How Are You Doing? Checking in with Dan and Rachael

by on October 2, 2020

person sitting on a bench reading a newspaper

Since it has been a few weeks since Rachael and Dan hosted together on the podcast, they decided to sit down and check-in both with each other and the state of the world before launching into more of our regularly scheduled fall content. It’s been a hard season and a hard year. Feeling scattered, fragmented, numb, and isolated are normal. Yet, at the same time, we must also continue to ask ourselves the question: Who do we want to become, how do we want to live in this crazy period?

Quotes

“It is still a really hard season for multiple factors—continued unfolding of this global pandemic, school has started in some of the most unprecedented ways, racial injustice continues to be amplified and further exposed in our country and we’re moving towards a very volatile election in November. So, I feel like my rote answer these days, despite all the things is…I am well, and in the same breath I feel despair knocking on the door, and I’m overwhelmed, and I’m scared, and I’m fragmented, and I’m well.” Rachael Clinton Chen

“We are at war, we are polarized certainly as a culture…you can’t help but be caught up if you even look at the news, depending on what you read, you are being constantly drawn to distance, to attack, to blame…I think as a world we’re not well, so to be even moderately well in a world that is not well … it’s both that sense of privilege that certainly is undeserved but on the other hand, deeply appreciated that we are physically well at this point.” Dr. Dan Allender

“What will my faith look like if some of the privileges I’ve been exposed to living in this nation and in this body and skin need to be dismantled?” Rachael Clinton Chen

“It is the best of times if this is a period where you want to be conformed to the image of Jesus.” Dr. Dan Allender

“I believe the truth can be found but it is hard labor to come to that. It is hard to find the truth but the truth is personal, the truth is Jesus, and you’ve got to ask, seek, and knock, and if you don’t do so with an openness to in one sense all sides to truly hear, then you’re going to be blindsided by tribalism, division, and polarization.” Dr. Dan Allender

“No one side of any polarity is going to be reflective of the gospel that doesn’t mean that we escape or live in denial or we choose not to participate, but it certainly means we are looking for the fruits of the spirit with the people we are discipled by who we learn from and the people we are learning with.” Rachael Clinton Chen

“Good work is never enough if indeed your own heart is not being transformed.” Dr. Dan Allender

“We are meant to be people who hold tension and live into the tension of the kingdom fo God without apology.” Rachael Clinton Chen

Resources