Douglas BLVD Christian Church

My Favorite Part of Worship

2010-07-31T16:43:00.000-07:00

The following is a guest post by Cheryl Cubbage. In case you don't know Cheryl, she is a member and Elder of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church.

Probably because I grew up in the Disciples of Christ church, communion has been the focal point of my Christian worship experience. It was part of my wedding ceremony, and if I’m going to feel like I have adequately worshiped, communion must be part of the worship service. When I go to a non-DOC church, I miss communion not being offered or being offered, but I’m not allowed to participate because I’m not a member. This has always been my favorite part of the service because I feel so engaged with Christ, the community of other believers, and really reflective on my Christian calling and discipleship. This is almost always the point in the service when I am most moved emotionally and thoughtfully. It is such a simple ritual, and yet I am always moved. Communion makes me feel authentically Christian and like I belong to Christ, just as those present at the table with me belong to Christ. I get to hear such varieties of the same experience of Christ from those presiding at the table. I come away filled with hope, love and gratitude and wanting to pass it on.

Which parts of the order of worship do you appreciate, and why? Comment below and join the conversation!

Welcoming the Stranger

2010-07-20T19:53:00.001-07:00

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

We are about to welcome a new family to our country. Because of our concern for their privacy, we won’t be publicizing details about the family in open forum. I can say, however, that they are Karen people from Burma. Tomorrow night (as I write this), a group of people from DBCC will go to the airport to tell this refugee family how happy we are to have the opportunity to know them. In a little over one week, we’ve collected enough items to furnish an apartment, moved those items across town, and then set them up in the apartment. I am in awe of the love and dedication shown by the people of DBCC. Special thanks go to Cheryl Flora and Susie Buchanan, as well as to Gary King for all the hard work they’ve done to pull this together in such short time. It’s difficult to tell you just how proud I am to work with such amazingly committed people—all the way around. Thank you.

“What,” you might wonder, “does helping a family of political refugees start a new life in our country have to do with the church? With our faith?” That’s a good question. Why should we be the ones to care? Aren’t there government agencies for this sort of thing? More good questions. My only response is to point out what it says in the book. I’d love to have a more creative answer, but there you go—as simplistic and old-fashioned as it sounds, that’s what the bible says we are to do. We welcome these strangers into our midst for no better reason than because that’s who God tells us we are—namely, we’re people who welcome strangers, because we’ve been strangers before, and God welcomed us.

Two years ago, our congregation voted unanimously to become an Open and Affirming Community of Faith. A big part of what that meant had to do with our public commitment to receive people, regardless of sexual orientation, into our fellowship to participate fully in our community. Open and Affirming, however, is a designation that encompasses so much more than our stance toward those of differing sexual orientation. At its heart, Open and Affirming is a way of situating ourselves inside the narrative of God’s expansive love to all people—especially those on the margins, those who are always in jeopardy of being forgotten by everyone else. Our work to welcome this refugee family is an expression of our continued commitment to extend the embrace of community to strangers. If the church reoriented its common life to do this on a regular basis, the designation “stranger” would be a rarity. And that, I believe, would make our God—who is not partial, who executes justice for the widow and orphan, and who loves strangers—happy indeed.

Church Yard Sale for the Casa Hogar de San Juan

2010-07-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

Church Wide Yard Sale at DBCC.

All proceeds will go to buy supplies for our renovation of the Casa Hogar Children's Home in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

We need your help and contributions! In October, our mission team going to Mexico and we're sponsoring a "garage" sale to help raise funds for the supplies.

We need clothing, household items, furniture, books, pictures, small appliances, linens, etc. - anything you no longer use or need. Bundle towels, sheets and linen sets with masking tape. Bring your items to the church, Tues. - Friday, from 9-2. A call prior to your arrival would be helpful.

We also need volunteers to help with pricing items, set up on Friday, July 31 and workers the day of the dale from 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Not everyone can travel to Mexico, but you can be a part of this mission by helping here at home.

If you have items you would like to donate for the sale call the office at 452-2629 or email Ben Carter at notbencarter@gmail,com.

2005 Douglass Blvd. in the Highlands at the Douglass Loop.

DBCC Co-sponsors a Karen Refugee Family

2010-07-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

One of the things we’ve been looking to do as a congregation is to find ways to live out the difficult demands of discipleship in ways that express our commitment to love and hospitality. DBCC has been presented an opportunity to co-sponsor a Karen family with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. DBCC has done this in the past with great success, and we feel like the time is right for us to sponsor another family.

The family we’ve agreed to sponsor is a family of five—father, mother, two daughters, and one son. They will be arriving in Louisville on July 21^st at 10:00 p.m. at the airport. A number of people have already volunteered their time and resources to help resettle this family. I want to appeal to you, if you haven’t already, to think about how you might help our congregations extend the embrace of Christian hospitality to strangers—in this case, political refugees.

Here is a sketch of some the important information about our endeavor.

Sponsorship Commitment:

The sponsorship team is asked to commit to a 3- or 4 -month sponsorship of the family. This includes meeting the family at the airport; arranging for housing; helping to provide initial food, clothing, household goods, and basic furniture; providing transportation to and from our office, school, the grocery store, and other important places until the refugees have learned to use public transportation; assisting with health screening and other medical needs; helping the family become acquainted with their new community; and being a friend. This is a financial commitment of approximately $2500 and many volunteer hours. Sponsorship itself carries with it no legal obligations and is considered a commitment on the part of the co-sponsoring congregation with Kentucky Refugee Ministries (KRM). KRM carries the ultimate legal responsibility for resettlement and is responsible to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Department of State. When a sponsorship team agrees to sponsor a family, our agency assists in every facet of the sponsorship. An initial orientation for the sponsorship committee is provided prior to arrival. After the family’s arrival the case manager will make appointments and advise you and the family on all facets of resettlement. Our job developers will work with the refugees and employers, matching employable adults with appropriate work opportunities. This includes the very important aspect of finding initial work opportunities and upgrading jobs. At the end of three or four months the church’s commitment is fulfilled; our agency will continue to work with the refugees for up to five years after arrival. At the end of the co-sponsorship KRM will continue to work with the family towards self-sufficiency, the most immediate need being finding employment for at least one of the adults in the family.

Financial “Picture”

Upon arrival, each family member receives a one-time sum of $900 (R & P) per person, or $4500 for this family.

This money is designated by USRP to be used for set-up expenses. Many co-sponsors absorb much of these initial costs during the first few months allowing the family to use this money to open a bank account and access as needed.

After arrival determination will be made as to which program best fits this family. The case manager, the match grant coordinator, and the family make a determination of the program by the end of the first month. There are currently two programs for which the family might apply. After arrival determination will be made as to which program best fits this family.

If the family’s best fit is KTAP, after 30 days an application is filed. Currently a family of 5 on KTAP receives a monthly stipend of $383 monthly cash assistance and childcare until the adults are employed and able to take care of their expenses. It takes from 10 days to 1 month to receive the first check. If the family is enrolled into the Matching Grant program after the first 30 days they will receive a weekly cash assistance of $50 per adult and $10 per child until their 120^th day and they are guaranteed that the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th months’ rent will be supplied either by the church or by another donor source. Both of these programs will be explained to the family (and to you) after the family’s arrival. After arrival determination will be made as to which program best fits this family.

HOUSING INFORMATION:

The family will need a three- bedroom apartment. I will be happy to discuss housing with you. KRM will secure safe, affordable housing on a bus line for the family in a neighborhood where other Karen families are living (depending upon availability).

Additional Initial Approximate Expenses and Costs:

The apartment deposit and first month’s rent will be paid by the case manager out of the family’s R&P funds. KRM will also request that the LG&E account be put in the family’s name. The LG&E deposit will be spread out over the first three month period and included in the monthly bills. Bus Pass-- $45.00 per adult Food—enough for period before food stamps are processed (up to 2 weeks), Paper Products, etc. Note: Paper and cleaning products and personal hygiene items are not covered by foodstamps and can be quite expensive for new arrivals. Pocket money for the first month--$30-45 weekly ($10 per adult plus extra for children’s expenses)

INSURANCE:

All members of the family will have health insurance coverage for a minimum of eight months upon arrival. After employment the family will be encouraged to use the medical insurance provided through the job.

ARRIVAL:

The family will arrive in the US on July 20^th and spend the night in Los Angeles. They will travel to Louisville on July 21^st on Delta 6079, arriving at 10:00 pm. Be sure and check with the airlines before leaving for the airport. Arrivals are often late and sometimes re-scheduled. If flights change we will try to reach you as soon as we hear.

Thank you very much for wanting to extend hospitality to those newly arrived in our city. We look forward to working with you.

Here's a link to the refugee camp they will be arriving from: Mae La Oon Camp.

If you'd like to help out, call or email the church office (javandiver@insightbb.com) or contact Cheryl Flora or Susie Buchanan.

Fish out of Water

2010-06-24T06:41:00.000-07:00

“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm. 133:1).

Of critical significance to the life of our community lately has been the discussion about sexual orientation. Owing, in large part, to Ryan’s leadership, we have been in the thick of the conversation about what it means for the church to extend hospitality to the LGBT community. On Sunday, June 27 at 6:00 our church will be hosting the regional screening for the documentary, Fish out of Water, which deals with the how homosexuality and biblical Christianity can be reconciled. Together with the Fairness Campaign of Louisville we will be gathering to view the film, followed by a panel discussion about how the church can be a part of the solution in embracing diversity, rather than the problem.

We have taken important steps over the past two years to live into our identity as An Open and Affirming Community of Faith. As a church and as a culture we still have many miles to walk. The only way to begin the process of healing and reconciliation is to be honest about the fact that things are not as they should be. Honesty, after all, must be the bedrock upon which we build any new foundation of trust.

To suggest that there are problems, however, is not to say that there are not a number of folks deeply concerned to see those problems addressed. It occurs to me that the LGBT community, in particular, feels like it has been shouting itself hoarse for some time in an attempt to raise the alarm that problems exist. Apparently, though, they feel like their cries have gone largely unheeded. How can we create an atmosphere in which people’s deepest fears and longings are heard, not as threats, but as pleas for a more equitable community? That, it seems to me, is the first hurdle we must surmount on this journey we have begun together.

I know, as I have said previously, of a considerable number of Christians who want to see the bonds of exclusion loosed once and for all. What they want to know is, “What can we do? How can we make a difference in the fight?” Now, I am aware that that can sound like just another case of liberal guilt masquerading as patriarchal philanthropy. Affluent, well-situated folks often have nothing better to do than sit around feeling guilty because we are affluent and well-situated. But, as ridiculous as it may sound, there are folks who want to change things, not merely because of some free-floating feelings of shame but because of whom they claim to serve. There really are folks who, honest to goodness, believe that their faith compels them to see everyone, regardless of race, gender, or nationality, or sexual orientation through the prism of the cross. But we are not perfect. We need some help figuring out how we can help make things better.

Obviously, many folks think it’s unrealistic to expect that the church is the place to begin this work. The church, as we must admit, has a history of being as much a part of the problem as a part of the solution. We can neither ignore that, nor should we try. No, in most folks’ minds the place to begin is in the “real world.” If we could just get this fixed in our society, or if we could just insure that that inequitable practice could be stopped, we would have what we need to announce the end of racism. Why? Because the “real world” is where people live, not in the insular halls of religion.

