Bearings: Navigating Life-as-Ministry
December 2017

Claiming, Cultivating & Creating Sacred Space

A GUIDE FOR REFLECTION & CONVERSATION

Pamela Shellberg (). Posted in 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturySpirituality, Uncategorized.

Editors Note: Each month, Bearings contributors offer insights on a key theme in the practice of life-as-ministry. As the final installment in the issue, The BTS Center’s scholar-in-residence Pamela Shellberg, PhD reflects on the articles in the issue and poses questions for further reflection by Bearings readers and the communities in which life-as-ministry plays... Read more

Make a Place for Yourself in the Darkness

Paul Houston Blankenship (). Posted in 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturyReligion, 21stCenturySpirituality, Sacred Space.

It is dark. Rain falls soft and visible from beneath the streetlights. Heard faintly in the cacophony of the night is a homeless man yelling something into the air. Something indeterminate. Unsettling. Avoidingly, nervously, people walk past. Through the glass windows of a Mexican restaurant, I am waiting for him to arrive. He comes in, late, carrying the... Read more

Where Can I Run To?

Creating Sacred Space as a Black Woman

Hazel Cherry (). Posted in 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturyMinistry, 21stCenturyReligion, 21stCenturySpirituality, Sacred Space.

The 1990s R&B girl group, Xscape, has a famous song entitled “Who Can I Run To?” The song discusses the complexity of whom to rely on when one needs love. I can relate. I entered my thirties this year full of hope, only to be hit with three significant losses in a six-month time span. I lost the love of my life, then my job, and then my father passed. It... Read more

How the Grinch Told Christmas

Or, Sacred Space is Where It Finds You

Mark Collins (). Posted in 21stCenturyCulture, 21stCenturyMinistry, 21stCenturySpirituality, Sacred Space, Uncategorized.

The end of the year is upon us. And end is where we shall start: this tale will end with poorly described travelogue of where to find your sacred space hidden in this year’s festivities, mostly through the process of elimination. Or maybe not. Actually you might want to stop reading now. I wouldn’t trust me if I were you. There is no narrative arc here, nor... Read more

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