Ben Sternke

My kids started school online yesterday. They’ll be online at least until Labor Day. As this pandemic drags on, and our world seems to be coming unhinged, these words from Dame Julian of Norwich brought some comfort for me the other day (she talks often of Jesus as our “Mother,” FYI):

We make our humble complaint to our beloved Mother, and he sprinkles us with his precious blood, and makes our soul pliable and tender, and restores us to our full beauty in course of time… And then the true meaning of those lovely words will be made known to us, ‘It is all going to be all right. You will see for yourself that everything is going to be all right.’

Dame Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

The 24/7 news cycle compels us to stay constantly aware of the chaos of our world, but in the midst of this, I’m trying to follow Julian’s lead and keep bringing my “humble complaint” to Jesus, my “beloved Mother,” praying that the future all-rightness of the world will continue to manifest itself in the present, in my relationships and in our world.

Here are the curated links for this week. I pray they equip you to engage the world today in faith, hope, and love.

• We had a beautiful conversation with K.J. Ramsey about suffering and transformation on our podcast this week.
• I’m feeling this personally, and apparently it’s true across the board: We’ve Hit a Pandemic Wall: New data show that Americans are suffering from record levels of mental distress.
• So how to respond to this distress? N.T. Wright says the pandemic should make us humble—and relentlessly practical. (These are the helpful themes he talked with us about when we had him on the podcast.)
• Here’s why racism among white Christians is higher than among the nonreligious. (It’s not a coincidence.) This calls for repentance.
• Yesterday was the Feast of the Transfiguration and the anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Brian Zahnd wrote about that connection 5 years ago and it still hits home.
• Finally, my fellow Gravity co-founder (and co-pastor) Matt Tebbe preached a really helpful sermon on Jacob wrestling with God this past Sunday that I wanted to share with y’all: How God Deals With Sordid Pasts and Uncertain Futures.

That’s all for this week. In the midst of the darkness of our current moment, I pray you are able to perceive and behold the bright transfiguring beauty of our King, shining within creation today. I leave you with a Collect for the Transfiguration:

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Grace and peace,
Ben Sternke (for Gravity Leadership)

P.S. If you’d like to get these curated links in your email inbox each week, fill out the form below.

Happy Friday, y’all! I am writing to you fresh off two weeks of vacation! It was a rejuvenating time.

One of the major shifts that took place for me on this vacation was my mind got “unhooked” from social media. Before this vacation, with the pandemic and the protests, I was noticing that my mind would anxiously drift toward wanting to “check and see what’s happening right now” in an effort to figure out what to do and how to lead.

I was falling for a leadership fallacy I learned about from Edwin Friedman’s book A Failure of Nerve: believing that newer and better information would help me lead well in these times. (It doesn’t and won’t.)

Unhooking from the social media “drip” has been profoundly helpful for my ability to focus and actually lead the people I’m responsible to lead. I’m also thankful that, even after being back to work for a week, my mind has been able to stay unhooked from the anxiety, even though I’ve been a bit more engaged in “what’s happening out there” via social media.

Social media’s tricky, eh? If you didn’t get a chance to listen to it, check out this podcast Matt and I recorded about the complexities of navigating social media as a leader. And here are the curated links for this week:

• We’ve been releasing podcasts! Amy Brown Hughes on Amazing Ancient Christian WomenAmy Brown Hughes on Amazing Ancient Christian Women, Meeting God in Your Actual Life with Gem and Alan FadlingMeeting God in Your Actual Life with Gem and Alan Fadling, and Becoming an Ordinary Mystic with Franciscan Friar and Priest Albert Haase.
• The oft-linked-to Esau McCaulley has a good, just in time for back-to-school piece on how the coronavirus pandemic is forcing parents to weigh their kids’ safety against their need for freedom, which is a tension Black parents have been contending with for generations.
• Shannon Hopkins on how to lead when things are falling apart (a skill set we ALL need to learn ASAP).
• An interesting article on how historically pandemics, while they wreak havoc, also tend to lead to new creativity on the other side. (I’m praying for a renewal of vitality and creativity in the church in the midst of and on the other side of this pandemic.)
• This looks interesting: Seminary Now is a new, on-demand streaming video platform that delivers biblical, theological, and practical ministry training from a diverse group of leading educators and thought leaders.
• A 90-minute video that is well worth your time: Eddie Glaude in conversation with Cornel West about the prophetic challenge of James Baldwin to our present-day crisis.
• Our own Matt Tebbe and Michael Gonzalez have been having Uncomfortable Conversations About Racism: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 are available as videos on Facebook.