And what needs to be fixed is the “real world,” which the church cannot effectively change. The church is just a lot of well-meaning, but impotent folks who may care but who do not have the wherewithal to do anything of lasting significance. If we want real change, it is thought, we will have to go to city hall or to the state capitol. The church may be nice, but it’s irrelevant when you get right down to the hard matters of the “real world.” And while I would be the first to admit that we need to address the systemic inequities that discriminate against people based on their orientation, I would like to suggest that the church has a stake in learning to live like Christ, regardless of what the rest of the world does. We need to learn to seek out those who’ve been marginalized and forgotten, and embrace them the way Christ has embraced us. Whether or not society ever sees fit to extend justice to the beleaguered (which I fervently pray it does), we must learn to speak up for justice. While we trust that making the world whole is ultimately God’s responsibility, we are charged with the faithful pursuit of wholeness.

Maybe we don’t control the levers of power as the world understands power, but we serve a God who is victorious over death. And if God can conquer death, we naive fanatics believe God can conquer injustice. Come on out Sunday night and see.

Talking the Talk

2010-05-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:6-10).

I admit that this passage from Isaiah sounds a bit fanciful given the current state of our world. We’re much more apt more apt to take sides as the wolf and the lamb face off. We’re more comfortable with policy decisions that help us avoid the terrible truth that the leopard and the kid lie down together only when one feasts on the bones of the other. Our world is situated such that only dewy-eyed romantics and ungrounded idealists ever really believe that a little child will actually lead this unlikely menagerie—especially when we see the cold, hard facts.

And the fact of the matter is, when it comes to the wolf and the lamb actually living together, we main-line Protestants are often the least likely to share the same space in peace. Speaking about the relative lack of mixed-race congregations, Nancy T. Ammerman said, “Mainline folks, for all their talk about diversity, lag significantly behind.” The charge, of course, is that we who are the putative gatekeepers of the “true faith” are much better at talking the talk, than walking the walk.

Implied in that indictment against main-liners, however, is the notion that somehow talking the talk isn’t that important. But I would like to suggest that it is impossible finally to walk the walk, if nobody has told us where to go. Somebody has to hold forth a bold vision of what we believe life will look like under the reign of God when it is fully revealed. Somebody has to talk bigger than we are, or we’ll have nowhere to reach. Somebody has to dream about wolves and lambs and leopards and kids, or the world will begin to think that its animosity is normal, natural. Somebody has to talk about how God doesn’t think that the hostility that exists between the strong and the weak, between the haves and have-nots, between the powerful and powerless is either normal or natural.

And just because we haven’t gotten it right yet, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stand up and talk about what right is. Just because it sounds simple or naive to announce a rapprochement with between the lion and the ox, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t hold that in front of us as God’s view of reality. Just because bears still kill cows when they inhabit the same space, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t press on toward a vision in which they graze the same fields in peace.

We can, of course, never be excused from trying to get it right. Living with a vision requires no less. What we can be excused from is thinking that it’s somehow our responsibility to get it right. Because when the reign of God is finally realized, it won’t be because we made it happen. It will be because we left ourselves open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and to a vision of what God believes life is really like. Lord knows, somebody better keep talking that talk.

“On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the people; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious” (Isa. 11:10).

The Complexity of Faith

2010-04-13T12:51:00.001-07:00

Instead of complaining that God had hidden Himself, you will give Him thanks for not having revealed so much of Himself: and you will also give Him thanks for not having revealed Himself to haughty sages, unworthy to know so holy a God.

Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.

Pascal, Pensées

I find it fascinating that in a faith as complex and ambiguous as Christianity can sometimes be there are people who are altogether too eager to claim that they have cornered the market on God. Even more fascinating, and perhaps more disturbing, is the grand certainty with which people make claims about that God—who God hates, for instance. There are people who can give you five steps to a better prayer life, eight steps to reaching the lost, three principles for ethical living, and ten days to a deeper faith. There are people that are too quick with an answer to tough questions: Why did my child die? Why do I need to pray? Why has Jesus not returned? Why are there hungry people in a world that produces more food than it can consume?

For Christians, faith is paradoxical. On the one hand, we find simplicity: We were separated from God because of our sin, and God took pains through Jesus to reconcile us to God’s self. On the other hand, the way that that faith plays itself out in every day life is vastly more perplexing: How am I to live as a Christian in the context of a cut-throat business environment? Are my loyalties to God or the country of my birth? How do I cope with the feeling that God is somehow absent? How do I hold onto my faith in the face of those who would destroy it?

For those of us for whom it is not always possible to affirm that faith just “gets sweeter and sweeter as the days go by,” for those of us who don’t have the handy theological slide-rule that much of popular Christianity seems always at the ready to produce, providing a snappy answer to the faith’s toughest questions, for those of us for whom faith is oftentimes more a “Jacobian” struggle with God than a tender walk “to the garden alone,” we must remember that our job as Christians is not to produce trite sayings in the face of difficult questions, but to struggle together in humility toward the truth.

Humility and truth—it is next to impossible to find the latter without the former. Perhaps the three most important words in theology are “I don’t know.” Faith is an arduous journey, often through deep darkness, which frequently provides more questions than answers; it is not a sunny jaunt through the daffodils that requires nothing more of us than to memorize a few trite sayings. Don’t be overly alarmed, though, because the journey upon which we embark has as its solace the fact that we do it together, hand in hand, with Jesus ever near.

Prayer & Facebook

2010-04-06T07:18:00.001-07:00

Sometime ago I got a Facebook message from someone I know off IRL but have never meet. The message said, “Today your face popped up in my friends corner which means you are one of the 6 people I’m praying for today. Have a great day, Ryan!”

I was stunned. I heard all about this person and the works they did at the church I was working at prior to my arrival. I wanted to meet them but it just never worked out. I went on to become a missionary and then to seminary and now in parish ministry and I get a message from this person telling me that they are praying for me that day cause I came up within one of their 6 boxes of friends I generally ignore on Facebook.

I was moved by this gesture. These prayers touched me and I was moved to prayer. I have been praying for some difficulties in my life and faith. Here was a stranger that I admired praying with me in these hard times. I took on her cause and began praying for the first 6 faces that pop up on my profile page every morning and sending them that simple message that I recieved, ” Today your face popped up in my friends corner which means you are one of the 6 people I’m praying for today. Have a great day, !“

I am going to encourage my congregation to participate in this semi-silent ministry of pray using Facebook to touch the lives of our friends [virtual or not] and be the light of Christ in this mourning world.

Imagine if all that had faith in a god could pray or meditate for those 6 faces that pop up. Imagine your inboxes full of simple messages of prayer and unity. It could happen. It begins with you. I invite you to join this simple cause and simple message, “Today your face popped up in my friends corner which means you are one of the 6 people I’m praying for today. Have a great day, !“

Peace be with you all!

Pain Isn't All Bad

2010-03-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

“Holy and beneficial is the time of preparation in which the Almighty Judge is moved to show us mercy, to show repentance to the sinner, and to offer peace to the just. All things (this week) are now prepared for pardon, the sinner for confession, and the tongue to plead for mercy” (Maximos the Confessor).

Here we stand. Lent is about to culminate in the tragic passion of Holy Week. Our study, prayer and devotion have all worked together to bring us to this point. Lent has shown us the overpowering reality of the power of darkness in our lives; it has allowed us to see the grave consequences of our sin as they reach their natural conclusion on Good Friday. But more than that, Lent has taught us that the life we thought we were living apart from Christ was really death. All the pretensions to importance and busyness have been shown to be masks attempting to cover our confusion and lostness. Lent lays bare before us that which we had hoped to avoid--namely, the fact that apart from Christ we are dead.

Growing up, I thought Lent was something that Catholics did, which had something vaguely to do with giving up candy. Now, I see the whole matter differently. Giving up something dear to us for Lent is not a way to polish our halos, not a way to reestablish a righteousness based on our own efforts. Rather, the spiritual disciplines of Lent allow us an opportunity to say to a world bent on avoiding pain at all costs, that we are a people who identify with a Savior who endured great pain to save us from the sin that beset us, that we are a people for whom sacrifice and service is a part of life. If one of the main images of our faith is a man hanging on a tree, how could it be otherwise?

Lent provides a context in which to understand the state of our hopelessness, and makes provision for our reconciliation to the Christ we had a hand in crucifying. In the final analysis, Lent has shown us, both that we are sinners in need of repentance and that God refuses to hold our sin against us.

Even after our complicity in the grave iniquity committed during Holy Week, a way to God has been provided through Jesus. And that, my friends, is why we have the audacity to call any week as gruesome as this one . . . holy—and any day as awful as Friday . . . good, because we know that the path to new life leads through “the valley of the shadow of death.” And we have a Savior who walked through it before us.

Lent may at times be painful, but you will never fully understand Easter apart from the pain it took Jesus to get there. “All things are now prepared for pardon, the sinner for confession, and the tongue to plead for mercy.” Maximos knew. It couldn’t be otherwise.

Just Hanging On

2010-03-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

“Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed” (Heb. 12:12-13).

At one point in the church I served some years back, we had a particularly large spate of deaths. People who had been pillars began to die, and the effect unnerved everyone. One lady said to me, “Preacher, it looks like this year is going to be one for the books.”

At the time, I wished I knew what to say to that. Even now I wish I could say that death happens, and that people get sick, and that people suffer, and that that is all a part of life this side of the eschaton. Actually, what I mean to say is that I wish I could say all of that in a way that would make sense of all the tears. I wish I could say something that eased the ache in all of our hearts when fear confronts us. I wish I could say something really pastoral, full of confidence and solace. I wish . . .

I knew that there were people hurting in our church. There were people who were afraid of what our church would look like after we had fought our battle of attrition with death, people afraid of what life would look like without our heroes, without the faces we had counted on to pick us up when we had fallen, to soothe us when we mourned, to chastise us when we quit, to teach us when we sought, to lead us when we wandered.

In my personal life, as many of you are aware, it appears as though “this is going to be one for the books.” With both my father in Hospice and my youngest brother with an advanced form of colo-rectal cancer, things have weighed heavily on my family recently. I want to thank all of you who have asked about and prayed for the situation my family faces. I’m grateful for your love and support. But I’m not the only one facing difficult times. I know that many of you also have concerns about your loved ones, anxiety about what your future may hold. Please know that you’re part of a community that longs to walk beside you through uncertain times—even when we don’t have any good answers to give.

Most days, getting out of bed is a habit for us that requires little thought and little motivation. But when the skies darken and our horizons fade in the night, figuring out how to survive another day, let alone move forward, without the certainty that the familiar human landmarks of our lives will always be with us seems impossible. Despair comes easy.

And yet, somehow God calls us forward. Like a lover God stands before us, wooing us toward our collective future, asking not that we should forget our pain, but that we should endure in spite of it. In the face of great pain God neither requires great acts of bravery, nor does God expect it; what God requires and expects of us is faithfulness. Because in some ironic twist of circumstance, our faithfulness in the face of our fear and grief transforms us into models for those who come behind us. Then, even though we are scarred, we may be healed.

Sometimes hanging on is the best we can do. According to our faith, sometimes hanging on is the best there is. Thanks for helping me hang on.

Raising Children in the Household of God

2010-03-03T03:57:00.000-08:00

“I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:14-15).

