{"id":27166,"date":"2026-06-16T09:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27166"},"modified":"2026-06-16T10:46:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T14:46:04","slug":"27166","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27166","title":{"rendered":"Living Out the Good News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I Shall Not Want, by Audrey Assad (w\/ lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/12NMGC5YjYY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Tuesday, June 16, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Religious scholar Huston Smith describes how the first Christians spread the gospel message through their happiness, beyond any particular words they shared:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The compassion the disciples had encountered in Jesus was powerful\u2014victorious over everything. This conviction had transformed a dozen or so disconsolate followers of a slain and discredited leader into one of the most dynamic forces in human history, and the tongues of fire that descended upon them at Pentecost set the Mediterranean world aflame. People who were not speakers waxed eloquent. They exploded across the Greco-Roman world, preaching what has come to be called \u201cthe gospel\u201d; in the original Greek the phrase is \u201cthe Good News.\u201d They spread their message with such fervor that in Jesus\u2019s very generation it took root in every major city of the region\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The people who heard Jesus\u2019s disciples proclaiming the Good News <strong>were as impressed by what they saw as by what they heard. They saw lives that had been transformed\u2014men and women who were ordinary in every way except for the fact that they seemed to have found the secret of living.<\/strong> They evinced a tranquility, simplicity, and cheerfulness that their hearers had nowhere else encountered. Here were people who seemed to be<strong> making a success of the enterprise everyone would like to succeed at\u2014life itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Smith highlights two remarkable qualities witnessed in the first Christians:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the earliest observations by an outsider about Christians that we have is, \u201cSee how these Christians love one another.\u201d Integral to this mutual regard was a total absence of social barriers; it was a discipleship of equals. Here were men and women who <strong>not only said that everyone was equal in the sight of God but who lived as though they meant it. <\/strong>The conventional barriers of race, gender, and status meant nothing to them, for in Christ there was neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free. As a consequence, in spite of differences in function or social position, their fellowship was marked by a sense of genuine equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their second distinctive quality was happiness. When Jesus was in danger, his disciples were alarmed; but otherwise it was impossible to be sad in Jesus\u2019s company. And when he told his disciples that he wanted his joy to be in them, \u201cthat your joy may be complete,\u201d to a remarkable degree that objective was realized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Outsiders found this baffling. These scattered Christians were not numerous. They were not wealthy or powerful, and they were in constant danger of being killed. Yet t<strong>hey had laid hold of an inner peace that found expression in a joy that was uncontainable. Perhaps \u201cradiant\u201d would be a better word. \u201cRadiance\u201d is hardly the word used to characterize the average religious life, but no other word fits as well the life of these early Christians.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>===================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=4885540&amp;post_id=202221830&amp;utm_source=post-email-title&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=2dkj2&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozOTkyMzY2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoyMDIyMjE4MzAsImlhdCI6MTc4MTYxOTQ0MiwiZXhwIjoxNzg0MjExNDQyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNDg4NTU0MCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.wl2d6E9PUUyx99fWlTGunZAmSOGVuvH0IJ7jLzAwlr8\">The Slow Yes<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why a process feels like care instead of bureaucracy.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@beaustringer\">BEAU STRINGER<\/a>JUN 16<\/td><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@beaustringer\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><\/td><td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Hey friends,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent a good chunk of last weekend at a UMC Candidacy Summit. This is a weekend long virtual gathering where the conference staff helps pastoral candidates explore and discern their call to pastoral ministry. Now, I have been a pastor for a long time. I have preached hundreds of sermons, and officiated dozens of funerals and weddings. And there I was sitting on a zoom call sharing my call to ministry story (which began 19 years ago).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>pathway to pastoral ministry in the UMC is a long road<\/strong>. You must be a member of a UMC for at least a year and then then once you start the process (depending on which route you take) it could be another year until they make it official. If I am being honest, there is a version of me from a few years back who would have found the whole thing a little insulting. \u201c<em>I already know how to do this\u201d<\/em>, or \u201c<em>Now you want me to jump through hoops for a piece of paper that says I am allowed to do the thing I have already given my life to?\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;But the me who showed up last weekend felt something I did not expect, and it caught me off guard. I felt grateful. Truly grateful. I felt like I was being handed a gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Zoom Call<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I visited with people from all over the Midwest, some of them young and bright-eyed and a little terrified, others coming in from other careers, a few of us further down the road or transferring in from other denominations. We went around and told pieces of our stories. Many of us had gotten lost, gotten hurt, talked ourselves out of it and back into it, and somehow found our way to a tradition that had a door propped open for us. It really was beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have written a lot about leaving. This newsletter mostly exists because of the <strong>two years I spent in the wilderness after a decade of evangelical ministry. Lately I have been sitting with the other half of that story,&nbsp;<em>the arriving<\/em>. The quiet, undramatic, paperwork-heavy work of actually planting yourself somewhere new and saying out loud that you want to belong to it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Process Is the Point<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the thing I sat with after I got off the Zoom call on Saturday. The candidacy process is slow on purpose. There are mentors and interviews and forms and committees, and it takes as long as it takes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I used to read all of that as&nbsp;<\/strong><em><strong>bureaucracy<\/strong><\/em><strong>. Now I see it as&nbsp;<\/strong><em><strong>care<\/strong><\/em><strong>.