be the only time the clergy family can get away as a spouse may have a job where the pastor's Sunday duties shorten if not negate time enough to travel.  Sabbath keeping matters!

I will offer some thoughts on the age old "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" as it provides a connection with every generation of disciples struggling with what it means to follow Jesus and seek God's reign while still part of a world where partisanship, nationalism and ideologies compete for our attention and alligence.

May we ponder well as we preach (or lay out on the beach, wander the woods or try to survive several hours with the in-laws!).

Pray for Us: A reminder of Baptist unity

A few years ago in my first church, I was asked to offer a Wednesday night Bible study.  Like many churches, the Bible study was long a part of the weekly schedule, yet just a few would turn out for the evening.  I decided to spend some time with the book of Ecclesiastes, which turned out to be quite popular.  Many of the participants knew the “for everything there is a season” reading, but little else.  I introduced the idea of the writer of Ecclesiastes taking a frank view of life, as noted in the observation “there’s nothing new under the sun”.   The mostly senior citizen Bible study participants loved reading Ecclesiastes and in turn, I learned how it’s probably a book of the Bible best appreciated by those who have gained a great deal of life experience, something that I am still slowly gaining my way toward.  As we discussed the text, stories connecting life with Biblical wisdom flowed as elders told their stories and sometimes laughed a bit about how they thought things really hadn’t changed now that they read the pondering of this anonymous teacher from long ago.

I keep Ecclesiastes’ reminder about “there’s nothing new under the sun” close when reading Baptist history.  I just finished a new Baptist history written by two Baylor University scholars.  While my review will be posted in the coming weeks, I thought I’d note that I kept thinking of Ecclesiastes’ wisdom as I read of Baptists struggling with being accepted early on and the irony of by the 20th century, Baptists were the major Protestant faith (if you count all of us in our doggedly autonomous separation and don’t tell us that we have to stand too close to one another unless we feel individually led to do so.)

Now out on the road, traveling to the American Baptist Mission Summit (aka “Biennial”) in my native Kansas, and actually in the Kansas City metro area where I attended seminary and taught the aforementioned bible study in a church there, I spent some time this week in Iowa City, IA, where my wife attended the University of Iowa and served as a work study student in the library.  We visited the special collections department and requested some materials to read from the vast Archive there at the University.  

As part of a collection of papers from a noted Northern Baptist with New York roots and a distinguished career in helping churches start up in Iowa, I found the minutes of an 1856 meeting held by congregations gathered as an Association of churches.  As part of the proceedings, the minutes record the business of the sessions as well as notes on the sermons preached on the occasion.   The format is somewhat familiar to the American Baptist Association meetings I attend even today, even though I note said meetings are felt to be less exciting and in need of reframing to make them more engaging for participants, especially as fewer and fewer feel interest in attending them.  Of course, the irony here is the veritable ease of travel attending a meeting such as an Association meeting or even a national denominational gathering.  By plane, by train, and by car, we can traverse great distances to meet or even set-up a web cast or webinar session to shorten the distance and costs even more.  However, just as in 1856, each congregation has to choose to participate.  Otherwise, a congregation or individual pastor/congregant can decide to stay home or find it less important to expend the time and energy getting there and participating in the meetings.  Starting up a car or hitching up the wagons require ironically the same start-up: the interest and motivation to get there.

(I note that church gatherings are also a difficult experience when people disagree on matters of theology or polity. You can also feel marginalized or invisible when part of a minority that others have made feel less welcome through their inattention to hospitality or that a group of Baptists, properly understood, will have more interest in common ground connections than drawing up lines in the sand that cannot be crossed.  The 1856 Association ends its minutes with a document later known as the New Hampshire Confession, common among many Baptists in the 19th and 20th centuries, though by now, the Confession has a certain history fraught with misgivings about how it was used over the years to divide rather than define Baptist identity.)

As part of the Association meetings (in 1856 and somewhat today), letters from each congregation of the Association were requested and received, except for one church that sent no information nor any delegates and nobody at the Association meeting had the foggiest what was going on in that church. (Some things never change, I suppose….)   As I read the summaries of each letter, I found the one for the Coal Ridge congregation quite interesting.  The church wrote that they had “enjoyed some refreshing seasons, but mourn their coldness as a body.  Their Sabbath School has lost much of its interest—they say pray for us.”