The church in America has confidence problems. And, perhaps, rightly so. We have failed on any number of fronts to live as the people of God in a foreign land. Feeling our story to be a bit too radical, we have convinced ourselves that our story is not all that different from the stories of the culture around us. It is only through the most egregious and idiosyncratic misreading of the New Testament, for example, that we can justify dropping bombs on people as a way of achieving peace. Rigorous intellectual gymnastics are required to read the New Testament and still come away believing that the accumulation of more and more stuff has no moral implications, or that to be better Christians we merely need to accumulate more and more “Christian” stuff. Jesus’ words about turning the other cheek and camels going through the eye of a needle seem fanatical and outlandish in a world in which violence and wealth are romantic ideals. We much prefer to blunt the razor’s edge of Scripture. “Surely, Jesus didn’t really mean it when he said . . .”

Chop a little bit off here, rationalize a little bit there, and pretty soon the Church begins to look and sound like everybody else–with a little extra Jesus language thrown in for good measure. In fact, there are those among us who think that what we need to do is to get the world to look and act a little bit more like the church, in effect blurring the line between the church and the world in the name of relevancy. The Church in America is so unsure of itself, so insecure about its own ability to produce disciples that there are actually people who think that we ought to turn to the government and the public school system to prop up our flagging faith. Is the church in such bad shape that the best we can offer young people are proposals to “teach the Bible in school,” to put “prayer and the Ten Commandments back in the classroom?” Is Christian leadership in this state so impotent that it would consider abdicating its responsibility for the teaching of the faith in favor of cheap sloganeering? Praying, living a moral life are practices that need to be taught and learned within the context of a worshiping community whose goal it is to form saints. They are the treasures of the church; they can’t just be farmed out when the church gets tired of the hard work of teaching them. Beyond that, praying and the moral life are unintelligible to a world whose view of morality is not already shaped by the cross.

The author of First Timothy is writing to a congregation that is trying to come to terms with its place in an apparently hostile society. In the first thirteen verses of chapter three, he describes the characteristics that will be present in good leaders. Interestingly enough, he says very little about the actual functions of bishops (episkopoi) and deacons (diakonoi). Instead, the author is careful to point out what type of folks are suited to those offices. Why is that? Because leadership in the church, from the very beginning, was seen as a position vital to the community precisely to the extent that it put forward leaders who could teach others what it meant to be a good Christian. Leaders in the early church were given the responsibility of teaching the faith, of passing on the tradition. That understanding of teaching, however, assumed not only a facility with words, but a life worthy of imitation. Being a leader in the early church entailed so much more than being able to recite the Ten Commandments, it required a commitment to living them.

The early church knew what we have apparently forgotten: learning something as complex praying and learning to read the Bible necessitates seeing it embodied in people who are held up as examples. You don’t turn over something as precious as that to just anyone. You don’t just tack up your prized possessions on the wall and hope somebody pays attention.

If the Church is ever going to be “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” it is going to have to quit hoping that someone else will raise our children.

On Doing Significant Things

2010-02-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

I find it very easy to feel as if I have nothing of value left to say. I’ve been writing and preaching and talking about all manner of things — religious and otherwise — for (what seems to me, at least) so long now. Whenever I open my mouth or put pen to paper, I want to say something intelligent, important. Perhaps even more than that, and I am almost embarrassed to say it, I would like to produce something original. That is to say, I would like to say or write something that is unique to me, something that no one has ever said or written before. Why do I have this great need to be original? Pride, I suppose. We all want to leave our mark on the world, to leave something to prove, not only that we were here, but that our existence made a difference, that it meant something more than the amount of Doritos we consumed or the total hours we spent sitting in front of The Biggest Loser.

Ministers are just as prone to that sort of preoccupation as everyone else — maybe more, because most ministers enter the ministry as a way of being involved in matters substantive (perhaps even eternal), as a way of being God’s agent in bringing about transformation, as a way of making a difference. Most of the time, though, ministers—like everybody else must content themselves with the mundane, peripheral things of life (i.e., what we shall eat, what we shall drink, what we shall wear, etc.). It’s easy to believe, after having seen the same faces week in and week out, that what happens in church makes little difference at all in people’s lives. The everydayness of it lulls us into thinking that the words we say, the songs we sing, the baptisms we perform, the Eucharist over which we preside, has so little power or relevance in our age.

We’re wrong, of course. As Annie Dillard writes in her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely evoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.

Anyone with any sense knows that what we do as a church, the rituals we practice, the words we use have in them (due to their proximate relationship to God) the power to heal the sick and raise the dead. It is no empty thing to say to a person during communion: “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven. The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.” People have died for uttering words like that, and, just as importantly, the dead have been raised with words like that. And if things like that aren’t intelligent or important enough to distinguish us, not original enough to help us make our mark — nothing is.

The Stuff I Have

2010-02-02T03:40:00.000-08:00

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there you heart will also be” (Luke 12:32-34).

Some years ago my friend Mike received a strange phone call from a tire salesman. Mike had gone to Doyle’s Tires the week before to buy a tire, and had met this man. The man didn’t call to sell him tires, however.

He said, “Look, I know this is a shot in the dark and all. But a couple of us have recently gone together to start a business, and it has become quite lucrative. This must sound awfully strange to you, but when I saw you in the store last week I could tell you looked like a sharp person and I noticed that you carried yourself well. So, I was wondering, well, if you’d be interested in pursuing some other avenues of financial stability?”

Mike, upon hearing the man’s question, said, straightforwardly and matter‑of‑factly, “Nope.”

The man said, “Uh, excuse me.”

Mike said, “No, I wouldn’t be interested in pursuing some other avenues of financial success.”

“Did you say, ‘No’?”the man asked, apparently not quite tuned into the tone of the conversation.

“Yes, that’s right, I said ‘No.’”

And the man said, “You mean to tell me you wouldn’t be interested in making more money, securing your future financially?”

“That’s right. I have absolutely no interest in making more money.”

“Why?”

And Mike said, “Because I’m a Christian.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything. Because as a Christian I think life is about getting rid of the stuff I have, not getting more. I think it’s about selling what I have and giving it away and ending up with absolutely nothing. I believe that it’s contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ to go through life trying to get more and more. I believe that it’s the devil himself who tries to convince me that the goal and end of my life is to secure my future. My problems in life don’t stem from the fact that I don’t have enough stuff. Quite to the contrary, most of my problems stem from the fact that the stuff I have is always in danger of having me, of taking my eyes off of the true source of my life.”

Then Mike said, “Listen, are you a Christian?”

And the man said, “Well, yes.”

“Well, then, let me give you an opportunity to repent of this foolishness, to risk it all by giving up any notion that you can secure one iota of your life, and come back to the gospel. Let me ask you a question: Would you be interested in pursuing some other avenues of Christian faithfulness by getting rid of the stuff you have, and vowing not pursue the accumulation of more stuff?”

And when he heard this he was shocked and went away grieving for he had many possessions.

Well, Mike didn’t actually say any of that. What he really said was “No thank you,” and then hung up the phone. But what if he had said it? What kind of a church would we have to be to produce someone who could say something like that? That’s really the question, isn’t it?

Social Media at Douglass Boulevard

2010-01-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

For some time, our church, like many others, has had a presence in the virtual world of the Internet alongside its presence in the real world of Louisville, KY. We have a website whose current version is the best our church has ever seen. We have the blog you are reading right now, and we also have a page on Facebook, the social networking site, and a feed on Twitter, the microblogging site. As strange and unfamiliar as these two latter items-- "social media," in the fast-moving parlance of Internet-speak-- may seem, they in fact allow us Christians to pursue ministries we have already been pursuing for a long time. We have always been witnesses to our friends both near and far, in our work, family, and private lives, and we have always been connected with all Christians in the worldwide community of Disciples and believers. Pope Benedict XVI of the Roman Catholic Church has proclaimed social media's potential role in the future church. Their emphasis on connectivity and effacing boundaries are a natural fit with the ecumenical and unifying focus that has animated the Disciples of Christ tradition from its beginnings. Social media afford us a different way of living out Christian community-- one that doesn't replace our real-world community, but allows us to enhance it and extend it in novel ways.

Our church's ventures into social media, however, have up to now lacked a single, deliberate focus. This statement isn't meant as a criticism of the efforts that Derek, Ryan, Jennifer, and others have made in this area. Far from it-- their efforts have laid crucial foundations. They simply lack the time to give social media the kind of focus it requires. As anyone with a Facebook page or Twitter account knows, social media require daily attention and updating; they need not consume more than a few minutes of one's day, but they need at least that much.

So, as of last Thursday I am now our church's social media coordinator, which means that I am the central focal point for our church's presence on the two main social media sites, Facebook and Twitter. Derek and Ryan will continue to communicate with us via these tools, and they and Administrative Secretary Jennifer Vandiver will continue to have primary responsibility for maintaining the church website, blog, and other communications such as the newsletter. Sue Raymond has also volunteered to lend her talents to help develop our church website further. My role will be to ensure that our church's presence in the social-media world is constant, meaningful, and in keeping with the values and commitments that shape our real-world community of faith.

For now, I am adopting a very modest "editorial policy," for lack of a better word, when it comes to my new social-media role. I am keenly aware of the difference between speaking for oneself and representing the congregation, and so I deliberately plan to avoid using DBCC's Facebook page and Twitter feed to offer personal commentary. (Besides, I have my own Facebook page for that-- look me up!) In the coming weeks, I will be working with all who are interested on developing specific policies for our church's use of social media that will help us avoid some possible pitfalls these tools create. I am of course open to any suggestions you may have for our social media presence, in regards to both policies and content.

So: Feel free to shoot me an e-mail; post a comment to this blog post; or contact Derek, Ryan, or me over Facebook or Twitter. Above all, let the conversation begin!

On Remembering

2010-01-22T20:02:00.001-08:00

“How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy” (Psalm 137:4-6).

I remember when I first found out that my parents had sold their home in Michigan and were moving to Boston. My Dad was the product of downsizing. That he had a new job to go to means he was one of the lucky ones. But the vicissitudes of the economic climate is not what I want to talk about, although that is territory ripe for interpretation. I want to talk about memory.

My parents had lived in that house almost nineteen years. For some of folks, that’s no great feat. Some folks have lived in homes all their lives. I, on the other hand, by the time I was in seventh grade had moved six times. So, when we moved to Grandville, Michigan in March of 1978, I was a seasoned veteran of the uprooting and dismantling that comes with taking up a new residence. But we made the move, just after the blizzard of ‘78, with the idea that things would be different, that we would set up shop in one spot for a while, say “good riddance” to the peripatetic lifestyle, put down roots. And, for better or worse, that is what we did. I graduated from high school there, as did my younger brothers and sister. And somewhere along the line, I got the idea that I was from someplace, not merely a series of disconnected someplaces.

Prior to moving to Grandville, whenever people asked me where I was from, I had a choice. I could say that I was from central Illinois or northern Indiana, that I was born southeast of Chicago or that I lived three miles from the University of Notre Dame. But after living in Grandville, at some point, I began to think of myself as having a hometown, with all the idiosyncrasies and joys that come from living in one place, among a particular group of people, for an extended period of time.

