Coming Sundays... A New Devotional Series
Before the weekend ends and we return to our weekday rhythms, let me invite you to come back here next Sunday for the debut of something different: not semi-academic newsletters about Christianity, history, and education, but a weekly series of devotional reflections.
I’m no theologian, Bible scholar, or pastor, but over the years, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with the devotional format, long a staple of the Pietist tradition. In 2020 I worked with Beth Allison Barr to edit a devotional featuring over forty Christian historians, Faith and History (Baylor University Press). I’ve collaborated with two other groups to publish online devotionals for Lent: readers of The Pietist Option, and my colleagues on the faculty of Bethel University. And I’ve occasionally used the original Pietist Schoolman blog for this kind of Christian writing: most recently, a daily series that helped me get through COVID lockdown in the spring of 2020, then a Christmas series later that year.
It’s not just a way to stretch some different writing and thinking muscles. As I wrote at the start of the COVID series, committing to share devotions with readers gives me a way “to help hold myself accountable,” as a Christian who knows the value of spiritual disciplines like Bible study, prayer, and meditation, but too easily lets them lapse. Specifically, I plan to spend the week reading and reflecting on the texts assigned in the Revised Common Lectionary, then pick one or two of them to write about for Sunday morning.
I prefer to use the lectionary precisely because it helps me feel like I’m reading the Bible not just on my own, but in tandem with fellow followers of Jesus. So if you’d like to read along, let me invite you to join me in pondering the following scriptures:
Psalm 85, Hosea 1:2-10, Luke 11:1-13, Colossians 2:6-15