Practicing Gratitude as Healing

Contributor: G. Jeffrey MacDonald

Jeffrey MacDonald is an award-winning journalist and the author of Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul. He also is the pastor of First Parish Church of Newbury, U.C.C. in Newbury, Massachusetts. The BTS Center awarded Jeff a 2016 Innovation Incubator Compass Grant to support his research on vitality in churches with part-time clergy.

Practicing Gratitude as Healing

How do people who’ve been robbed of so much ever come to feel grateful for anything again?

G. Jeffrey MacDonald (Heart of Ministry | February 2019, November 2017). Posted in 21stCenturyCulture, From Our Archives, Gratitude.

As a rare breed of news reporter with divinity school training, I sometimes feel like I own the tragic violence beat. Editors send me in just as the TV news trucks are pulling out after a horrific event. When eerie stillness looms and survivors are crying out to God or to the abyss in the wake of disaster, I wipe away my own tears and straighten my tie... Read more

Growing by Half

How Part-Time Pastoral Leadership Can Revitalize the Church

G. Jeffrey MacDonald (June 2017). Posted in 21stCenturyMinistry, Bearings Review 2017, ChurchChange, Incubator.

One year ago, I began studying a rare but important species that many church officials wrongly believe doesn’t exist: the mainline Protestant congregation that finds vitality after doing away with the full-time pastorate. To be sure, it wasn’t always the easiest species to find. Many congregations with shrinking attendance and budgets continue to struggle after... Read more

Announcements

As we shared in the November issue of Bearings, Elizabeth Drescher, friend and consulting scholar with The BTS Center from its earliest days, has recently put down her editor’s pen, wrapping up this project which has been her labor of love for the past five-plus years. We can’t let this moment pass without offering words of deep gratitude and praise for her skillful and spirited work as the primary steward of this publication, month after month, season after season. Read more …
With great joy, we are announcing the 15 recipients of Brave Change Planning Mini-Grants. Each of these $500 grants will help a community of faith or a faith-based organization to plan for a larger project, initiative, or transformation. We are excited about the array of projects, and we are grateful to partner with these faith communities and organizations by providing just a little bit of funding that may help to support and encourage their brave steps forward. Click here to view a brief description of the projects we are funding.
4/29/19 — The BTS Center Board of Trustees announces the selection of The Rev. Allen Ewing-Merrill as our new Executive Director, following a national search. He will begin his work with the Center on July 1, succeeding The Rev. Dr. Robert Grove-Markwood who will retire at the end of June. Read more …

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The BTS Center @TheBTSCenter·

10 Dec

The December issue of Bearings, the online magazine of The BTS Center, is our last. With this issue, we celebrate, we give thanks, we bid farewell, and we embrace the spiritual practice of letting go. #bearings #celebrate #farewell
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The BTS Center @TheBTSCenter·

8 Nov

Here's the November issue of Bearings, the online magazine of The BTS Center, focusing on the theme of Brave Change. This month, our contributors explore the role of uncertainty, risk, discovery, and faith in moving life in new and unexpected directions.

https://t.co/BISp6xgKOV

The BTS Center @TheBTSCenter·

11 Oct

Invitation to participate in a Book Study Group focusing on @JimAntal's #Climate #Church, Climate World: How People of #Faith Must Work for #Change. In-person group for people who live in #PortlandME and online group for anyone anywhere. Three sessions.
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