Longing for Stories of Encounter

by Rob Hammock

“They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” – Luke 24:32 (NRSV)

In a time beset by social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and one too many Zoom meetings, I long for stories. Not just on Netflix or Amazon Prime as I search for yet another show to binge watch to fill up the time. Even my 4th trip through the series “The Wire” feels stale, despite how much I love its depth and complexity! No, I long for times of the not too distant past calling me back to a sense of humanity that now lays dormant. I mourn our inability to come together and laugh, love, grieve, and comfort each other as we are hampered by this insidious invisible virus.

Certainly, we can come together via social media, conference calls, and appropriately distanced in-person encounters. And yet, this virus, hanging in the air, lingering, waiting for an opportunity, is there to keep us separate. We can attempt to overcome the gap, but prudence and our medical professionals say only so far. There is a “not yet” quality present as we patiently, fearfully, and hopefully wait for what’s next. The fullness of our humanity longs to regroup and reconnect.

As this blogging cohort begins in a season of Eastertide, I am struck by our present reality of a “not yet” time. Just as Luke tells us that Jesus appeared first to the women, then those along the Emmaus Road, and then to the Twelve, they are told to wait for the Spirit.

I think of the disciples and followers gathered in those pre-Pentecost days with a budding sense of the life-altering importance of the resurrection. What did they wonder, experience, fear, and hope in that “not yet” place”? What do we wonder, experience, fear, and hope in our “not yet” place?

In our own time of expectant uncertainty, I know I long for a concrete reminder of my own past for fear that I forget who I am in this upended world. I look back in the archives of my own life for those inspiring and energizing events that point to a path of hope. But I know I often feel that I am the disciple whose seed was sown amongst the thorns and the cares of the world come choking (Matthew 13:7 & 22).

As they waited, I imagine Jesus’ followers looked back too for some further understanding. Sure, they looked back to the prophets and scriptures for clarity, just as Jesus had taught them. But what I imagine they desired and longed for were stories of encounter like when their hearts beat expectantly within along the Emmaus Road as Jesus walked with them.

In this time of stay-at-home distancing in the season of Eastertide, as we knowingly await the spirit to be unleashed at Pentecost, I ask you to journey along with me as I explore my own stories of encounter that energize me, remind me who I am, and solidify whose I am. My stories and path have led me on a life-long journey to work on community development and affordable housing issues, and the stories I intend to share will revolve around those themes. However, more than that, what I want to explore are the faith-forming memories that have shaped my journey as I seek “…to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly ….” (Micah 6:8). As I journey along my hope is that you may identify your own stories of encounter to hold close, gird you up, and bring you strength and hope. And, as we share and chew on our encounter stories together, may we be willing to use them as guideposts to see if we are still aligned today with the one who encountered us and longs to encounter us still as we emerge from our “not yet” world.


Robert Hammock is Ruling Elder at Caldwell Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC. Although seminary-trained, the last 20 years of his career have primarily have been focused on affordable housing and community development efforts, primarily in urban contexts. He recently rolled off of his Session after a 3 year term, but during his time on the Session, he chaired the Christian Formation Committee and Co-Chaired our Discovery and Engagement Committee. The former was focused primarily on child and youth faith development whereas the latter was focused on congregational innovation to better engage people at the church. He remains currently active in a leadership role through his church’s development of affordable housing through the re-purposing of part of their campus.

Rob is also a part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort, and his writing focuses on faith, ministry, and affordable housing.

The SHIFT: How It Begins

by Freda Marie Brown

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land,[a] for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”9 He said, “Come.” So, Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind,[b] he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matt. 9: 22-33)

I cannot recall just when I read this passage for the umpteenth time and had the revelation that was so shocking it has become the driver for my life to this day. I was introduced to a painting of this scene from Matthew called, Jesus Walks on the Water, in the chapel of an independent living facility I served many years ago in Dallas, TX. Perhaps you have seen it too. Captured from behind, Jesus walks with an expanse of sea before him. I remember being drawn to follow him out onto the sea. The painting mesmerized me, and I studied it intently whenever I visited the facility for weekly bible study.

On the particular day that I was reading the text though, it dawned on me that Jesus was living in an entirely different reality from us but, that Peter had been invited into and actually lived that reality, too. Tell me more, I prayed.

Now my mom used to say, “curiosity killed the cat, but at least the cat died knowing,” and I wanted to know more of this new way of seeing the world and life in it. I asked to receive and to know this reality for myself—to experience the reality that is beyond our 5 senses and the common perception of physical and material reality. That was 3 years ago. Life has been a whirlwind of wonder, awe, and mystery ever since. I have not learned to walk on water like Jesus and Peter—yet—but I have come to believe such behavior is not beyond the capacity of any human being. The origin of that belief has arisen with my independent study of energy medicine which has led me even deeper into a study of many topics like quantum physics, epigenetics, and energetics.

Through my independent study of energy medicine, I have become much more in awe, appreciative and grateful for the mystery of my physical body and its energetic counterpart; and of the material reality and its energetic (or spiritual) component as well. I have become excited about the possibilities for humanity and of being human on planet earth.
If there is one word I would use to describe the Christian journey it would be, transformation. That transformation is into wholeness or full union with GOD through Christ. Where many Christians have been taught that “Jesus died for our sins,” not many have been taught to think reflectively about those words and their meaning for their own lives or for life in community.

