I’m going to tell a story I’ve alluded on here but not told with specificity. It’s about affection, rationalization, and the cost of integrity.
I used to work for Senator Lankford. Before he was a senator. He was my boss a long time. But more so he was my mentor and friend.+ Maybe the most influential person of my teens & twenties. I admired and respected and liked and loved him. And his wife. And their fam. Much of who I wanted to be as an adult, a family, a a minister came from our friendship. The most important thing he taught me was integrity. +

I’ve told this story on here before but I’m gonna keep telling it. Here’s why. Bc we HAVE GOT TO GET THIS:
Someone can be good to us and do bad things they need to be held accountable for. And deflecting from their actions to their relationship to us is destructive selfishness.+ When I was a hs kid my coach, my best adult friend, my confidant, my trusted and kind safe place from the terrible in a lot of my community

was a lying, manipulative, predatory abuser.

I thought I knew him. But I only knew what he wanted me to know. He was not who I thought.+

This is why all of this is so horrible & wrong. Bc nothing’ changed in SBC churches or polity/policy. Nothing but the revelation of massive abuse by men in positions of power and influence at every level and and in every sphere of the SBC. Priorities & hearts have been revealed.

https://twitter.com/kateshellnutt/status/1669044305904689158

To be clear- I mean the polity and praxis of women serving didn’t change. Just the shift of every bit of focus toward that while taking the smallest (tho important) first steps in addressing abuse. It is projection, at best. Straining gnats while camels and wolves are abundant.

I’m not going to say any more after this today bc I want all the focus on survivors and abuse.
But. It’s a surreal feeling that the people and institutions you have 40 years to don’t want you. I always knew that was true some at the individual level, I’ve experienced it. 1/ But I always believed in a big tent. I always believed there was room to disagree, to grow & change and still cooperate bc we do more together. Doing more together is so ingrained in me I was willing to colabor along side men who think their sisters should do less. 2/

You what shattered the final wall of the glass box around women in the Church for me?
A man who put his name on the work & words of a woman on his staff to walk through as a church through in a season of special pastoral leadership. It was a big deal. And she was erased. + It wasn’t her scholarship or spiritual maturity or gifts or ability to do the work that were the problem. Those we welcome and necessary. It was her embodied female name and face and voice. And. That is something. But it ain’t it.

Ok. I’ve been working through something this morning with a couple trusted advice-givers and in my own heart and I feel like it’s important for me to say here. CW: disability, abuse

We need to stop making brain trauma/neurological degeneration a punchline. Full stop. + The past few years I’ve been so frustrated, hurt & angry at people who should know better supporting a man who constantly dehumanizes other peoples and calling it pro-life. I’ve also laughed at a LOT of jokes about his mental capacity and possible personality disorders. Not ok. +

One reason I talk about chronic illness is because I think it helps illustrate a larger deficiency in how we see/care for each other- especially in the Church.
For example. I’m still lying in bed. And might be for a while. You see me on Twitter. So it may seem like laziness.+ What you don’t see is that I’m on Twitter bc I couldn’t sleep. I gave up around 5am, got out my massager, heating pad, & pain meds to try to get myself to a place where I CAN get up. Twitter is just helping pass the time and distract from the pain. +

Ok peeps. If tomorrow comes on this dumb bird app I will post a picture of my hair- brushed and with no product in it. My dad used to always tell me to brush my hair when I was a kid and it was wild bc I hadn’t discovered curly product yet. Sometimes, we tell people to do what we know/think is right. But. It isn’t.
If there’s one thing curly hair has taught me it’s epistemic humility. Here ya go:

I’ve been thinking about Micah 6:8. And especially what it means in its broader textual and historical context. Why does God say He requires these actions? What is it about these 3 things specifically- justice, mercy, humility? I think the answer is in the context. A short 🧵 1- Do justice (CEV)see that justice is done).Justice isn’t something that happens on its own. It is rare. And difficult. Costly. The context of these words is the rampant injustice of Micah’s day- especially in the immediate context of the following 20ish verses.+

