Please Take a Few Minutes to Share Your Thoughts...

We are still collecting responses with our Year-End Congregational Survey. If you have not already done so, please take a few minutes to complete the online survey, found here.

Some Q and A about the survey:

Why take a survey? We're a congregation where everyone knows everyone else.

A survey is never a substitute for face-to-face conversation. However, a survey allows people to give their ideas and opinions on a wide range of issues fairly quickly. Then the range of thoughts and comments can be looked at together.

Why should I take the survey? Everyone already knows what I think.

Probably not. I'm the pastor, and I'm confident that I don't know exactly what everyone else thinks. We do know each other pretty well, but most of us guard some of our opinions and hopes pretty tightly.

Plus, you may have shared your thoughts with a few people or at a meeting. But 1) not everyone was there for the conversation and 2) we are all forgetful. Sharing your thoughts again cannot hurt.

The survey seems a little long, with lots of ratings. I'm uncomfortable with that.

The last congregations survey was taken two years ago. Six general questions were asked, only one of which was a simple "Yes" or "No"; all of them asked basically for comments. Many people gladly shared their ideas, but some found the survey difficult to take. Some people find surveys with boxes to check much easier to complete than surveys asking for comments.

This survey is an attempt to allow more people to be able to fill it out. There are both circles to check and space for comments. If you are more comfortable with one style or the other, put most of your effort on those parts of the questions.

How will the survey be used?

The results of the survey will be discussed with the Church Cabinet, which is basically all of the elected officers (board officers, elders, diaconate, trustees), committee chairs, and the pastor.

The ratings section will be used primarily to offer an idea of whether the congregation should continue doing what it's been doing, or reevaluate some things. It will also allow a glimpse of how important some aspects of congregational life are to people.

The comments/responses to the questions will be used to guide discussions about what ministries the congregation should focus on in the year 2011.

How can I be most helpful?

Take the time to fill the survey out. Be honest. If you really like something or think it's a really good idea, make sure you share that. If you're worried or frustrated about something, please share that. A congregation is at most vibrant when it is a group of people doing things that everyone feels are important and that everyone feels excited to participate in.

Last time there were 15 responses to the survey. That was good, but I believe we can get an even better participation rate this time.

Youth Christmas Program on Sunday, December 19

Tomorrow is the day for the annual Christmas pageant. This year's youth program, "The Spider's Christmas," is a story instead of a play. Two weeks ago our young people were photographed in costumes for the pictures. On Sunday, we will gather together to listen to the story, with their pictures.

Come hear again the magical story of Christ's birth, complete with angels, shepherds, and wise ones bearing gifts. All told from the perspective of one friendly, and slightly put-upon, spider. You won't want to miss it!

Habits of Highly Effective Christians

Last Sunday, we began a three-week sermon series called "Three Habits of Highly Effective Christians." The first sermon, "Investing Our Talents," focused on a couple of things, namely identifying what we have to offer (What are our talents?) and then identifying our mission (What do we want to do?).

This week, we'll continue along the same line of thinking and look at "Committing to the Mission." In particular, we'll consider how we focus on achievable things and how we maintain our dedication to those goals over time.

Before moving ahead, though, I think it's important to consider a couple of things from last week. First, I began the sermon with some questions that are pretty difficult to answer. What does a highly effective Christian look like? How does someone measure the effectiveness of a Christian? These are hard questions, and I wanted them to sound a little hard in the sermon, hoping that you would see a challenge and think about them this week.

Some might think that these questions are unfair, but I think we measure the effectiveness of most of the things in our life. Some of it is explicit -- many of us face job performance reports/assessments on a regular basis. Those of us in school get periodic report cards. Some is internalized -- we measure all sorts of things: our cooking, our driving, our parenting, our humor, our organizational skills, and on and on.

I think we measure the effectiveness of our faith too, but we almost never realize we're doing it. Even those who come to find God or their faith as unhelpful or irrelevant and who walk away from it rarely realize that they've measured faith and judged it ineffective. And for regular church-going folk, the same problem exists in a different way -- most believe that their faith is important and helpful, but few can explain this with any details.

And the details are important. Imagine that I was a baseball coach, offering to teach the sport. 'We're going to work on the things that are important,' I say. What are those?, you ask. If I squirm and say, 'you know, all of the important things,' you probably will worry a bit. On the other hand, if I talk about throwing accuracy, fielding practice, and learning to hit a curve ball, you probably feel like there's a reason to practice -- and a reason to hope that you'll get better at certain things.

The same is true in faith. Very few people think they are perfect Christians. Most of us strive to be "okay Christians" or "good Christians," but those are difficult things to define too. Jesus affirmed this definition (given by a lawyer): "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). The way to measure such faith is by understanding how God has changed our lives and how we have reached out to others, in faith, to help change their lives.

The great possibility of our faith is that there is almost an infinite number of ways to live out our faith in these terms. Unfortunately, the great obstacle is that there are few well-defined paths for us to follow, which threatens our effectiveness as Christians.

The most direct threat is cultural. The shift to a faster-paced, 24/7 society has put enormous strains on most people's time, particularly those from ages 6-65. We are expected to be more available and more devoted to our education and our jobs (owing to the amount of money we need to earn to support our expected lifestyle). We are expected to raise our children in a certain way and fulfill a certain number of civic obligations. We are expected to obtain and maintain a home. (And, having been heavily influenced by these expectations, we expect them of ourselves too.)

The challenge is that the expectations of faith have pretty much slipped through the cracks for many people. For a long time, society has supported churches and people of faith in ways that have made these questions less important. In particular, weekly schedules used to preserve Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings for church activities -- even in the busy American culture. But these things are fading into the distance.

This means that if faith is going to be a priority for us -- both as individuals and as a church -- we need to make it a priority in the face of opposing expectations. No longer do we have the luxury of a culture which encourages us to make time for God -- instead, we need to proactively take time to be with God.

Given our habits and the other expectations of our lives, we must believe that our faith is effective. Otherwise we will have little incentive to pursue it; instead we will have overwhelming incentive to abandon our faith and do other things that we find effective. Unfortunately, this is a challenge for churches too. It is no longer enough to be a nice place to worship -- a church's effectiveness is measured. And if people find a church to be ineffective, they take their money and their time and go elsewhere -- maybe to another church or maybe to something almost entirely unrelated to faith.

This Sunday, we'll continue exploring ways of thinking about the effectiveness of our faith to counteract some of these negative cultural influences, both for our individual faith and for our shared faith as church.

"The Lights of Advent"

As we enter this time of Advent, the Office of the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has released a video about the meaning of the season. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, joined by the current Moderator team, speaks of the light of this season, representing the Light of the world, Jesus Christ.

Advent Devotionals

I've been enjoying the first few days of the Advent Devotionals that are available in the Narthex -- the 2010 edition of Partners in Prayer (from Chalice Press) and the latest from Mountaintop Prayerscape (from the West Virginia region). I hope you've taken the opportunity to pick up copies or to follow Mountaintop Prayerscape online.

Devotionals are a wonderful tool, especially for busy people. For each day, there is a short Bible passage to read, followed by a thoughtful essay, then ending with a brief prayer. It's food for the soul.

These are both excellent devotionals. Many of you have met some of the pastors from West Virginia who contribute devotions. If not, you can treat yourself to the wonderful diversity of gifts and styles of Disciples pastors around West Virginia. This year, in an attempt to enhance the diversity and not ask for multiple devotions of everyone, David Chafin, the Deputry Regional Minister who puts the Mountaintop Prayerscape together, has used other material for some days. On Monday, in place of a reflection, was a modern translation of a beautiful Advent hymn, the Laurentius Laurenti.

Also, I find the Chalice Press devotional especially appealing this year because it is written by a Disciple who is younger than I am -- and people my age and younger are rarely asked to write seasonal devotionals. Bonnie Carenen, who I met while she also was a theological student in Chicago, has a vibrant perspective on the season and on the church. And her devotions, thus far, have been inviting and life-giving.

I hope you take the opportunity to read one or both of these devotionals this Advent season. And I hope you find the practice so helpful that you begin to read devotionals each day to help encourage and guide you along your spiritual journey.

