Entries tagged with “church” from Trans-cendental

This has been rattling around my brain for weeks, so I'm writing it down so my brain will get some peace and quiet.

How could the Flash Mob phenomenon be adapted to worship? Could large numbers of people be summoned by text, twitter, and Facebook to an impromptu service? Could we have spontaneous church appear where ever and whenever?

Thanks for the birth
And the feeding, and bathing, and changing
And the teaching, and loving
And the worry about my transition
And the eventual acceptance of who I am
And the worry about who I loved
And the acceptance of her into the family
And the worry about my future in the church

I know it is all because you love and care for me.

I love you, Mom.

Julie Holm has an excellent article on how going to seminary is ministry.

It was after being recommended for in care that I was asked to be on the leadership group (of 3) that supported 40 ministry teams. I was the only nominee for the vacant position. I was already serving on a number of our church's ~90 ministry teams. Churches have few people willing to take leadership roles (the 80/20 or 90/10 rule: 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people). Those few who will are expected to, because the alternative is empty leadership positions.

Financial support of seminarians is an interesting issue. The two congregations I've been with both struggle to pay their staff - one pays a full time pastor plus part time staff positions: youth minister, music minister, accompanist, facilities manager, church secretary, and cleaning staff. The other pays only a pastor (full time) and part time accompanist. There's no money left to try to help someone through seminary (despite what the MoM may say).

And why should they? It's not like they'll be the beneficiaries of the education. The seminarian will likely go pastor some other church or do some other ministry. Why give money to help someone else's ministry, especially when our own ministries are struggling?

Perhaps the fundamental problem is that, for many, the church has been relegated to an hour on Sunday morning. For some, this is clarified to "on days when none of the kids has an activity like skating or baseball Sunday morning and when we weren't out too late Saturday night" (I know a paid minister who has to skip even some large celebrations - read Christmas - due to conflicts with primary job, secondary job, and kids).

It should be no surprise that paid ministers, seminarians, and lay leaders are burning out. While 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, the other 80% of the people are expecting more.

I don't have an answer to this problem.

I know that, historically, the threat of Hell has been a powerful tool in bringing people to the church. But I suspect it doesn't work so well anymore.


For those who do not believe in the supernatural at all, the threat of Hell probably sounds something like this:

There is a place of eternal torment (I can't prove this scientifically). That's where you're going after you die (I can't prove this scientifically). But there's another pace you can go where everything is wonderful (I can't prove this scientifically). You will go there if (you believe in Jesus/give your life to Jesus/are baptized/stop drinking/stop being gay/stop believing in evolution/go to my church/tithe/etc.)

I don't think the threat of Hell is very powerful for those who don't believe in an afterlife.


For those who believe there is more to existence than what they see, is the threat of Hell working? If an evangelist is a messenger of the Gospel, or good news, then how is "you're a sinner and are going to Hell" either good (who wants to be told they're going to be punished forever) or news (when this is preached via television, radio, film, book, and billboard)? Yes, I know the good news follows - you can be saved - but if you have to deliver the bad news of damnation to preach the good news of salvation, a lot of people are going to opt for not listening at all.


More importantly to me, however, is how the early church attracted people. People seemed to be attracted to how Christians cared for each other and community. I don't see a lot of Helfire preached in Acts.

I'm wondering whether that's what we ought to be doing: preaching the good news of capital L Love. And in preaching, I mean first living the Love between us: our family members, our congregational members and friends, across congregations, associations, conferences, diocese, synods, and denominations. If we can first practice that Love and concern between each other, and then expand that circle so it becomes so large that everyone is within its perimeter, people will come to see us as a loving people. Then we can talk about a god whose Love is even greater than ours, and maybe we're starting the work Jesus called us to.


I don't recall the citation for the Bible verse that said "Go ye into all the world and tell people they're damned". If there is such a verse, let me know. Until then, I will take up the version of the Great Commission that says I am to preach the Gospel, the Good Word, that everyone is loved.

Youtube: Vimeo:

The Language of God from United Church of Christ on Vimeo.

So Glenn Beck says that Social Justice is the equivalent of Nazism and Socialism. Of course, Nazism and Socialism are about as alike as drought and rain, but we'll leave that alone. And Beck tells his viewers to leave their churches if they say anything about Social Justice.

