Every Sunday, we’ll be posting articles and links that are saying something important about church, culture, and mission. Here’s what resonated with us this week on the web:

Church & Theology

Beau Crosetto coninues his "4 Hour Campus Plant" series featuring a video a reflection on prayer walking:

They studied Acts 17 and talked about Paul in Athens and how he saw and responded to idols. Then they went on a prayer walk.

The lesson they learned in planting was all about the power of a prayer walk in a secular place.

Scot McKnight posts his prayer for the week:

Keep, O Lord,

Your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love,

That through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness,

And minister your justice with compassion;

For the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ,

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

Scot McKnight also shares Pope Francis's recent words on the danger of ideological Christianity:

In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought.

News & Views

Austin Channing Brown addresses the events in #McKinney to show what it's like to be a Black girl in America:

I need you to know that she is fully human. I need you to know that she is a full person who exists outside this one moment and also felt every yank, tug, pull, press of what you watch. I need you to know that this is not "just another" anything. This is a moment in this girls life forever. She slept in her bed this weekend, and ate breakfast prepared by her momma, and received phone calls from her girlfriends, and is right now trying to make sense of how her body, mind, emotions and spirit will carry on in the world. She is human. 

Sarah Bessey urges us to consider Dajerria Becton and #sayhername:

Her name is DaJerria Becton. 

She is just fourteen years old, someone’s child, yes, but she is her own person, made in the image of God. And she was brutalized, terrified. No matter what lead up to that moment, this was deeply engrained racially-motivated and sexualized violence. That man’s instinct was to throw her by her braids, a slender teenager in a bikini, to scream, to point a gun, to put the full weight of a culture that believes she is a danger because of her skin and disposable because of her sex right into her back.

David Fitch weighs in on the recent announcement by Tony Campolo in support of full LGBTQ inclusion in the church:

In my opinion, this all makes sense. It is immensely damaging to be rejected and excluded based on pre-judgments of people who don’t know you, especially when it regards sexual issues. The church needs to change its posture. In addition, it makes sense that there would be genuine love and fruit in alternative sexual relationships. The way I have put this elsewhere, at the very least, many alternative sexualities (and I’m talking the full gamut of LGBTQ) are rejecting the gender binaries/ stereotypes that are prevalent in our culture that objectify ‘perfect’ bodies, misogynize women, turn relationships into contractual arrangements and create distance between genders.

Favorite Podcasts

Jim Brownson on the Seminary Dropout Podcast.

Josh Cobia (Caitlyn Jenner's former pastor) on the Newsworthy With Norsworthy Podcast.

Ian Diorio on the Sermonsmith Podcast.

David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw on the Theology On Mission Podcast.

On The Missio Blog

On the blog this week, we continued our Ordinary Time series with a diverse selection of posts:

Payment Or Forgiveness? Putting The Gospel Back Into The Atonement, by William Walker.

The Church Is In Post-Christian Exile – But Should We Really Respond Like It’s A War? by Karina Kreminski.

Dajerria Becton, #McKinney, And Working Toward A Theology Of Justice, by Ruthie Johnson.