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A tradition that makes you take your time before it hands you over to a congregation is a tradition that takes both you and the people seriously. Nobody is going to rush me into pastoral ministry on the strength of charisma and a good story. And that\u2019s a good thing. That was pretty much the whole game in the world I came from, and I watched it wreck more than a few good people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I sat in those sessions as a candidate, fully aware of how strange it looked, and I let it be good.<strong> I let myself be a beginner again. <\/strong>There is a real freedom in handing yourself over to a process you trust.<strong> I have spent so much of my life being the one with the answers, the one expected to have it all figured out.<\/strong> Sitting on a call with people who were<strong> carrying their own questions, none of us pretending to have it nailed down, felt like the way of Jesus. It felt like home.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am a candidate. After all these years, I am just beginning. And I cannot tell you how at home that makes me feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I look forward to sharing more of that journey with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/a4e49313-3ab1-4bd2-aa05-1d53d264142a?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!cGZu!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F67498b56-90b9-4839-a86c-5567eb726426_590x104.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><\/td><td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This week I want to put the Wesley Covenant Prayer in your hands. It is the prayer Methodists have prayed for generations when they want to hand their whole lives over to God. Try praying it first thing, before your feet hit the floor and the day starts making its demands.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I made a little card with it you can print and keep by your bed or tuck into whatever you carry around. You can download the .pdf below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/bc114064-54d8-47bd-b427-395c378e2aa4?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!uvpE!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0a878e55-bdc1-4e0d-abcc-c878608b3edf_2550x3300.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><\/td><td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!0Cy0!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2Fimg%2Fattachment_icon.svg\"><\/td><td>Wesley Covenant Prayer Card17.7KB \u2219 PDF file<\/td><\/tr><tr><td colspan=\"2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/67aa4c5d-365d-4496-8961-2c407565c6a8?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\">Download<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/5e65e036-6b99-40ed-a2c3-cace017ff1c9?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!xzzG!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fef9cf112-cf52-460c-83ed-74bff60492b4_592x104.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><\/td><td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Richard Rohr has a talk on what he calls the Jesus Hermeneutic, and I am not exaggerating when I say it lines up with where I have landed on scripture better than anything I have come across in a long time. If you handed me a microphone and asked me to explain how I read the Bible now, I would just play you this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The short version is that Rohr studies how Jesus himself read his own scriptures, and he notices that Jesus did not treat every verse as carrying the same weight. Jesus kept reaching for the texts that point where the whole story is heading, toward mercy and inclusion and justice, and he read everything else in that light.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have ever felt worn out trying to defend parts of the Bible that seem to cut against the heart of Jesus, this is going to feel like fresh air in your lungs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Watch it, then save it and watch it again.\u00a0<br><br>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JjUlQDwEIH0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>============<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Individual Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where are you currently rushing a process that wants to take its time with you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Group Discussion \u2014 choose one<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol>\n<li>Smith says the early Christians were marked by joy that was &#8220;uncontainable&#8221; \u2014 what&#8217;s blocking that kind of joy in you right now?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stringer says he used to read the slow process as bureaucracy and now sees it as care \u2014 what&#8217;s one slow thing in your life you&#8217;re starting to see differently?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What would it look like for your &#8220;yes&#8221; to God to be unhurried rather than performed?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/dc819990-32ce-4017-a232-ae634b219b03?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday, June 16, 2026 Religious scholar Huston Smith describes how the first Christians spread the gospel message through their happiness, beyond any particular words they shared: The compassion the disciples had encountered in Jesus was powerful\u2014victorious over everything. This conviction had transformed a dozen or so disconsolate followers of a slain and discredited leader into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27166"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27166"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27173,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27166\/revisions\/27173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}