So what's a church to do? Charity only, without calling for change in the system?

On the surface, that seems ok. We'll give to the poor to help them out, but we don't want any changes to our financial and social systems. Yet it is our systems that create and maintain poverty. Charity does not erase poverty, it merely treats the symptom.

Imagine a person who could not walk to where the food was. You could bring food to the person, but that person would have to eat again. The person becomes reliant on charity for survival.

What would Jesus do?

Sure, we have the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus speaks about visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, but is that all Jesus calls us to?

Did Jesus bring the man crippled from birth a loaf of bread and a fish? Did Jesus hand the paralytic a meal?

Of course not. Jesus healed people and restored them to community. Jesus made people whole in body and social status.

And was Jesus content with treating prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, and others as unclean sinners to stay on the outside of society?

Of course not. Jesus ate with them and even said they would be getting into heaven before the (self) righteous.

Charity without change is a formula for continued dependence and subjugation. That is unethical, unjust, and unChristian. (It's also economically foolish, because it means keeping a class of people dependent on you.)

So I say:

If you belong to a church that offers charity but does not work for change, run as fast as you can and leave that church. It is not a church of Jesus Christ.

OK, I'm overweight and I know it. I eat the wrong things and I don't get enough exercise. I have a treadmill in my bedroom, and yet I rarely use it. I lack motivation. I lack self-discipline. I need to start a new habit.

I think a lot of churches are this way. Sure, we could get out and stand up for an issue. Yes, we could volunteer at a homeless shelter. We could do a lot of things.

But our priorities lie in our own comfort and inertia:

Some churches don't have the money for mission and ministry because we are building a new building. Or buying new carpet. Or we're doing something else that makes the sanctuary more comfortable while we watch the big screen and the action on the stage...er, chancel.

Some churches have gotten lazy - and big. They have a lot of ministries or teams or groups to do all the things that the church has to do to keep being the church it is. These are the survival ministries: they make sure that what has been done is still done and that everything in the church appears as it has. These core ministries are sacred: to alter or lose one could threaten the life of the church.

Some churches are comfortable and risk-averse. But this is also unhealthy. These churches don't have the energy they once did, and a lot of that is due to their size (self-supporting ministries) and lack of exercise (not doing outward ministry).

There is a cure. Churches need to get up and start moving. Cut their diets of bureaucracy. Start doing work that serves others.

Like people, a church can't just go from being sedentary to being a triathlete. Small steps should be taken. Perhaps consolidate a couple of ministries or drop something that's not working rather than doing wholesale liposuction on its structure. And it's good to consult a physician (through prayer, in this case) before starting any fitness regimen.

But bloated, lethargic Western churches need to get healthy, and they need to start now.

As for me? I promise to run on the treadmill.

Tomorrow.

I live in Joliet, and am a member of a UCC church near Joliet.

I was thinking today about our tendency to help when it's convenient.

When we have a few extra dollars, we contribute to charity.

When we have extra food, we give some to the food bank (some of us offer the dented cans or things we don't want to eat).

Yet need does not wax and wane with availability. Homeless people don't disappear when there's a shortage of beds in shelters. People don't magically have enough winter clothing when there are no coats available. People aren't magically filled when there is no food available. And the needs of people for community don't disappear when churches decide they have no room for "people like that".

My church is Plainfield Congregational United Church of Christ, part of the Eastern Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ.

There have been reports of child molestation by church leaders. Firearm discharge inside churches seems to be on the rise.

With these and other recent events, any organization would do well to examine their security policies. Yet for churches, we might well consider the theological basis of our choices.

For Christians, there is the example of the one who walked with lepers, the lame, adulterers, prostitutes, people with boils, the demon possessed, women with chronic bleeding, and tax collectors. Yet we also have a duty to protect those who are vulnerable.

How do we live grace and faith in God's protection, while caring for those around us?

I sometimes wonder whether I have early-onset Alzheimer's disease. I forget a lot of things, and I seem to remember things that never happened, or were never the way I remember them.

This might be one of them.

I seem to remember a time when places of worship were held sacred, even by people outside the faith. I seem to remember a time when people respected these places even when those people did not believe at all.

What would lead people to call for the death of a person?

Perhaps their pastor.

