With the early Christians you couldn't have God as your father unless you have the church as your mother. This isn't accepting the church as a perfect thing.

This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other's needs-- no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire.

The work of community, love, reconciliation, restoration is the work we cannot leave up to politicians. This is the work we are all called to do.

I think of the Catholic worker movement and Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and others.

This common prayer project has taken years of energy, but we see it not as a way to leave our individual churches, but as a movement we hope to see permeate the larger Church.

...I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.

Look through the prayer books. You'll see lots of dates. You'll see names of Native Americans remembered. This was an open-sourcing project among so many people.