Will Willimon

Your job is not your vocation. Everyone hungers for work that has meaning and purpose. But what gives work meaning? Vocation, or “calling,” is the answer Protestant Christianity offers: each person is called by God to serve the common good in a particular line of work. Your vocation, evidently, might be almost anything: as a nurse, a wilderness guide, a calligrapher, a missionary, an activist, a venture capitalist, a politician, an executioner… Yet, as Will Willimon writes in this issue, the New Testament knows only one form of vocation: discipleship. And discipleship is far more likely to mean leaving father and mother, houses and land, than it is to mean embracing one’s identity as a fisherman or tax collector. This issue of Plough focuses on people who lived their lives with that sense of vocation. Such a life demands self-sacrifice and a willingness to recognize one’s own supposed strengths as weaknesses, as it did for the Canadian philosopher Jean Vanier. It involves a lifelong commitment to a flesh-and-blood church, as Coptic Archbishop Angaelos describes. It may even require a readiness to give up one’s life, as it did for Annalena Tonelli, an Italian humanitarian who pioneered the treatment of tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa. But as these stories also testify, it brings a gladness deeper than any self-chosen path. Also in this issue: - Scott Beauchamp on mercenaries - Nathan Schneider on cryptocurrencies - Stephanie Saldaña on Syrian refugee art - Peter Biles on loneliness at college - Phil Christman on Bible translation - Michael Brendan Dougherty on fatherhood - Insights on vocation from C. S. Lewis, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, Eberhard Arnold, Dorothy Sayers, Jean Vanier, and Gerard Manley Hopkins - poetry by Devon Balwit and Carl Sandburg - reviews of books by Robert Alter, Edwidge Danticat, Matthew D. Hockenos, Amy Waldman, and Jeremy Courtney - art and photography by Pola Rader, Dean Mitchell, Mark Freear, Timothy Jones, Pawel Filipczak, Mary Pal, Harley Manifold, Sami Lalu Jahola, Marc Chagall, and Russell Bain. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

As the western church faces challenges in declining membership and effectiveness due to religious disaffiliation and general discontent with organized religion, innovation must be a central focus within all aspects of ministry in the Christian church. With the focus that the local church must put on innovation, one aspect that will continually be an important factor is how the church understands, interprets, and utilizes failure. Yes, the church must fail However, the church must not simply fail for the sake of failure. The challenge for the local church is to rethink its notion of failure, which will allow for creativity, new life, and ultimately, transformational innovation. By establishing a proper framework and definition of failure, the church will be able to embrace good failure and the benefits it can offer.

As the western church faces challenges in declining membership and effectiveness due to religious disaffiliation and general discontent with organized religion, innovation must be a central focus within all aspects of ministry in the Christian church. With the focus that the local church must put on innovation, one aspect that will continually be an important factor is how the church understands, interprets, and utilizes failure. Yes, the church must fail However, the church must not simply fail for the sake of failure. The challenge for the local church is to rethink its notion of failure, which will allow for creativity, new life, and ultimately, transformational innovation. By establishing a proper framework and definition of failure, the church will be able to embrace good failure and the benefits it can offer.

Contemporary culture frequently defines freedom the way the Bible describes sin: complete autonomy. A Quid without Any Quo explores how the gospel sets us free for glad and joyful service. Not only is Paul's Letter to the Galatians perhaps the most consequential book of the New Testament for the Protestant Reformation, its radical and unyielding proclamation of grace apart from the law is once again timely in a culture that is often without mercy. In these reflections on Paul's explosive epistle, Jason Micheli shows how Protestants generally, but preachers especially, can recover a confident articulation of their original message. In addition, A Quid without Any Quo tackles challenging and relevant questions such as the nature of the Old Testament law, the relationship between works and faith, the meaning of justification by faith, how the gospel relates to issues of race, the character of Christian community, and the reality of the hope found in Jesus Christ.