The reason I say all this is because I remember when it occurred to me, after I heard my parents were leaving, that I will never again be able to walk down the street I grew up on, and walk up to the two-story brick and clapboard house on Carmel Avenue, and walk through the door without being arrested. I thought, of course, about how the basement was always too musty, and about the long strip of dirt that ran through the backyard and how my dad could never get grass to grow there because every time he planted it we’d go out and trample it down again playing baseball or football or kickball. I thought about the big painting of blue flowers in a vase that hung over the mantle in the living room, and the basketball court in the driveway. I thought about how the kitchen smelled when my mother cooked, and how the shower never had enough pressure, and how I used to slide my hands down the banister and swing from the top floor to the main floor in one, gigantic swoop. And I thought about how I was forced to say goodbye to those things.

I suppose that is what was painful about the whole affair to me, not that I’ll not see those things again, because in my memory I can see them whenever I wish, nor that I will no longer have a home, because my home is here with Susan, Samuel, Mary Grace, and Dominic, and with all of you, but that I had to say goodbye to a place that, for all its leaks and creaks, had served as an anchor for my memory. And while saying goodbye is never easy, it is something all of us must do, if only to say goodbye to each day as it rises and falls back into the pool of memory. Because memory is where so much of who we are and whom we’ve known lives.

What I will miss about the house I grew up in, of course, are all the things that trigger my memory. On the other hand, all the memories that are truest and dearest to me are with me now, and will always be. Remembering is what makes living possible, what makes being a Christian possible. Every crack in the ceiling and every bit of bread and wine give us the strength to go on when going on seems entirely out of the question. Without memory, we couldn’t get out of bed in the morning—and without the memory of God in our lives, working through our lives and our memories, we wouldn’t have any reason to.

On Having Our Needs Met

2010-01-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

“What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26).

It’s easy to conceive of the church as if it’s selling something, isn’t it? I was at a meeting one time in which a very nice Christian gentleman made the observation that most ministers weren’t very excited about their product, which was why they were having a hard time selling it to teenagers—as if faith were a purchasable, consumable commodity and the church was the clearinghouse. And if that’s the case, then the church’s job is merely to package Jesus so that the greatest number of people will buy. If the Jesus of Scripture is too demanding, we’ll just sell him as “your friend,” the pal you’ve always been looking for. If the commitment to the church described in the Bible scares off potential buyers, why then we’ll just have to ease up on the requirements.

But then one day we wake up to find that Jesus is no longer savior, the one who establishes a kingdom at odds with the kingdoms of this world, but now he’s merely a personal genie who’s only purpose is to make our lives more satisfying. When the church is designed to meet people’s “felt needs,” we wind up not with a community whose desire it is to help fit disciples of Jesus for the kingdom of God, but a group of individuals whose primary interest is to get their needs met—as they see them. In that kind of church decisions are made, not on the basis of what Scripture calls for as discerned through the wisdom of the community, but on the basis of what decision will make the fewest people upset. If church is only about getting our needs met, then why should anybody ever get angry?

I read one time about a church in Eustis, Florida that offers a sort of “worship-lite.” They changed the sign in front of the church to read: Express Worship, 45 Minutes, Guaranteed! It seems that people were skipping out on church because they thought the service was too long. Consequently, the minister, seeking to meet as many needs as possible, started hacking away at the order of service until he got it down to a manageable time frame. Members of the Family Bible Church apparently love it. “You don’t feel like you’re spending all day in church,” says Joy Easton, a regular worshiper. Another regular, Ernie Quinton, agrees: “Some people don’t want to spend an hour, an hour and a half in church.” The minister, Allen Speegle, says much when he says, “So many people are in a time crunch, but they don’t want to leave the Lord out.” That makes sense, doesn’t it? You love Jesus, you just hate for him to goof up your weekend. And so the church responds by adapting itself to meet people’s needs.

The popular belief among many American Christians seems to be that faith is a private affair, that the primary reason the church worships is so that I might get my needs met. But Paul, in his letter to the church at Corinth, took exception to the idea that what is important is that I get my needs, as I see them, met. He was speaking specifically to folks who spoke in tongues in a way that privatized worship, satisfying felt needs. He was saying that worship is for the upbuilding of the body of Christ, and anything that focuses first on the private, rather than on the body, is to be strenuously avoided.

And if we were ever to catch Paul’s vision that we have been called not to islands of private euphoria but to be a part of that ragtag group of folks God has chosen to embody the message of grace to a self-involved world, then we might truly have our needs met.

What Does God Want?

2009-12-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let I t be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her (Luke 1:38).

Salvation, it seems to me, has very much to do with God getting what God wants. Advent, on this reading, is about salvation. The world existed in pain, suffering, war, injustice, abuse, hunger—in short, sin—and so along came Jesus. But for what? What was it Jesus came to do—or undo? I think it’s not so simple as to say that Jesus came to save the world. If that’s the extent of the answer, then we’re left to wonder just what saving the world means. On the lips of many Christians, of course, salvation means something like being delivered from this life to a better one in a better place. This particular take on salvation has certainly offered strength in times of great travail and oppression—just read the lyrics to some of the old Negro Spirituals. “We shall overcome . . . someday” is powerful medicine in the midst of a world threatening to implode. On the other hand, as has often been pointed out, salvation as personal deliverance, if we’re not careful, can inoculate us against experiencing any sense of urgency about the world we inhabit here and now. A rival interpretation of salvation has to do with reconstructing the world we live in now. This view of salvation has the advantage of maintaining a sense of urgency about the world we inhabit, but it also can lull us into thinking that that reconstruction depends on us instead of God for its success.

Whether this is theologically true, the easy way to proceed rhetorically would be for me to say that the true meaning of salvation lies somewhere in the middle, between the hereafter and the here and now. And it may just be true—or not; settling that one would take more time and brains than I have. What does seem clear to me, however, is that both soteriological extremes are largely beside the point. What both of those understandings have in their sights is success—either a successful afterlife or a successful present life, neither of which are something to be dismissed lightly. Following Jesus, however, has never been primarily about success (at least success in the way most people understand it). Instead, following Jesus is about attempting to align ourselves with what God wants; and if Jesus is any indication, what God wants is the death of everything that stands in the way of God getting what God wants, which, when all is said and done, is us. At least according to Jesus, gaining the whole world and keeping our souls is a soteriological non-starter. Salvation is first about laying down, giving up, relinquishing, letting go. It’s only in letting go of everything that we have room to receive anything.

All of which brings me to Mary. Of the few words recorded from her mouth in the Gospels, some of the most instructive come after she’s been told that she has been selected to bear God for the world. She says by way of reply, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” It’s interesting to note that her first response isn’t, “What do I get out of it?” Rather, she immediately directs attention to what God ought rightfully to expect to get out of it—that is, Mary herself.

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” That’s God getting what God wants. That’s salvation. And if we were ever to do the hard work of imitating Mary, there just might be a new heaven and new earth in it for everyone.

2009-12-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

Violence and the Naïve

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. . . . They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6, 9).

So we Christians do not oppose nuclear weapons because they threaten to destroy ‘mother earth,’ but because the God we serve would not have one life unjustly killed even if such a killing would insure the survival of the human species (Stanley Hauerwas, Sanctify Them in Truth: Holiness Exemplified, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998: 192).

In The Brothers Karamozov, Alyosha Karamozov and his brother, Ivan, have a conversation in which Alyosha, a postulant at the monastery, seeks to understand Ivan’s seemingly entrenched agnosticism. Ivan, in explaining his philosophy turns to the question of theodicy (i.e., the goodness of God put to the question of human suffering) to demonstrate his understanding of the universe as essentially unjust. He cannot get his mind past the very basic question of God’s righteousness in the face of wanton suffering, especially the suffering of children who are presumably innocent.

Ivan gives a series of accounts in which children are the object of profound suffering. One story that is particularly horrifying recounts the tragedy of a five-year-old girl who is tortured by her parents for dirtying her bed. Her mother makes her eat her own excrement and locks her in an outhouse every night, even in the dead of winter. Ivan wonders how the mother can sleep at night while her daughter beats her chest and cries out to “gentle Jesus” for help.

He then puts a question to young Alyosha:

‘Let’s assume that you were called upon to build the edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy and would find peace and tranquility. If you knew that, in order to attain this, you would have to torture just one single creature, let’s say the little girl who beat her chest so desperately in the outhouse, and that on her unavenged tears you could build that edifice, would you agree to do it?” Tell me and don’t lie!’

‘No, I would not,’ Alyosha said softly. (The Brothers Karamozov, 296)

In a world that casually assumes the fact of violence as woven into the fabric of the universe, Alyosha’s reticence is puzzling. We think, “If you had a chance to bring happiness and peace and tranquility to all humanity, and all it would cost is the suffering and torture of one innocent creature, and you didn’t do it, you would be stupid.” Of course, we try to limit “civilian casualties” and “collateral damage,” but we all know that peace (progress, democracy, justice, a new world order, etc.) come with a cost. Only the most hopelessly naive think that peace occurs without a few “civilian casualties.” Only the most credulous believe that the happiness of the world can be secured without a little “collateral damage.” No pain, no gain.

And yet, maybe there is something to be said for a guileless vision of the world in which the structures of happiness and peace and tranquility will no longer be built on the back of the suffering caused by our relentless pursuit of peace by violent means. Maybe there exists a way of looking at the world in which no violence, no matter how well intended, can ensure the reconciliation of enemies. Maybe there survives a way of construing the world that depends no longer on the blood of children to make the world a safer place, but insists on relying on God to secure our future.

Nah. You’d have to be pretty stupid to look for a world like that.

Forgive us Christians who are a bit skeptical about the world’s ability to pick and choose which innocents have to die to secure peace. We have a good memory. We remember a time when those in power got together to secure peace by killing an innocent man.

Well, on second thought, maybe you can build a peaceful world on the back of the suffering of one innocent man. I suppose it depends on the man.

DBCC Book Club!

2009-11-10T06:31:00.000-08:00

New for 2010! We are forming a book club to meet Wednesday nights from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

We will explore a range of authors and genres, including fiction & non-fiction. Some of you may have already read some of our selections. We sought to select a few obscure titles that you may have never thought to read. We have included a couple of familiar titles as well. We will read voices from the margins and some dominate voices that challenge the world we live in.

We are excited to offer this space for us all to journey together and explore the divine nature of all of humanity. Below is a list of the twelve titles we shall be reading and the months in which we will be reading them

January

"Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor

February

"The Sabbath" by Abraham Joshua Herschel

March

"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

April

"The Shack" by William P. Young

May

"Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore

June

"The Seven Story Mountain" by Thomas Merton

July

"The White Bone" by Barbara Gowdy

August
"The Cloister Walk" by Kathleen Norris

September
"White Like Me" by Tim Wise

October
"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson

November
"Petals of Blood" by Nguigi Wa Thiong'o

December

"How to Be Good" by Nick Hornby

If you would like to participate in this book club you may receive a 20% discount on each book at Carmichael's Book Store on Bardstown Road by mentioning that you are part of the Douglass Book Club.

