The Story Behind “Why Have We Fasted”
Hello, and welcome!
After experiencing heavy-handed leadership at multiple churches in a short period of time, my husband and I realized there was something seriously off in evangelical America.
When looking at Isaiah 58, the inspiration for the theme “Why Have We Fasted,” it becomes clear that the whole community has a problem. This blog intends to recognize what is going well, examine what needs to change, and be a sounding board for how to do better as a church. Along the way, we’ll explore the Bible in a way that is intended to be encouraging rather than depressing.
My driving motivation is to keep others from being harmed, both those in the pews and those on staff, and to point us all back to Jesus.
Some recurring themes include:
Love Jesus, look to the Bible.
Love the Bible, look to Jesus.
Bring critical thinking back to the church.
Hold leaders to a higher standard, not because they are inherently better people, but because the ripple effects of their sin are greater.
I tend to be irreverent as a pew peon and hold to the apparently heretical belief that pastors and other church leaders are normal people just like you and I, which sometimes gets me into trouble and maybe kinda sorta caused my family to become suddenly unwelcome at two of the three churches we left in a hurry. (The third one was my husband’s fault.) Should you choose to subscribe (hint hint hint), more of those stories will come trickling out, straight to your inbox.
Who We Are
My writings have been labelled “possibly aggressive” and “a wedge for the devil” by church leaders that I suspect of projecting, but I’ll let you read for yourselves and decide. I write under my maiden name to give our family a modicum of online privacy. And because, frankly, sometimes I miss my maiden name. With a name like “Wright,” how could I not?
I am married to David and have two elementary-aged children (Miss Bee and Queen Bee, and if you know them you’ll immediately know who has earned which nickname). Our family lives on the west coast of the United States with a cat and a cat-who-thinks-he’s-a-dog. I love books and finding small beauties in nature (many of which are included as photographs in various posts for no reason other than that I like them). And I always add extra vanilla extract.
I (Sarah) do all of the writing for this blog, but it often acts as a record of our shared experiences. And given my husband’s educational background, I tend to run my more out-of-the-box theories by him before putting them on the public record, so information on both our backgrounds is included here. (David is also the one who came up for the title of this blog.)
One the one hand, my husband and I don’t like to flout our credentials, because the only thing a believer needs to speak truth into a situation are a willing heart, an open mind, and the inner workings of the Holy Spirit. But to those who need to see our credentials before taking either of us seriously, they are as follows.
David has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and is a solutions architect for a consulting company, finding technology solutions to organizational problems. His latest proud achievement involved saving a client about $1 million per month. His job description also sometimes includes “cloud wizard,” which I think is pretty cool.
David also has a Masters of Divinity degree from an accredited and respected American seminary. He served for two years as bi-vocational pastor at a small Southern Baptist church before he was on the receiving end of a church split. So we approach this with a certain amount of empathy for pastors and church leadership.
Prior to becoming a stay-at-home-mom, I worked at a community college as an administrative assistant. Even as a lowly administrative assistant, I was active on both the College Strategic Planning Committee (a position I had to earn) and on the college’s Planning, Research, and Institutional Effectiveness Committee (because it was absolutely fascinating). I served on dozens of hiring committees there. I was also nominated by my department’s faculty (yes, the faculty) for a nationally recognized industry award for my tenure as unofficial interim dean (without the title, authority, or pay) between one dean’s retiring and the next’s hiring. I also co-chaired a writing team for the college’s self-study when they underwent the re-accreditation process. Prior to that, I lived and worked in South Korea for a year-and-a-half.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in history, as well as two years each of university-level Greek and Latin. While by no means an organizational psychologist, I am no stranger to research (and source citation) or how large entities can be run. I currently volunteer on the School Site Council for the Bees’ school and the school district’s Superintendent’s Parent Advisory Committee (the latter of which is less glamorous than it sounds. And also sometimes gets me into trouble).
Why Subscribe?
If you like what you see, subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives. Subscribing also means that each new post is sent directly to your email inbox. I generally publish Thursday mornings (PST), simply because it seems as though everyone and their mother’s uncle publishes Wednesdays and I’m not even going to try to compete with that.
This is a mix of longer analytical pieces, shorter encouraging reflections, prayers, and probably other miscellaneous things as I figure this out.
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