New Media Workshop at Bethany College

The Christian Church in West Virginia and Bethany College have teamed up to sponsor a workshop on "The Church and New Media" at the end of October. Led by several people, including Andy Lang the Minister of Web Community and Communications for the United Church of Christ (whose work is widely respected), the workshop will focus on how the Internet and other new media can aid the church in worship, evangelism, and membership development.

I plan to attend the entire event and am interested in seeing if anyone would be interested in also learning about these things. Registration is due by October 10 -- see me if you have questions!

How Well Do You Know Religion?

The Pew Forum released the results of a study about American knowledge about religion. The results were discouraging, especially those that indicated no real difference in knowledge based on frequency of church attendance -- in fact, atheists and agnostics scored highest as a faith-affiliated group (in their case, unaffiliated group).

Here's a chance to take about half of the quiz and see how well you'll do.

I scored 14 out of 15 (embarrassingly, I seem to be unaware of the general religious affiliation of Pakistanis).

The average score was 50% right overall. More disturbingly, Christians asked questions specifically about Christianity and the Bible scored 50% (though Mormons got almost 75% as the highest subset of Christians).

Perhaps the questions were not a perfect assessment. I'm not sure that a majority of Americans should know that Maimonides was Jewish (only 8% got that one right). He was an important medieval Jewish thinker, but I'm not sure that's basic religious knowledge. The role of religion in school, the names of the four gospels, and others which were known by less than half of the respondents, should be better known, as should the name of the Islamic Holy Book (known by only 54%).

Polls that show people know basic facts (the name of key public officials, historical dates, etc.) rarely make news. Polls that demonstrate a lack of knowledge seem to make a much bigger splash. But it is sad to see how little people know about something that many claim is a central part of their lives.

The report on the full quiz and the results is here.

Coming Up Sunday, September 12

On Sunday, we will have the bonus film in our "Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series 2: The Sequel," featuring the classic summer blockbuster Jaws. Directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the bestselling novel by Peter Benchley, the film tells the story of a local sheriff of a New England resort town trying to cope with shark attacks in the shallow waters along the public beach.

Here is the original trailer for the 1975 film:

"None of man's fantasies of evil can compare with the reality of Jaws," says the ominous voiceover on the theatrical trailer. In Jaws, the shark becomes the modern form of the mythological water monster that has been a threatening character in the stories of most human cultures -- including the American culture, most famously in the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick. The water monster is an ancient character, appearing in most ancient mythology and even appearing a few times in the Bible, usually as a character called Leviathan.

Leviathan, the great sea monster, is a terrifying thing that most have heard of, but few have seen or know much about. The fear is heightened by the unknown: how big is it really? what does it eat? where does it live? what are the warning signs that it is near? In the movie Jaws, the shark is virtually unseen until the end, which not only adds to the suspense but allows the viewer's imagination to create the horrible sea monster in the mind.

This explains why Jaws is scary. But why is the shark evil? Perhaps it is rooted in ancient mythology, where the sea monster is not only large and dangerous, but also persists in threatening humans, for little apparent reason. Christianity, in the book of Revelation, makes this more explicit: the sea monster is the devil himself, expelled from heaven. This certainly describes the great white shark in Jaws.

Our question for Sunday is to explore the nature of fear and demonization, as it is apparent in the treatment of the sea monster. What scares us and why? And what makes us identify something -- or even someone -- as evil? Both themes are evident in the movie Jaws and are in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, referring to Leviathan.

Supporting the Kairos Prison MInistry

In about a month, a team of men will join together to reach out and minister to several men incarcerated in Huttonsville Correctional Center. The four-day program seeks to share God's love with several of these men, hoping that they will be willing to join a small group ministry within the prison.

There are several things you can do to support this very worthwhile effort that will change lives by sharing the love of Christ.

First, you can pray. Pray for the men who are in jail. Pray for their families. Pray for the prison staff. Pray for the Fairmont area men who will travel inside the prison walls to serve. And, if you are willing to commit an hour, you can join the official pray vigil which will occur during the 72 hours of the program. You can view the vigil and sign up here.

Second, you can bake or make cookies. The team will take over 2500 dozen cookies inside the prison as a sign of God's overflowing love. There are no strings attached to the cookies -- in fact, there is not even literature that accompanies them. They are given simply as a gesture of doing something nice without expecting anything in return.

Cookies must be homemade. They should be sorted into 1 quart zip-top plastic bags -- one dozen per bag. (Cookies should be cooled before bagging.) There can be no powder, coating, or icing on the cookies, and they cannot contain fruit or nuts (normal chocolate chips are okay). Cookies should be about 2" to 2 1/2" in size. Oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chip, no-bake, and sugar cookies are all popular. If you bake in advance, you may freeze cookies, until you bring them to church to place in the bright pink tubs by September 19.

Third, you may offer financial gifts to offset the costs of offering this ministry. Checks may be made out to "Kairos of West Virginia," and are tax deductible. I will be happy to pass along your contribution.

The men in prison have made mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes. But they still do not fall outside of God's love or care. Sometimes, though, they may feel like they are outside of everyone's love and care, given that they are separated and isolated from their families and friends. It is important for us (who have also made mistakes, who also have felt isolated and alone) to reach out to them with compassion and love -- to serve them as some of God's earthly hands and feet, offering a reminder of God's love.

Coming Up Sunday, August 29

This Sunday we will enjoy "Family and Friends Sunday," sharing worship with many of those who are close to us. We will have lots of music, courtesty of Brooks, the choir, and others, and we should enjoy (according to the forecast) a bright sunny morning together.

We will also conclude this summer's batch of movies from "Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series 2: The Sequel." This week's movie is "Eat Pray Love," starring Julia Roberts in the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir. Here's the trailer:



The movie is about a unique -- maybe fantastic -- response to a mid-life crisis: running away from life for a year to find oneself. And what a year: four months in Italy, enjoying architecture and lots of great food; four months at an ashram in India, learning to meditate; and four months in Bali, evidently to learn the secrets of life. Not everyone is an established writer who can sell a publisher on such an endeavor (with the mandatory book to follow), but the escapism can point to deeper truths in our lives.

You might be surprised to learn that there are mid-life crises in the Bible (Jacob and Moses both immediately come to mind). I think that the book of Ecclesiastes is written by someone familiar with the burning questions of the mid-life crisis: why am I here? what's the point? what should I be doing with my life? and others.

Sunday, we'll briefly explore the questions, and why we have them, before exploring Ecclesiastes' fascinating answer.

Newsletter Naming Contest, Part 2

Time is running out to select the new name for the church newsletter in time for the September edition. From the over 20 submissions, we have four finalists: Central Chalice, The Chalice, The Chalice on the Hill, and Sharing the Good News.

There is a survey (with one question) to determine what the name will be. Responses must be submitted by Wednesday morning, 8:00 am. The winner will be proudly displayed on the September newsletter.

Click here to take survey

Coming Up Sunday, August 22

This Sunday, we continue our "Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series 2: The Sequel" by looking at Christopher Nolan's recent movie Inception. The movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, tells the story of a crack team security specialists who invade peoples' dreams and try to steal their secrets.

Here's the trailer:

In the film, the team is charged with doing something even harder than stealing someone's subconscious ideas -- planting a new idea in someone else's head.

For any who have tried to influence the decisions and attitudes of others -- whether other family members, or people at church, or co-workers, or neighbors -- this is an intriguing and appealing question (although one hidden in a science/action/thriller): how do you plant a new/different idea in someone else's head?

The Bible, especially the Old Testament prophets, frequently bring up this issue, wondering what it takes for God to plant new ideas in our heads -- ideas that will affect our individual lives or the fate of the entire nation. The Bible promises that God does indeed do new things in our lives -- our challenge is to recognize them and then live them out.

In addition to the sermon, we will also enjoy lots of good music during our uplifting worship. Hope to see you there!

Central Christian in the News

Last Sunday, Central Christian met the challenge of the Greater Fairmont Council of Churches to become one of 99 churches in the area, each donating $99 to the United Way. On Thursday, I was happy to join several other local pastors in presenting the first checks to Rev. DD Meighen, who is leading the United Way effort among churches this year.