Mucho-Mucho [Thoughts from Joe Carolyn Brown]

2009-10-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday already and what a week it has been! Mixed in with work on bathrooms, painting rooms and halls, working on the grounds (with a mixture of skilled and unskilled labor) has been major satisfaction in seeing smiles on the faces of children, hugs for no special reason, and much laughter. The greatest frustration has been our inability to communicate with the children. After “hola,” there isn’t much to say, even though it’s amazing how much can be communicated through sign language and facial expressions. For instance, Luis and Fernando were comparing muscles, when Joe wanted to show his own and said, “Mucho grande.” To this, Luis replied, “Mucho nada.” We are determined, however, that we’ll be more proficient in the language if we return.
Today we felt we were returning home since we were treated to oatmeal and croissants for breakfast. The children have a day off from school and the front lawn has turned into a pastel sea as they play with balloons.
Most of our work tasks have been completed and today offers the opportunity to be with the children in the morning and take a trip to town in the afternoon.
We’ve learned a lot this week. We’ve witnessed a large number of children living together in harmony, under the guidance of wonderful houseparents. Selene is the ultimate multi-tasker, braiding hair, talking with children, and giving instructions in the kitchen concurrently. We’ve seen how older children take responsibility for younger children. We are impressed with the degree of happiness we see in the children and the level of structure that makes the home function effectively. Tonight we will have dinner with the children and participate in their movie night. Then-- up early tomorrow and back to Louisville.

Greetings de Karen O. con San Luis Potosi

2009-10-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today is Thursday and our 3rd big work day. My most valuable item has been a pair of work gloves, actually two pair.
I have worked almost exclusively on cleaning up the grounds. This project has given me a wonderful chance to get to know some knew people from the church.

I came prepared for rain, since I took my information from the internet weather channel, and am happy to report that the weather has been awesome. Its too bad we don’t have time to work on our tans.
Along with many other firsts, this is my first every blog. It sure seems like an awfully far distance to travel to learn a new computer skill, but the trip itself has been so full of firsts that it seems fitting. My first papaya, my first morning to use a rooster as an alarm clock, my first chance to see a day of hard work bring smiles and nods of appreciation from people I can’t otherwise communicate with and my first chance to enjoy the Ben and Ryan comedy routine. Everyone should look forward to the opportunity of having such rewarding and fun firsts in their future.

They Say They're Worth a Thousand Words...

2009-10-14T05:46:00.001-07:00

You can click on each photo to view a larger version of the image.

Harriet’s Thoughts

2009-10-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday! We were awakened as usual by the crow of the rosters (7:00 A.M.) and the patter of little girls’ feet up and down the hall getting ready for school in their red, pleated skirts and red tops. The young ones go to school in the morning and the older children go later in the day at 2:00 P.M.
After breakfast, our DBCC group met to decide on the projects for today, and another trip to Home Depot and Walmart was made by several to get supplies.

Upgrading the boys and girls bathrooms and setting up a new, larger girls’ clothing room with new shelving were begun.

Cleaning up the yard and play areas for the children was also started. When the little children came home from school at noon, they were “ right in there” with us wanting to participate or just see what was going on.

We have accomplished so much today already, and everyone in our DBCC group has jumped right in to do all they can in this mission of love and caring which we are now experiencing.

Casa Hogar is an amazing place!!! John and his wife Selene, who are their “mission parents”, have a wonderfully run home for these 18 girls and 13 boys. The children are beautifully behaved and get along with each other so well. Each one is responsible for certain chores, which they willingly do, and they have a daily routine that works very well for all.

The excitement of the children at having us here is unbelievable. They are curious about us, love to love on us, and they have enjoyed the games, candy, flashlights, and stickers, etc. that we brought to them. We, in turn, are so awed by these adorable, beautiful children and the love and hope they are given here at Casa Hagar. Each day we see “how God is working in this place”!!!

Waiting for Something Big in San Luis Potosi

2009-10-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

Here are some thoughts from Ben Carter:

I had never been to Mexico. I have lived, worked, studied and played in other countries for over three years of my life, but had never visited our friendly neighbors down south. I had little idea of what to expect, forgoing the usual research to finishing essential "to dos" at home so I could return home to a job and a wife. I knew many buildings would probably be constructed of the ubiquitous orange brick that pervades many developing countries. I knew many of those same buildings would have rebar sticking out the roof in anticipation of adding another floor when money permitted. I knew to expect the familiar pull of strangeness, the reaffirmation that the world is, indeed, quite large.

The magic of travel is in expectations. Though my expectations of this trip were poorly formed, deep down I expect the same thing every time: something big. And, I believe that expectation is not just hope, but prophesy. That is, expecting bigness alters the cosmos and brings bigness to me. (I say the same for other expectations: smallness, strife, magnanimity, compassion, etc. As a devout English major, I believe in words' abilities to alter our universe). So, I came expecting something big.

While waiting for the big--some revelation, connection, emotion--I was washing dishes. Thanks to Ticht Naht Hanh, washing dishes can never be for me just about washing dishes. Instead, washing dishes is, like every moment, an opportunity to live a fully present, miraculous moment. Ticht Naht Hanh transforms the mundane into the transcendent, with each moment a benediction. Don't misunderstand me. I don't live like this. For me, starting the car is usually just starting the car, sweeping the floor merely an opportunity to zone out. But, when Ticht Naht Hanh articulated his worldview in which each moment is pregnant with the divine, he used the example of washing dishes. So, for me, washing dishes is more than just washing dishes.

And so I was washing dishes, thinking of Ticht Naht Hanh, and expecting something big.

Wait.

More precisely, I was washing dishes with Diana, cleaning up after our lunch of enchiladas suizas con pollo (with chicken). My Spanish is, as they would say in Mexico if they were frank, no esta bien (not good). But, nonetheless, Diana and I were struggling through some broken conversation. She was very patient. I learned who cut her hair (Selene, a former orphan herself and now matron of Casa Hogar) and what she likes studying (fashion and clothes-making). I learn she likes singing along to the radio playing in the kitchen.

As we scrap tortillas and scrape beans, I notice that many of the dishes are cracked, chipped, warped. I notice that Diana is wearing a Montgomery County Parks and Recreation t-shirt. I continued to disgrace past Spanish teachers with my blown noun-verb agreement, my inability to speak about anything but the present (Joni Mitchell actually glorifies this inability in "Chelsea Morning" when she promises to "talk in present tenses." In the kindest light, my Spanish is a kind of force-marched "being in the moment" simply because I cannot formulate past or future. In more reality-based light, it is an abomination.) But, as Diana and I weave a conversation together with ques? (whats?) and entiendes? (you understands?), I begin to think about these dishes we are washing.

These are not like the dishes in my house. In the United States, many have the luxury of "making a statement" with what we buy, what we wear, where and what we eat, what we drive. We believe--even as I know it's not so--that what flatware we use, what china pattern we choose "says something" about us. We fret about buying the wrong kind of computer, driving the wrong kind of car. These are not the worries of the children at Casa Hogar. Their plastic bowls--scuffed as they may be--hold milk and cereal. Their cattle truck is sufficient to take them to and from church and school. Their clothes cover their bodies. Indeed, they were muy guapo (very handsome) and bonita (pretty) in church today. Their things are both enough and not enough in the same instant.

Their things don't say anything about these children. Not the way children's clothes speak in America. Not the way I have come to believe that my new glasses are "very me."

Wait.

What I just said--about things not speaking for these kids--is not entirely true. I want these kids to embody a richness of heart, to symbolize the indomitability of the human spirit. I want them to show us how, beyond essentials, all our striving is ego and fear. Maybe when I was (not much) younger, that's what these kids could have been, what they could have shown. But I know better. While things don't say everything, they do say something. And insofar as things speak for people, the hand-me-downs and leftovers, the chipped and scuffed, they speak loudly enough. They say simply, persistently, "These kids are poor." Their things speak and we must listen.

As a group, we are reading "Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice" by Curtiss DeYoung. It profiles social activists from around the world whose activism springs directly and inextricably from their faith. The first two chapters profile Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his "view from below." As a young German minister, Bonhoeffer traveled to the United States and spent time in the African-American faith community in New York City. Through his experiences there, he came to see not only the racism in America, but the corollary anti-Semitism in his native Germany. He came to understand, viscerally, the "view from below."

Bonhoeffer adopted "the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled--in short, [] the perspective of those who suffered." It is this empathy, this ability to see the world from multiple vantage points, from which Bonhoeffer's outrage and activism sprung. Without this understanding, Bonhoeffer is just another complicit German minister.

Being here, at the Casa Hogar, among kids who look up to me--literally--it occurs to me that children, always and forever, have a view from below.

Bonhoeffer understood kids' perspective, their standing as viewers from below, I think, when he offers this matrix for action: "The ultimate question, for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live. It is only from this question, with its responsibility towards history, that fruitful solutions can come, even if for the time being they are very humiliating."

Asking ourselves how the coming generation is to live requires an understanding of who the next generation is--all of them. This understanding must be real, flowing from friendship, shared experience, mutual respect, and compassion. Will those conversations be difficult? Hell yes. Will those relationships be time-consuming? You bet. Will they be inconvenient, require compromise, challenge us? All of the above. Do we have a choice? Not if we want to survive.

As Diana and I finish drying the dishes, a particularly catchy song crackles on the radio. Diana and another girl sing loudly, con gusto (with feeling). Interrupting, because that's what I do, I ask what the song is about.

"Tito y Bambino."

"Tito and Bambino are boyfriend girlfriend?" I ask in Spanish.

"No," Diana says, wondering why I am compulsively stupid. "Tito y Bambino are a rock group."

"Ah," and I try again, "But what is the topic of the song?"

"Ah, I understand," she says. "The song is about love."

Isn't it always?

Wait.

I think something big just happened.

Saturday! What a day.

2009-10-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

This morning many of us arose to the giggles of curious children or the sniffing of equally curious dogs. This was preceded by the seemingly endless call of the roster to wake up. As we got ready for the day we were introduced to the children. We received countless hugs and a warm desire to be near each other.
Many of us gathered in the dining area to eat breakfast. As we did the children offered us stickers for our hands as decorations. The children even decorated the dogs with stickers. Never has there been a place filled with so much laughter and joy. These children lack nothing in the smiles department.
We ate breakfast at various tables with the children. Sharing what we could with the broken or absent Spanish. We got along pretty good. We gathered after the meal to discuss the specifics of our mission trip. Derek offered to us that this trip is more about relationships than it is about “doing” anything. That in Mexico it is more important to be with each other than it is to do business.
We will not be starting our “project” until Monday. So we filled our day with a trip into town and playing with the children. Some of us pushed children on swings or down slides. Some of us wrestled with the children, lifting them over our heads as they wiggled to mimic the stars of the WWF. Still others played board games, puzzles, and even a form of bingo. These children have boundless energy!
We will attend worship at a local church tomorrow. We are excited to worship with our Christian Sisters and Brothers here in San Luis Potosi. Thank you for praying with us as we venture forth into what God wills for us.
Blessings and peace…

We're here!

