The Meaning of Good Friday March 2024 A word that meant “holy” in Old English, “good” today signifies many things. To be sure, both words have taken a beating in our time. But on this day, during an Easter season where hope feels incredibly distant and out of reach, Good Friday reminds us that what is good and holy in life endures and cannot be suppressed or eradicated by all the pain and sadness of the world. In fact, Good Friday is good preparation for April, when we will learn about...
10 months ago • 2 min read
Working for Justice in the Midst of a World at War February 2024 I have come to understand the overarching story of the scripture is the story of a people group struggling to survive and flourish in a fallen world that is hell-bent on crushing the image of God on earth. God's clap-back to the Fall, including war, is to first plant the vision of shalom in the hearts of the people. ––Lisa Sharon Harper This month, we began a new season of Public Theology: The Work of Justice by focusing on the...
11 months ago • 2 min read
Neighborology: From the Way of Jesus to the Work of Justice January 2024 Our neighbors are not concerned with our christology, but they show, from time to time, their interest in our "neighborology."––Kosuke Koyama We make this shift every year around this time – from Spiritual Theology: The Way of Jesus during the fall months, we turn our attention in the spring to Public Theology: The Work of Justice. Or to borrow Koyama’s language, we turn from Christology to Neighborology, knowing all the...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read
Final Giving Update Your year-end gift matters; please consider supporting our work! Make a Tax-Deductible Gift Dear Friend, This month in our community we had conversations about salvation and genocide in the book of Esther. It made me wonder why I never before stopped to think about the murder of 75,000 people at the end of Esther. In the context of this book that never mentions God, we talked about our relationship to the land, home ownership, xenophobia, nationalism, spirituality, and how...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read
GRATITUDE Your year-end gift matters; please consider supporting our work! DONATE “I have a new imagination for the future of my own faith and for how that might play out in community.” “I was unexpectedly surprised by the depth of the content and speakers.” “It left me with a lot to think about and gave me a much needed awareness of how much work must still be done in me as an individual.” “The trust built within my cohort and the diamonds that erupted were really incredibly valuable.”...
about 1 year ago • 2 min read
A Special In-Person Opportunity in San Francisco Begin the season of Advent by reflecting on what it means to pursue faith and courage in times of proliferating crises. We have a wonderful space reserved in the Mission for what promises to be a rich time of community building. In a world where so much is broken and burning, fear and insecurity abound, faith and courage are increasingly under duress. And yet, the call of faith is to move through fear to the work of justice. With decades of...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read
Why should we pray? How shall we pray? And does prayer do any good? As people of faith longing for a just world, these are some of the questions we will explore at our annual winter conference in San Francisco (or online!) on January 26-27, 2024. REGISTER HERE Join us for a rich, creative, and restorative time of imagining and uttering new prayers to step faithfully into the future. We are thrilled to have Cole Arthur Riley (writer, liturgist) as our keynote speaker, alongside Charlene Han...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read
From Lavish Love to Queering the Inward Journey October 2023 God is a lavish lover. All that God offers humanity is done with tantalizing sweetness and tenderness that seeks above all else to woo a fallen creation back to God’s self. ––Rev. Adriene Thorne If it's going to be a long ride, it helps to have a sweet companion. So it is in life, and so it is in the spiritual life. While it has been our custom each year to reflect on spirituality as a long road, it has been helpful over the past...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
Why should we pray? How shall we pray? And does prayer do any good? As people of faith longing for a just world, these are some of the questions we will explore at our annual winter conference in San Francisco on January 26-27, 2024. Join us for a rich, creative, and restorative time of imagining and uttering new prayers to step faithfully into the future. We are thrilled to have Cole Arthur Riley (writer, liturgist) as our keynote speaker, talking about her upcoming book, Black Liturgies:...
over 1 year ago • 1 min read