Transformation goes beyond adhering to the Ten Commandments and doing things right. As a matter of fact, we can all do things right and miss doing the right thing entirely. Transformation speaks to being and is the process of death and resurrection; of letting go of an old map of reality that is comprised of separation, competition, meritocracy, and me-and-my-tribe for an existence of union-in-diversity, collaboration, grace, love, and compassion (suffering-with an-other). Frankly, given the current state of our world and our own nation, the old map is no longer beneficial or desirable except, perhaps, for a few select people who hold the majority of the material wealth in the world or in the country.

My continued study of energy medicine and energetics has led me to a reality that is wondrously expansive and full of possibility and it is based on a different map of reality—that of quantum physics. What began as a way to heal myself and my own body has turned into brave new world holding the key to a healing of all of humanity on planet earth as well as the earth itself. But it does not come without cost. The cost is an entire paradigm shift of what we currently call “Christianity.”

Instead of finding God absent from this new map, however, I have discovered GOD in Christ more present in the new map than in my previous one. The beauty of this map-making process is that I am constantly amazed, delighted, and at peace with all that is. I have discovered that I really don’t have to worry about tomorrow. It has increased my faith through understanding just who I am in the midst of LIFE. And it all began, for me, with a desire to know more of this Reality that peeks out of every page of the Scriptures. Indeed, healing and the various modalities of energy healing are available to everyone without substantial price. Our bodies are made to heal themselves. Healing and wholeness are not just events from ancient times or current sporadic possibilities, but an inherent gift of every human being on the planet. I believe it is time to un-learn in order to re-learn, for that which we have learned to date, has not transformed us nor our society into a more compassionate and gracious one. Today, from the looks of things amid a global pandemic, I do not think it ever will. It is well time to make a change.

Just BREATHE!


The Rev. Freda Marie Brown is a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland currently serving as Associate Rector at The Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore. She formerly served as the Executive Director of St. Vincent’s House in Galveston, a 501(c)3 non-profit and Jubilee Ministry of the Diocese of Texas. Prior to coming to the Diocese of Texas, she was the Associate Rector at the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation in the Diocese of Dallas. She received her undergraduate degree from Xavier University of Louisiana and was employed as a clinical laboratory director for 21 years at St. Paul Medical Center in Dallas before saying “yes” to God’s call to be ordained priest in His Church. She earned a Master of Theological Studies from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas and a Master of Arts in Religion (with a concentration in Anglican Studies) from the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX. For 7 years she served as a Palliative Care chaplain in hospice and hospital settings and has spent many hours serving the dying and those who love them.

She loves her work among God’s people and is constantly amazed by the many disguises of Jesus Christ —especially among the marginalized. She enjoys yoga, gardening, cooking, hiking, reading, writing, and listening to jazz. She loves good food, good wine, and good conversation. She is Crystal’s Mom.

Freda is also a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and her writing focuses on the intersectionality of Christian spirituality with what may commonly be called energetics or specifically energy medicine.

I’m Rooting For Everybody Black!…. I Think?

by Whitney Fauntleroy

I spend a significant amount of time on Youtube every few months watching writer/producer/actor/model/unrequited BFF Issa Rae do press and various interviews. I was deep in one of these YouTube rabbit trails not too long ago and ran across her interview with a correspondent from Variety. The same correspondent to whom she told her now famous line on the Emmys red carpet in 2017, “I’m rooting for everybody black!” What a line, what a statement, what a vibe (as the young folx say)?  The film and television industry has historically been a very white industry where privilege and nepotism reign supreme. I know another mammoth institution that can claim this history, do you?

Photo by Panos Sakalakis on Unsplash

I have always thought I was a prophetic pastor. But I also recently read Jeremiah and was thinking up “hard pass.” I also really liked to be liked. Maybe more than I like speaking truth to power but maybe I am just insecure. Insecure about what? Insecure about the pressure of tokenism. Yes, there is some pressure in being one (or one of few) to represent your race, ethnicity, gender expression, or sexual identity. I grew up being called an “Oreo” and told “I was acting White” from late elementary school until maybe yesterday? And you know what the crazy thing is? I started to believe it. So if I believed I was an Oreo how could I speak for a people for whom I wondered, all too often, if I was one of them? What a quandary of insecurity and internalized oppression? So as I sit here in my favorite Quarantine spot (my couch) trying to introduce myself to my soon to be tons of readers (so many I hope that I get the aforementioned Issa Rae’s attention), I wonder what frame of reference I will speak from.  I am black and southern and I have grown to love being both. I have been Presbyterian since 1996 when I was confirmed but am informed by a cloud of witnesses of Unitarian Universalists, Methodists, Baptist, and Catholic as well as Yo MTV Raps!, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and the lyrics of the profound yet problematic John Mayer.  