The Reverend Wiley S. Drake,(First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park California) asked people to pray for the deaths of the Reverend Barry W. Lynn (United Church of Christ), Joseph Conn and Jeremy Leaming. The three men, leaders of People United for the Separation of Church and State, had filed a complaint with the IRS because Drake had drafted an endorsement of Presidential Hopeful Mike Huckabee on church letterhead.

Perhaps the prayer went something like this:

Heavenly Father, we call upon you to send death upon the Reverend Barry Lynn. We pray that you would make a widow of his wife, and orphans of his now grown children. We pray that his grandchildren would seek and yet not find him, and that his denomination, the United Church of Christ, would mourn his loss.

As I wrote the above in jest, I found this:

He gave as examples of imprecatory prayer:

"Persecute them. ... Let them be put to shame and perish."

"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg."

 - http://www.civilbrights.net/node/4673


I am overwhelmed by shame: shame that a member of the body of Christ has called out "I have no need of you" to other members, shame that an ordained minister has cried to God not for blessing but for punishment for men and their families.

Not all Christians are like this.

I promise.


References:

• http://pietyandpolitics.com/3/barry/
• http://www.civilbrights.net/node/4673
• http://www.auok.org/who_is_barry_lynn.htm

I'm in seminary because I have an irresistible, irrefusable call to ministry. Despite the fact that I would not choose myself for such a vocation, I cannot seem to resist the compelling force to walk this path. And, rather than telling me how foolish I am, many people who know me encourage me to persevere, saying they see in me something that tells them I have a true calling. Yet every time I try to follow this path, I hit insurmountable obstacles.

When I finally realize how impossible this is for me, a divorced, transsexual lesbian (now in my forties), with yet somewhat traditional and orthodox theology, I come to my senses and stop.

And then comes the intense feeling of loss. Some time later, perhaps six months or a year, I realize I cannot say no to this call. No matter how difficult, how impossible, how ridiculous it is, it is what I must do.


Now I have hit another immovable object. I have to stop. And yet the call is an unstoppable force.


I know the fault is in me. Either I am failing to understand how God is speaking to me, or I am failing in walking the path God has set before me.

And it makes me very sad.


I do not blame God. I blame myself for the failure - even for the failure to see where I have failed.

I cry out for help. I pray that God will grant me whatever I need to do God's will - whatever that will may be. I pray I will be made into the person God has dreamed me to be.

I pray for wisdom to know which way I should go - not the destination, but for the place to plant my next step.

I pray for the humility to accept whatever task to which I may be set.

I pray for the courage to do whatever I must do.

I pray for the strength to overcome the obstacles which I must overcome.

I pray for the acceptance that there are obstacles I was never meant to overcome.

And I pray that my love would always increase, to always care for the others I would find on my way, and for the grace to forgive those who I feel have harmed me, no matter how I felt I was harmed.


I don't know what to do, but at least I have the humility to admit that.

Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter.

In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward."

- Mark 9:38-41

Sometimes we forget to recognize that we're more alike than we are different. Sometimes we let differences in one area keep us from working together in another.

But not Friends Congregational UCC in College Station, Texas. Even though many of the churches that worked with Prison Fellowship were critical of gay and Lesbian persons, this Open and Affirming (OnA) congregation did not let this get in the way of participating in Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree program, which purchased gifts for children of inmates. Though they didn't agree on the sanctity of same-sex relationships, Friends Congregational realized that had nothing to do with helping children at Christmas. They believed in offering hope to kids whose only fault was having a parent who was convicted and imprisoned.

Unfortunately, after several years of participation, Prison Fellowship removed them from the program.

Prison Fellowship specifically refused to allow Friends Congregational UCC to continue to participate in a program to help imprisoned adults offer Christmas gifts to their children because Friends Congregational UCC is Open and Affirming of gay and Lesbian people.

The Rev. Dan De Leon, pastor of Friends Congregational, said the regional office of Prison Fellowship told him that, because the church belongs to the UCC's "Open and Affirming" program, it would not be allowed to participate in the Angel Tree program.

A Senior Vice President of Prison Fellowship said that, out of 12,000 participating churches, only a few congregations have been disqualified, usually due to doctrine on creation or homosexuality.

I doubt the kids - who would not have known which churches were involved, much less the churches' doctrine - would have cared.

"Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward."

