the Gospel and the news media (or Barak Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Trinity UCC and Jesus Christ)

What do I know about Trinity UCC in Chicago?  That lives are being changed for the better there.  That people are growing in their spiritual life in Jesus Christ there.  That people are being invited in to that congregation and being sent out to help the world to know the living presence of God.  

I'm white...which really doesn't matter to God and the body of Christ.

I think the dilemma is that the news media is focused on communicating news.  We in the body of Christ are focused on communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The media never in human history was expected to do that...nor have they rarely been able to on purpose.  All these conversations do is focus on selling news.  We in the body of Christ need to be aware of the difference. (This same dilemma is present also with the political arena.)

consulting

tomorrow I will do some "consulting" Presbyterian Church USA minister in the Cleveland area.  I will hand out at an Arabica coffee shop like do here at The Nervous Dog and clergy are going to stop by during the day.  This will be interesting.  We sort of evolved into doing it this way since I suggested we meet "out" somewhere rather than a church.  I think they had some pastors who were wanting to talk with someone who "has been there" and Harry Eberts at Lyndhurst Community PCUSA knew of what we have and are doing at Fairlawn West and asked if I would consider doing this.  So after I suggested a coffee shop setting, I think they just told the folks I would be there from 10 am to 4 pm and clergy are going to stop by for conversation.  Here are some of the notes Harry I developed to help shape the time:

 

Title:  Feeling the Need for Change

 

Questions

 

How are you reaching out to people in the wider world around us?

 

What's working/not working in your setting?

            How do you know it's working?

 

The issue is Pastor leadership

            Casting a vision

            Persevering

            Leading people as the  people of God

 

How will you lead?  This is the issue

            No models out there

            No one is out there ahead of us

 

What are the indigenous communities around you (context)?

 

What's the culture of your church?

 

What are the realistic core values of your church?

 

What gives you your passion now?

 

How many changes lives have you seen in the life of your church?

 

How many in your church see themselves in a mission field?

 

How can we share the presence of Christ in the world around us?

 

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"It's not about me"

 

It's the way our members reach out to disconnected people

 

Books

 

Broken, William Cope Moyers

Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Friedman

The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren

Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan

 

 

hope and death in life from Buechner

One who has been a ray of light throughout the past 35 years of my life is Frederick Buechner.  We read from Buechner every week at our mall food court Bible study (which is now in its 7th year) and I use his writings as a daily meditation. He was introduced to me by a mentor, Bob Tabscott, whose life (at least at that time) was powerful and yet full of difficult contradictions.  I came across a quote I may use in a funeral service today from Buechner.  He's talking about "preachers" or as we call it around here now the "vision caster".

 

And at the heart of the heart is Christ -- the hope that he really is what for years they have been saying he is. That he really conquered sin and death. That in him and through him we also stand a chance of conquering them. "If Christ has not raised from the dead, your faith is futile and you are still in sins," Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians. "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." If preachers are going to talk about hope, let them talk as honestly as Saint Paul did about hopelessness. Let them acknowledge the darkness and pitiableness of the human condition, including their own condition, into which hope brings still a glimmer of light.

 

And let them talk with equal honesty about their own reasons for hoping -- not just the official, doctrinal, Biblical reasons but the reasons rooted deep in their own day by day experience. They have hope that God exists because from time to time over the years they believe they have been touched by God. Let them speak of those times with the candor and concretness and passion without which all the homiletical eloquence and technique in the world are worth little.

 

They believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life because at a few precious moments that is what they have found him to be in their own small deaths and resurrections. Let them speak of those moments not like lecturers or propagandists but like human being speaking their hearts to their dearest friends who at any given point will unerringly know whether they are speaking truth or only parroting it.

 

David Loar
http://www.loar.org ...family web site
http://www.fairlawnwest.org ...church web site 
http://discipledavid.blogspot.com ...my blog

 

Interesting articles:
Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/cultureandreview/emerginandfresh
Beer and Bible in St. Louis
http://www.therolladailynews.com/articles/2007/03/08/state_news/state09.txt

Fairlawn West (United Church of Christ) as church rather than a...

An interview with Brian McLaren over praying for your enemies and what the gift from enemies does for you (http://blog.christianitytoday.com/mt-tb.cgi/298 ) led to my reflection on what happened at Fairlawn West over a 5 year period from 1999 to 2004. I shared in a response comment to the interview some of my own experience about the struggle of how to relate to people who are attacking you. This is especially true when you have had a close relationship with them in the past. (As troubling is those who were active in the life of the church and just disappeared. Not even "boo".)