Like the career of Issa Rae in the television and film industry, lately it has been a kinda decent time to be a person of color or historically muted voice in the mainline church. So thus this means it’s a great time for me, someone who on the low enjoys writing but never does it and has been for over 20 years in this place of tokenism and otherness in the PCUSA, to figure out what it means to tell this story of recovering Oreo and aspiring Kingdom Bringer with a penchant for 90’s R&B and hip hop, Moana, and a repeated Dave Matthews Band concert goer and to figure out what I can say. So now that, after so many years in a time where the house is divided (if it is standing it is surely on shaky ground).  In my mid-30s, I am ready to figure out what this means for me, perhaps not to speak on anyone else’s behalf but myself. 

So I am indeed rooting for everybody black unless they produce something that is utter trash. But then again those that have been systematically and strategically left out of this elusive Grand Narrative be it Hollywood or The Church should be allowed to make mistakes, right? Real privilege and real equality might just be the ability to mess up and try again.


Rev. Whitney Fauntleroy is a North Carolina native. Now in her sixth year of ordained ministry, Whitney is grateful to have experienced ministry in many contexts. Whitney has served as Director of Youth Ministry at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, a Designated Solo Pastor at Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, NC. In the Spring of 2017, she began serving as Associate Pastor of Youth and Young Adults at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

Whitney is also a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort, and her writing focuses on the intersection of pop culture, identity, and theology.

Refugees and Resistance: Enacting God’s Mission in Liminal Spaces

by Rafael Vallejo, Ph.D.

We commit to welcome and protect refugees and immigrants.
– Part 3, Sarasota Statement 2017

This seven blog series will explore three questions: What lessons can World Christianity learn from refugees’ resistance to border regimes? How might refugees be enacting the Mission of God while living in liminal spaces like camps, detention centers and border crossings? How might migrants and refugees be shaping religion and the next christianities in post-secular societies? 

There is a backstory to this blog. In early March 2020, as a result of heightened tension in Idlib  on the Syrian-Turkish border where 34 Turkish soldiers were reportedly killed in an air strike, Turkey opened its  borders to refugees making their way to Europe through Greece and Bulgaria. I was in Istanbul at that time, researching Ibadi Islam while tracking this significant geopolitical development as it was happening.

Within days after the announcement, it felt like 2015 all over again when a million refugees entered Europe through Lesbos and other Aegean islands. Turkey justified its action by saying that the EU had reneged on a 2016  deal, where in exchange for containing the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe, it would extend  6 billion euros in financial aid to Turkey. EU nations in turn accused Turkey of using refugees as leverage to extract more funding from the EU.

At about this time, the pandemic started to spread calling for the cancellation of flights and lockdowns in certain cities and countries. Plans changed very quickly and the priority of the moment was finding the first flight home from Turkey to Toronto. Finally,  KLM-Air France flew us to Paris and from there to Toronto. That was March 20, 2020. On March 21, Turkey suspended all flights to 46 countries including Canada! 

It used to be that “refugee” simply referred to people who left their country to seek refuge or protection elsewhere. Some historians suggest that the word “refugee” was originally applied to French Huguenots, members of the Protestant Reformed Church  who fled  to England in 1685 to escape persecution from Catholics after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In the history of the Church, there are other refugees with similar narratives: e.g. Nestorians, Puritans, Lutherans, Mennonites.  

The history of the Christian movement from its earliest beginnings until now is full of stories of refugees. We read of churches providing safe houses for slaves from the American South through the Underground Railroad in the mid 1800’s. The Protestant Pastor, Andre Trocme and his wife Magda in a little known French community of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon who offered sanctuary and shelter to over 3,000 Jews during World War II. In the United States, there were “Cities of Refuge” providing sanctuary for refugees escaping violent conflicts in Central America in the 1980’s. 

Today the word “refugee” has a deeper nuance, associated with legal status and migration regimes of nation-states, with millions of people living in encampments, detention centers, and internally displaced peoples in their home countries (e.g. the Rohingyas of Burma/Myanmar). 

Global inequality, national borders and international conventions by and large create today’s refugees. Hannah Arendt in “We Refugees” published in January 1943 speaks to the experience of refugees and stateless persons in Europe during  the Second World War. In her work on The Origins of Totalitarianism she describes the experience of refugees as “homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth” (Arendt, 1973)

Seeking refuge or asylum is a basic human right guaranteed by International Law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the UN Refugee Convention (1951). There is a growing consensus that the definition of refugee in these documents no longer reflects the realities of contemporary forced migration and displacement. Refugees are not just people who face persecution, but also victims of armed conflict, climate change, economic necessity and unjust border regimes. 

Nation-states today have an arsenal of strategies and tactics to deny entry to refugees. Surveillance technologies allow them to prevent refugees from reaching their borders. In May 2009, Somali and Eritrean nationals from Libya were intercepted and prevented by Italian authorities to reach Italy. They were then turned back to Tripoli. Pushing back refugees has become a feature of many EU external borders located on major migration routes (Amnesty International, 2015, para. 16)

As of April 2020,  when this blog was written, Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Algerians continued to move towards Turkey’s borders with Europe.  Greece had suspended new asylum applications for a month as a deterrent even as the  UNHCR argued  that  Greece had no legal basis for doing so. Meanwhile health experts warned  that as the pandemic spreads, refugees are particularly vulnerable. The words of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda speaks to the situation of refugees: Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrá detener la primavera. They can cut all the flowers, but they cannot stop Spring.


