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!
Saturday, December 18, 2010
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.
Friday, December 3, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
"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.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, October 1, 2010
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!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
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).
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.
Friday, September 10, 2010
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.
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