A book that helped me a great deal during this time was by Dick Wills who was the minister of a United Meth church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and is now the bishop of a Un Meth conference based in Nashville. Waking to God's Dream: Spiritual Leadership and Church Renewal As Dick led his church through a time of transformation where he had been highly praised previously as the pastor, he was viciously and violently attacked including by his best golfing buddy. Eventually after it all shook out and a host of people left the church, it became a model for many of us of what God is calling us to be these days.

I realize at Fairlawn West that we were focused on having a church that took care of "us" and that we wanted to "grow" so that there would be more people to take care of "us." When that culture was threatened by growth that called for dying to ourselves, accountability more than entitlement, deepening our spiritual life in Christ and the motto that echoed around F W (still does) "its not about me", all hell broke loose. And most of it focused on me, but it included some of our lay leaders and particularly our trustees (when push comes to shove, the god of money will float to the top).

Our life now as a church may seem more precarious to some, but it feels more spiritually centered to us and to the growing number of folks who are connecting with F W for their spiritual nurture and their call to serve God in the world. We are rewriting our structural document. "Members" no longer seems like an appropriate term for us. "Partners in Ministry" is the lead description right now as our leadership team is working on this new document (which will be far, far shorter/smaller than our old constitution...we have also found that the state of Ohio doesn't care what we call this document so we are looking forward to having some fun in finding a descriptive, visionary, and fun title for this document). Life as a church for the last three years has been an amazing experience of grace, growth, hope, healing, courage, and reaching out beyond to those who are hurting in the world around us.

Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren & the so-called "Christian" right

James Dobson of the Focus on the Family radio program and who speaks off in the same vein with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wrote a letter complaining about the position taken by a leader in a Christian evangelical organization on global warming. Dobson among other things said that it is a scientific not a theological issues. Wonder what the tellers and writers of the creation narratives in Genesis and a lot of the Psalms, at the least, would say about that? Anyway, Dobson and some others, want that leader's head.

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis have replied to Dobson. Even discounting what they are responding to, their comments are very helpful for all of us as we view what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a worshiper of God in times like these. But, as Brian is often able to do, he found points for conversation in the Dobson letter. He saw openings for discussion whereas many of us just see the name "Dobson" or those others, and we go off in a rant. I think Brian's comments are very important for us in the liberal main-line churches to pay attention to. We need to learn to really listen rather than to be reactive to code words.

Both our leadership team and our 8th grade Confirmation class will be starting to use the books by Marshall Rosenberg on non-violent communication (The Center for Non-Violent Communication). What Brian does in his response is exactly what Marshall is helping many people in the world e.g. Rwanda, Middle East, the Balkans, to learn how to use language and how to listen to reduce conflict. Marshall makes the distinction between "jackal" language and "giraffe" language. The jackal keeps his head close to the ground, rarely looking up, and focuses on his own assumptions. The giraffe has the largest heart of any being, and keeps the head up to continue to scan the horizon. Marshall is helping the world through organizing not merely by political language, but by helping people to change behavior and thinking. Compassionate Communication. Also, "anger and domination systems" by Marshall

I just read in our local paper the Akron Beacon Journal how our mayor at a city council meeting went off on a personal attack on the one council member who didn't vote the way the mayor thought he should. The mayor is a liberal Democrat who opposes a lot of injustice in the world. Yet his language and conversation really contributes to the mass of conflict in the world. I see that often among my own colleagues on the left...our style belies our rhetoric.

the new media's trinity

The news reports about the three - Anna Nicole, Brittany and Jesus - are the "setting" where a lot of folks are in their own lives. That doesn't mean they all like hearing these as the lead items of the news. But the questions about life and death are being shaped for a lot of young people, let alone some older ones, in the same breath of what's done with Anna Nicole's body and what happened to Jesus' body. So, "what happens to my body?" later on and now! Is global warning or the threat of the growing storm in Iraq and Iran going to "bury me"? Or, what about the calls I keep avoiding from bill collectors? Or my kid being bullied at school? Or....I think I am beginning to feel just like Anna Nicole's body being fought over or traded around like a possession rather than a life. And this Jesus thing. They are starting to squabble over his body just like over Anna Nicole...and me.