Postscript: The Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University invite everyone to an online conversation on Ethics, Religion and Refugees on May 19, 2020 from 12:00-1:30 pm and book launch of Humanity in Crisis: Ethical and Religious Response to Refugees by Rev. David Hollenbach S.J.

https://keough.nd.edu/event/humanity-in crisis/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Keough%20School%20of%20Global%20Affairs%2C%20Washington%20Office&utm_campaign=Washington


Rafael Vallejo started his theological career at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and San Francisco Theological Seminary and from there continued on with a Master in Theological Studies from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Divinity at the University of Toronto. From 2011-2016, he travelled extensively and studied with indigenous communities in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina as part of his PhD dissertation (2018) on “Faith Perspectives of Mexican Migrant Farm Workers in Canada”. He serves as affiliate faculty at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

Rafael is also part of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and his pieces focus on the experience of refugees and mission. 

Ad Astra Per Aspera – To the Stars Through Difficulties (the Kansas state motto): a portrait of rural ministry

by Catherine Neelly Burton

I am not a native Kansan, but after nearly 10 years here I claim it as home. Coming from the Southeast it took a few years for me to appreciate the beauty of open space. Now I treasure drives through the Flint Hills where the tallgrass goes forever. When my family drives west for Colorado vacations, I far prefer the southern route through small towns and farmland to the quicker (but boring) drive on I-70 across northern Kansas.

While it took time for the geography to grow on me, I was drawn to the people immediately. Kansans are good people. Sure, that’s a generalization, but it proves true time and again.

I serve as the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita. Wichita is a city of about half a million people and Grace a church of about three hundred and fifty. Most of Kansas is rural, and many in the congregation I serve have roots in farms throughout the Midwest. If they did not grow up on farms, there’s a good chance that their parents did. No matter how many advanced degrees they have, or office jobs, or fancy titles, the Midwest farm spirit is part of them. In church life, this plays out as a lack of pretension and a willingness to do most anything to help.

Wichita is in the Presbytery of Southern Kansas, which stretches for four hundred miles, east to west. There are no installed Teaching Elders/Pastors in the western 175 miles of our presbytery. This does not mean there is no leadership, but it looks different than it does in the church I serve.

One of those churches in Western Kansas will likely call a pastor in the next year. There are a few Commissioned Ruling Elders (CRE’s), and a few ordained Teaching Elders who serve in different capacities. Then there are the church members, whose leadership makes all the difference.

I moved to Kansas from Atlanta where, when a PCUSA church closed, while sad, it often meant financial gain and opportunity for the presbytery. If the building was somewhat maintained it could be sold and the money could start new ministries. That doesn’t happen in places where the towns are dying too. The reality in many of these small towns in Kansas isn’t just dying churches, it’s communities with maybe one physician, and a thirty to forty-minute drive for groceries.

I sometimes tell colleagues that I live in the future of the PCUSA, which is to say that the greater church needs to pay attention now to what’s happening in rural America. Conversations at the national church level about bi-vocational ministry, adjusted Board of Pensions rates with Pathways to Renewal, and even encouragement for clergy to go rural are important, but they don’t fit out here. Out here those conversations needed to happen twenty to thirty years ago.

A church with 30 members in a town of 400 people will never install a full-time pastor again, and I can’t imagine anyone moving to rural Kansas for a quarter time call. Still, that church created a food pantry to feed their neighbors, and they send children in their town to camp each summer. Churches like this need a different conversation, and they can be leaders in it.

Churches in southern Kansas have recreated themselves to be the church in their communities, and I want to tell you their stories. Each month I’ll visit (Covid-19 allowing) a different church and highlight the ways they are very much alive and active. I look forward to you joining me.


Catherine Neelly Burton serves as the pastor of what is most easily categorized as a ‘traditional’ PCUSA congregation, even though that era is gone. She serves at Grace Presbyterian in Wichita, KS. Grace has about 350 members and is an amazing congregation with wonderful people. She is married to John, and they have a four year old daughter and a nine year old dog.

Catherine is also a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and her writing focuses on rural ministry in Kansas. 

I’m an Asian-American pastor in a Black immigrant church in Queens, NY, sick with COVID-19 and family working in healthcare. Here’s what that’s like.

by Chris Dela Cruz

The ritual starts in the garage.

Sometimes it begins with my mother, an ICU nurse, spending a few minutes doing breathing exercises and collecting herself from a near panic attack. Other times, she just wipes the sweat off her palms. Either way, it then leads to my father, an ER nurse, watching at the door, wearing a mask and waving his gloved hand, as my mother walks to her car for the nightshift.

Both my parents came to America in their early 20s, when the country in the 1980s turned to Filipino immigrants during a mass nurse shortage. Now, naturalized citizens like my parents are once again serving America in a time of need. I wonder if, dealing with racism their entire lives and now witnessing Asian-American racism spread across the country, they feel bitter about a country they’ve given their lives to turning on them again and again. I feel bitter, but that feels self-indulgent.

My dad was able to retire at the beginning of this month, because of a heart condition that made him too vulnerable to work. That doesn’t make the garage ritual any easier. 

