#1

The Third Wave is Breaking Healthcare Workers

Let me add my voice to the great multitude thanking our healthcare workers. They always stand guard over our health but in the past eight months it has gone to a new widespread level. Each night there is a group who gathers to pray. [BTW…it’s a zoom call and you are welcome to join! Shoot me an email at jtoddnelson@gmail.com and I’ll share the link] We regularly pray for strength for all of our frontline workers whether they be in squad cars, firehouses, or our hospitals. And I believe that these days it may be even more pressing to pray.

#2

Think Like a Futurist to Be Prepared for the Totally Unexpected

There is much talk about what the future will hold when the pandemic is over. This piece, which is a few years old, is a good reminder that predicting the future is not helpful. In fact, true futurists consider future-predictors as ‘amateurs’. The professionals have a different take on their role. It is not predicting the future but noticing the present and how it is different from the past that is most helpful. How to do that? Being open to facts, listening closely to those around you, watching for trends, and most of all being flexible are all good habits that may very well lead us to be on the forefront of whatever changes may be taking place.

#3

And now the prophetic task is not blueprint or program or even advocacy. It is the elusiveness of possibility out beyond evidence, an act of imagination that authorizes the listening assembly to imagine even out beyond the ken of the speaker.

Reality, Grief, and Hope by Walter Brueggemann

I warned you about more Brueggemann!

Elusiveness of possibility out beyond evidence.

That is the work of the prophet and I would say it is the role of the church. Each week when we meet in person or virtually, it is staking a flag that we believe there is a God and a way of living that leads to life. I often say that where the presence of God is all things are possible. How timely that message is right now. But when I think about it…it is never untimely!