Have you ever stared into a small grave disturbed by the mini-casket laying in the dirt, know nothing about the young, very young, parents, seeing no family or friends . . .

grappling with the pastoral moment and your neatly packaged systematic theology and feeling all your patterned responses from that untried place sounds like a clanging gong?

Oh, and you are only him your late 20’s . . .

One of the driving forces behind the refresh of the podcast and the introduction of /patheological/ is the collection of moments when you feel the unraveling of what you thought were tried and true responses to difficult life experiences. For instance, the opening description is actually a sketch of the first time I faced serving a family I did not know in the aftermath of what may only be described as a tragic loss. The death of an infant child creates more than a tension between a prescribed response and the very real depth of grief associated with the event. Everyone begs for relief.

Unsettled seems like a helpful description.

Monday I listened to an interview with Andrew Sung Park. He described a group often missed when talking about the Good News of God in Jesus, The Sinned Against. Our formulations of the Good News do not fail to address sinners. But, what about those who life experience is more dominated by being sinned against?

How do you connect the sense of being unsettled and The Sinned Against? Take a listen and let’s discuss how the two might help us if we seriously and in a safe place concern ourselves with the intersection of pastoral work and theology.

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