Last week, I remembered the anniversary of my little brother McKinley’s death by overdose. Because he could not afford legal representation, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a crime that wealthy white persons typically get placed on probation. Within a couple of weeks of his release, he was back using drugs.Continue reading “A Grief Unobserved – Part 3”
Category Archives: Innovation
Forget the Doxology—Part 1
On Sunday June 13th, 2021 it happened… I forgot the doxology. In the Christian tradition the doxology is a liturgical formula of praise to God. We sing these same words in every worship experience as we bring the offering to the altar… “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below;Continue reading “Forget the Doxology—Part 1”
Remixing Leadership: A Shared Mode
Circuit riders, traveling great distances across the frontier and overseeing multiple communities, had to employ a leadership strategy that was shared, relational, decentralized, and self-organized. Their approach has implications for the network society today.
Part Three – Reimagining The Parish
Bringing back the circuit rider for a new missional frontier requires us to rethink what we mean by “parish.” If the world is truly our parish, how do we re-envision what a circuit might look like? In the previous post, I described how digitality creates a new kind of space and makes possible new formsContinue reading “Part Three – Reimagining The Parish”
Bring Back the Circuit Rider
Part Two – “Digital Circuits and Riding the Flows“ The early circuit riders crisscrossed wide swaths of terrain on horseback. 21st century circuit riders are traveling a new global mission field accessed through internet connected screens. In Fresh Expressions in a Digital Age: How the Church Can Prepare for a Post Pandemic World,Continue reading “Bring Back the Circuit Rider”
Bring Back the Circuit Rider
Part 1 “The Lost Genius of Early Methodism” In A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions, I suggested we need to rethink and reemploy the tradition of the circuit rider.[1] In response to the missional imperative, John Wesley, and the early Methodists in eighteenth century Britain innovated the practice of traveling place to place toContinue reading “Bring Back the Circuit Rider”
Where Are the Healers?
“Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.”Luke 10:8-9 At the onset of the pandemic, my mentor Dr. Leonard Sweet offered a reflection on Facebook Live about theContinue reading “Where Are the Healers?”
The virus of anti-creativity
“And the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God swept across the swirling chaos.”Genesis 1:2 It’s interesting that Covid is a virus that takes your breath away. It’s also an anti-creativity virus that takes our capacity to create away. God’s first creative acts involveContinue reading “The virus of anti-creativity”
Michael Adam Beck 