Wild Fig Network Newsletter
July 2025

REFLECTION:
When our once-trusted institutions are dying, where do we go?

Despite patterns of exclusion and an institution focused on preserving itself, for years I couldn’t imagine leaving my denomination. I felt required to remain “loyal” to tradition: “After all, this church tradition nurtured my faith! For all its flaws, where would I be without its great chain of witnesses?” In my ordination paper, I even declared myself “happily un-Emergent,” decrying the hubris of church innovators for seeming to disregard the value of historic traditions. And so I stayed, begrudgingly so—as if just staying put was itself a mark of faithfulness.

Of all things, it was studying 1st and 2nd Kings that helped open my eyes and loosen my feet. 

As our young congregation stumbled through COVID and a national reckoning with race, it was clear that there was no returning to “business as usual.” I turned to Kings, seeking wisdom for these disorienting times, and made a striking discovery: The biblical tradition itself is one big pointer to how and where God moves when our most cherished institutions collapse…

Read more HERE!

Sometimes the best way to change a system is to create a new one!

Many of the challenges facing the Church (and the world) today are complex, interconnected, and ambiguous. In other words, there are no simple, linear solutions or quick fixes. The usual, top-down, leader-driven approaches are unlikely to yield deep or lasting change.

We need a different operating system altogether—one that seeks to see things in their wholeness, navigate complexity with humility and collective wisdom, and move forward in a collaborative, creative, and iterative process.

Curious to learn more?

Our Wild Fig Network 1.0 Guiding Document is our initial attempt to define the ethos, structure, and practices of the network.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Unknown
(Often attributed to Albert Einstein)

Did you miss any of our newsletters?
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November 2024

January 2025

February 2025

April 2025

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