That’s all for this week. I leave you with a quote from 4th century church father Gregory of Nyssa:

One who has seen God has, in the act of seeing, gained all that is counted good: life without end, everlasting freedom from decay, undying happiness, a kingdom that has no end, lasting joy, true light, a voice to sing pleasantly in the spirit, unapproachable glory, perpetual rejoicing, in a word, the totality of blessing.

May you see God today, and in the act of seeing, gain all that is good.

Grace and peace,
Ben Sternke (for Gravity Leadership)

P.S. If you’d like to get these curated links in your email inbox each week, fill out the form below.

One day last week during Morning Prayer we read 2 Corinthians 4 together, and I was so encouraged, especially by verse 17, where the Apostle Paul is talking about how God is at work even in the midst of suffering and decay. He says:

“This slight and momentary trouble of ours is producing a weight of glory, passing and surpassing everything, lasting forever.”

Yes, death and destruction and pandemics and systemic racism are real, and we must face these realities head-on, but LIFE is also at work! Because of the resurrection of Jesus, death has already been defeated, and has, in the providence of God, been conscripted into the service of life!

So we can acknowledge the reality of suffering without losing hope, for while we continue to feel the grief of what we are losing in this pandemic (our normal “back to school” rituals at this time of year, for example), we know that a weighty glory is being produced through our tears. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is wasted. God gathers up every minute of our human experience, and conscripts it all into the production of glory, an ultimate goodness for us who love him.

Let’s not give in to despair or numbness in this season. Let’s continue to pray and contend and discern together how best to organize ourselves to be the church for each other and our neighbors, because this slight and momentary trouble of ours is producing a weight of glory, passing and surpassing everything, lasting forever.

And, of course, to that end, here are the curated links for this week:

• We continue our podcast series on spiritual formation by talking with Jim Wilder about how to cultivate a community of transformation by developing loving attachment to God together.
• The pandemic is increasing loneliness among us… and Ken Wytsma reminds us that Jesus experienced loneliness, too. “You are not alone. Christ knows your suffering and has overcome this world.”
• Chris Morton outlines 3 things churches must do to survive the pandemic.
• Mike Frost writes about the “friendlessness” of modern churches, and how it is contributing to the decline and death of churches in this pandemic.

That’s all for this week, [FIRST NAME GOES HERE]. I leave you with this prayer for parents of school-aged children, from David Taylor:

Oh Lord, you who promise to guide us through the wilderness and to protect us through the storm, we ask that you would make us wise where we cannot clearly see the way forward, make us brave where we feel afraid, make us strong in the face of our weakness, and make possible what to us seems impossible, so that we might joyfully entrust ourselves and our children into your tender care in these trying and troubling times. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Grace and peace,
Ben S [for Gravity Leadership]

P.S. If you’d like to get these curated links in your email inbox each week, fill out the form below.

Happy Friday, y’all!

A couple days ago we hosted a Learning Lab discussing some of the important leadership concepts from Edwin Friedman’s classic book A Failure of Nerve… We talked about self-differentiation, chronic anxiety, sabotage, emotional triangles, and non-anxious presence.

[Read more…] about Curated Links for June 26, 2020

Happy Juneteenth! Until a few years ago, I had no idea what Juneteenth was. Now some are calling for it to be a national holiday in the US. Juneteenth, also called “Freedom Day,” commemorates the reading of federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming all slaves in Texas were now free. Here’s an explainer for why the holiday is important today.

[Read more…] about Juneteenth: Curated Links for June 19, 2020

Happy Friday, friends!

It has been another remarkable week. Protests against racism and police brutality continue around the world, and there is a new groundswell of popular interest in and support for anti-racist efforts.

[Read more…] about Anti-racism: Curated Links for June 12, 2020