Relay for Life – The Nexus

In this final part of our Esther teaching series, Stand Up: How to Fight Injustice, we are reminded that since injustice never sleeps, we can’t either. Over the course of this conversation I offer four ways we can make sure our lives are always ready to fight injustice. Keep reading to find out what they are.

Keep Standing

Last weekend was the annual Relay for Life Walk event. While it has gotten pared back a bit over the years, the original vision for the event was for it to last for a full 24-hours. One of the original slogans that accompanied the all-night walk was that we could walk throughout the night because “cancer never sleeps.” The big idea here is that cancer is always on and so we must be also. We must be ever vigilant to halt its life-stealing advance. Because it never takes a day-off, we can’t either. This kind of militaristic sentiment works for a while, but eventually people start to get tired. Sometimes the very advances to which their support of cancer research has contributed allows some folks to relax a bit and let up on the pressure. It’s tough to stay motivated to support a single cause for a long period of time. Read the rest…

In this third part of our conversation about who God made us to be as a church, we talked about the fact that connecting and growing, while necessary, are not sufficient in and of themselves. Thank you for taking part in this conversation with us and reflecting on God’s design for your own community. Don’t miss next week as we put everything together and celebrate the thing that gives it all substance: The resurrection.

Reaching Further

Have you ever had a secret that was simply too good to keep to yourself? It was news that you just weren’t going to be able not to share; you were just going to have to deal with the consequences later? Or perhaps make this more personal: Have you ever gotten a bit of good news that you couldn’t possibly have not shared with the world? In our social media-crazed world, some days it seems like most folks think everything is worth sharing. “I got a promotion!” “I ran a marathon!” “My kid is on the honor roll!” “My dog really like its new bed!” “I woke up this morning!” “I’m asleep now (my fingers are set on auto-post)!” What starts to happen is that as everything gets shared, it can begin to seem like really, nothing is worth sharing. I submit to you, though, that some things really are worth sharing. What’s more, some places are designed to help us do that. And I’m not talking about Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Read the rest…