My mom knows she’s heading into a hellish crisis zone of overcrowded hospital rooms echoing with the sound of ventilators and the crushing rhythm of beeps and alarms – a place where my mom told me she “has gotten used to wrapping bodies.” 

My dad knows this is probably the closest they physically allow themselves to be. They have to sleep in different beds and spend most of the days they have together in different rooms so my dad doesn’t get infected.

The ritual ends with the car driving off, my dad lingering at the door just a little too long.

. . .

I have my own ritual, but it’s much shorter. Whenever my cell phone vibrates, I stop and take a breath.

I’m mostly worried about a phone call informing me one of my immediate family members has it.  In addition to my parents, my brother and sister-in-law both work in hospitals.

There have been a few times I’m actually yearning for the buzz, mainly waiting for more help from my doctor. At the end of March I was diagnosed with presumed-COVID-19 – presumed because in NYC if you don’t have serious symptoms you’re told it’s less risky to just stay inside than to get a test, and presumed because my chest tightness, body aches, and breathing discomfort made it obvious I have it. As of this writing, April 30, I am still experiencing symptoms. I suppose taking ritualized breaths is required for me to get better.

Other times, I have to take some breaths before picking up my phone not because of the call, but because I was just trying to help one young child do her math schoolwork remotely as my other child does somersaults off our couch again. Wait, did he finish his preschool Science video on the iPad yet? When do we get to play Netflix kids shows for hours? My wife and I exchange sighs throughout the day.

I experience pretty much every human feeling as I pick up the phone for congregants. I am the Associate Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, a diverse black congregation with over 30 nations represented and residing in one of the epicenters of the epicenters of this pandemic.

As with many other black and brown communities in the country, our neighborhoods are feeling the crushing weight of systems that had already been stacked against them prior to the crisis. Here we have a disproportionate amount of essential workers – healthcare workers, government workers, home health aides, grocers. (A quick shoutout, by the way, to the mom and pop stores off Jamaica Avenue waiting anxiously for PPP funds as Shake Shack received its now-returned bailout.)

And so there are the deluge of calls about someone being sick. Everybody in our community knows somebody. Over the phone, I’ve heard about a daughter who has not been able to hear from her elderly mother in a nursing home for months. I’ve listened to multiple people with family members that were starting to get better, but then died a few days later. I talked to a husband who had COVID-19 but stayed home while his wife, critically sick, was shuffled between hospitals and a makeshift center, cherishing the few Facetime calls he was able to have with her. 

I’ve learned about people dying though many different platforms: across Zoom, over text, in emails.

I would feel irresponsible if the only impression you got of our community was death and despair. We have a care team, officially and unofficially, that spend hours a week calling other church members to make sure they are alright. We have dedicated volunteers, decked out with face masks and gloves, who still come out for weekly food pantry and soup kitchen. I can’t tell you how many texts, calls and messages I alone have received from community members supporting me in my illness.

I am so proud of our church, and of our head pastor, Rev. Patrick O’Connor, for working with New York State and Community Healthcare Network to host a walkable COVID-19 testing site, the first in the city. Many folks in our neighborhoods rely much more on public transit and walkable communities than others.

Our church and the community we live in have always come together, have always risen above and not allowed ourselves to be defined by our circumstances; I wouldn’t expect now to be any different.

. . . 

I suppose as a pastor this is the point where I should make some grand statement about God and providence and salvation, or something. To be honest, though, I have had almost no time to reflect. I’m too in-the-moment and too wired in crisis-brain to have any profound, theologically-robust insight.

Mostly, I just have one more ritual to share with you. On days when I can, I wake up early, close my eyes, and then just sit with God. In silence. 

Just a little too long.


Photo credit: Cliff Mason

Rev. Chris Dela Cruz is the Associate Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, a diverse, immigrant Queens, NYC congregation with over 30+ nations represented. His role includes building a co-working space for young adult entrepreneurs, coordinating kids and family ministries, and helping in community organizing efforts. He has written for Next Church, Presbyterian Outlook, and other outlets. Prior to being an ordained pastor, he was a journalist for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

Chris is a member of the NEXT Church blogging cohort and writes about the intersection of faith, cultural trends, and American life.

Fighting Racism and Xenophobia in a Time of COVID19: We Overcome Together, Not Apart

by Shani McIlwain

My friend Candy is 20 something year old nail technician from Korea.  When we first met about a year ago, she thought I was a hair stylist because I would come in the middle of the day and she would ask “Are you off today?” I would reply, “No, I work for myself?”  She would respond, “Do you do hair?” To which I would reply, “No, ma’am, I did not get that gift. I write books and pray for people.” This exact conversation would repeat itself at least 3 or 4 times over the next few visits. And, then one day, unexpectedly Candy asked me what were my books about, and I shared my story, my faith journey, I won’t bore you with the details here, because this blog really isn’t about me, but it’s about relationships and community. But what happened that day as I shared the Good News was scripture coming alive.  First chapter of John in The Message translation says, “and the word moved throughout the neighborhood.” That is exactly what happened at Sky Nails and Spa that brisk fall afternoon. And that is the day Candy became part of my community.  