Ok. First of all. I have kind friends on this dumb bird app. But I wanna say a couple things. Not for myself. I’m good. But I want you to hear these truths, precious people.
The other day I mentioned talking for hours with my BFF. She’s a physician.+ She’s a fellowship trained attending in the ED of a major pediatric teaching hospital. All day, every day she deals with people who are in her emergency room for no reason/to complain and with the worst traumas a family can experience. I hold her stories.+

So. Listen. I’ve been thinking about the baptism discourse and trying to put words around something so. Here is it.
1- growing up Baptist, one of the most important doctrines was priesthood of the believer. That every person has the same access to God. No mediator but Jesus. + So. If that’s the case, and if we believe baptism is a confessional sign of that priesthood, it is actual nonsense to an extra priestly caste of men who administer it. It’s just, very unbaptist. (same with communion imo)
Moreover, disqualify male members of the body is 1 thing. +

I’m glad Roe & Casey were overturned. I think they are bad law, for a lot of reasons. I just wish it wasn’t preceded by much of the “pro-life movement” & Church doubling down on racism, supporting a dishonest egomaniac abuser, denying & exacerbating a pandemic, & idolizing guns. And in the midst of dangerous, misogynistic state laws and movements that do not understand the nuances of medicine, conflating things that are not truly elective abortion with it and telling women their lives do not matter. After years of saying the same to the sick & old.

I know this is specific to the PCA. But it’s not specific to the PCA. Maybe there is more important stuff to sort out in our various church spaces than what gender minister can or can’t be called pastor or talk on a stage- like actual shepherding and safeguarding.

https://twitter.com/revalexford/status/1539627348043112449

Here’s the thing for me friends. I can see how my more comp friends land where they do from scripture. And the same with my egal friends. Which is probs why I land somewhere in the middle. There’s tension for me and I’m cool to agree to disagree- to a point.

A word about being focused on the Gospel:

We are so threatened by being face to face with the suffering of others (with or without complicity) that we push it out of our sight and end up hurting people who are already hurt even more by our unwillingness to see them.
+ What if we would stand there, in the uncomfortable, and say
“You tell me, you tell us, what is the way through this.
And I will do it, we will do it, even if its costly. Because you not being harmed, your healing and wholeness, is more than worth the cost to me, to us.”+

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I think I’ve figured out what bothered me so much about @JonathanLeeman interaction with @kkdumez & @bethallisonbarr. It’s that it felt familiar. It seemed polite and engaging. And I appreciate that he actually talked TO them. But. + A few times he essentially told them- here’s what you think, believe, intend, etc. Sometimes in direct contradiction to what they said. And it reminded me of a day I met a pastor (a stranger), who would ask me questions then interrupt to tell me what I tonight/believed/wanted. +

Influence a 🪡
I talked with a friend last night was a couple years ahead of me in school. When we met through a mutual friend I was still on high school, he was at OBU. He and their group of friends were so kind and inclusive to me. Treated me like an equal. And cared for me. + Later, when we were both at OBU, he was one of the smartest people on campus. Legit brilliant, studied philosophy & bib languages, now has multiple graduate degrees. But. If you didn’t just know he was the smartest person in most rooms, he sure wasn’t going to tell you. +

Can I talk to y’all for a minute about my church? #smalltownministry #ruralministry #covid19church

A thread/ We are not set up for online. We are barely set up for a Facebook page and email communication. We are still having services in our small, rural community where there is currently no known outbreak. But we are taking steps. By next week (maybe tomorrow) we’ll be streaming.

My dad texted me this today. Then we talked about it and some other things for a bit. But this isn’t about what some guys do/say about @BethMooreLPM, it’s about my dad- my first pastor and teacher.
A thread /1 When I was a little girl my dad told me I was smart and special and could be anything I wanted. I decided to drive the train at the zoo. Or be the Queen of England. Or the Pope.
Dad gently explained that my birth & life circumstances prevented the last two, unfortunately. /2