2022 was a great year for the SOLA Network. We helped host the first Asian American Leadership Conference back in April. We had contributions from old friends and published new authors as well. Readers like you came to our website again and again to discover, think, and grow together—and we are so grateful.
As the year draws to a close, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite articles this year that didn’t make it to the most-viewed articles of the year and yet were so powerful to me. I hope these hidden gems will be an encouragement to you as we enter the new year!
1. Make the Most of Sunday Morning by P.J. Tibayan
The world lacks encouragement. Sadly, we’re often frustrated by the lack of encouragement in our relationships at church as well. So while we’re unsurprised by our discouraging world, discouraging churches weigh more heavily on our souls.
It’s easy to throw our hands in the air and just settle in with our current church culture. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Actually, God commands that we not settle for this.
Read “Make the Most of Sunday Morning” here.
2. Comfort for Weary, Bruised, and Broken Gospel Servants by Sam Wan
Over the past month, I caught up with peers with whom I studied and who started vocational ministry at the same time as I did. Some aspired to be pastors, others cross-cultural missionaries, others were youth pastors or church planters. We dreamt together. We argued and ate together for three years. They are friends who have a heart to see the gospel go out to the ends of the earth and who are now scattered around Australia and beyond—yet brought close by the harsh blessing of COVID and the surge of online video calling.
There was flourishing, joy, and delight. But there was also jadedness, burnout, and hurt.
Read “Comfort for Weary, Bruised, and Broken Gospel Servants” here.
3. Walking Home Together: Committing to Justice and Mercy by Patreeya Thorn
Someone once asked me what I meant about mercy and justice coexisting. Doesn’t the presence of one mean forgoing the other? It was an important question. And it reminded me of a metaphor that has shaped what I hope to be true of my presence in the world: the existence of home and helping others find it.
Read “Walking Home Together: Committing to Justice and Mercy” here.
4. The Difference Between Replacement and Recalibration by Larry Lin
For whatever reason, their faith isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. Something is wrong. They feel that God isn’t listening to their prayers anymore. Or they feel that they aren’t getting anything out of sermons anymore. Or they start to doubt their previous stances on specific topics—whether it is sexuality, creationism, the biblical canon, or something else. Or they feel hurt by Christians leaders who have let them down.
Whatever it is, they’ve noticed that something has changed in their faith, and they also come to a point of decision. Do I need to replace my faith with something else, or somehow do I need to recalibrate my faith?
Read “The Difference Between Replacement and Recalibration” here.
5. Praying Before Meals like the Men of Gondor by Sara Kyoungah White
Reading this passage, I felt much like Frodo. How different my own mealtime prayers feel from the solemn longing of the men of Gondor. I suspect many of us might feel the same. The scant pages of our mealtime prayer book are similar to the hobbits’, rote and often perfunctory: “Dear God, thank you for this food, bless the hands that prepared it, amen.”
To be thankful and to ask for God’s blessing in our lives is an important act of worship. But for me, reading about the men of Gondor stirred something deeper. Seldom do I look beyond the immediate blessings of bread, host, and table to remember the greater eschatological end.
What would it look like for our thanksgiving to be something more? What would it look like for our mealtime prayers to become, most of all, an expression of longing for the presence of God? As we enter this season of thanksgiving, I want to see prayer before meals with fresh eyes. I want to reclaim it as a true act of worship.
Read “Praying Before Meals like the Men of Gondor” here.
For more, check out SOLA Network’s hidden gems for 2021, 2020, and 2019.