This morning, the Times West Virginian ran the story of the campaign, along with a photo of the check presentation. I am glad that we have participated in this effort as one of Marion County's "trend-setting" churches.

Coming Up Sunday, August 15

The "Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series 2: The Sequel" continues on Sunday, as we look at another of this summer's big movie hits and explore their religious and spiritual themes.

This Sunday's movie is "Toy Story 3" the sequel (threequel?) to "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2," both from Pixar. The animated movie continues the story of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the other toys. Their owner, Andy, is now a teenager who is preparing to move away to college.

Here's the trailer:

At the root of all three "Toy Story" films is the theme of love: a young boy's love for his toys and their love for him in return. Over the films, though, Andy grows from a young boy to a high school graduate, and his love develops and changes. In "Toy Story 3" the issue of love and loss, as the toys wonder what will happen to them when Andy moves away, is at the forefront.

The great Biblical text on love is 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul gives a lengthy description of love. So powerful and evocative is this text that it is often read at weddings, sometimes even at non-Christian weddings. Often overlooked in these verses is one in the middle, where Paul describes the setting aside of childish things. Some think that the verse is a distraction from the theme of love, but I think that suggests that Paul has a much deeper appreciation of love than he is credited. He recognizes that love goes through stages, and that we cannot develop into the type of people (in general, or in faith) that God hopes us to be if we are stagnant/unchanging in our love.

We will consider the nature of love, as explored in both 1 Corinthians and in "Toy Story 3," on Sunday.

Newsletter Naming Contest, Part 1

As announced this morning before worship, over the next three weeks we will determine the name for our esteemed church newsletter. We are asking for your input each step of the way.

This week, we are asking for your reactions on all of the serious submissions. Are there any you love, love, love? Are there any you hate, hate, hate?

Fill out this online survey to let us know. Your responses are due by this Wednesday morning (August 11), 8:00 am.

Suggested titles with a largely favorable rating will proceed to next week's voting. The rest will be left behind.

The 99/99 Challenge

The Greater Fairmont Council of Churches is working to raise money for the Marion County United Way, which kicked off their 2010-2011 drive on Tuesday of this week. Inspired by the parable of the Lost Sheep in Matthew 18, the Council is trying challenging 99 churches to each give $99 to the United Way.

It's important that Central Christian play a part in this. Please bring a $1 bill or two to place in a special offering during the service tomorrow so that we are a part of this special effort.

Coming Up Sunday, August 8

Just when you were afraid to go back to church... It's back, and bigger than ever!

The Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series 2: The Sequel begins on Sunday. Over the next few weeks we'll take a look at four of this summer's biggest movies and explore spiritual themes from the movies.

First up is a big name comedy, Grown Ups, starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayak, Maria Bello, and Steve Buscemi. This film tells the story of five guys who starred on the same championship youth basketball team who meet again -- this time with their families -- at the funeral of their coach.

Here's a look:

In the film, the men become nostalgic as fathers, husbands, and men for the things that they learned and enjoyed when they were younger, including their close relationships with each other. They try to recapture these values and experiences and share them with their families -- especially their wives and children.

The most successful example of this type of nostalgia in the Biblical narratives is the reign of King Josiah in the land of Judah. (Yes, Roger, the Jewish kings are returning for one Sunday!) Josiah is famous as a reformer, who emptied the Temple of idols and returned the Jewish people to a pure worship of the one true God. Following the example of his great-grandfather, King Hezekiah, Josiah used his authority and tax revenues to restore the Temple to its original glory, and he worked with the priests to return Jewish religious practice to similar stature. (In fact, many historians believe that Deuteronomy -- "the second law" -- was enacted during Josiah's reign.)

On Sunday, we'll explore the nature of this type of nostalgia, its limitations and its opportunities, from the movie, from the Bible, and for our own lives.

Coming Up Sunday, August 1

This Sunday, we will enjoy our contemporary worship service, featuring lots of music, spanning from the 8th Century to the 21st Century, from traditional hymns to popular praise music composed in only the last few years. I am excited to experience all of it with you -- it will add an interesting dynamic to worship.

In addition, the day will have personal significance for me. Ten years ago, on the first Sunday in August, I preached my first Sunday morning sermon. A lot has changed in the years since -- as I climbed into the pulpit that day, I never would have imagined becoming a pastor in West Virginia -- or anywhere else, for that matter.

The scripture for Sunday is the same it was ten years ago, John 6, culminating with Jesus words, "I am the bread of life." In some ways, this is one of the most hopeful chapters of John, reminding us of how Christ comes to us in many ways to feed our faith. In other ways, it is a challenging passage, reminding us that all of the answers we think we've found about God may not be the right answers at all. We will explore both of those things on Sunday.

Meet My New Nephew

My nephew was born a week ago, and I have pictures to share. Zachary Titus is a healthy boy, though most of the photos I have of him so far show him asleep -- or at least with his eyes closed. Here's one with his proud Mom Emily where the eyes are open:

And here we have a picture with Dan, proud Daddy, and big brother Sean:

Everyone is home and doing great! Praise God for this new miracle!

Recognizing Each Others Gifts

In Sunday's sermon, I mentioned that I was drawing upon Augustine's theology in my presentation of the Trinity. I was a bit surprised this week to discover that other parts of the sermon also have roots in Augustine's thought, especially the point that we are meant by God to celebrate each other's gifts -- something we often fail to do because of our pride, our competitiveness, and our dishonesty.

While reading a book on Christian history, I read a quotation from Augustine's Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love:

We love God now by faith; then we shall love him through sight. Now we love even our neighbor by faith....But in the future life, every man shall love and praise his neighbor the virtue that may not be hid. (Diana Butler Bass, A People's History of Christianity, p. 79, citing Enchiridion..., ed. Henry Paolucci, ch. 21)

In the future life, when our relationships are restored into their proper and intended forms, we will praise and love our neighbors' 'virtues' -- gifts. We will recognize the unique talents and interests with which God blessed each of us, honestly and openly.

In the meantime, as I mentioned Sunday, we should try to overcome our sinfulness and be more honest about our own gifts and those of the people around us, cherishing them as God intended.

Coming Up Sunday, July 25

On Sunday, we conclude our series "What God Wants for You." This week's sermon, "Life," provides both a comprehensive conclusion to the entire series and to specific themes begun in last week's sermon, "Purpose."

Last week, we explored the question of why God created us and what God's hopes were for us in the beginning. The crux of that was that God intended us to enjoy proper relationships with the created world, with each other, and with God. The implication of this, as demonstrated throughout creation and even within the Trinity, is that we each have unique gifts and interests that feed our relationships.

Of course, God's creation did not practice such proper relationships long. Instead, sinfulness crept in, destroying most of God's dreams for us, leaving God's hopes for us to only be partially realized in this world.

The purpose of Christ's incarnation was to counter this sinfulness. Through his life on earth, Jesus demonstrated that we could still enjoy many of God's dreams for our lives in this world, despite the pervasiveness and destructive quality of sin. More than this, though, Jesus the Christ is a sign that God intends to restore human beings to the existence He created us for. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." We will explore some of the implications of this promise, both for our lives now and our lives to come.

Lincoln in Church

I came across an interesting blog post from a Methodist Church in Illinois, where the pastor is taking three weeks in July to focus on Abraham Lincoln's faith in both worship and study.

Lest you think that your's truly is the only person who spends time talking about Abraham Lincoln in church....

Coming Up Sunday, July 11

We continue our series on "What God Wants for You" with this week's focus on music. There is much written about music in the scriptures, including some prophecies that promise a song in the hearts of the faithful. And of course, there is an entire songbook preserved in the Bible, the Book of Psalms.

Music has always been an integral part of faith. This Sunday, we'll explore why this is during a worship service that will feature both a meditation on music and lots of music itself.

Singing as Theology

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a series of articles in recent issues of The Christian Century in which various theologians discuss "how their minds have changed" over time. This week, I read another such essay, "Deep and Wide," written by prolific author Mark Noll, who after many years of teaching at Wheaton College is now teaching at Notre Dame.

