Hacking.Church 08: Heatdome
Church and World Heating Up
Hello World
Welcome to the email subscription for HackingChristianity.net! I’m so glad you’ve subscribed. We rocketed over 700 subscribers to this email content, half of the new accounts in the last 30 days! Wow! While Hacking Christianity has over 9000 subscribers on social media, it’s okay that newsletters are more selective. Glad to be connected with you!
This email subscription provides an occasional update with recent articles, curated articles, and special subscriber-only content at the end of the email. Thanks for subscribing and feel free to share!
Here’s what was published in our genres since our last newsletter, and the promised exclusive content at the bottom.
Church and Christianity articles:
Is your Pastor a Reader or a Listener? - A good distinction to help staff and volunteers work better together after a pastoral transition.
“What if?” is a Disney+ series that takes well-known characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and changes one thing to create an alternative timeline, such as “What if Peggy Carter was the one who became Captain America?” Likewise, this new series at Hacking Christianity asks “What if” in novel approaches to persistent questions about church growth and vitality. We may recoil at first but mind find ourselves drawing nearer to the idea.
Geek Gospel articles:
No new content on the blog, most of those are better found this month on the Hacking Christianity Facebook page.
But an update: You can now read Hacking Christianity in the new Substack app for iPhone. I’m using it personally!
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
United Methodist articles:
There’s a lot going on over the last few months. Here’s what we reflected on:
The United Methodist 10: 1 mission, 2 forms of holiness, 3 stages of grace, and so on. Read on for this great resource for introducing United Methodist beliefs and practices.
Global Methodist Church: Where did it come from? The Global Methodist Church is the latest in a long line of disgruntled Methodists who have removed people, property, and finances from The United Methodist Church in order to create their own perspective free of accountability and oversight.
Related: We Called It: Looking back at the Rise of the Global Methodist Church - Since 2016, this blog has dedicated more paragraphs and pixels and social media poking than most others. It’s time to look down memory lane and see what stuck.
Shall Progressives Inherit the United Methodist Church? No. They won’t. And math and polity are the reasons why.
Judicial Council single-handedly pivots The United Methodist Church - Recent Judicial Council rulings have single-handedly hampered the WCA’s planned exiting of people, property, and resources from The United Methodist Church AND opened the pathway to revolutionizing The UMC.
Their next case can be almost as revolutionary! Read more here: What is Comity, Really? Debunking the WCA’s “loophole” around the UMC Trust Clause
Disaffiliating from the #UMC actually only costs Pennies on the Dollar - Do the numbers match the “let us go” rhetoric?
The cruelty is the point: behind Florida’s veto of an entire class of new UMC clergy - Conservatives were willing to throw out the entire class rather than let “those people” live out their call to ordained ministry.
Progressive Notes on “The Next Methodism” book - This progressive United Methodist blogger offers the following reflections on “The Next Methodism” edited by Kenneth J. Collins and Ryan N. Danker.
Open Tabs:
Finally, as promised, email subscribers get exclusive content not available elsewhere. Right now, that is Open Tabs: these are the windows that are open RIGHT NOW on my computer that I just can’t stand to close yet:
Local church resource: podcast series on living towards a more inclusive #UMC - Thanks to Rev. Molly Vetter for this great series!
These types of articles annoy me when they claim “Wesleyan agreement for a divided area” but none of the signers are progressives. Sigh. And the document is unremarkable.
I know this is my own blog link, but with marriage equality being threatened by the Supreme Court, let’s look back at what biblical marriage really looked like.
This is a 2015 book, but it’s the background to a popular meme about Jesus asking more questions than answering them.
Technology allows the telling of stories, such as Star Wars. How can the church use technology to tell our story better?
My context is Seattle so I resonate with this article asking how remote work is transforming cities. It’s a tough question and I’m glad to be at a church that can adapt with the times.
That’s it for now. Blessings to you and yours.
~Rev. Jeremy