Wednesday Festival

The world is full of suffering. This is as true this week as any other. And as happens every week pastors and preachers think and pray about how to respond to the truth of the world in which we live in ways that speak with prophetic honesty, grace and hope.

In the past week RevGals have been writing and thinking about what is happening in Ferguson and in other places in response to Michael Brown’s death.  Here at the RevGal Blog, Denise Anderson wrote powerfully in Friday’s ‘The Pastoral is Political’ feature: A Blues for Michael Brown.

Some RevGals have shared their preaching and reflecting:

• Kara preaches powerfully ‘in need of a course correction’.  She writes: “Following Jesus, it turns out, is not about an ideological commitment, and it is not a call to hold to certain principles and beliefs.  It is a call to join your life to the One who came for us all, the one who comes for real persons, who comes into our suffering and our brokenness, and especially we who long for life so deeply we will gladly take crumbs”. Do stop by her blog to read the rest.
• Josephine writes about the work of facing racism in our churches.
• Teri preaches about our questions about why bad things happen to good people, and the problem of thinking that bad things should or do happen to bad people: Bad Things, Good People: a sermon

Some RevGals have shared their praying:

• Julia lamented with us and for us: How Long O Lord?
• Diane shared her prayer as she prepared to preach:Saturday Night Trying to Figure Out What to Say and Martha prays for sleepless preachers. 
• Rachel writes, “How Now, White Church?”

Some RevGals have been talking about the work of parenting and caring for children in our communities:

• Joanna writes about the lessons she has not had to teach her white son.
• Julia talks about preparing her kindergartener for school, remembering her father’s own advice about the difference she would encounter as she started kindergarten.
• Jan writes about what it is like to know that the colour of your skin affects your safety and what that means for the children of our communities.

At her blog, Wil Gafney laments this summer of horror and prays: May the angry words of our mouths and the righteous rage in our hearts fuel the work of our hands and be acceptable in your sight O God of Justice. Amen.

If you have been writing or praying about Michael Brown and Ferguson, about Iraq, about Ebola, about the conflict in Gaza or about any of the other troubles of the world, please feel free to share a link in the comments below.

You might also like to join the #RallyRevGal blogging project, where we are writing about women who have inspired us in ministry.  You’ll find all the information you need right here: https://revgalblogpals.org/2014/08/18/rallyrevgals-blog-contest/