Noll, whose specialty is the study of Christianity in American history (though he's recently begun serious study of global Christianity), is a wonderful historian, capable of writing books for a variety of audiences. His best, in my estimation, is America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. Despite this, I do not recommend it to many people because it is the culmination of a lifetime of study that distills an almost indescribable amount of information into a careful theory of the context for American Christianity -- most people would find themselves in over their head because Noll does not take the time (and it would take significant time and probably triple the length of the book) to carefully define for non-experts all of the context he's exploring. Instead I recommend any of his other wonderful books that are written for a general audience, several of which are on my bookshelves.

In his Christian Century essay, Noll offers some reflections on how his appreciation of the richness and diversity of Christianity has developed over the years, even as he has become more aware of the depth of similarities in the Christian faith across time and culture. I was particularly struck by his reflections on the significance of hymns in his faith and his self-awareness of that faith:

A further broadening effect of the great hymns took me longer to comprehend. With the help especially of Andrew Wall's account of how the once-incarnate Christ has been, as it were, incarnated afresh wherever Christianity enters a new culture. I came to see something else. While the dogmas of these hymns were universal, the music that played such a powerful part in quickening the dogma was particular. Isaac Watt's "When I survey the wondrous cross" remained fairly inert words on the page without the tune "Rockingham," by Edward Miller, or "Hamburg," by Lowell Mason. I might find singing this hymn with a rock-and-roll melody or accompanied by a five-toned Thai xylophone an intellectual curiosity, but it would not be heartfelt worship.

Over time the obvious became clear: the hymns did their great work for me as they were sung with music originating from only about 200 years of Western musical history (1650-1850). With music not from the West and with later or earlier Western music, the affect simply was not the same. Extension was the next step: if I was experiencing the universal gospel through a particular cultural expression, it followed that the same gospel could be as powerfully communicated through other cultural expressions, even if those expressions were alien or foreign to me. The experience of those who could be moved by a rock-and-roll rendition of "When I survey the wondrous cross," or by a five-toned Thai version of a similar hymn, was, in principle, just as authentic as when I sang these words set to "Rockingham." Understood in this way, the hymns were making me at the same time both a cultural relativist and a stronger Christian dogmatist. (June 1, 2010, p. 33)

Many people of faith use music to define what churches they like or don't like. Noll acknowledges that he responds better to certain musical styles than others, but he does not fall into the usual trap of seeking to impose his preferences on others. Instead -- and this is a growth in self-awareness that many of us never achieve -- he considers how God uses this music to reach out to him and then imagines how God might use other forms of music to reach out to different people. In this dual appreciation of music, Noll glimpses depth and wideness.

Like a good Calvinist, Noll then incorporates this insight into his understanding of the grace inherent in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Certainly, it is another form of the "one body, many members" metaphor found in Scripture and central to most Protestant theological understandings of Communion. But I wanted him to linger on this insight about the role of music in faith -- or maybe I just wanted him to explain more how this understanding crept into his awareness.

Most people are aware that they like certain church songs better than others. Some might admit that certain styles of music or specific instruments influence these preferences, but most would probably speak about how a certain song "feels like worship" or "makes me feel the presence of God." Then, however, churchgoers have to learn an important lesson -- everyone has such preferred songs and not everyone's preferences overlap, even in a single congregation. I have a colleague who once threatened to preach a sermon entitled "Why We Can't Sing 'In the Garden' Every Sunday," to try to address just this issue. As members of a faith community, we gradually learn how to incorporate music over time that includes "favorite songs" or "favorite styles" of everyone in the room, though this is never without grumbling and frustration.

Noll's comments go far beyond this local compromise to imagine -- even admitting his own lack of understanding how this works in various cultures -- that the same God can be in all of these songs, regardless of styles, instruments, tempos, or anything else. In this, he not only reaches out to people he loves that he sees and interacts with regularly: he sees a church far beyond his own imagining, beyond his culture and class, beyond his specific time in history, beyond his language. It's an audacious vision of the gospel, and one that we rarely encounter as Christians because we are so myopic -- so culturally conditioned, so focused on ourselves and our close friends. Might we, in our own ways, gain awareness of such a God whose grace is so ubiquitous even as it seems so overwhelming in our own lives.

Coming Up Sunday, July 4

On Sunday, we'll continue our series "What God Wants for You." Given that Sunday is July 4th, we will focus on the divine wish of freedom. As Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, "For freedom Christ has set us free."

The nature of this freedom, though, is a bit different from the freedom that we celebrate on Independence Day. On July 4th, we usually celebrate political freedom, with patriotic parades, family picnics, and fireworks. The freedoms we celebrate (if we even think of them) are encapsulated in the great "Song of Freedom" by Irving Berlin:

God's wish for us to be free is not limited to political freedom. God wants us to be free from the burdens of our past, including some of the worst consequences of our sinfulness. Without such freedom, we would be weighed down so much with our spiritual baggage that we would be virtually unable to do anything productive. But even this is only the tip of the iceberg of God's hope for us.

We were created, as explained in Genesis, to enjoy creation as virtual equals of God. Like any loving parent, God wanted Adam to be a free-thinking and free-acting adult in this newly created world. Imagine what you as a parent want for your children -- God wants that for us and more. God wants us to make our own decisions, preferably wise decisions, like every mother and father wishes for their kids as they mature. But God doesn't dictate, giving us the freedom to make mistakes and the space to eventually learn -- hopefully -- how to live faithfully and well.

** As long as I've posted one clip from "Holiday Inn," I should post Fred Astaire's brilliant solo dance routine for Independence Day from the movie. It doesn't relate to Sunday's sermon, but it is fun to watch!

Coming Up Sunday, June 13

On Sunday, we'll continue our new series, "What God Wants for You." This week's divine wish is "Wisdom," drawing on the Canticle of Wisdom, found in Proverbs 3 and 4. "Get wisdom, get understanding," says the Lord. The challenge, of course, is how to learn that knowledge.

Like last week, this is a large and potentially complicated topic. Seeking focus, I've found an unorthodox approach -- the game of baseball. In particular, I think we'll spend a little time thinking about James Earl Jones' great monologue at the end of "Field of Dreams":

In particular, we'll think about baseball's constancy and its simplicity, and how that relates to the wisdom God wishes for each of us.

Resurrection in Scripture

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled by asking about resurrections in the Bible -- or stories of presumed resurrections, in the case of Herod believing that Jesus was John the Baptist -- and then discovering that there were several more than I remembered. While doing some reading today, I came across a list of resurrections in the Scriptures.

The list is as follows:

• the son of the widow of Zarephath by Elijah
• the son of the Shunammite woman by Elisha
• a corpse thrown into Elisha's grave by Elisha (technically, by Elisha's own corpse)
• Lazarus by Jesus
• the daughter of Jairus by Jesus
• the son of the widow of Nain by Jesus
• Dorcas, also called Tabitha, by Peter
• Eutychus by Paul

Plus the biggest of them all, Jesus' own resurrection. Which is more than I remembered, and may be more than you remembered too. Even minister's fail pop-quizzes from time to time. It's embarrassing, though, if it's the minister's own pop-quiz.

Coming Up Sunday, May 30

On this Memorial Day weekend we will take the opportunity to give thanks for our forebears, both as Americans and as Christians.

At Arlington National Cemetery (and countless others this weekend), each veteran's grave will be decorated with a small American flag. The view is breathtaking, rows and rows of marble headstones with flags beside each of them:

Each stone represents one life. Each flag represents an appreciation of each life.

If we are honest, we know that there are similar fields of markers in our spiritual lives. Looking back on our spiritual journey, we can see several important people and events along the way. Do we ever take the time to think back on those times and remember? What would our faith be like if we did?

More News from the General Board Meeting

Earlier this week, the congregation received the annual Communique, which offers news from the General Board, which met in April. If you are interested, the publication is posted on the church bulletin board, or is available as a .pdf download here.

