Embers in the Campfire: Awakenings 2025 Day 3
"The American church is a little ember right now. We need a new spirit of ruah (Greek, meaning ‘breath’). We are embers in the ashes of a campfire. Embers will become a flame only if they are breathed into."
“The American church is a little ember right now. We need a new spirit of ruah (Greek, meaning ‘breath’). We are embers in the ashes of a campfire. Embers will become a flame only if they are breathed into.””
-Haejin Shim Fujimura (Lawyer, Justice Advocate) “Beauty and Justice: Missional Life”
In a continuation of the poetic spirit of the Rev. Dr. Willie James Jenning’s plenary on Friday night, Makoto Fujimura opened our final plenary keynote with this translation of Ephesians 3:20:
“We are God’s ‘poeima’ (poem), created in Christ Jesus to do ‘ergon’ (triathlete work).”
Usually within Biblical Greek, Makoto observed, ‘poema’ was translated craftsmanship or workmanship, offering a much different connotation. But in a few places, ‘poema’ is more accurately rendered in a trans-literal sense, meaning poem.
What does it mean to be a poet of the Word, to use our imagination and inhabit our dreams in a manner that the world sees as poetry?
And with this flourish, our final plenary keynote was off.
Later in his plenary address, Makoto Fujimura unpacked this theology of making further:
“A theology of making emphasizes somatic (embodied) knowledge. It is a theology of doing generative with our hands and body.” – Makoto Fujimura (Artist, Author, and Speaker)“Beauty and Justice: Missional Life”
In other words, we have the embodied agency and corresponding responsibility to imagine a different world, and then to create that world into existence through the use of our hands, as co-laborers, craftsmen and artists who bear the Image of God. Referencing Jeremiah 29, we are to become an agent of renewal within our cities, seeking to beautify and restore what is unjust within our midst.
Makoto’s wife Haejin Shim Fujimura then picked up this thread, speaking of the prophetic challenge before the American church in this heavy cultural moment: We are little embers, desperately in need of a fresh spirit of ‘ruah’ (breath) blown from deep within. It is only if we choose to give ourselves to this reality – to the need for a fresh ‘breaking open,’ our flawed humanity being made new, cracks and all, that the process of ‘Kintsugi’ will take place.
We as the American Church are broken pottery vessels, shattered into a thousand pieces. Will we continue hiding the fractures of the past and present moments? Or will we receive the opportunity – nay, the gift – from God to make something new?
Of this, we pray.
~Missio Alliance
Download ‘Awakening 2025 Day 3 (Saturday) PDF Notes’ | Missio Alliance here.
Editorial Note: How do you recap a profoundly deep and prophetically challenging biennial gathering such as Awakenings 2025? Without saying “Check out all the clips and images already on our social channels” (Do this!), the answer is, imperfectly yet with short reflections. Thus, the next few articles will contain a short reflection and key ideas and quotes from plenary speakers during each day of Awakenings 2025.
Several hundred of us gathered in the DC Metro area in early March to seek God, and begin to make sense of this cultural moment. God met us, as God always does, and we left transformed.
We hope these simple reflections spark your own transformation journey with Jesus as you continue to pursue wholeness and beauty in the life of the church alongside our team. ~CK
P.S. Pick up the Awakenings 2025 Conference Bundle, which includes video of all Main Sessions + audio of all Workshops, today!