2009-10-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

We arrived in San Luis Potosi around 11:00 p.m. local time. We were greeted with a chorus of exotic sounds. The most exotic being that of the airplane that we landed in. We were ushered towards customs and soon we were officially in Mexico!
We loaded our gear into two waiting vehicles. Two folks hopped into the back of a pick-up truck with Luis & Fernando [two of the children living at the home] and we motored on our way to Casa De Hogar. The darkness could not suppress the beauty of this city. We were entertained with the fluctuating scent of livestock and tacos. The lone beacons of light in the darkness were the ever ready tacos stands offered meals to the waiting truckers.
With the cool wind in our face we made way across the highway. Passing us to the left and right, people rode mopeds and large American trucks to home and what else the night shall bring. We stopped for a late dinner at “Los Volcanos” a popular late night taco stand. We ponied up to a few tables and broke bread.
On our way home the sky opened up and those brave souls in the back of the truck got soaked from head to toe. Luckily the luggage was safe from stormy weather. We arrived to a large iron gate and entered into the Casa ready to begin.
The most amazing part of the trip thus far is the diversity of hope and conviction we all bring to this mission. We hope to bring a good word from Douglass Blvd. Christian Church to our family here in Mexico. I would say so far so good.
We hope you follow us over the next few days as we seek to meet a loving, living God of abundance and transformation here in Mexico. I pray that our expectation of a divine encounter in the faces of these hopeful children bring new fruit to all of us.
Blessings and peace…

Mission Trip (Day One)

2009-10-09T03:18:00.000-07:00

Well, this afternoon 17 of us will be heading to San Luis Potosi, Mexico to work in the Casa Hogar children's home. It's already an eventful trip and we haven't even gotten to the airport. Sara Northerner, who had been planning all summer to go with us, had to cancel because her father is in the ICU in Evansville, IN. We will be keeping her and her family in our prayers, as her father faces some critical surgery on Wednesday. So, I did some fast calling and found someone to use the ticket--our very own Bart Mattingly, Stephanie's brother, who sings in and helps direct the choir.

Then, I woke up this morning to find that the 25 year-old Bartlett Pear in the back yard off our deck is now on our deck, not to mention our house. I'm not sure what got it, wind or rain--but it's now an ex-Bartlett Pear. Apparently, there's a Home Depot rental chainsaw and some serious saw dust in my future.

Our flight leaves at 6:30 this evening, and we are scheduled to arrive in San Luis at 10:30. It's a great group we're going with! Every day we're down in Mexico, we will be blogging (pictures and all)--assuming our internet connection holds up--to bring an account of our journey.

Pray for us, for Sara and her father, and our poor tree, which has gone on to meet its woody reward. Watch this space.

Grace and Peace,

Derek

The Beggar's Bowl

2009-10-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do in worship is breaking bread with others. It reminds me of my youth. I grew up in a house full of children and adults. In fact there were 14 folks that called my home, home as well. My grandmother and aunts never meet a stranger and never turned a hungry or lost soul away form our table.

This is one of the passions I bring with me to Douglass Blvd Christian Church. I love gathering folks together around the table in fellowship. We, as Disciples, are not strangers to a weekly table celebration. We gather at the Lord’s Table every week. We are renewed and transformed in mind, body, and spirit as we welcome all to the table.

The table along with the font are the primary sacraments we hold in our faith to be representative of the call of the Christ. We hold that we are unworthy of coming to the table. Yet, we come to the table with grace on our lips and forgiveness in our hearts as we seek to draw nearer to the one we call Christ.

We come to the table on instruction of Jesus. In the same manner to which Jesus served his disciples on that night he was betrayed. We to “take and eat” remembering that Jesus will come again.

It was in this spirit that I hoped to create a space where we as a faith community may draw nearer to each other in Christ and break bread together in a weekly fashion. Doing so I hoped we would strengthen the bonds of family and invite our family and friends into this peaceful storm of togetherness.

The first week of June we set out on a grand experiment called, The Beggar’s Bowl. We booked Monday nights for our adventure in faithful being. We purchased a share of local produce from Grasshopper’s Distribution and set out to cook a creative, organic, locally grown meal for under $3.00 a person.

On that first night we hit a few snags. Meredith bailed me out because I had no idea how to cook kale. We had 8-10 people on that first night. We invited folks to be guest chefs and share with us their culinary daring. The next week we got a little better at cooking and a few more folks came.

By the end of July we had an average of 25 people attending on Monday nights. We made a banner and invited the community. We had homeless fellas stop on by to share a meal with us. Folks from the local community would stop on by and share a meal with us. Every week a new chef blessed us with a delicious local meal. We had exotic meals from Africa, Germany, the Pacific Islands, Thailand, and even Mexico!

In a matter of a few weeks we were averaging 30 people every Monday night. People brought their children and all of the kids played in the Robsion Center as the adults shared stories of their days and enjoyed the company of others.

It was a wonderful event. I looked forward to Monday’s and the joy they brought with them. Rain or shine we would gather together and break bread. The table we shared together there was most defiantly transforming those present.

Sadly, we celebrated our last night together this past Monday night. As we shared this final meal I was struck at how intertwined we had become over the course of these few months. I began to mourn the loss of these Monday nights.

I could not be more pleased at the success of this adventure. It began with an idea and the hope of gathering together at a common table and it became an extended family for me an those that shared n those moments. I am thankful for all that came and all that served. I pray we can do it again in the spring. I invite you all to bring a bowl and gather at the table with all of us beggar’s at the Beggar’s Bowl.

Peace be with you all.

Here is the recipe from the last meal at Beggar's Bowl this year.

Curried Sweet Potato Stew

Ingredients

3 medium sweet potatoes

4 Tbsp of olive oil

1 brown onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 Tbsp of garam masala*

1 tsp of curry powder

1 tsp sea salt

5 cups of chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup of coconut milk

1/2 cup of water

Curried sweet potato soup with coconut milk is a staple during the cooler months. The creamy, aromatic soup has a subtle sweetness from the roasted sweet potatoes. When making a sweet potato soup I always insist on first roasting the sweet potatoes to enhance their caramel flavor.

*The spices used in this recipe are curry powder and garam masala. Garam masala is simply a blend of warm spices commonly used in Indian cuisine. If you’re unable to find it at your local store, simply substitute it with extra curry powder.

Procedure

Pre-heat the oven to 350F (180C). Slice the sweet potatoes into 2 inch rounds. Place potatoes in a baking tray and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with a little salt. Bake for 1 hour or until tender. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, heat the remaining olive oil over a medium heat. Add the onion and celery and fry, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Add garlic and fry for 30 seconds. Add garam masala and curry powder. Fry, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 30 seconds. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Scoop flesh out of sweet potatoes and discard the skins. Place potatoes into the saucepan and stir well to coat in spices. Add stock and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cover. Simmer soup for 15 minutes. Remove soup from heat and cool. Ladle soup into a blender or food processor and blend in batches until smooth and creamy. Place soup back into saucepan on a medium heat. Add coconut milk and water and stir well to combine. Simmer soup over a medium heat for 5 minutes.

Divide soup into bowls and serve with a slice of crusty bread for dipping.

Healthcare and a Prescription for Faithfulness

2009-09-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Luke tells us in chapter six that Jesus went up to a mountain to pray—that he prayed all night to God. That’s a pretty long time to spend in prayer. Must have been important. The very first thing he does as soon as he finishes praying is call all his disciples together and choose twelve from among them to be apostles, that is, those who will be sent out on his behalf. Those twelve are going to be the foundation upon which the church is built once Jesus is gone, which makes it understandable why Jesus would have struggled all night over whom to call. So, when Jesus finally addresses the twelve who’ve been chosen, we expect that he will say something important. His first address to them after he calls them will be the vision speech, the one where he lays out what’s at the heart of the ministry he has in mind, the ministry for which twelve of them have just been called. Luke tells us that while all the disciples are still gathered around him, Jesus begins to clarify the principles of this new endeavor, which are only highlighted by this latest major personnel move. What’s at the center? What does Jesus indicate will animate his ministry, and therefore, the ministry of his followers? What’s the first thing out of his mouth when laying out the grand plan?

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh . . . But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep”(Luke 6:20b-21, 24-25).

Now, I want to say right off that I’m not happy about this. By just about any accounting done on a macro level, I’m pretty sure to be lumped in with the latter rather than the former. When the truth is told, though I sometimes struggle to make ends meet, the ends I have to make meet are quite a bit nicer than most of the rest of the world, and the means with which I have at my disposal to meet those ends would surely evoke envy among all but those in the highest percentiles when it comes to the world’s wealth. So, my ox is being gored too as Jesus trots out the core values for the new business model. Unlike most successful ventures, Jesus has the powerful in his sights as the problem and not the solution.
Taking that into consideration, a story I heard last week about someone I know has gotten me to thinking about the relationship between those with power and those without. A young woman I know who had a baby just over a month ago, in the midst of all the adjustments the family has to make to accommodate a new arrival, received a bill from the insurance company enumerating costs and covered benefits. One of the things that the bill said, much to her surprise (and chagrin), was that the insurance company considered an epidural an elective procedure for a vaginal birth. When I told my wife about the position the insurance company had taken, she said, “Some man made that decision.” Over the next few days, almost everyone to whom I told that story said exactly the same thing. One African-American minister from a church on the West Side to whom I relayed the story said, “This talk about the Public Option taking away choice is funny to people in my congregation.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because the only people who’ve ever had any choice about healthcare is rich people. The only healthcare choice poor people have is which emergency room to take your kid to.”
All of which got me to thinking . . .
Although the healthcare system we have now is excellent in many ways, one of its fatal flaws is that powerful people make decisions for others based not on the best interests of the patient, but on the interests of keeping costs low and profits high. That’s just part of it. The rich making decisions about what the poor ought to do because they’ve committed the unpardonable sin of poverty, white folks making decisions for everyone about nearly everything down to which drinking fountain black folks could use, men making decisions for women about everything down to what women should be able to endure in childbirth are only symptomatic of power arrangements that have been in place for as long as anyone can remember. And the church, of course, has often been a major player in underwriting those power arrangements. What struck me was that from the outset Jesus identified inequitable power arrangements (of which, admittedly, many of us have been the beneficiaries) as the problem. He could have started with any number of things at the beginning of his ministry, but he started out with the poor and the powerless.
Those disciples who are called two thousand years later to share in that same ministry probably ought to take note.

The Shape of Ministry

2009-08-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

(Adapted from The Art of Getting Things Done by David Allen)

1. Defining Purpose and Principles

a. This is the “why” question.

b. Why are we doing this ministry?

c. Why, specifically as Christians, do we care if this ministry gets done?

d. What are the theological consequences of failing to do it? The practical consequences?

Note: The theological/practical questions must always be asked in this order—this differentiates ministry from management. We have a primary stake in the first, and secondary stake in the other.

· This helps us define what success will look like.

· It helps to set the parameters for the resources necessary.

· It clarifies focus.

e. What standards and values do we operate under?

· What behavior or approach might undermine what we are trying to accomplish?

2. Outcome Visioning

a. This is the “what” question that defines success for this ministry.

b. What would success look like?

c. How will we know we’ve done what we set out to do?

d. Envision “WILD SUCCESS.”

3. Brainstorming

a. This is the “how.”

b. Capture as many ideas as possible without editing.

c. Write them down—get them onto something (paper, whiteboard, etc.).

4. Organizing

a. This is where ministry begins to take shape.

b. Begin to notice natural relationships.

c. Now, begin to sort by:

· Sequence, date

· Like directions

d. Begin to narrow down options.

· Set priorities (What’s most important? What can we put on the back burner?)

5. Identifying Next Actions

a. This is where the rubber meets the road.

· Decide on next actions for all moving parts.

· Next actions—literally. What is the next physical activity that needs to be done to move the action forward? Place a call? Write an email? Approach someone to solicit help or resources?

· Decide who is going to be responsible for each next action, and how that person will report on its completion or lack of completion.

· Are there some things on which you must wait? What are they? How long should you wait?

· Is another meeting necessary?

· Set the date and time before leaving.

Some Thoughts:

· If what is needed is greater clarity, then move further up the scale (Purpose and Principles, Outcomes, Brainstorming). The less clarity, the higher up the chain. Revisiting Purpose and Principles regularly is an important practice. If you don’t know why you’re doing anything, then it doesn’t matter what you do.

