What You Sow Is a Bare Seed

A Countercultural Christian Community during Five Decades of Change

Celeste Kennel-Shank

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781666771077
  9781666771084
• eBook ISBN:
  9781666771091
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

What You Sow Is a Bare Seed is a group biography that tells the stories of ordinary but extraordinary people who were engaged in movements for renewal in the church and justice in broader society. People such as Dora Koundakjian Johnson, an Armenian-Lebanese linguistics scholar and activist, and Doug Huron, an attorney who won a landmark US Supreme Court civil rights case. They were among those who came together as the ecumenical Community of Christ in Washington, DC. Planted in the inner city in 1965--when many churches were leaving--the Community "distinguished itself from the more organized church without rejecting it," as one former member says. They believed that helping each other identify their gifts was a compelling way to shape their collective ministry beyond themselves. The Community initially intended not to own property but later bought a building and opened it up as a community center. As a final act of ministry, the Community gave its building away to a nonprofit partner when it closed in 2016, leaving a legacy that continues today.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: “A Church That Wants to Be in the City”
• Chapter 2: “Part of the Old Order and Hoping for the New”
• Chapter 3: “What Would You Rather Do More Than Anything Else in the World?”
• Chapter 4: “We Should Be Doing Something Ecumenical”
• Chapter 5: “Ministers to Each Other”
• Chapter 6: “An Urban Village”
• Chapter 7: “The Kids Will Get It through Osmosis”
• Chapter 8: “A Friend of the Street People”
• Chapter 9: “The Promise of Radical Inclusiveness”
• Chapter 10: “A Collaborative Setting of Peer Ministers”
• Chapter 11: “The Punk Show Is at Your Church?”
• Chapter 12: “Just One More Surprise”
• Epilogue
• Bibliography