Here a church notes its successes and its challenges to its sister congregations.  They do not ask for what seems like much:  “pray for us”.  And in that earnest request, the local church asked for the other congregations around them to help them be “the Church”.  I have read Association minutes from various parts of the United States and from different time periods and Baptist denominations.  In this simple request for prayer, I found the best reason for Baptists to remember that they benefit from working together in ministry and mission.  It’s not about uniformity but unity that congregations really need when relating to those well beyond their own church’s four walls.  While Baptist churches sometimes seem to revel in their autonomy to the point of insularity, a congregation calls out for help and implies as well a level of trust that such a request will not go unanswered.

The Church in its many forms is less than perfect, yet in the midst of trying times, Christians can sometimes surprise one another with compassion and a readiness to help.  While the meetings of such churches, gathered from near or far away, can be sometimes marked with contention, there are many times the sessions help us connect more with a greater understanding of what it means to be a “gathered people” (an early English Baptist term for its churches) and a people with something more in common than we sometimes remember when grumbling about one another:  one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Charleston

A lot of thoughts percolating in my mind these past few days:

Disbelief.

Anger.

Deep sorrow.

Pondering forgiveness.

Yearning for justice.

Lamenting.

Wondering when needed national dialogue will take place about gun violence and the boundaries of rights fostered at a time long before this era's bloodshed could be imagined.

Dumb founded by reactions trying to explain away the long history fueling hatred for a simpler, less aware set of tidy answers ignoring much.

Weeping for the beautiful lives taken by one who was welcomed by them to study the Word.

Mother Emanuel, know we remember your beloved.  God-with-us, hear our prayers. AMEN.

Rough Seas (Mark 4:35-41)

This coming Sunday, I will be the guest preacher of the First Baptist Church of La Grange, Illinois. My wife and I are visiting the church's new pastor, Rev. Erica Van Brakle and her husband, Rev. David Van Brakle (pastor of the Community Church of Wilmette, IL).
It will be a delight to be with Erica (an old friend from Central Seminary days), David (a CRCDS graduate) and their two boys Ethan and William. What our beagle pup will make of attending church for the first time remains to be seen....

Erica's church is exploring a sermon series on water themes in the Bible. As it so happens, the Revised Common Lectionary this Sunday has a Gospel reading that is surely one of the most famous passages in the New Testament to deal with water and matters of faith.
Here's the sermon:

In his book The Greater Journey, the respected historian David McCullough traces the stories of several 19th century Americans who left the United States to explore France. Between 1830 and 1900, many celebrated artists and influential thinkers made this journey at a time when it was quite unique for U.S. citizens to consider leaving the still “new” feeling “New World” in favor of the Old World previous generations left behind. 

To get to France, the first challenge was braving the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean. McCullough spends a chapter telling of the experiences at sea, drawing from the diaries or memoirs of these travelers. Some reported a relatively smooth crossing, taking just over three weeks to arrive at port. Others experienced incredibly harrowing conditions on the high seas. 

McCullough recalls it was not uncommon for a trans-Atlantic ship to be delayed or to disappear without a trace. Such stories weighed heavily on the minds of many making the long voyage. In the days leading up to departure, passengers wrote lengthy letters to loved ones and intimates, ensuring that they had some “closure” if their ship never made it across the ocean.

Particularly vivid are the reminiscences of educational pioneer and early feminist Emma Willard. Making the transatlantic crossing in 1830, Willard found the initial part of the voyage rather tame, until “the heavy weather struck.” The passengers found the “rough seas” unending. Most challenging were the daytime when winds blew and the waters became turbulent.

Emma Willard writes

Then the waters rise up in unequal masses, sometimes lifting the vessel as if to the heavens and again plunging her as if to the depths below, and sometimes [the waters] come foaming and dashing and breaking over the ship, striking the deck with a startling force.

If this was not frightening enough, then came the terrifying “night of mountainous seas breaking over the ship.” Willard writes,

Thus with the raging element above, beneath and around us; with nothing to divide us from it, but a bark whose masts were shaking, whose timbers were creaking and cracking, as they were about to divide; the feeling of the moment was, a ship was a vain thing for safety; that help was in God alone. Thoughts of ocean caverns—of what would be the consequence of one’s death, naturally rise in the mind at such a time. [All quotes taken from McCullough, The Greater Journey, p. 18].