If we take a quick stroll down history, the Spanish Flu is said to have originated in Kansas not Spain, Ebola doesn’t even come from the Ebola River. Yet, in 2020 we are still having debates of how to classify and name global diseases.  Calling COVID-19 the “Chinese flu” is hateful and wrong for so many reasons. Many health organizations have openly admitted that naming a disease or virus after a country or region in the past was not good. Diseases are now supposed to be named after their symptoms, characteristics, and the cause of the disease if known. COVID-19 (coronavirus discovered in 2019).  I refuse to argue with people who want to debate in ignorance with, “Well, it did come from China!”

Edward Cho, newly named president of Bread for the World, condemned the President’s remarks, Mr. President: This is not acceptable,” he wrote in his tweet. “Calling it the ‘Chinese virus’ only instigates blame, racism, and hatred against Asians — here and abroad. We need leadership that speaks clearly against racism; Leadership that brings the nation and world together. Not further divides.”

To date, there have been over 1,000 xenophobia related hate crimes against our Asian sisters and brothers. I watched a video of a woman on the bus being told violently to go back to China. I thought, that is someone’s mother, grandmother, friend, spouse. We must do better. We must hold our friends facing these acts of inhumanity in light. We must be better allies. There are times when we have shown up mightily and united in the face of adversity. We can do that again.  We are in uncertain times and the aftermath will last for years to come.   

I texted Candy the day I watched the video. I wanted to know how she was doing. She said they closed her job indefinitely in light of the slow business. This was before it was mandated to close.  I offered her prayer and told her I will be to see her as soon as the stay at home order was lifted. We will get through this pandemic – together, not apart. We will overcome together, not apart.  As we head into Holy Week navigating through a new normal for our churches, I think about how Jesus entered into a city that would crucify him days later. I think about His ultimate sacrifice, and how He came to set captives free, and to love unconditionally. He came to teach us how to live. And, how through the saving grace of Jesus we can extend that same grace to each other. Together, we will be better.


Shani McIlwain serves as a member of the NEXT Church Strategy Team. She is also a 5x bestselling author, radio show host, speaker, executive coach, She is a ruling elder at Faith Presbyterian Church where she has served for over 10 years leading various ministries and committees. She serves NCP as well as a Young Adult Volunteer board member, Spiritual Formation team, and CPM.

The Christian Response to Coronavirus isn’t “Keep Calm and Jesus On.” It should be “Let’s Love Our Neighbors, Together (Even If From a Distance!)”

by Rev. Chris Dela Cruz

There’s an impulse among Christian circles to respond to the Coronavirus with platitudes like, “We’ll get through it, God is in control.” “Don’t fear or panic, trust in God.” “Have faith and hope that God will provide.” “We just have to pray.”

I do not necessarily disagree. In fact, I resonated with a timely and poignant tweet from @Becky_Zartman, who writes:

“I keep thinking about how Julian of Norwich was a child of the Black Death, being 8 when it swept through Norwich. She also survived the Peasants Revolt and the Lollard persecutions. 

And yet. 

‘All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.’”

But this tweet is grounded in real experience from a Christian saint that takes into account the gravity of the situation and a deep Blessed Assurance rooted in real suffering.

In contrast, in the face of a global pandemic that could infect thousands of vulnerable populations and overwhelm our nation’s hospitals to deadly proportions and has already caused mass uncertainty and upheaval to our lives, “Keep Calm and Jesus On” Christianity bears no witness to Christ. It rings as hollow as someone in a burning building screaming for help being met with a passersby retorting, “Well, don’t you believe in God? Shouldn’t you be more at peace?”

“It is Well with My Soul” – a hymn written amid unspeakable tragedy, turns into “Everything Will Turn Out Fine, Since It’s Been Fine So Far – For Me Anyway.”

In some senses, I don’t think this “Christian attitude” has much to do with Christian theology at all. A week before the mass sports and entertainment cancellations that have rattled Americans, a grocery store clerk looking at the massive lines of overstocked carts (and, admittedly, my own heap of canned beans and frozen goods) sneered at people he claimed were being driven “hysterical” and said he wasn’t going to “overreact” because even if it got to mass infection and massive lockdowns, things would work out fine and “they would never let it get that bad.” “They” being a vague conglomerate of government institutions or relief workers or somebody that was going to take care of things so it turned out ok.

He gave no indication of Christian belief or even any vague spirituality guiding him. But his sentiment was rooted in the same faith that things will just be okay because they just will, so help me God, or so help me “They.”

“Keep Calm and Jesus On” isn’t a “peace that passes all understanding.” It is a false faith born out of our idolatry of American exceptionalism that posits that nothing that bad, especially not massive death and hospitals running out of life-saving supplies, can happen in America. It is a false faith rooted in reckless positive thinking that, while at its best has some psychological coping merit, at its worst prevents people from actually being in touch with their emotions – including, yes, fear! – and accepting and therefore responding to the actual situation at hand.

And most tragically, it is a false faith that places the emphasis on self-survival and self-comfort and away from the mandate every Christian says they believe in, which is to “love your neighbor.”

What if “trusting in God” truly meant: let’s assess realistically what is happening around us and call it for what it is – probably really, really, really bad – and then say, okay, but what can we do to still love others? This seems much more in line with the Biblical prophetic naysayers like Jeremiah and Isaiah, anyway, doesn’t it?

