Sustaining Women in Ministry Cohort #1 is Complete!
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We recently wrapped up the first-ever Sustaining Women in Ministry Cohort, which gathered over the past 6 months. There are now ten women whose stories we will continue to hold and remember. Despite all of these women differing in age, denominational background, leadership positions, ministries, and physical locations across America, a common thankful thread occurred as we debriefed our last six months together this past week.
Many expressed gratitude for new information, resources, and space to come together, but more importantly, there was gratitude to find women who in many ways were just like them. Women who were committed to doing deeply needed Kingdom work, experiencing similar pains and setbacks, but who also knew their voices were valuable, and that there was hope in moving forward. This cohort helped them realize that they were not alone as they gained confidence in their voices and gifts, and benefited from a community coming together to lift up one another in mutual encouragement.
We are thrilled to announce that Sustaining Women in Ministry Cohort 2 will launch Fall 2024! Be on the lookout for more information in the months to come.
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Formation / Mission / Witness
"What I learned in the Black church was a discipleship of worship practices that included the whole person, a whole body dedication and devotion to the Lord. The Black church is not afraid to offer up to God an undignified praise, to worship God with boldness for who God is. It has been spiritually shaped through lament and suffering, yet persists in hope and joy."
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Culture / Witness
"When our churches adopt a banking system approach to learning, we can be tempted to believe the untruth that our students internalizing the right information will most often lead to their formation. Orthodoxy is important, but if we aren’t helping them to apply the message of the Gospel to their own lives we risk making the church another place of passive consumption."
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Culture / Theology
"When we create spaces through the arts for our young people to grapple with who they are and how they see the world, we change the playing field. The arts invite students to stand before the world honestly and look forward to its (and our) restoration."
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Eve isn't Evil: Feminist Readings of Misunderstood Bible Characters (with Dr. Julie Faith Parker)
Have you heard the myths about feminist readings of the Bible? Some common myths include: feminist interpretations of the Bible are anti-male, feminist readings ignoring traditional religious teachings, and feminist perspectives on the Bible are not rooted in scholarly research. Dr. Julie Faith Parker dispels these myths and provides a deeper understanding of the feminist perspectives found in biblical texts.
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Ep. 45: Missional Parenting: Protect or Prepare (with Austin Catalano)
Austin Catalano, a wife, mother, school, and house church leader joins the podcast to speak about how parents can think and parent missionally as they raise their kids. Specifically, her challenge is for parents to consider ways that they can prepare their children to grow into missional adults.
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Tangible Steps Towards Inclusion of Women in Your World
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"When women aren’t present, we must ask: ‘If not, why not?’ When women are discriminated against, we must call out poor practice. When the treatment of women is not equitable, we must take action. And we must do this each time, every time.” (via “Committing to Inspire Inclusion” | International Women’s Day)
Ten Ways You Can Advocate For Women And Girls:
- Forging women’s economic empowerment
- Recruiting, retaining, and development female talent
- Supporting women and girls into leadership, decision-making, business, and STEM circles
- Designing and building infrastructure that meets the needs of women and girls in your community
- Helping women and girls make informed decisions about their health in a holistic manner
- Involving women and girls in sustainable agriculture and food security
- Providing women and girls with access to quality education and training in areas they are interested in
- Elevating women and girl’s participation and achievement in sports
- Promoting creative and artistic talent of women and girls
- Addressing further areas supporting the advancement of women and girls in your circle of influence
(via “How will you Inspire Inclusion?” | International Women’s Day)
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The post-Christian cultural turn is creating the conditions for a crisis of confidence in the church and in pastoral ministry. While such changes can be disruptive and disconcerting, our new cultural reality makes the present moment a uniquely exciting time to reimagine churches that bear witness to Christ. How do we move beyond cookie-cutter approaches (which may have worked in the past) to building the creative, compassionate, and incarnational churches we long for?
Biblical scholar and accomplished jazz pianist Mark Glanville plays with a metaphor of improvisation to chart twelve themes as the key "notes" on which Christian communities play as they bear witness to God in the world today. Building on these two dynamic traditions ― jazz music and Christian community ― Improvising Church unfolds a biblical, practical, and inventive vision for churches seeking to receive and extend the healing of Christ. Improvising Church: Scripture as the Source of Harmony, Rhythm, and Soul (2024) is a brand-new release in the joint Missio Alliance/IVP book line.
We introduce Mark’s work to you through the dialogue below, a short riff of sorts on the intersection of biblical theology and jazz music. We hope you enjoy it!
- Missio Alliance
MISSIO ALLIANCE: Your book has a fascinating premise that brings together two of your core interests: biblical scholarship within the field of pastoral theology, and your ‘other hat’ as an accomplished jazz pianist. Tell us how these worlds came together as Improvising Church.
MARK: Both the church and the jazz club are rooted in rich tradition, and both can also be profoundly creative. Jazz musicians immerse themselves in the jazz tradition, listening to the music for thousands of hours, tapping its rhythms, and humming its melodies. The jazz tradition, which runs deep within every good jazz performance, works similarly to the biblical tradition, which runs deep within every Christian community and gives it its identity. Both of these traditions inspire creativity. The creativity of each new jazz performance is improvised on the jazz tradition. Similarly, the biblical tradition should inspire fresh improvisations, daring creativity, interdependence, careful listening, and pursuit of beauty. But, let me hasten to add, this book is about church, not jazz!
MISSIO ALLIANCE: What insights can Christian leaders learn from the field of jazz music?
MARK: So much! Here’s one: Wisdom for leadership. In post-Christian societies we need what I have come to call leader-full churches, those that bring forth the ingenuity of every person, as together we love our neighborhood (or city) to life in the name of Jesus. Vibrant, witnessing churches are leader-full in the sense that they are full of members who are empowered to use their gifts and creativity within the community and neighborhood. Jazz performance exemplifies a leader-full community. A jazz performance entails elegant balance between the soloist and the group; leadership is constantly shifting as musicians each take turns to solo. Performers must maintain an open heart to what the other musicians are offering at any moment, and in an ever-evolving performance, agree upon the direction of the music together. A jazz masterpiece emerges from mutual submission in the context of dynamic co-creation.
MISSIO ALLIANCE: How do we move beyond cookie-cutter approaches (which may have worked in the past) to building the creative, compassionate, and incarnational churches we long for?
MARK: With the Bible in our hand, we need fresh imagination for churches that display the tenderness of Jesus within local neighborhoods. Every church needs to improvise a fresh melody on the biblical tradition, enlivened by the creative energy of the Holy Spirit. In this book, I offer twelve “notes” for improvising church, devoting a chapter to each. These twelve notes represent key characteristics of incarnational communities, and together they become a non-prescriptive pathway for nourishing communities of tenderness and witness. These notes are: 1) Scripture, 2) Leader-Full, 3) Local, 4) Beauty, 5) Worship in Polyrhythms, 6) Shared Life, 7) Healing, Kinship, and Maternal Nurture, 8) Creation, 9) Voice, 10) Conversations, 11) Sins of Our Kin, and 12) Prayer. These twelve characteristics of incarnational communities are offered as practical and biblical themes for your own improvisation.
MISSIO ALLIANCE: Share a favorite sentence from the book.
MARK: “Being for a place means more than running evangelistic programs; it is an orientation toward a local community from within that community, displayed in a deep investment of time and love in its individuals, families, and structures.”
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