Patience and longsuffering. The essentiality of patience and longsuffering during this Advent season may be just the discovery Christians require as 2016 comes to an end. It has certainly come as a much needed discovery in my own life as the insidious beast, known as depression, debilitates [...]Read More
Anticipation
Anticipation. It’s a positive re-frame for the simple fact that we wait for things. We wait in line to buy tea or a snack, we wait for a friend to return a phone call, we wait for our day to end, or our day to begin. We anticipate what’s coming next, and in doing so, we wait. In fact, sometimes [...]Read More
Hope: Reflections from Isaiah 11
Advent is all about hope. Hope is that particular kind of waiting with expectation that refuses to be discouraged in the face of delay and detour. Each year during Advent we celebrate and stir hope in our hearts because the Promised One has come. Word became flesh and dwelled among us. Hope was no [...]Read More
Thanksgiving and lament, gratitud y lamento
Thanksgiving and lament, gratitud y lamento. The both/and of kingdom theology charges us with the need to inhabit both those spaces. As Christians, we see this contrast and presence in so many places throughout Scripture. One could even argue that the themes of thanksgiving and lament are the most [...]Read More
A new vision for the city we need
Michael Mata, John Liotti and Mary Nelson recently represented CCDA at the Urban Shalom Project prelude to the UN Urban Habitat III gathering in Quito, Ecuador. The hope was to articulate the value added voice of Christians to the vision and work of just, sustainable cities at the UN Conference, a [...]Read More
Cultivating generative friendships among practitioners of CCD
"I am CCDA." "Dear Familia..." We use these phrases and descriptors a lot in our CCDA circles. Both reveal the essence of who we are as an association. I am CCDA, speaks to being a community of practitioners doing Christian community development. What you and I do as we live out the key components [...]Read More
Hope and expectation
I just returned from a one day trip to Detroit where we began to solidify our host committee planning with local leaders in anticipation of our national conference in October of 2017. While there's great excitement for next year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the Camino and the 2016 national [...]Read More
Camino Devotional 11: August 30, 2016
LECTURA: ISAÍAS 53:2b-4 (NVI) 2 No había en él belleza ni majestad alguna; su aspecto no era atractivo y nada en su apariencia lo hacía deseable. 3 Despreciado y rechazado por los hombres, varón de dolores, hecho para el sufrimiento. Todos evitaban mirarlo; fue despreciado, y no lo [...]Read More