What if Christians saw actions like social distancing and canceled large gatherings not as inconveniences for our individual personal survival but as collective loving of our neighbors together – even while apart? Part of the problem of modern American Christianity is that we have so bought into the myth of hyper-individualism that we don’t understand working as a collective or serving in solidarity as part of faith, ironic considering the literal collective-solidarity images like the body of Christ with many members or many branches rooted in the one vine of Christ.  Rev. Esau McCaulley’s plea for Christians to “Stay home” (www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/opinion/coronavirus-church-close.html) makes sense when faith isn’t just about our individual relationships with God but our believing that God truly is working through all things, including you, Christians, acting out of love for all other human beings made in the image of God.

What if it was okay to acknowledge our own fear – and then work off that acceptance to call and comfort those I know who must be feeling fear and lonely themselves?

In other words, Christians need to really, well, believe, but understand what faith really looks like. Yes I do have faith! That’s why I believe that if this virus could affect people quickly, and I have any power to make sure that our doctors and nurses don’t get overloaded and then have to make awful life or death decisions about which patients get to have the limited ventilator (like has already occurred in places like Italy), then my faith is that God can use me and can use others for this, if we work together.

Forget the false hope of our hallow certainty. There is true peace life a river – all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well! – when we decide that despite the despair around us, Jesus followers choose to live out our call to love, even in ways that look differently than we’ve ever done them, and let God’s call to love be our guide in responding to the time we find ourselves in.


Rev. Chris Dela Cruz is the Associate Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica in New York City. He also serves on the NEXT Church Strategy Team.

Choirs and Serpents and Doves

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jess Cook and Jan Edmiston are curating a series that will explore the hidden gifts of failure. How does failure help us grow? How does it help us be more authentic with one another? How does it help us to be creative and brave in our ministries and our lives? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

by Rev. Carlton David Johnson

An emergency Friday evening meeting at the church troubled my parent’s hearts. The mandatory gathering gave me heartburn. It was Friday night, the weekend of my 28th birthday, and there were parties to go to.

The pastor who was also a chaplain for the United States Army, had been deployed to Operation Desert Storm. He would be leaving in less than a week and there were leadership appointments needed in his absence.

It was the first time the pastor was going to be away and he picked a woman, a brilliant young DMin student to lead a Baptist congregation that had never had a female minister. The congregation was immediately at war.

There was one thing they agreed on; I would be leading the music ministry. I was their musical Boy Wonder whose gifts they had nurtured for over 20 years. There was the chance, I thought, that I could fix this problem over the next few weeks by producing soothing melodies from our stellar choir. After all, these same impressive salves had eased the pain in smaller past upheavals.

It was not to be so. And the shipwreck would be my fault.

I came to the task with years…ok decades…of pinned up awareness of problems within our church. The small church had produced award winning musicians and singers. The choir was replete with prima donnas and divas. Over half of them belonged to the same (very talented) family. The most talented was my closest friend.

In the past, she helped me with matters within our church and in other ministries where I served. Surely, she would continue giving unbiased feedback…right? No.

In our haste, I managed to offend her and her entire family within a week. The ugliness grew from a two-sided war to a battle royal. As an example, since our church followed the older tradition of deacons leading “Devotion”, a half hour of prayer and long-metered hymns at the start of worship, choir members routinely arrived after the official start time of worship to avoid participating. For many, the tradition was dated and needed to be discontinued. The solution would have included reducing the time of the deacon’s devotion as well as challenging choir members to be in the choir loft at the start of worship. But remember these folks were all related and even those outside of family bonds had known each other for decades. Oh, did I tell you that the leader of the pack was my best friend’s mother who also acted as something of a second mother to me? Yeah, that part.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was a request from the (temporary) pastor that the newly formed teen choir be assigned a Sunday each month to participate in worship. Sounded simple enough. Unfortunately, my bestie had identified the teen choir as a “group” (rather than a choir) that she was developing for the big stage, not Sunday morning services. And she was not budging. Neither was the temporary pastor.

Thankfully, word came that the pastor would be back within two weeks.

My final two Sundays were marked with an almost empty choir loft. I was humble enough (humiliated enough?) to contact my bestie and her mother to let them know that I was conceding “informal leadership” to them for the rest of our pastor’s absence and I would remain available to them. An important relationship was restored.

Upon his return, the pastor immediately contacted me to apologize for leaving me with “such a mess”. I also apologized for my haste. He guided me to the writer of Matthew’s counsel that would stay with me for the rest of my work in music ministry and even now in leadership in the larger church. That advice is to always “be as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove” (Matthew 10:16). I left that experience understanding “spirit-led worship”. The ultimate goal is not a splendid experience, but God’s glory. It was a lesson in the efficacy of prayer and patience.