· If, on the other hand, there’s too much spinning of wheels, move down the scale (Organizing and Next Actions). If you know what needs to be done but are spending too much time talking about it and not doing it, identify next actions. As Will Rogers said, “Plans get you into things but you’ve got to work your way out.”

A Reminder about the New Structure

New Terms:

Leadership Coordination Ministry—formerly “Leadership Team”
Ministry—(e.g., Worship Ministry, Nurture Ministry, etc.) formerly “Committees”

Purpose: Renaming organizational bodies ministries reorients the focus from organizational structure to ministry. Seen this way, the organizational structure exists to provide resources for ministry, rather than as an end in itself. Moreover, the Leadership Coordination Ministry exists to coordinate the ministries of the church, rather than to be responsible for initiating them.

Organizational Focus: Under the new by-laws adopted in Spring 2009, DBCC has organized itself with its chief focus on facilitating ministry. To do this the emphasis has shifted from organizational maintenance to ministry. We have put in place an organizational model that is responsive to the vision DBCC has for ministry—a model not concerned with filling spaces on the organizational chart, but with correctly discerning people’s gifts and providing the organizational structure to free them up to do ministry. The primary orientation, then, will be to seek ways to support and encourage ministry, rather than to put up roadblocks to it. Organizational structure seen in this light is to support the body just like a skeletal structure. It is vitally important, but it ought to be as imperceptible and unobtrusive as possible. It simply supports our mission; it is not the mission.

Marriage Equality

2009-08-19T04:02:00.001-07:00

Check this out. Of all the stories I expected to read in the NY Times this morning, this wasn't among them. I was actually under the impression that Ted Olson was a passenger on the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11, but I guess I just dreamt that.

Substantively, Ted Olson's position shows that the case for marriage equality under the law is distinct from the messier issues arising out of societal discrimination and inclusion. Of course, law can act as a lever for creating movement in society, but as the case of Roe v. Wade and abortion shows, it doesn't always resolve social and political disputes. It also exposes the utter emptiness of labels like "judicial activism" when it comes to the Supreme Court. Unless we mean to turn back the clock before Marbury v. Madison in 1804, we have to recognize that judicial review entails that sometimes the court has to fill a vacuum in constitutional jurisprudence-- i.e. "make law." The dispute is not over whether this should happen, but rather over how the court should exercise that power, and on behalf of whom.

For another take on marriage equality I highly recommend, see Martha Nussbaum's excellent article here.

be gloriously silent...

2009-08-05T07:08:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about what I believe. Perhaps, that I may hide from my convictions that I am a wolf in Christian clothing. For all intensive purposes, I have no right to be in ministry.

I hold so many biases that one could open a bizarre with my prejudices and misgivings of people. I clam to be a pretty open fellow. The more I question this idea that more I realize that I am a messed up mucky muck kind of guy.

The middle of last year Mere and I moved to Louisville, in an area that has a large African-American population. Our building had ten apartments with two occupied by Caucasian families [us included], two were vacant, and the rest were occupied by African-Americans.

I grew up with Hispanics, Asians, and Caucasians. I had very little exposure to African-Americans. Elementary school I had no African-American friends. In middle school I had a few African-American friends, none of whom came to my house nor did they live in my neighborhood. In high school I had maybe a dozen close friends that where Africa-American that I played football with and spent quite a bit of time with. I never went to there homes. I never entered their neighborhoods. I never entered their world. It was always on my terms, my space. I was at advantage in the relationship.

College, university, and seminary I had a sparse encounter with Africa-Americans. It may have a lot to do with the institutions I attended. They were largely Anglo funded and fueled, geared towards Anglo institutions.

I would not have identified as racist in any of the above situations. I kept my nose clean. I made sure what I thought was never used to impact a situation or event. I made sure to seek out quality friends and meet quotas so that I could not be accused of racism. I jogged on in life blissfully unaware that I am a much larger part of the problem that I imagined.

I arrived here with my partner, my new life, my new chance at life. We arrived excited and ready to forge ahead and claim our stake in the American dream. Only one snag…we live in a totally foreign context from what either of us are used to. We arrived in that building and we were surrounded by booming hip-hop music, tricked out cars with giant rims, and a sea of black faces.

With all of this “difference” surrounding me here I begin to question my reactions. Would I feel safer if all of the music, clothing, language, and relationships involved a white face? I am afraid my gut reaction would be, yes. If I saw a sea of faces that looked like me I would feel safer. I write this realizing that my every move is routed in classism, racism, sexism, and elitism. I am deeply part of the problem and it hurts.

I am part of this problem even if I have never actively subjected others to injustice. Systemic injustice takes from some to give to others. Systemic injustice perverts the beauty of Gods creation as it creates “us” and “them.” Systemic injustice can only be destroyed when we all become aware of its presence and are moved to act. This is at the core of the gospel message.

We cannot begin to understand the radical nature of the Gospel until we understand the insurmountable action it demands from us. St. Francis of Assisi said “Proclaim the Gospel always, and use words when you must.” It is my conviction that I far to often speak when I should be or do. It is my prayer that one day I may be gloriously silent as injustice retreats from the light of the gospel proclaimed.

Groups and Authority Claims

2009-07-31T11:23:00.001-07:00

Derek's Pastor's Class this past Sunday continued the topic of functional prerequisites for the existence of social groups. I found myself thinking of that class when reading William Burroughs's Naked Lunch. Scattered among the drug-addled scatological passages we find the following gem:

"Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet needs of the people who participate in the functioning of the unit. A bureau operates on opposite principle of inventing needs to justify its existence.) Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action, to the complete parasitism of a virus."

One of the functional prerequisites we discussed was the "preservation of order." We didn't really explore the topic, but it sounded like the preservation of order involved something like the kinds of claims to authority traditionally made by states. Certainly it wasn't anything like the "cooperative" Burroughs describes above.

Is a cooperative in Burroughs' sense possible or desirable? To what extent could a religious body like a Christian church function as a cooperative in this sense?

2009-07-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Prophetic Language

"The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious" (Isaiah 11:6-10).

I admit that this passage from Isaiah sounds a bit fanciful given the current state of our world. We're much more apt more apt to take sides as the wolf and the lamb face off. We're more comfortable with policy decisions that help us avoid the terrible truth that the leopard and the kid lie down together only when one feasts on the bones of the other. Our world is situated such that only dewy-eyed romantics and ungrounded idealists ever really believe that a little child will actually lead this unlikely menagerie-especially when we see the cold, hard facts.

And the fact of the matter is, when it comes to the wolf and the lamb actually living together, we main-line Protestants are the least likely to share the same space in peace. Speaking about the relative lack of mixed-race congregations, Nancy T. Ammerman said, "Mainline folks, for all their talk about diversity, lag significantly behind." The charge, of course, is that we who are the putative gatekeepers of the "true faith" are much better at talking the talk, than walking the walk. And no doubt this is true. The numbers apparently don't lie.

Implied in that indictment against main-liners, however, is the notion that somehow talking the talk isn't that important. But I would like to suggest to you that it is impossible finally to walk the walk, if nobody has told us where to go. Somebody has to hold forth a bold vision of what we believe life will look like under the reign of God when it is fully revealed. Somebody has to talk bigger than we are, or we'll have nowhere to reach. Somebody has to talk about wolves and lambs and leopards and kids, or people will begin to think that their animosity toward one another is normal, natural. Somebody has to talk about how God doesn't think that the hostility that exists between the strong and the weak, between the haves and have-nots, between the powerful and powerless is either normal or natural.

But just because we haven't gotten it right yet, doesn't mean that we shouldn't stand up and talk about what right is. Just because it sounds simple or naive to announce a rapprochement between the lion and the ox doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold that in front of us as God's view of reality. Just because bears still kill cows when they inhabit the same space, doesn't mean that we shouldn't press on toward a vision in which they graze the same fields in peace.

We can, of course, never be excused from trying to get it right. Living with a vision requires no less. What we can be excused from is thinking that it's somehow our responsibility to get it right. Because when the reign of God is finally realized, it won't be because we made it happen. It will be because we left ourselves open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and to a vision of what God believes life is really like. Lord knows, somebody better keep talking that talk.

Sweatin' to Jesus

2009-07-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

I was at the YMCA the other day working out. The Y has televisions on most of the exercise machines that you may watch when exercising. I love this feature as it lets me watch baseball as I workout. During one commercial break I noticed that every commercial was telling me that I was not complete without purchasing this latest new diet pill or exercise machine that was guaranteed to make my slimmer and trimmer in just a few short weeks.

They promised that with minimal effort and minimal exposure to sweat that the pounds would just melt off. Having fallen for these fad diets and products for the last 15 years I am leery of them. I have discovered there is no substitute for hard work and healthy eating. It is simple math, if you eat less calories than you burn off then you lose weight.

I have also discovered this to be true about my spiritual life. For years I have suffered through the latest Christian fad of prayers for Jabez sort of faith, a purpose driven faith, the name it and claim it kind of faith, and the spirit guided tongue freeing faith only to discover the same thing applies to working out and my spiritual growth, I will only get out of it what I put into it.

I am discovering now in this season of my life that I must orientate my life around healthy eating and an active lifestyle in order to combat and repair the destructive unhealthy eating habit and the sedentary lifestyle that has plagued my life thus far. The same is true for my spiritual life. My life must revolve around spiritual practice and devotion to God in order for me to enter into the active healing process of the sin and depravity that mires the profane places of my heart and mind. I will only get out of my spiritual practice that which I invest into it. There is no easy way out of a deep meaningful relationship with Jesus the Christ.

There is no fad practice that will end the complacency of soul and self like that decision to sellout for Christ and get all Jesus on the world. As I am discovering with my new lifestyle changes, as I replace the old habits of sloth and idleness with the new habits of dedication and sacrifice I am renewed and my life gets better. I promise you that the same it true with entering into renewed spiritual practice. That as you commit and sacrifice your life to spiritual discipline you will discover a new way, a new life that exceeds the beauty of your old ways.

It is my hope that as we move towards fall and the beginning of Advent that we dedicate our lives to being with each other as we all endeavor to deepen our discipleship with hard work sacrifice and commitment to the divine presence in all of our lives.

Please contact Rev. Ryan Kemp-Pappan for information on small groups & spiritual formation classes for the fall.

Where Is Our Allegiance Pledged?

2009-07-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15b).

“I, the undersigned, by my signature do certify, swear, and affirm: That I am a native born, or fully and legally naturalized citizen of the United States of America. That I owe no allegance [sic] to any other country or ruler other than the United States of America. . . . That I will pledge my allegance to the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan . . .” (Application for membership: American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan).

We’ve just come through the July 4^th weekend, and it got me thinking. The United States is a nice enough place. There are a number of opportunities made available to us due to the simple reason that we happened to have been born on this soil, and for which we ought rightfully to give thanks. We take for granted many things that people in other parts of the world would die to have. But this great experiment in the ordering of public life we call “the United States” is not without its flaws; and these are significant. In fact some of these defects are so perplexing that, regardless of the political party in power, we have been unsuccessful in addressing them. There are some things that, despite our best efforts to date, defy our most capacious political efforts to remedy them. We live in a country, for example, that still commits violence in the name of peace and sees some children go to bed hungry, while others sleep with full bellies. We make our homes in a country in which healthcare is a commodity available not as a right but as a privilege, in which anyone who doesn’t claim to be heterosexual has to take a back seat on the cultural bus. We reside in a culture that accounts worth as principally tied to what one possesses, and love as an emotion of the heart, rather than a commitment of the will. In fact, regardless of the great work that has gone into addressing the problem of racism, there are still benighted individuals who believe that “separate” and “superior” are modifiers that ought rightfully be attached to human beings and their social arrangements.

