Postings from seminary faculty and other sources will appear at least weekly, says Mary Miller, director of the school’s Making Connections Initiative (MCI). She hopes readers will respond in a variety of ways that could include standard comments, sermon notes or poetry.
Current postings demonstrate the variety of items that will appear. The most recent is a prayer by John Weborg for Myanmar and China, comments on race, and an announcement about the hiring of the school’s new dean of faculty.
Miller also is seeking information from pastors on how they have used the Exploring Covenant Affirmations DVD and guidebook during the last year. They are encouraged to submit sermon outlines as well as stories of people’s responses.
The blog title comes from a series of tapes published in the 1960s by Dr. C.T. Vivien to bring Bible, pastoral theology and practical ministry classes to African American ministers who could not afford theological training.
The blog is another part of the Making Connections Initiative, which is funded through a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Miller says.
Text of John Weborg’s prayer:
Merciful God, Creator of all who inhabit the earth, you behold your image and likeness in each of us.
How grieved you must be, even angered, at the suffering your image-bearers in China and Myanmar now endure. While the devastation exceeds one’s imagination, the demand of it defies our comprehension.
Merciful God, awaken in those near and far an unquenchable compassion and an equal outrage wherever injustice permits your image bearers to suffer degradation. May the people who name the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, as their own be like him, emptying themselves for the sake of those who now, like Jesus, have nothing except death and loss.
We pray this through Jesus Christ, who has dominion with you, merciful God, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and always. Amen.