Three impressions from the items:

• Rev. Sharon Watkins will serve another term as the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She has announced her willingness to serve another six-year term if re-elected. I cannot imagine that she will not receive the support of the committee charged with recommending a candidate for the position, and I imagine she will be enthusiastically re-elected by the delegates to next year's General Assembly.
• The troubled economic times are affecting the church in significant ways. Despite a couple of articles that insist there are signs of hope among the darkness -- Disciples' ministries are doing much better than many other similar groups in nurturing their resources through this difficult time. But giving is still down almost across the board, which creates significant problems for ministry.
• Mission realignment of the general ministries is (quietly) on hold. Despite taking an additional year to work on its proposals, the committee created to suggest ways for reorganizing the general ministries has only had limited success instead of the dramatic changes imagined.

The Study of Theology

Recently, The Christian Century has been running a series of articles from theologians about how their minds have changed over the years. In the February 23rd issue, Kathryn Tanner, who teaches theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School (and was one of my teachers), wrote a lengthy essay about the scope of her career so far. In the middle of the (admittedly technical) article, she offers an interesting thought about what makes theology unique:

Relevant to this interest in history is the fact that part of what originally drew me to theology was its oddity within the secular university and even on the contemporary scene... Theology had the ability to propose the unexpected, to shock and startle. It offered an escape form the taken-for-granted certainties of life by referring them to something that remained ever beyond them, resisting capture and encapsulation. The theologian respects the capacity of theology, it seems to me, not by dressing up contemporary commonplaces in religious terms, but in seeking what lies beyond a contemporary outlook and beyond the immediate context of one's work.

Tanner continues by suggesting how the entire historical breadth of Christian theology encourages such epiphanies and "outside the box" thinking:

A theology that starts from, and uses as its toolbox for creative ends, materials gathered from the widest possible purview is, in my opinion, a theology with that imaginative expansiveness. Such a theology looks to the Christian past not for models for simple imitation but for a way to complicate one's sense of the possibilities for present Christian expression and action. It looks to the past not to restrict and cramp what might be said in the present but to break out of the narrowness of a contemporary sense of the realistic. It complements an understanding of the complex variety of premodern theologies in the West with an understanding of the complex forms of Christianity's global reach now and in the past. It moves beyond narrow denominational confines to the broadest possible ecumenical vision and sees beyond elite forms of theological expression, in written texts primarily, to the popular theologies of everyday life.

This is an intriguing, and I think helpful, understanding of the possibility of theology, especially academic theology, during our lifetime. Many disciplines of knowledge, from the sciences to the social sciences and throughout the humanities, have pretty well-defined fields of inquiry and methods of inquiry. The definitions that help to isolate things for study in a precise way also unavoidably limit what conclusions might be reached from that study. To give a crude example: a scientific experiment either "works" (proves the hypothesis) or "doesn't work" (disproves the hypothesis). A scientific experiment doesn't generate a poem or produce a new political philosophy; scientific experiments are not designed or equipped to lead to such things. Likewise, a poet does not write a geometric proof: poetic language is different from mathematical language.

Tanner argues that theology is different. It allows someone to ask a question, and in the course of studying that question come up with drastically unexpected results: sometimes answers, sometimes different questions, sometimes an observation that renders the initial question irrelevant. It's the equivalent of putting 1000 monkeys in a room with 1000 typewriters, but with a catch -- they produce not the works of Shakespeare but some novel literate description. A biologist would wrestle with how a monkey's brain functioned to produce the writing; a theologian would wonder about that and apply the writing itself.

In her brilliance, though, Tanner isn't requiring monkeys to produce these new, unexpected insights into God. Instead, she realizes that many of these insights have already been produced and were preserved in the Christian tradition -- they've just been overlooked or applied in other ways. So the theologian can study the works of the ages and constantly gain new insights into God, making connections between writers of different generations and different cultures, of different educational levels, different genders, different outlooks.

Happily, Tanner doesn't simply argue that this ability to shock and startle comes from the Bible alone, though it is present there too. Instead, she sees this ability -- which many Christians attribute to the Bible -- to the great Christian writings of history that have interpreted the Bible through the centuries.

Maybe the leaders of other disciplines would argue with Tanner. Maybe the chemist or theoretical mathematician would say she overlooks the same possibilities in their areas of study. Maybe the anthropologist would suggest that she's never done field work with a culture almost entirely different from her own, or the astrophysicist would counter that she's never tried to decipher the galactic implications of a spectrograph. Surely there are stunning surprises in these fields too.

And yet, I think Tanner is right about theology's unique ability to flesh out such shocking revelations (if I might used a rather loaded theological term). In a way unlike anything except perhaps philosophy, theology exerts a continuous questioning about the validity of its own methods; and like philosophy, it benefits from the almost unimaginable amount of saved artifacts to study.

Reflecting on "Lost"

Like many people (about 13 million judging by the Nielsen overnight numbers), I spent Sunday evening watching the series finale of "Lost." I have enjoyed the series for its unique storytelling since its premiere; over time, I have become fascinated by its consistent curiosity about questions of faith and spirituality.

I am still processing the final episode. It was refreshingly unexpected -- it refused to cater to fans' desires for answers, instead providing emotional resolution and closure for many of the main characters.

My friend John (also a pastor) has published his reflection on the finale, which he loved. I highly recommend his thoughtful essay, particularly his comments on the creators' decision to leave so many questions unanswered.

As you know, I enjoy looking for the presence of theology in popular culture, especially television and movies. "Lost" was rich in this regard, a motley assortment of people earnestly seeking meaning (or, as they usually said, "purpose") for their lives, which is a key component of faith development. It also was very perceptive towards religion, recognizing its propensity to be misused by some and the cultural ambivalence with which it is viewed by many today. (The way that the characters tolerated, but mostly ignored, one character's attempt to build a church on their island, even as they lovingly supported the character, is but one example of the shows sophisticated and insightful approach to issues of faith.) I am sad there will be no new episodes to ponder, but I'm grateful for DVDs, which will allow this series to be considered and discussed in the years ahead.

DisciplesWorld Archive

Although DisciplesWorld Magazine has closed down, the Disciples of Christ Historical Society has recently unveiled a new web archive of all the articles, at http://www.disciplesworldmagazine.com. While it is a shame that the magazine no longer continues its publication, it is a good thing that its years of excellent publications will be easily accessible online.

Coming Up Sunday, May 23

Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, which is the celebration of the entry of the Holy Spirit into this world and, through it, the birth of the Christian Church. Pentecost, the 50th day after Easter, has long been the date of this celebration, coming sometime shortly after Jesus' post-resurrection ascension into heaven -- this is the timeline found in the first two chapters of Acts.

Red is the color of the Holy Spirit, so everyone is encouraged to wear red as part of our celebration this Sunday. There will be some fun touches during the service, including a modern-day version of the long-ago Day of Pentecost which you'll have to see and hear to believe.

During the sermon, we'll focus on Peter's great sermon delivered on the Day of Pentecost, particularly the final section of it where he compares Jesus to David. Titled "Eyewitness Testimony," the message will reflect on the odd, and yet spiritually brilliant, newness that Christianity represented for the faithful -- then and now.

After the service, we'll have a brief reception to celebrate the birthday of the church. It should be a joyful, SPIRIT-filled, day.

The Multicampus Church

Can you imagine attending a congregation that met simultaneously in different locations? For generations, multiple congregations have shared one pastor -- for example, in the United Methodist Church, there are many examples of two- or three-point charges, in which a minister splits time between two or three congregations. Recently, though, a new variation of this has emerged -- one church, with one unified staff, meeting in multiple places.

I was reminded of this while reading a recent issue of The Christian Century a few weeks ago. In "Synchronized Worship" (Jan. 26, 2010), Jason Byassee writes about LifeChurch.tv, which is a thirteen-year-old ministry begun in Oklahoma that has expanded to include thirteen "campuses" in five states, plus an extensive online ministry that includes multiple online services. This is perhaps the most progressive example of a trend over the past generation in which large churches are not simply adding more service times to accommodate more people, but building entire sanctuaries in other locations.

In general, there are some basic benefits, especially in leadership. Instead of multiple congregations having to figure plan and organize for outreach, a central committee does so. A unified team handles church finances. A unified team leads audio-visual technology preparation, meaning that all aspects of that are handled better. I could go on, but you can imagine the list. It is based on the model of increased efficiency that has flourished throughout American society over all of the 20th Century, from the Sears and Montgomery Ward mail-order catalogs to the rise of Wal-Mart, from the growth of industrial farming to the merging of countless smaller business ventures in countless fields.