Several centuries earlier, the disciples of Jesus feared for their very lives. The waters heaved in the midst of a storm, and the ship pitched to and fro in the winds. The disciples, holding on for dear life, could not understand why Jesus, their leader, was blissfully asleep on the pillow. The disciples feared they would not see dawn. Jesus was dreaming the night away.

The fright etched on their faces says it all: “We’re in a boat, shore nowhere in sight, and we’re about to go down with the ship!” The disciples wonder if Jesus has lost touch with reality. He snores peacefully while the ship timbers groan as if ready to break apart.

For today’s reader, when an airplane gets us to France in a matter of hours, the idea of taking three to six weeks to cross the Atlantic by boat sounds quaint and outmoded. Reading Mark’s story of first-century boat travel, we have even more reason to look askance at the disciples’ panic. They are only crossing a small sea, not an ocean!

Why should they get so fearful at crossing a lake that takes very little time? Why does Mark’s gospel play up this storm at sea in a way a 19th-century person writing about crossing an entire ocean sound so similar? Why does this story of a little boat appear so dramatic when the journey lasts overnight at the most?

In telling this story, the gospel writer calls upon the anxieties about boat travel common at the time. Most fishing happened within sight of the shoreline, the idea of “deep sea fishing” not remotely attractive an idea to the Israelites. Bodies of water, oceans and lakes alike, were thought to be symbols of chaos: the destructive, unpredictable, overwhelming forces well beyond human control. Such stories figure into the Hebrew Bible (i.e. the waters in turmoil until God stilled them) or times when the biblical narrative had a moment of great drama.

Consider the story of Jonah, the prophet who was told to go to Ninevah and promptly hopped on a boat heading the other way.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them.
Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. The captain came and said to him, ‘What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.’

Even the experienced sailors lost their nerve at such a storm. They tried everything: tossing over cargo, praying to any god who might be responsible for the storm, and even what happened next in the story: tossing Jonah overboard!

On one level, it’s the rather artful way God has of getting us back on track, even when we’re running the other way as fast as possible. Jonah spends three days and three nights inside a fish that swallowed him up (thus making generations of Sunday school children delighted with the image of a smiling whale who ate a grown-up!). On the other side of the story, we see the fear within anybody, old seadog or “landlubber” alike. In Jesus’ day, you got on a boat at your own risk, hoping, if so lucky, to be alive by the time you reach “the other side”.

When Jesus is finally awake, he does not enter into the moment with any trace of apprehension. Instead, he strongly orders the seas to calm and the storm to abate. Without question, the waters and the skies above turn tranquil, as if nothing happened.

This is no exaggeration. Reading Mark closely in the Greek, the extreme differences is just that “night and day” in its contrast. The storms rage until Jesus says, “Hush!” No prayers to God above are needed. Jesus evokes the same creative powers that formed the sky and the earth, the dry land and the waters. To those who listen carefully to Mark’s gospel, they hear not a bit of Jonah repeated. Instead, Genesis is recalled.

Yet the story is not necessarily about the miraculous stilling of the waters, the dismissing of the chaos. Jesus asks the disciples why they falter in their faith. Why do they struggle to believe?

Admittedly, this is the part of reading the gospel when we look up from the text and ask where we find ourselves in the story. We may not have been on a boat in rough seas, yet we know firsthand the ferocity and terror of the chaotic. How often do we see the destruction and brokenness in our lives, in our community, in our world?

Jesus calls to his followers to believe and trust in God, the one who is not aloof to the storms. Indeed, the gospel has a cross looming near its end, where God encounters the pain of the world in Jesus’ cry of abandonment at his death. It is up to us to decide if we can see a story that has a much different ending awaiting us, one brimming full of new life and hope. If so emboldened, the believer takes strength from the many stories of times past when chaos raged, yet in the end God overcomes that which threatens to unravel Creation.