Carlton David Johnson is an associate minister at the First Afrikan Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, GA where he leads the Ujima Men’s Fellowship, Kijana Boys Rites of Passage, Fawohodie Ministry to the Incarcerated and their families and serves in music ministry. He is a board member of the First Afrikan Presbyterian Church Community Development Corporation, the Presbyterian Pastoral Care Network and NEXT CHURCH (Strategic Planning Team). He is a regular contributor to the Presbyterian Outlook monthly magazine. Carlton recently began serving as the Associate for Vital Congregations for the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA). Carlton and his wife Cara split their time between Atlanta, GA and Louisville, KY

Stuck in the Snow and Rescued by Unexpected Angel

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jess Cook and Jan Edmiston are curating a series that will explore the hidden gifts of failure. How does failure help us grow? How does it help us be more authentic with one another? How does it help us to be creative and brave in our ministries and our lives? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

by Rev. Lane Brubaker

Every Saturday evening I lead worship at Hagar’s Community Church, a new worshipping community planted inside the Washington Correction Center for Women (WCCW)- which is the largest women’s prison in the state of Washington and the only women’s prison with Maximum and Medium custody. The mission of Hagar’s Community Church is to be a Sanctuary for God’s Beloved Exiles at the WCCW and to proclaim the Gospel truth that God indeed loves, without measure, every individual incarcerated at the WCCW.  I love my congregation and feel privileged every Saturday to have the honor of serving this congregation.  

Most Sunday mornings I am itinerating around the state of Washington preaching and teaching at churches throughout our Presbytery and beyond about what God is up to in the walls of a prison. I’m out and about doing this work to share all of the inspirational stories from Hagar’s Community Church. I’m also out and about securing missional and financial partners who will support this new worshipping community. The reality is, because of its context Hagar’s Community Church will never be able to sustain itself the way a typical congregation does. Not only do my congregants make $.42 an hour, but it is also illegal for them to fund a prison program. Therefore, finding long term missional partners is key to our sustainability. It has been a joyful experience to witness all the people and congregations coming together to support Hagar’s Community Church.  

Because I’m so excited to find more missional partners for Hagar’s Community Church (and because I often think I can make it through anything) I had a critical lapse in judgement a couple weeks ago. A piece of background information about me- I grew up in Cleveland, TN (where it never snows) and I spent the last 8 years of my life in New Orleans (which is both flat and never has any snow). So moving to Washington State has brought me to a new place with vast mountains and weather patterns to which I am not accustomed.  

A Church in our Presbytery asked me to preach and talk about Hagar’s Community Church on a Sunday in January. This church is on Mount Rainer, but I didn’t think about how elevation changes things. I scheduled it, and . . . I thought nothing of it. The week I was scheduled to preach there were rumors of snow . . .  Again, I assumed it would be fine. The night before I looked at my weather app and saw snow . . . and of course, assumed I could get through it. I decided to give myself extra time, but saw no reason to cancel.  

I woke up early that Sunday morning, I plugged in the address is my GPS.  I headed on my way listening to my favorite podcast: Armchair Expert. Everything was fine for the majority of the trip- no problem . . . 

Then I was about 30 miles away . . . and I noticed it was snowing . . . and the snow was sticking to the roads.  

I started driving more carefully.  

I’m about 20 miles away . . . I make the turn my GPS suggests and start climbing up . . .

 I drive a mile or so . . .

The snow is getting deeper, deeper, deeper.  

I begin wondering “How I’m going to make it through this?”

For some reason I keep going . . . thinking “I made it this far, I can’t turn back now!  

Beginning to worry, I think “maybe I should have asked what the best route was to this church”

And then . . . 

My car was no longer moving forward.  I. was. stuck. 

I was stuck on a country snowy mountain road . . . I felt as alone as I have ever been. Suddenly visions from the movie Into the Wild came flashing into my mind: dying, stranded by myself . . . I turned to my phone and of course, I had no signal to make a phone call . . .

I realized in that moment, I was completely unprepared. I was not wearing clothes for a hike in the snow, I didn’t have shovel to dig myself out, and I had no way of contacting anyone for help.  

Panic. Set. In.   

What felt like a lifetime passed by . . . 

In reality it was more like 5 min – when I saw a large pickup truck towing snow mobiles climbing the road. I got out of the car and signaled that I needed help, as they got closer I saw multiple Trump 2020 stickers . . .

I began to panic again.  

But to my relief, two extremely polite men jumped out of the car and immediately knew what to do. They didn’t ask questions (like what possessed you to drive on this road?) they just helped me get my car unstuck, turned around, and gave me direction to get me safely back home.  

I thanked God for them every minute of the drive home.  

This was a morning of many failures. I never made it to the church where I was scheduled to preach. Luckily, they had a backup plan due to the poor weather conditions. I failed to know my own limits. I had fooled myself into thinking if I set my mind to something I could accomplish the task at hand. But in reality I have had no life experience to help me navigate these roads in the snow. And though I work in a prison and make it my task every week to offer grace, and love to all people no matter what is in their background, I made assumptions about the angels who rescued me because of a political sticker.  

Thank God I am not still sitting on the side of Mount Rainer in the snow, thank God for the angels sent to teach me about the log in my own eye, and thank God that I’m able to learn the lessons from a failed Sunday morning. 


Rev Lane Brubaker is the pastor of Hagar’s Community Church a 1001 New Worshipping Community planted inside the WCCW. Before moving to Washington Lane lived in New Orleans where she served as the YAV site coordinator and co founded The Okra with her husband Rev Crawford Brubaker.