Contemporary culture frequently defines freedom the way the Bible describes sin: complete autonomy. A Quid without Any Quo explores how the gospel sets us free for glad and joyful service. Not only is Paul's Letter to the Galatians perhaps the most consequential book of the New Testament for the Protestant Reformation, its radical and unyielding proclamation of grace apart from the law is once again timely in a culture that is often without mercy. In these reflections on Paul's explosive epistle, Jason Micheli shows how Protestants generally, but preachers especially, can recover a confident articulation of their original message. In addition, A Quid without Any Quo tackles challenging and relevant questions such as the nature of the Old Testament law, the relationship between works and faith, the meaning of justification by faith, how the gospel relates to issues of race, the character of Christian community, and the reality of the hope found in Jesus Christ.

The Sermon on the Mount contains some of Jesus's most powerful and penetrating words in the Gospels. The words Jesus spoke within the Sermon confront us in numerous ways and challenge the status quo we often settle for in our faith. Jesus leaves no stone unturned, challenging all who claim to follow him to evaluate what it means to live in faithful obedience. As you read, you will find yourself challenged and encouraged to live as a citizen of Christ's kingdom. Each page within this book is an invitation for you to dive deeply into the message of the Sermon and allow yourself to be confronted by Jesus's words. Moving through the devotional, you will explore each verse individually, allowing time to dwell on the depth each verse deserves. However, you will explore each verse as it relates to the broader themes and movements of the entire Sermon, providing a comprehensive picture as well. As you go through this devotional, may you be challenged and encouraged by the words of Christ, creating in you a desire to heed Christ's invitation to follow him.

Comedians tend to view the world somewhat askew or askance, and that view--a kind of hermeneutical lens for discerning the comedic in daily life--serves to frame, reframe, and even de-frame reality. Preachers do the same, viewing the world askance through a theological lens of discerning God in daily life. That theological view allows one to preach hope in the face of despair, seeing the world in terms of God's justice and declaring the promise of life out of death. Stand-Up Preaching: Humor and the Foolishness of Our Proclamation looks closely at both the cultural phenomenon of stand-up comedy and theories of humor, asking what preachers can learn from both. Karl N. Jacobson and Rolf A. Jacobson offer preachers a means of growth in their art and an approach to reading Scripture both for its humor and through the lens of humor. The book models approaches to the biblical text that allow the Bible to be funny and that bring humor to the text. Stand-Up Preaching brings the task of preaching into conversation with both the comedic parts of the Bible and the theological parts of the comedic, in order to bring a new kind of life to preaching. As a serious look at humor and laughter in the Bible, the book explores the theological implications of what it means if we think of God, Jesus, and even the Holy Spirit as filled with laughter. Preachers are invited to wonder at and chuckle their way through examples of God's laughter in the Bible, thinking about what that means for God's people, for the life of faith, and for preaching to God's people.

Let me say to President Botha: apartheid is doomed It has been condemned in the councils of God, rejected by every nation on the planet and is no longer believed in by the people who gave it birth. Apartheid is the god that has failed . . . let not one more sacred life be offered on its blood-stained altar. This is what Bishop Peter Storey preached in 1986 in the darkest hours of black suffering in a South Africa torn apart by racial oppression. Join him as a youthful chaplain to Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, defying armed police entering his pulpit, heading the SA Council of Churches with Bishop Desmond Tutu, leading 25,000 marchers against Johannesburg's secret police headquarters, and confronting Winnie Mandela's wrongs. Storey's ministry was shaped by one simple question: What does it mean to obey Jesus in apartheid South Africa? This book tells of his answer and challenges the silence of American churches in the face of nationalism, systemic racism, and right-wing populism in the USA.

Secularism, the Church, and the Way Forward is a succinct yet descriptive dialogue between a nonagenarian church leader and a young pastor who are struggling with the reality of the rapidly morphing Western Protestant church. At times debatable, at others provocative, and with insights that induce conviction, the authors challenge, confuse, and enlighten the reader. Combining proven, multidisciplinary models with innovative approaches, the authors inspire a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding the church's relationship to society. In so doing, they point the church's leaders toward the perilous yet necessary path of rediscovering its identity.