As her ship felt near shaking apart on the rough seas, Emma Willard wrote, “the feeling of the moment was, a ship was a vain thing for safety; that help was in God alone.
Emma Willard strikes me as a person who knew something about trust. By this point in her life standing there on the deck of the storm-tossed ship, she had a reputation, with her efforts to improve women’s educational opportunities. 

First in Middlebury, Vermont, and then Troy, NY, Willard advocated for the academic advancement and equality of women. Such work is still in progress to this day, yet it is not as difficult as it would have been in the early 19th century when Willard’s efforts were disregarded and her graduates thought unsuitable for the professional careers. Traveling across the raging Atlantic was not the most difficult storm she had encountered.

In our own lives, we find ourselves more often at the railings, wondering when the ship will stop bucking or debating whether or not we had been better off not even getting on the boat to begin with. Confessing “help is in God alone” is much more difficult when you try living it out. Do we really live our lives as if God is bigger than the chaos of our own lives? Is our belief so thin that we cannot believe that Jesus will be there for us in our times of fear or struggle?

Consider this story and its contrast of faith faltering and Jesus persevering, of chaos threatening and God’s calming all things. Where do we see ourselves in this story? Can we trust that the gospel offers us a word we can believe in and live out?

Books of the Year and for every spare moment of a pastor's time

Codex keeping up on catnip agricultural tomes.

Part of my time is spent reading.  It is a necessary part of staying current and engaging in diverse ideas.  Without a good book, heavens, what would life be like?
While I know the preacher's life does not lend itself to spare time, I find that reading a good book continues not to be "play" but "nourishment".  Sometimes the best insights you've been looking for come up in the midst of a good book that has taken you away for a brief moment from the hubbub and helped you take a breath, focus and see with refreshed eyes what has been eluding you about a sermon, a matter of pastoral care or a way of connecting heart unto heart in your ministry.

I also enjoy hearing what folks find helpful to them.  In particular, I keep a look out for the twice a year special issue of The Christian Century featuring the "Fall" and "Spring" books, featuring a higher than usual amount of content on new books and some of the issues driving authors to write about ministry and other issues of interest to Christian readers.  I also go searching for the "front list" titles of several publishers, who tend to use increasingly online ways of sharing the good word of new titles.  Several publishers provide their catalogs as PDF downloads on their websites, and a few others offer opportunities to connect with their companies via Facebook postings.  Ergo, I tend to know of books a few months before publication, which isn't necessarily the best thing ever for my bank account. 

One annual list of "best books" comes in the form of the Academy of Parish Clergy (www.apclergy.org) offering their perspectives on books helpful and important for pastors to read and keep up in the issues and the arts of ministry.

Dr. Robert Cornwall, editor of the "Sharing the Practice" journal published quarterly by the APC, kindly provided me the information to share with you about the 2014 recognitions just awarded at the annual conference gathering.  Enjoy!
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The Academy of Parish Clergy, Inc. announces the 2015 Book of the Year Award to be The Church according to Paul: Rediscovering the Community Conformed to Christ, By James W. Thompson (Baker Academic). The Book of the Year Award is given to the best book published for parish ministry in the previous year.

In addition, the Reference Book of the Year Award is given to Deuteronomy: Belief—A Theological Commentary on the Bible, by Deanna A. Thompson (Westminster John Knox Publishers).These awards will be made at the Annual Conference of the Academy, April 21-23, 2015 at the Claggett Center, Buckeystown, Maryland.

In addition to the Book of the Year, the Academy has selected the following books as the Top Ten Books for Parish Ministry published in 2014:

Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most. By Marcus J. Borg (HarperOne Books)

Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure. By J. R. Briggs (IVP Books)

Faith Speaking Understanding. By Kevin Vanhoozer (Westminster John Knox Press)

The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament. By Kenneth E. Bailey (IVP Books).

The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus. By Michael Bird (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).

Invasion of the Dead: Preaching Resurrection. By Brian K. Blount (Westminster John Knox Press).

Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scritpure Today. By Adam Hamilton (HarperOne Books)

Reading the Parables Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church. By Richard Lischer (Westminster John Knox Press)

Sensing the Scriptures: Aminadab's Chariot and the Predicament of Biblical Interpretation. By Karlfried Froelich (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).

Slow Church: Cultivation Community in the Patient way of Jesus. By C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison (IVP Books).