LifeChurch.tv takes this even further by developing a franchise model of church, in which each worship service is carefully coordinated, ensuring a similar experience in all of the various locations. It's the church's version of McDonald's; wherever you worship, you know what to expect -- including the promise that the service will last exactly one hour. The precision of the service is necessary because it combines live video elements with local in-house elements. At certain times, everyone sees the same things on the video screens, including the sermon; at other times, there is music or prayer led by one of the onsite pastors or worship leaders. But there's also a distinct technical precision to these services that goes beyond the issue of live video feeds -- the leadership of this church clearly intends for the church to be production savvy. All of the video (which I believe is prepared by their own teams), including the slick announcements video (shot and edited to feel like a hip, cable newscast), is of a very high quality -- better than a lot of local news programming. And the various local elements are evidently evaluated to make sure that they meet the goals of the worship service, which in MBA terms is about protecting your brand.

Byassee has a very simple question in his profile: Is this the church of the future? On the one hand, the gut answer is "No." There are simply too many people who like congregations of a certain size that meet in certain places. Certainly there will be other churches who follow the multiple-location model, there are even Disciples churches that are pursuing this, like Geist Christian Church in Indianapolis, and not also just outside of Indianapolis. There may even be several more who aggressively add an "Internet-campus," just like LifeChurch.tv's Internet church. But what many people love about their churches are their sizes and their personal relationships with each other and with their own pastor. Once a church grows to a certain size, your relationship with the senior pastor will be limited, and some people don't want that.

On the other hand, I worry that the answer to Byassee's question will be "Yes" far more often than I'd like to think. Not because of the growing economic challenges of churches, which may force many of them to either merge or share the services of one pastor, if they are to avoid simply disbanding. There are several cultural movements that a multiple location church like LifeChurch.tv taps into. A desire for a known product of a certain quality, regardless of where you are (the McDonald's or Applebee's or Cracker Barrel approach to church -- you pretty much know what you'll be getting before you walk through the doors). A desire for a certain amount of anonymity -- it would be wrong to suggest that all of the people who attend don't want to meet other people, but you can bet that they're happy they won't immediately be approached become a church officer after they join. The rise of "church as event" worship -- where the pastor is such a superstar, you watch him on a giant TV screen, with hundreds of other people; and if you've been to a concert in a large venue, you know that you're usually watching the performance on one of the jumbo TV screens because the performers are so small from your vantage point -- this attitude makes a video-fed sermon seem normal or even better, because you can see the preacher's face so much more clearly on the screen.

I'm sure there are others, but these are the basic ones. Mind you, I'm not criticizing LifeChurch.tv for their individual ministry, which taps into these trends -- clearly they're reaching out to lots of people in a way that seems to make sense. I'm all for more people taking their faith lives more seriously. But I am criticizing LifeChurch.tv as a model for the future of the church as a whole. I think it's an awful trap, just as many enormous churches are, to go overboard on efficiency in ministry and leadership.

I'm convinced that the church was never meant to be efficient, ultimately because worship is not an efficient act. God does not want us to worship from a prescribed checklist on a schedule. If God wanted that, he would have hard-wired such worship into us and we would do it naturally. Kind of like the opening of The Lion King, all of creation would gather together (lion next to lamb, naturally) singing or praying to God at a certain time before we go about our other business; unlike The Lion King we wouldn't need an occasion, and we'd just worship. But God created us with a freedom so that we have to want to worship, we have to want to reach out to God. And human desire does not work on a schedule.

More than this, though, there's another aspect of the overly efficient church that bothers me. It can seem ideal for leadership to be drawn from vast numbers of people, so that the cream rises into positions of leadership. But the history of the church demonstrates a different model of leadership, in which people rise to the challenges of the gospel despite their official educational and work experiences. We know that God has given us many gifts, including some that we don't always tap into unless we're given the opportunity. A church that only looks to certain types of people for certain types of ministry and leadership misses out on those times when someone unexpectedly discovers a gift for doing something. There are so few places in our society that encourage people to try things outside of their comfort zone or outside of their obvious field(s) of expertise; it would be a shame if congregations stopped being such places. And efficiency is a significant impediment to this type of spiritual gift discovery and development.

Regardless of my misgivings, this trend of larger, multiple location congregations will only become more pronounced in the upcoming years. I'm sure that such churches will offer new opportunities and ministries that will benefit the church. I just hope it doesn't come at too high of a price.

General Assembly 2011

It's never too early to plan. The next biennial General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is scheduled for July 9-13, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. Today the planning committee has announced the theme -- "Tell It!" -- and unveiled the official logo. You can see it, and read more about the theme, here.

Coming Up Sunday, May 9

This Sunday, we'll finish up our "Faith Smart" sermon series, loosely based on the series of Holiday Inn Express "Stay Smart" commercials. Remember the central question: If staying at a Holiday Inn Express can make you smarter, what can being a Christian make you?

This week, we begin with a commercial that takes place at a book-signing by legendary baseball player Cal Ripken:

Here we have a commercial that is based on a knowledge of the rest of the campaign. The doctor's help is unnecessary because the security guard is so intent on finding someone who stayed at a Holiday Inn Express to help the man who has fainted.

In some ways, this is the natural counterpart of last week's sermon about the "Foolish Answers" of Christianity. This week, we remember that some people believe we have the answers or skills simply because we are Christians. We are assumed to be able to do all manner of things because of our faith identity, rather than our professional titles or our education and experience.

How many times have you assumed that a pastor could do something simply because he or she was a pastor? Comfort the dying, say a prayer, lead a meeting, read a budget, understand tax law, counsel the troubled, teach Sunday School, preach brilliant sermons, send inspirational personal notes, edit the newsletter? Many people can do each of these things well; few people can do all of them well. But many people expect their minister to do all of these things well, and walk on water on the side.

And it's not just ministers. We come to expect these things of each other. Don't believe me? Talk with someone who's active in another church. They may gush about the latest book that has changed their view of life and God. Then they find you're a Christian, and they expect you have read the book too. Or seen the movie, recorded the episode of Oprah, heard the sermon, whatever -- simply because you're a Christian too.

It's not unreasonable to expect professing Christians to have a working understanding of worship and the Bible (though the number of professing Christians who lack such knowledge has increased to depressing numbers). But we can't expect each other to know everything either. How do we balance these expectations? How do we restrain ourselves from expecting too much of others? How do we deal with others expectations of us?

We shouldn't avoid it. Part of being "Faith Smart," after we've learned about some of the gifts God has given us through our faith, is to learn how others see us. Sometimes, like last week, they see us as fools; sometimes, they see us almost as Christ reborn -- far more sainted and talented than anyone ever could be. Like most things, the truth is in the middle, but we need to learn to handle these differing expectations of faith in order to better live out our faith honestly and well.

Coming Up Sunday, May 2

On Sunday, we'll have the fourth sermon in our "Faith Smart" series, which corresponds to the longtime Holiday Inn Express "Stay Smart" ad campaign. Remember the central question: If staying at a Holiday Inn Express can make you smarter, what can being a Christian make you?

This week, we begin with a commercial that takes place on the popular game show Jeopardy!:

On the face of it, this commercial is absurd, with a person dominating on Jeopardy! who has no business being on the show in the first place -- and he's rude (kind of like a seventh grader) to boot. However, this commercial rather neatly corresponds to one of the most famous passages from the apostle Paul, the beginning of 1 Corinthians, where he asks "Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"

The issue of wisdom and foolishness as it applies to faith is a dicey one in theology. On the one hand, many very smart people have wrestled with the meaning and essence of Christianity over the centuries, never agreeing with each other. On the other hand, there is a distinct egalitarian impulse in Christianity -- stretching all the way back to the time of Christ -- in which wisdom is seen as what we would probably call "common sense." (In fact, "common sense" is a term that first gained prominence in theology and Christian-inspired philosophy.) Both views have merit.

