Eli Fields

Love all things University of Tennessee and Titans. I mostly just retweet smarter and holier people. I love Jesus because he first loved me!

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@switchfoot @jonforeman thank you for putting on a great show tonight in Eugene!

[Eli Fields @elifields]

Took a couple of our kiddos school shopping today. We were perusing the vinyl section and my daughter saw this. There was no way we were leaving without it. We've listened to it all the way through twice today. One of the best and iconic albums of the 90s. #Nirvana #90smusic

[Eli Fields @elifields]

Wow, this really spoke to my heart. This is what pastoring looks like. Not just the stories but the exposition at the end!

[Jonathan Martin @theboyonthebike]

Snapshots of pastoring a small church in the country:

An 86-year old woman started attending our church six months ago, and already feels it is her home. She asked me to come to her house the other day. When the now widowed woman came to the door with her walker, I wasn’t prepared for all the beauty on the other side of that portal—from the magical pond in the backyard I saw through windows that felt like picture frames, to the personal treasures inside, to the stories behind them I would hear. She had asked me to come so she could plan her funeral with me, not because she thinks it’s immanent—just in case.

Off hand, she asked if I could help find her a Bible; I said of course. She showed me her giant old family Bible, a family heirloom, and said she had tried to read it but found it too large, tedious, difficult. Not until then did I realize, that while she has many lovely books— the Bible we would get, would be the first Bible she’d ever really owned, for herself. I found her a Wesley Study Bible I thought she’d like. You hold a Bible a little differently knowing it will be an 86-year old woman’s first, you know?

A couple in their 80s, lives a few miles away from her…I had got the wife small flowers for her birthday, but wanted to get the man—an utterly hilarious character I adore—something fun. I ran into his barber friend in town, who told me this kind of mini cigars he enjoys on occasion. It felt like an act of mischief as his pastor, to get and leave them on his front porch. I don’t know if he’ll find it stranger that God told me he likes the occasional cigar…or that the Holy Ghost is personal enough to have told me his brand 🤣

But I think maybe it is something like that.

I wrote a cynical scene late last night of a pastor who drives past all this beauty on his way to the church, bathed in the glow of Sinai glory, and then gets in the pulpit to rail against a godless world in which all the cities are burning. The truth is that the world is on fire to me, too—but with bushes on fire that will not be consumed. These are of course different sorts of fires…unsurprising perhaps as they may originate from different sorts of gods.

[Joseph Terry @bktheologian]

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

Dorothy Day

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@erichoke Also it was a liturgy and orthopraxy unto itself. I know, I'm a recovering Pentecostal.

[Eli Fields @elifields]

Been back from Boise 3 days. @RawTheology @PrestonSprinkle put together such a theologically, relationally, and culturally rich conference. I'll be reflecting on it for some time. #exiles24

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@butimjustjake You made it to Tuesday!

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@PatrickKMiller_ Read it in my 40s for the first time, absolutely loved it. Wait till she gets a hold of Lilith

[Eli Fields @elifields]

That's word!

[Carey Nieuwhof @cnieuwhof]

The church today is full of cover bands—people (pastors, worship leaders, etc.) trying to be someone else. It’s time to break free from that model of leadership.

[Dr. Michael F. Bird @mbird12]

Is it me, but is America about to engage in a strange electoral battle for control over its gerontocracy, with the ballot options being either Dementia or Despotism? Why can't America give them both some prune juice, a boiled egg, a Neil Sedaka CD, and a nice retirement in Miami?

[Chad Bird @birdchadlouis]

We say, “I can’t go on.”
Jesus says, “I will hold you so you can.”

We say, “But I don’t think I can even believe that.”
Jesus says, “Even when you are faithless, I will be faithful to you.”

We say, “But I feel so alone.”
Jesus says, “I am Immanuel, God-with-you, God-never-leaving-your-side.”

We say, “But what’s the point? My life is over.”
Jesus says, “I am your life. And I am never over.”

We say, “But look at what I’ve done. I’m dirty.”
Jesus says, “Look at what I’ve done for you. I have taken your dirt and smeared it all over me. You are clean, I am filthy. See me dirty on the cross. See you clean beneath it.”

We say, “Nobody wants me.”
Jesus says, “I want you—desperately, lovingly, crazily, I want you.”

All I want for Christmas is a God like that.

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@lecrae thanks for putting on a great show in Portland tonight! Always love a little #churchclap

[Eli Fields @elifields]

"Maybe war can redraw a map but what's it going to do to the hearts and minds of people? What about the collective trauma?" So profound!

[Theology in the Raw @RawTheology]

Today on Theology in the Raw!

Lisa Loden is the co–chair of the Lausanne Initiative for Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine, and is a member of several ecumenical theological dialogue groups. Lisa writes on reconciliation and related issues for various publications.

Out now!

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@BigOrangePunch Frickin love it!!!

[Derek Vreeland @DerekVreeland]

I’m not on the side of Israel 🇮🇱
I’m not on the side of Palestine 🇵🇸

I’m on the side of peace ✌🏻

“I am on the side of peace, but when I speak of it, they are for war.” - Psalm 120:7 BCP

And right now I weep for those who do not know the things that make for peace.

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@DerekVreeland You're the best, thank you sir!

[Eli Fields @elifields]

Hey @BrianZahnd I've been looking for your adapted St. Patrick's prayer all over the Google machine and cannot find it. It started with "Christ before me." You shared it in prayer school. Can you share it again? I'm looking to reincorporate it in my morning prayers again.

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@butimjustjake X gonna give it to ya!

[Eli Fields @elifields]

@erichoke My kids are teens we have 5. The 3rd out of 5 was the biggest deal. 4th was just a deal and the 5th welp we're in over our heads now. 😀