References:

• http://www.ucc.org/news/church-in-texas-excluded-from.html
• http://uccforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4037
  

...our praise band, "Inspiration!", is about to start the prelude for the service at the harvest festival in Forrest.. More later.

When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, "Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here." But He said to them, "You give them something to eat."

And they said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people." For there were about five thousand men.

And He said to His disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of fifty."  And they did so, and made them all sit down. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. - Luke 9:12-17

This miracle is the only one reported in all of the gospels. It's too bad that, with all the hungry people in the world today, that we can't repeat it now.

Or can we?

At 8:30AM today, I'll be rehearsing with my church's praise band. At 10:30, we'll be part of the service at the Harvest Festival in Forrest Illinois.

Three churches will come together to celebrate the harvest to which we all contributed. Two urban churches - * Grace Lutheran Church & School of Forest Park, IL and Plainfield Congregational United Church of Christ - sponsored acres of land tilled by members of St. Paul's Lutheran Church of Forrest Illinois. The harvest of corn will be sold at market rate, and the money raised will be used in a growing project in Africa. The United States Agency for International Development will match the money raised. So from the modest contributions of two churches and the labor of a third, sustainable agriculture will be developed so that people can feed themselves.

This is the work of Foods Resource Bank. 15 Mainline Christian denominations participate in reproducing this miracle of feeding the multitude.

I'd go on, but I have a celebration to prepare for.

Jesus said to them:

"You give them something to eat."

It's Monday morning and time to head back to work. Well, it's time for some of us.

But not for Susan Stanton. Fired from her job as city manager of Largo, Florida after announcing she was transitioning from living as male to living as female, her latest bid for employment hasn't panned out either.

Such is the body politic, which has a tendency to consume its own pieces. Surely the church is better.

Alas, no. Marla Evans has more free time on Sundays, now that her church has told her to stop coming to play guitar (for which she was paid) and to stop volunteering to teach Sunday School. This even though Marla never showed up at church as Marla - always as her pre-transition identity as Mark. The church found out she was transgender because of a news story.

Can we justify this separation? I've heard the phrase "sin is anything that separates us from God", but to me that's only half the picture: sin against God. What about when we separate others from us? Is that not sin against each other?

I Corinthians 12 suggests it is such a sin.

The Apostle Paul writes that we are all one body and the body is not made up of one part but of many.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If that is so, how can the Body of Christ, represented by this church, say to this member of the body "I have no need of you"? Are Marla's talents diminished by her being transgender?

In fact, the members of the church are harmed by missing Marla's musical and educational talents. Again in I Corinthians 12, Paul writes:

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

And so, every part of this church - the children in Sunday School and the people in worship services - suffer because the person they knew as Mark has been severed from the body.

Every organization, every body, should guard against removing persons that offer so much to their organizations. And if any organizations should know this, it should be the churches.

references:
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070928/NEWS0119/70928016/1075
http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S202050.shtml?cat=10335
http://rebeccaaugephd.blogspot.com/2007/09/transgendered-woman-says-she-was-asked.html

     I keep hearing about fundamentalists: Christian fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalists and (occasionally) Jewish fundamentalists. And if there's one thing Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning, queer, leather, supportive, and other  (did I miss anyone?) people know about fundamentalists, it is this: They don't like us.

     So what are the fundamentals of Christianity anyway?

     We could look at the teachings of Jesus. Jesus told one man, who claimed to have followed the law perfectly, to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. I don't often hear pastors harping on that one, but there's a strong illustration of using one's privilege to help others.

     Jesus also forgave people - constantly, and without requirement of penance. There's a lesson by example, but how much forgiveness do we hear from pulpits?

     Jesus healed people, and how many healing words do we hear from pulpits?

     But if there is one strong lesson from Jesus, it is this: The two greatest commandments are to love God and love one another. Jesus says that all of the law and all of the prophets are based on these two.

     Jesus did not invent those ideas - they were already part of Jewish belief.

     We can argue about the Trinity, the meaning of Jesus's death, the question of Jesus's resurrection, and whether the bread and wine (or grape juice) have any real Jesus in them. We can stress out all we want about who's in and who's out, whether there is eternal torment, and what sins are too vile for us to forgive.

     But all of that is fluff. The fundamentals, my brothers and sisters, are these:

• The first is this: 'Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
• 'The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

     To me, that's true fundamentalism.

     So call me a true fundamentalist.