The truth is that we must seek wisdom where it is found. In faith, wisdom can be found in many places by many types of people. Sometimes it is highly specialized and academic, but other times it is common -- so common that the hoity-toity types call it "foolish." The most foolish thing in faith, at least for Paul, is the meaning of the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus' death can be explained as the unavoidable consequence of trying to change a powerful status quo, with little real effect gained by such sacrifice. Our faith, though, suggests that this act of an oppressive justice system leads ultimately to divine justice, and that Jesus' death is neither insignificant nor inconsequential, but instead filled with ultimate meaning.

As we grow in our faith, we must confront times when we think our faith is based on foolish things. Sometimes, we must even face the fact that what we used to believe strongly may be foolish. But we find other things, some of which we once assumed were foolish or silly, that are now filled with meaning and importance. And our spiritual growth continues.

Understanding this, though, gives us an important push to action. We cannot simply wait until we "know" enough or we have enough faith. We cannot put off doing things in Christ's name because there is always more to know or more faith to have. We must be God's servants where we are, not where we imagine we would be if we'd been better prepared.

General Board meeting in Indianapolis

Just prior to last weekend's WV Regional Assembly, the General Board of the denomination met for its annual meeting in Indianapolis. Several things were discussed, including the ongoing attempt to better structure the general ministries so that they are more capable of encouraging the outreach ministries of individual congregations. In addition, the Board received reports from throughout the broader church.

A brief recap of the annual meeting is available here. If you're really curious about the agenda and the reports, you can see much of that here. A few audio files from the meetings are available here.

Too often we forget about the good work that is being done in our name, and with our financial (and I hope prayerful) support. It is good to take a moment to remember, or learn about for the first time, some of these ministries.

Churches and the Internet

According to the U. S. Congregational Life Survey, the number of congregations using the Internet increased significantly between 2001 and 2008. The percentage of congregations with a website increased from 43% to 77%, while the percentage of congregations using email for some communication with members increased from 45% to 74%.

Central Christian is no exception. We have increased the amount of things we email, and we have a unique web presence with both our congregational website and this pastor's blog.

Now we are beginning to further enhance our Internet presence by utilizing new media, beginning with a congregational Facebook page. On this, we will be able to share upcoming events and announcements. People will also be able to have public conversations with each other about congregational issues, posting brief comments back and forth. This is a fun, generally non-threatening way for people to interact online.

Using Facebook is a fairly new phenomenon, and I know of no scientific study of how many congregations are using social networking media. However, I know of several other congregations that are experimenting with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.

To get started, click on the Facebook link on the right sidebar, which will take you to the congregational Facebook page. Once there, "Like" Central Christian Church and you will receive updates on your wall whenever anything on the congregational page is updated.

Hospitality Gone Overboard

While catching up on some reading today, I came across an article that corresponds to Sunday's sermon. Interestingly, it uses a representation of hospitality, a concierge, that I thought about including in Sunday's sermon. I decided not to because there are clear instances when serving as a concierge to someone goes beyond reaching out in a helpful, healthy way. Such as the one that begins this essay.

Although the article focuses on a sometimes unhealthy dynamic between pastors and members of their congregation, it can be an unhealthy dynamic in any relationship where one person is trying to reach out in love and hospitality to another. Sunday I focused on encouraging us to reach out to others in need of guidance, in a variety of contexts, I did not spend as much time focusing on how we need to be careful with our "audacious hospitality" toward others.

If we spend all of our time and energy catering to others needs and desires, we will discover that we've neglected our own. There is a balance in most things, and there must be a balance in hospitality/ministry/care for others too. We must learn to not be so stingy with our time and our attention, but, having learned this, we must not go overboard and become so giving of our time that we neglect our own needs and desires.

There are all sorts of expectations in relationships and cultures that make "audacious hospitality" difficult to keep in a healthy balance. The cultures in many congregations are evidence of this, where pastors find self-worth in their being needed, and congregations measure the worth of a pastor by how well he meets all of their expectations. Like most solid relationships, there is necessarily compromise in giving and receiving hospitality. This essay is a good reminder of this.

Coming Up Sunday, April 25

This Sunday, we continue our "Faith Smart" sermon series, which approaches living out our faith through the lens of the recent Holiday Inn Express "Stay Smart" ad campaign. My question: if staying at a Holiday Inn Express can make you smarter, what can being a Christian make you?

On Sunday, we begin with a commercial that takes place at a rodeo:

A birthday party clown taking the place of a rodeo clown is absurd, not to mention downright dangerous. But underlying this, there is a real truth: sometimes we share a hospitality of presence and care with people in anxious situations -- the equivalent of helping someone ride a hard-bucking bull.

This is a form of radical hospitality, in which the clown sets aside his immediate responsibilities to reach out to someone to make them more comfortable. In the commercial, the clown is helping guide the rider into the ring.

When we hear the word "hospitality" we think about welcoming someone into our home or our church. But hospitality takes place whenever we reach out to help someone become more comfortable with the situation they find themselves in, whether it is eating in an unfamiliar house or trying an unfamiliar job task.

In the case of faith, it might be helping someone grow in the faith in any number of ways. For example, it might be calming a child the first time they enter a funeral home to see a deceased relative. It might be calming an older child before they walk down the aisle to get married. It might be reaching out to a new co-worker, a new neighbor who is new to the community, or a new Christian who is just beginning the next step in their faith journey.

The Bible is filled with stories of hospitality, where people go out of their way to help others feel more comfortable and confident where they find themselves. Jesus, in particular, was a brilliant giver of hospitality in all situations, even (oddly enough) with people who wished terrible things for him. Do we live up to these examples from our forefathers and foremothers in faith?

Coming Up Sunday, April 18

This Sunday, we continue our "Faith Smart" series, which approaches living out our faith through the lens of the Holiday Inn Express "Stay Smart" ad campaign of recent years. My question: If staying at a Holiday Inn Express can make you smarter, what can being a Christian make you?

This week, we begin with a funny commercial about would-be rock stars:

A bunch of middle age fakers turning into a hugely popular rock band is amusing fantasy, especially when the promoter calls it "possibly the best rock and roll show I've ever seen." But underlying the fantasy is a very real truth -- unless we actually try to do something, we have no idea how good we'll be at it.

The same is true with various aspects of our faith. Until we stretch our wings and actually try to do certain things, we'll never know how good (or not so good) we are at them. It was certainly true of the great prophet and leader Moses, who after the parting of the Red Sea becomes something that little in his life suggested he'd be good at: a supreme judge. But as is clear from Exodus 18, his judgments were sought out in such numbers that he had to create a judicial system for the Hebrews in the desert.

On Sunday, we'll imagine how we must sometimes fake it as "Religious Imposters," until we make it as examples of faith.

Scott Lectures on the Lord's Prayer

I've spent a little more than a day at beautiful Bethany College for the annual Oreon Scott Lectures, this year featuring Dr. Bonnie Thurston, a retired New Testament professor now living in Wheeling (and college classmate of Sara). The weather has been gorgeous. The food has been good and plentiful. The fellowship is friendly.

And the lectures? Let me put it this way. In the outline handouts for the lectures included in the registration packets with the detailed schedule, the first outline has this as line 6: "Three Petitions Focused on God (1 & 3 in 3rd person aorist imperative passive)" Before you pester your local English teacher, let me comfort you by telling you that there is no aorist imperative passive in the English language. But there is such a form in Greek.

Needless to say, I'm having fun. The lectures are not entirely in Greek, but Thurston's close readings of the Lord's Prayer (mostly the version from Matthew 6) are rooted in a careful reading of the original Greek language -- and its probable Aramaic antecedents -- as well as our cherished English version of the prayer. Which is exactly how it should be, but some lecturers try to gloss over such things, worried that people's eyes will glaze over when such linguistic study is described.

Thurston needn't worry about that though. Her lectures have been engaging, full of humor and her own personality, mixing fun, serious reflection, nudges against cherished misconceptions, and the breadth of her study.

Like many, she notes the two halves of the prayer, the first focused squarely on God and the second on human needs. She has spent a lot of time carefully considering the meaning of several key words, such as "Father" (the Abba of Aramaic) and "daily" (an odd compound Greek word that only appears in extant literature once -- except for subsequent quotations of this verse in Matthew).

