Curated Links for June 26, 2020

Happy Friday, y’all!

A couple days ago we hosted a Learning Lab discussing some of the important leadership concepts from Edwin Friedman’s classic book A Failure of Nerve… We talked about self-differentiation, chronic anxiety, sabotage, emotional triangles, and non-anxious presence.

It was such an invigorating discussion, and so needed right now! You can watch the replay here, and one of our coaches, Justin Wallace, is going to facilitate a deeper dive into the book in a 4-week discussion group. You can sign up to hear more about the group on the replay page, if you’re interested.

We’re also starting a new Gravity Leadership Academy cohort soon, so if you’re interested in participating, just email me back and we can set up a time to talk about whether it’s a good fit for you right now.

And here are the curated links for the week, for your edification and enjoyment:

• We released the final episode of our podcast mini-series on the pandemic with a discussion with Beth Felker Jones about How to Pray During a Pandemic. Beth has written a lovely book of prayers she wrote when the pandemic first hit, and shares a bit about what she’s learning about praying in times of crisis. (Go back and catch the other episodes in this series if you missed them, with Mike Frost, and N.T. Wright.)
• We also released another podcast episode in our series on parenting: a discussion with Mark and Lisa Scandrette on creating a thriving family culture. The Scandrettes have immense wisdom and they’re SO good at making things practical.
• One of the most helpful voices for us in this time of increased awareness of racism has been Esau McCaulley. Yesterday he gave a quick biblical theology of sin, systemic sin, and how Scripture attests to systemic sin in Old and New Testaments.
• Speaking of systemic racism, if you’re not quite sure what that is, or if it exists, or you have people in your life who doubt its existence, our friend Mako Nagasawa recently wrote a very thorough rebuttal to Ben Shapiro’s critique of a systemic racism explainer video, and it is a masterclass on systemic racism (this link is a PDF).
• If you’ve been talking about racism in your church, maybe you’ve heard this one? “Pastor, Can’t We Just Preach the Gospel?” Andrew Arndt has a very helpful perspective on this false dichotomy.
• Seth Richardson helps us see the connection between consumerism and racism, and the desire for things to “get back to normal.”
• On a different note, I wrote up a little riff on Origen’s teaching about the importance of preparing to pray.

That’s all for this week, friends. May God’s presence and transforming power be evident to you this week so you can lead others to participate more fully in the life we share with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Grace and peace,
Ben S [for Gravity Leadership]

P.S. You’ll get one more curated links email from me next Friday, and then I’m on vacation for 2 weeks! So don’t panic if you don’t hear from me for a bit. 😉

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