About three-fourths of the poems in this book are concerned with the world around us, which we need to protect and preserve. They are the necessary prelude to the importance of creation care, which is addressed specifically in the concluding poems. The mountains and valleys are a source of sustenance for human beings, as well as for their animal population. The season cycles in the mountains are a delight with the tree leaves changing color. Riverbeds become almost dry from lack of rain, but in late spring they flow with the waters of melting snow. With each change of season, the sun circles the earth and sheds its light on places passed over in a previous season. This is experienced particularly in the mountain ranges of North America. They provide an amazing diversity of landscape, flora, and fauna, and options for the human food chain. Global warming, however, threatens the seasons, the life of the mountains' flora and fauna, and even the ozone layer of the heavens. Hence, there is a call for creation care. Unless world powers step up and commit to preserving nature, forthcoming catastrophes can be clearly foreseen through careful scientific analysis. The responsibility is in the hands of the world's most powerful nations.

The flat world of our globalized economic order-with its information technology mandating the need for the labor force to compete globally-has led to turmoil, injustice, and growing unhappiness in our everyday lives. We need a way to find some mountaintops and fulfillment in our flat world, to have a sense that some moments can have eternal significance. S ren Kierkegaard, forerunner of Existentialism, provides us with a vision of life to help us cope and give us joy. Along the way, we'll see how a lot of his insights connect with cutting-edge findings on brain research about the biological dynamics of joy and fulfillment.Finding Peaks and Valleys in a Flat World will be of interest to undergraduate Philosophy and Religion students as well as Kierkegaard specialists. It will also be a good reference work for people interested in social analyses and theologians of every denominational affiliation.

Secure, content, competent, reasonably happy and fulfilled, such persons of strength go their own way without any apparent discomfort at having missed the benefits of the Christian faith. . . . What do you say to the person who says, through his or her neglect of the faith, "Thanks, but I don’t need it"? —from the book Bishop William Willimon brings the Gospel of Jesus Christ to life for the person who has everything – happy, fulfilled human beings, who don’t feel the same level of need expressed by the downcast, the outcast, the brokenhearted, and the miserable. Willimon says that the church’s message to the wretched and sad must not exclude the strong and the joyous. In nine concise, inspired chapters, he discusses these ideas: •? Must one be sad, depressed, wallowing in sin and degradation, immature, and childishly dependent in order truly to hear the Good News? (See chapters 1 and 2.) •? “What do we say to the strong?” (See chapters 3 and 4.) •? Speaking to the strong and to the people who are weak and want to be stronger: a particular kind of evangelistic message. They have their sins, but these sins are not the sins of the weak (chapter 5). •? Worship which takes God’s strong love seriously (chapter 6) •? Ethics which arise out of our response to that love (chapter 7) •? Church as a place of continual growth and widening responsibility (chapters 8 and 9)

Publishers Weekly starred review Seasoned pastor and church leader Will Willimon excels at creating thought-provoking, accessible books for working pastors and seminarians. In Aging, he takes a theologically rich look at numerous aspects of growing old. Drawing on Scripture, literature, current research, and his experiences as an aging adult, Willimon reflects on aging as a spiritual journey. He explores the challenging realties as well as the rewarding joys of growing old and shows pastors how to help their congregants grow old gracefully and in good Christian hope. Willimon also offers practical advice on helping church members as they encounter retirement, aging, caring for the aging, loss, bereavement, and finding faith in the last quarter of life. This eloquent, delightfully Christian perspective on aging will be of interest to all who care for aging souls--not only pastors but also chaplains and other ministers in hospitals, hospices, and extended care facilities. About the Series Pastors are called to help people navigate the profound mysteries of being human, from birth to death and everything in between. This series, edited by leading pastoral theologian Jason Byassee, provides pastors and pastors-in-training with rich theological reflection on the various seasons that make up a human life, helping them minister with greater wisdom and joy.