Thurston consistently argues for the inclusiveness of the final three human petitions in the prayer, suggesting that the focus on base human needs means that this model prayer by Jesus is supposed to be prayed on behalf of everyone. This would mean that the Lord's Prayer becomes a prayer of sustenance for all people, forgiveness for all people, and security for all people. This has interesting implications for us, including a very tough question: do we really want these things that we're praying for? Try praying the Lord's Prayer and asking for your daily bread while you're shopping for a $20,000 car or a $100,000 house (or a $100,000 education, for that matter). It's a little scary to think about, and maybe even scarier in reality, as Thurston said several times during her lectures.

As for me, I was most drawn into her brief discussion of the Greek structure of the second half of the Lord's Prayer. (Scroll to next paragraph if you do not want to read any more about Greek.) It was only a part of her description, but it grabbed my attention (and will likely keep my attention for a while whenever I pray this prayer). I had not realized that there is a pretty strong structure in the Greek (which, as a language with little punctuation, structures mostly with conjunctions). There is a kai...kai...kai me...alla structure to the petitions, which implies a structure of important... more important... most important. If this is the case, the climactic piece of the Lord's Prayer, as written in Greek, is its final phrase (in the oldest forms): "BUT save us from the evil (one)." I know that I've always considered it a lesser phrase in the prayer, compared to "thy kingdom come, thy will be done." In the Greek, though, the opposite is true. Aside from the opening (vocative) address to God, it is the climactic piece of the prayer.

What do we do with such evidence that counters the cherished form of the prayer we carry around with us in our head and recite whenever called upon to do so? Is it even important, given that all of the prayer is based on scriptural, meaning that each phrase in the Lord's Prayer has significance for us? I think it might, though I'm unsure what or how right now. All I know is that I stared at the Greek (on my phone -- technology is a wonderful thing) off and on throughout the lecture, carefully looking at that structure (and carefully considering other options -- Greek phrasing with conjunctions is a complicated thing), and then seeing that it's undeniably there. And I sat for a long time after the lecture, trying to imagine what that means. I don't have any good answers yet, but I'll keep mulling it over.

The final lecture considered ways that we could better utilize the Lord's Prayer in preaching and in our personal prayer lives. Some of these suggestions may even find their way into our faith life in the coming months, which would be a good thing. As these lectures proved -- at least to me -- there is always more we can learn, even about things we already know deeply, like the teaching of the Lord's Prayer.

Coming Up Sunday, April 11

On Sunday, we begin our new "Faith Smart" sermon series, which approaches living out our faith through the lens of the Holiday Inn Express "Stay Smart" ad campaign of recent years. My question: If staying at a Holiday Inn Express can make you smarter, what can being a Christian make you?

This week, we begin with a funny commercial about a potential meltdown in a nuclear reactor.

In some ways, this is a farce. On the other hand, read Acts 3, in which Peter, fresh off his breakout sermon on Pentecost, miraculously heals a man while traveling to the Temple. He cannot give the beggar what he asks for -- money -- but instead he can heal him.

As people of faith, we are often frustrated when we see needs all around us that we cannot meet. We feel powerless. But what if we looked at the world with confidence that there were specific things we could do for people in need? What if we took charge in specific ways, following our talents and passions, without worrying about what others think?

Community Prayer Service Thursday for the Mine Disaster

The Greater Fairmont Council of Churches will offer a prayer service Thursday evening at 7:00 at Fleming Memorial Presbyterian Church in response to the mine disaster at Montcoal, WV.

Special music will be offered. Rev. John Riley of Fleming Memorial will host the service and Rev. Richard Bowyer, the lead chaplain at the Farmington Mine Disaster in 1968, will share a message of comfort and hope.

God's Law vs. Human Law or Sexual Abuse in the Church

I rarely mention the sexual abuse controversies which have arisen in the Catholic Church over the past couple of decades. Generally, I find that the topic only angers people, for a number of perfectly understandable reasons. It is about almost unforgivable acts, the abuse of power by persons of trust toward children. Also, the apparent response of the church hierarchy to allegations of such abuse seems incredibly, and perhaps indefensibly, uncharitable toward the victims.

However, those in any church can learn a great deal from considering this ongoing story. There are lessons about church culture and the desire to protect those within from those outside the church. There are issues about balancing remorse and forgiveness against justice and ministry to victims.

There was a fine essay recently in The New York Times that addressed some of this is an informative and even-handed way, which you might wish to read.

Ecumenical Dialogue

From lunch Monday until lunch Tuesday, I and several other Disciples gathered with several Roman Catholics for a prayer retreat. This annual retreat, which is a part of the ongoing ecumenical dialogue between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in West Virginia, is an opportunity for us to gather together, pray together, and have discussions, usually guided by a guest presenter. This year's presenter was Dr. Peter Morgan, a well-known Disciples minister with close ties to West Virginia, who is a past president of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society.

As usual (this year marks my third such retreat), the event was a wonderful experience. It was an opportunity to catch up with people I don't get to see enough (among both the Roman Catholics and the Disciples), including a few who've experienced health challenges over the past year. It was also an opportunity to enjoy the hospitality and pleasantness of the Bishop Hodges Pastoral Center, outside of Huttonsville. I appreciate any chance I get to drive into the Valley, which is so beautiful. And the Pastoral Center is a relaxing, friendly place with a knack for serving lots of wonderful food.

Dr. Morgan offered three sessions inviting us to remember and then look ahead, first our personal stories, then our shared stories, and then what he termed the "master story" -- the Gospel. At one point he offered the excellent point that "the master story (the Gospel) is always correcting our story," meaning that the truth of the gospel always interprets, and sometimes must amend or correct, our vision of the events and experiences of our lives. This is both a good way to understand the role of faith in our lives generally, and also a glimpse of how honest inter-faith dialogue can occur.

I cannot reconstruct the context for much of what was shared during our discussions, so I will refrain from mentioning specifics, so I do not give the wrong impression. However, I can share that I appreciated the openness of our time together, our prayers together, our meals together, and our discussions together. Those gathered recognize that Jesus called his followers to be one, but that we are not; we also recognize that there are many significant reasons why the church is divided. I was impressed, despite how brief our time together was, with how much we shared, both our hopes and our frustrations with this process. We celebrated our time together and enjoy our growing relationships. At the same time, we realize that we cannot share the Eucharist together, despite the centrality of Holy Communion for both Roman Catholics and Disciples.

Ecumenism, like much important work of living out our faith, is fulfilling but often hard work. Often, it is overlooked work, as Christians focus on other things, many of them (though probably not all of them) valuable. There is always much to do, especially in our own congregations and communities, that pushes our attention and our time commitment away from making the effort to share with other faith communities.

Central Christian is blessed with some long-standing ties to other churches. Through the regional church, we are longtime members of the West Virginia Council of Churches (now in its 130th year); we also enjoy the fruits of longtime ecumenical dialogues with both the Roman Catholic church and the United Methodist Church. Within Fairmont, we are an active member of the Greater Fairmont Council of Churches, whose ministry is shared in surprising ways, from our presence at government meetings, to public access Channel 19, to service projects (ecumenical mission trips, the CROP Walk, last November's "Christmas Toy Drive"), to shared worship and education activities.

I value our contributions to the ecumenical life of the church (I'm not sure I could pastor any congregation which refused to support such things); I hope we all do. I firmly believe that it makes us better disciples, better doers of the God's Word. I also think that it makes us better listeners, more aware of God's continuing involvement in our lives.

Disciples General Minister Travels to Haiti

Rev. Sharon Watkins, the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is part of a delegation traveling to Haiti this weekend. She will be part of a group of Disciples and UCC (United Church of Christ) representatives looking at relief efforts, including those supported by our ministries, firsthand.

Information about the goals of the visit and the delegation members here.

Given the resources that several Disciples ministries will be directing toward Haiti in the form of relief efforts and reconstruction efforts now and in the coming years, this seems a wise trip. Sometimes such "fact-finding" trips are little more than photo-ops or brief feel-good things. Given the previous efforts in Haiti, and the evidence that the leaders of Global Ministries and Week of Compassion say they will continue and be added to after the earthquake, this trip feels much different to me. I hope that is true, and I hope that this trip is just another step in our continued ministry to the people of Haiti.