The Local Church is launching in early April 2016

March 22, 2015    

Hey everybody! Happy Holy Week!

It's weird though, right? Holy Week itself isn't exactly what I'd call happy. Maybe I should wish you a dread-filled Holy Week and a happy Easter.

I struggle with this stuff because, as a good Southern Baptist, I didn't exactly grow up celebrating Holy Week in any specific, formal way. I still have a hard time not referring to Maundy Thursday as "Monday Thursday" around the office, a habit that seems to drive all the Anglicans around here completely nuts.

I haven't gone all-in yet, but I'm growing to appreciate the way Holy Week forces us to relive the emotional heft of what was (let's be honest) a pretty darn holy week. On the flipside, I kind of like the sparseness with which my own tradition typically handles it: one solemn Good Friday service, followed by the pastel-laden outburst that is the Easter Sunday service.

To me, it mirrors what must have been the experience of those who were there for the original Holy Week: whenever Jesus wasn't being killed or raised from the dead, his followers were largely disconnected from one another, concerned about their own priorities. And then, with his death and resurrection and great commission and ascension: everything changed.

Easter Eloquence

If you're looking for some Holy Week inspiration, here's a collection of inspired words from some of history's greatest preachers. If you're a preacher, it's a bar you can set for yourself that you'll never reach. If you're not, it's a high expectation to set that will ruin your Sunday morning listening.

On second thought, maybe save this article for Monday morning. ;-)

The Surprisingly Bitter Controversy Over American Highway Fonts

This is going to seem weird, but reading this article about the fight over American highway fonts made me thankful for the seemingly silly arguments people often find themselves embroiled in about the color of the church carpet, and so on. While the highway fonts debate was over before it started simply because of a cost issue, I've seen church members get pretty darn passionate about aesthetic issues.

Considering the charges from many that the church doesn't care about the arts, I think we can all agree that this debate can also come from a good place. Maybe it's important for a church to demonstrate some kind of good taste?

The Context of Love is the World: Liturgies of Incarceration

David Dark's The Context of Love is the World: Liturgies of Incarceration is as close to a masterpiece as you can get on the internet, but to me the most noteworthy part is this sentence: "At their worst, institutions sacrifice individuals, and at their best, communities sacrifice for individuals." Let's just camp on that a while.

A special thanks to Parse subscribers for hanging in there while their entire newsletter world changed and shifted around them, causing them to rethink everything they thought they knew about life, the universe, and everything. Don't panic. I promise I'm going to do my very best to make this thing fun and enjoyable. Reply and let me know what you like and don't like. I will feel bad about that for approximately 1 hour and 47 minutes, and then I will consider your feedback seriously.

The Local Church is launching in early April, and we'll have a lot of cool stuff to show you on the way.

However you celebrate Holy Week, I hope it's a great one, and I hope it ends with a heck of a Sunday service that changes everything.

Richard Clark Managing Editor Christianity Today, Online @TheRichardClark