Christians, on the other hand, are a people who envision another kingdom where our loyalties to another ruler compel us to tear down the walls that divide us from each other. We realize that short of the hand of God, some things are beyond our capacity to heal them on our own. If the church, the followers of the one who finally gave himself over to the hands of hate, cannot stand united against the many masks of hatred, there is no hope. If we cannot offer up to God our brokenness, including those who would seek to undo us, we are doomed already. Because—bad spelling, poor grammar and a complete misreading of what it means to be a child of God notwithstanding—the people who make up hate groups are also people for whom Jesus died; we must be in prayer even—perhaps most especially—for them.

We refuse to submit to the servants of the night. We pledge our allegiance to another ruler. “The kingdom of the world” belongs to him anyway—even though, apparently, some have failed to realize it.

Sunday, July 19

2009-07-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! In an act of shameless self-promotion, I want to announce that I will be subbing for Rev. Derek this coming Sunday (July 19) as teacher of the adult Sunday School class that meets upstairs at 9:30 am. After consultation with Derek, I will be leading us in a discussion of theories regarding the relationship between God, religion, and morality. My understanding is that I may be doing this for multiple Sundays, depending of course upon class interest and Derek's desire to have us discuss other topics upon his return. I encourage all of you to come, not because what I have to say is all that interesting, but because our group of regulars never fails to make our discussions lively and exciting.

As a starting point for our exploration of the relationship between God, religion, and morality, I intend for us to spend this coming Sunday considering divine command theory. If you have never heard the phrase "divine command theory," I trust that once you get the basic idea you will find it immediately recognizable. It is, in fact, one of the most common positions ordinary folks take on the relationship between religion and morality (at least in places like the U.S., where monotheisms are the predominant religions). Many of you are aware that the theory has significant problems, but regardless of where you come down on it, we all have something to learn from stopping for a while, getting together, and taking the theory seriously.

I encourage all of you to come and join our discussion!

The Circle Widens...

2009-07-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

At my request, The DBCC Blog Powers that Be have given me permission to contribute to this space. Like my mind-reading powers, I promise to use this privilege only for good. I sincerely hope that more DBCC members will consider becoming contributors!

Expect a more substantive post soon, but in the meantime I wanted everyone to have fair warning. Much love to all y'all.

My Stonewall Remarks: 40 Years Ago

2009-07-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

40 years ago the silent voice of a community was heard in a riotous action proclaiming that they would no longer be silent. 40 years ago a few hundred gathered to give voice to the marginalization and systemic oppression forced upon them. 40 years ago a movement was born that we celebrate here today.

The most important thing to remember about movements is that they are comprised of people. People with hopes, dreams, and vision. People with love in their hearts looking for a place to store that love. People with the right to be. PEOPLE! Movements being and end with the people. Movements cannot sustain the movement when it is boiled down to an idea.

I stand here today a leader in the Christian church. I stand here today as a white, straight male. I am a part of this movement.

The Christian faith has been utilized in the disenfranchising action of the GLBTQ community. We have demanded that you must give up your faith if you insist on keeping your love. We have demanded that you remain silent in order to nourish your soul. We have demanded that you have a place in the Kindom of God only if you conform to the narrow standards of dubious origins. For this I am terribly sorry.

It is my hope that we as a church may offer reconciliation and love to our sisters and brothers for the atrocities perpetrated upon them in the name of God. It is my hope that the beautiful voice of faith embraced by the GLBTQ Community may enrich the faith on communities across Kentucky. The faith of a few transforms the faith of us all. This is a lesson we may draw from the actions of those brave people that would not be silent 40 years ago.

I recently read a lecture from Kentucky’s proud son, Bishop V. Gene Robinson, titledWhy Religion Matters in the Quest for Gay Civil Rights. He speaks, “I believe that it will take religious people and religious voices to undo the harm that has been done by religious institutions…It’s time that progressive religious people stop being ashamed of their faith and fearful that they will be identified with the Religious Right, and start preaching the Good News of the liberating Christ, which includes ALL God’s Children.”

It seems that the harm, the damage that is being done is by us, the religious community, by us being in the shadows. It is time for us to step out of the shadows. I offer that as this movement progresses and the fires of the Spirit burn in the hearts of the many that we the religious community owe the Gay community love for the silence we offer and the isolation that we perpetrate upon you. We the religious community owe you that scared space to be fearfully & wonderfully made. We the religious community owe it to you to emerge from the silence and join our voice with yours and demand that WE shall not be denied the justice imbued within our hearts and souls because we celebrate the diversity of Gods creation.

40 years ago a rebellion began that we are honored to celebrate tonight and participate in today. 40 years ago people came together and would not be silent. Tonight let us commit ourselves to not remaining silent. Let us join our voice as we demand that Liberty & justice truly be for ALL.

Crying Babies and Broken Carpenters

2009-06-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

“Most people today, whether or not they believe in God, think that God is about power and that power is about the domination of others, through violence if necessary, just as human success is about wealth and career advancement and national greatness is about military triumph” (William Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God, 4).

Bio-terrorists. Bunker-busters. Attack helicopters. Speak softly and carry a strategically big stick. It’s a dog eat dog world out there. Don’t go looking for fights, but be sure you don’t back down from any either. One of the chief criticisms of President Obama’s speech at the University of Cairo centered on his refusal to exercise power when dealing with a potentially hostile Muslim audience. To admit past failures on an international stage is thought to be a projection of weakness. The thinking seems to be that if we’re ever going to whip these Muslims into shape, we better make sure they know who’s calling the global shots.

Strength. Power. Might.

Look in a magazine to any advertisement for the good life. What do you see? Floridians on oxygen? No. You see young, tanned folks frolicking wherever it is that young, tanned folks frolic. Six-pack abs and square jaws make it abundantly clear that it isn’t you who’s making the rules; it’s people named Lance and Margo, people with healthy investment portfolios and the appropriate degrees on the wall.

We know what success looks like. The images are ubiquitous. It’s all about power; and we modern folks know where the power is located—and it ain’t located in Shawnee, or Watts, or Appalachia. If you want to get anything done in this world, you’ve got to have the juice and you’ve got to know where to find it. Which is why Christianity must always appear so weird to the world. Christianity worships at the altar of a God who, rather than throw thunderbolts from the heavens, deposited a wrinkled bundle of skin in a feed trough. How are you going to make that look good on Entertainment Tonight? You wouldn’t last five minutes on Meet the Press with that strategy. There aren’t any sunglasses, no bronzing gel, no overweening paparazzi; there aren’t any thousand dollar suits, no power ties, no manicured hands, only a few raggedy, bottom-of-the-food-chain shepherds, and an assortment of livestock.

God became like us. In a world of upward mobility, God always seems to be moving in the wrong direction. And that’s why the incarnation is such a scandal: it is the audacious declaration that the God of the universe privileged weakness as the ultimate display of power.

We thought that “God is about power and that power is about the domination of others, through violence if necessary.” The gospel reorients our thinking to life in God’s kingdom by redefining power through reference to a new reality in which “a little child shall lead them.” Our expectations of God’s overthrowing of the powers and principalities are always tempered by our memory that God’s greatest show of power is the power of restraint. Retributive justice is what the world has told us we ought to give and receive, but God has steadfastly refused to give us what we deserve.

Potency. Force. Muscle. These are what we’ve come to expect are necessary to rule the world. But God’s got different ideas about what it takes to run a universe. I mean, after all, what do you expect from a God who can’t do any better for power than crying babies and broken carpenters?

Death, Where is thy Sting?

2009-06-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

I was asked to participate in a service honoring Dr. George Tiller last Thursday. I wrote a little sermon to deliver there. I have included it here for your reading pleasure. You may find the Courier-Journal coverage here.

Celebrating the death of anyone is contrary to the Gospel that I read. Most certainly Dr. Tiller’s family and friends must be embraced this evening as we mourn their loss with them. The 55th verse of the first letter to the Corinthians reads, "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"

This day the sting of death weights upon the hearts of those whom Dr. Tiller sought to serve as he protected the rights for all women to decide what they shall do with their body.

This day the sting rests upon the shoulders of those that speak out against the violence that claimed Dr. George Tiller’s life.

This day the sting of death cannot and must not be ignored. Let us embrace this pain, this sting as we gather here today unified against violence as a way of political power. Violence shall lead us all down a road to which there is no return.

The sting of death is real for us all, but the victory of death has no place here. There was no victory gained by anyone in the death of Dr. George Tiller. Left are a widow grieving the lose of a friend and confidant, a son that shall no longer share his life with his father, and us the mourners that chose not to forget.

There is this part of a verse from the prophet Micah that I love. It says, “…act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” This is a response to the question, “what does God require of you?” I think Dr. Tiller understood what it meant to answer the question in a profound manner.

Dr. Tiller gave his life answering this question, “what does God require of you?” For Dr. Tiller God required the total reorientation of his life. When George Tiller was entering the work force his life was transformed by circumstance. He lost his father, sister, & brother-in-law in an airplane accident. This gave Dr. Tiller a life’s calling. He took over the family business in Kansas and he raised his nephew. The nephew became a son and the family business cost him his life.

Dr. Tiller was not short on acting justly, loving mercy, walking humbly. With great compassion and mercy Dr. Tiller resisted the pressure to cease his mission to provide all women with options. Dr. Tiller did not retaliate when his practice was threatened or when his life was attempt to be extinguished. In humility Dr. Tiller mended his wounds and kept walking the path to which he was called.

There is a story that I am drawn to in this moment. It is a story by Bernard Malamud called, The Mourners. This is the story of Kessler a poor old man living alone having left this young family many years ago. He lives in a meager apartment. He is full of meager ways. He keeps to himself and a chaos surrounds him he remains clam…a non-anxious presence.

He has a quarrel with the tenement janitor, Ignace. Ignace spreads rumors and lies about Kessler. Kessler is pushed to his non-anxious limits.

Ignace punishes Kessler unjustly and goes to the owner, Gruber, and asks him to rid the building of Kessler. Kessler’s rent is denied and eviction notice is given. When Kessler ignores this and returns his rent once more a confrontation ensues between Kessler and Gruber.

Kessler is thrown out by force on to the streets. He is left in the harsh cold and rainy element. The tenement residents see this and bring Kessler and his stuff back into the building.

The final scene is Gruber full of anger returning to kick Kessler out again. He opens the door and sees Kessler on the floor a huddled mess reciting the Kaddish. Gruber’s response to this is to don the bed sheet as a mourner himself and recite the prayers with Kessler. For his humanity is gone, it left with the dignity he forbade Kessler in their dealings.

We mourn here today so that the injustice perpetrated in the name of God shall not pass without a witness. We mourn the death of Dr. George Tiller so that the threat of injustice shall meet the resistance of justice. We mourn today to answer the question, “O death, where is thy victory? Where is thy sting?" with the justice loving mercy that inspires us to walk humbly with our God.

Amen

Welcome

2009-02-26T13:01:00.001-08:00

Welcome to DBCC!