(Photo provided by El Camino Del Inmigrante)
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Topics: seminary alumni, reflection, community
(Photo provided by El Camino Del Inmigrante)
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Topics: seminary alumni, reflection, community
(Photo provided by El Camino Del Inmigrante)
Sometime I make snap decisions, and then later go back and question my own intent. Was that prompting truly from God, or just some kind of ego-driven idea? I wasn’t really sure. That’s how it was with El Camino Del Inmigrante. Noel Castellanos threw out this big idea last November at the end of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference in 2016. He had participated in the El Camino De Santiago in Spain over his sabbatical, and he proposed that CCDA create a pilgrimage of it’s own from the Tijuana border of Mexico to downtown Los Angeles Calif. to highlight the plight of immigrants to the United States, and advocate for immigration reform. I immediately thought, “I want to do that.”
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Topics: seminary alumni, reflection, community
I’ve had the privilege of attending ten of the eleven Northeastern Seminary women’s retreats at the Abbey of the Genesee. Each year, I experience the deep peace of the Abbey grounds, nestled in the wide-open beauty of the Genesee River Valley, and the rich fellowship with a group of fun, wise, kind, godly women who gather together there for a day to step out of our normal routines and enter the rhythms of rest that make retreats so nurturing. Each year, the experience is wonderful, but different from all the others. This year was no different.
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Topics: prayer, spiritual formation, reflection, community
“Do you tell the truth?” That was the theme the Northeastern Seminary Women’s Retreat with Marlena Graves this April at the Bethany House at the Abbey of the Genesee. The sun was shining, the air was brisk, and all the women who gathered came humbly open to discern together what God might be wanting to say to us in our various seasons of ministry and life.
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Topics: prayer, spiritual formation, reflection, community
originally posted June 19, 2015
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Topics: listening, community, church's response to violence, compassion
Sadly, refugees are often a misunderstood people notes Rev. Bob Tice (D.Min., ‘12) senior pastor at River Rock Church. “At worst, many think of them as rejects and outcasts, poor, and a strain on America; and some a bit better think of them as just strange.” What is more alarming is that many people do not understand the unique needs of refugees.
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Topics: community, ministry, compassion
Unless you are the type of person who is naturally drawn to politics, the world of policy advocacy can seem like an alternate universe. I think this is the case, at least in part, because we view the political world through a television or computer screen. We see this work as something that someone else does, people with more power, skills, or money than we have. We live in a representative democracy. We have folk knowledge about what it means to live in a democracy, but may feel incapable of exacting change because we feel removed and helpless. We are told to vote, that our voice matters. I have wondered if this was true on more than one occasion! We elect representatives that go from a robocall to a ballot box to a screen and from there, where? It is easy to think our voice no longer matters once the person we voted for appears (or does not appear) on my screen. The next layer of frustration can occur when we see our representatives failing to act on social evils and issues important to us, like modern-day human slavery.
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Topics: reflection, community, Modern-day Slavery
The Native American sits next to the Congolese man to discuss the Pan-African/Swahili group. The Nigerian man greets the Anglo woman while the Myanmar-Burmese man speaks with the African American woman. The Rwandan and Eritean men take their seats and prepare to meet. This is not the opening of a United Nations session. This is the leadership team at my church in Buffalo N.Y. sitting down together to ask the questions that will guide and shape their ministries.
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Topics: D.Min., cultural literacy, community, church, church growth, biblical worldview, church development, Conference on Ministry, Cultural Intelligence
The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls
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Topics: community, church's response to violence, Dr. Elizabeth Gerhardt, The Cross andd Gendercide
