Posts Tagged ‘Church’

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The Acceptable Year of the Lord

Monday, March 21st, 2011

If Jesus showed up at church, what words would He offer?  Well, fun that we know what words He did offer when given that opportunity.  The words we looked at came from Luke 4.  Especially instructive to look at the verbs – the actions – in this sermonette.  They are engaging to read in light of the brevity of His comments – He said a great deal in a very short period of time – something critical in this day and age.

The verbs in His charge …

  1. preaching
  2. healing
  3. recovering
  4. freeing

What was deeply moving for me is the sense of peace about the mission of church these words speak to.  These were the verbs Jesus chose in addressing His hometown synagogue.  It is so easy to place “church” into an economic context –  if a church is growing and making money, it is doing what it is supposed to do. That is not what these words speak to.  A church is doing its job if it is speaking to what is true, being a healing presence in the world, helping those who are recovering and freeing those who are metaphorically imprisoned.  If a church does this, I imagine it will of course grow and be financially healthy but those two criteria are not the point.

Not easy to do.  Jesus was not at all interested in engaging theological or doctrinal debate.  His was a clear call to action, a call that when we hear, becomes the “acceptable year of the Lord.”  That is the place to build a church from.

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What If?

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Views of church evolve.

For many of us church begins as the bastion of law, order, tradition.  Religion then plays out as morality, as codes, as creeds, and as attendance.  What if though church, like our faith, was designed to evolve?

Christian New Church theology is filled with numerous references to what can be described as “mutual indwelling.”   In the Gospel of John, Jesus offers a wonderful prayer of oneness, or as one theologian phrased it, of “cascading unity” that speak to mutual indwelling – unity with Him and the Father, with us, with those who will know Him in the future.   The unity literally spills out of the prayer.

In our faith system, that very unity spills out again into areas such as marriage, work, service – all areas where the unity can be experienced.  It is also experienced in our connection with the spiritual world, not a connection of soothsayers and swamis, but a connection of heart and thought.  When experienced, “belief” in a dogmatic sense becomes less a priority and caring and the wisdom growing from it gains its rightful seat.  Morality, codes, creeds, and attendance follow a similar path – giving way to compassion, simplicity, intuition, and engagement.  Divinity becomes grounded in our humanity.

What if?  What if church evolved to a celebration of the mutual indwelling we have with God and with one another?  Such a shift is not without pain – I am absolutely convinced that opening to God and to others actually opens us to more synchronicity in terms of pain.  Likewise it opens the joyous space for co-creation.   And such a shift may be just where the Christian church is headed.

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Is there Life before Death?

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

As is well noted, for most of us the burning question is not if there is life on the other side of death but is there life on this side of death?  As Thoreau noted, most of us live lives of quiet desperation.

One way to hold the choices this presents is to understand repentance as the gentle nudging by God to change our view of happiness.  In that sense the death in this life – the quiet desperation – can actually become one of the most life giving forces in our life if we use it to recast our vision our happiness.  As one author phrased it, “Sometimes we must cry in the wilderness, even when no one is listening, even when it is not changing people, just to keep the common untruth from changing us.”

I take that to mean that we need to be rather serious about not allowing the “untruth” to change us.  We are not American Christians, or Democratic Christians, or Republican Christians.  We are Christians, period.  The other identities are secondary.    That is not to re-break the world yet again into “us” and “them” but to simply say that Christianity is entirety – that we rest in God – that our secondary identifications are to be held within the primary model of identification – Jesus.   Much of the power of what Swedenborg called the universal church grows from that place.

If exclusivity, snobbery, clubishness grows, we not only missed the Christian message, we warped the Christian message.  The Christian message is that in surrender to that greater identity we will know life, we will respond with life, we will give life.

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Christian Evolution

Friday, September 24th, 2010

New Church theology posits that the growth of faith, historically, moved through several “churches” – groups who had a deep understanding of God and His Word.  Some of that was specific to a given church body.  Other elements were far more broad, more shared as it were, constituting a church of the heart, a universal church that crossed denominational boundaries.

Each phase was inaugurated within God’s plan to uniquely serve humanity at that time.  Within the Christian tradition, that means the Old Testament was to serve humanity at that time as was the New Testament and as is New Church theology for this time.   Each builds and adds on to what went before, adding its own unique layer of meaning to what preceded.  As each sows itself together, married with experience, it constitutes for a Word for now.

The author Parker Palmer wrote: “All of our propositions and practices are earthen vessels. All of them are made by human beings of common clay to hold whatever we think we’ve found in our soul-deep quest for the sacred or in its quest for us. If our containers prove too crimped and cramped to hold the treasure well, if they domesticate the sacred and keep us from having a live encounter with it—or if they prove so twisted and deformed that they defile rather than honor the treasure they were intended to hold—then our containers must be smashed and discarded so we can create a larger and more life-giving vessel in which to hold the treasure.”

At a certain point we do outgrow the older forms he references. losing touch with the treasure within.  We then need to find “a more life-giving vessel.”  That does not change the sacredness of revelation.  It does however call us to be aware of the “pots” we place it in, including worship and Christian community.

Just as revelation “moves”, so much churches.    The trouble  is “when any religion insists that the treasure cannot be carried except in their earthen vessels ….”

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Dig one deep well. Not many shallow ones. (Gandhi)

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Faith is often an intensely person experience.  It also atrophies when undertaken as a purely solo flight.

One can absolutely count on a formal church letting one down.  Imperfect human beings – including you and me – populate all religious institutions.

This makes it hard to stick with a formal religious organization.  The disappointments will come making it hard to take root in one place long enough to “dig one well deep.”

So why “stick”?  Because we need that deep well.  Because part of the digging is moving through the inevitable disappointments that all man-made institutions give rise to.  Because one deep well might not seem that important in times of plenty but is critical in times of drought.

This is part of why faith is so deeply counter-cultural.  We play by a “winner’s script” in which we often give the rather trite advice, when faced with disappointments, to do “what you feel like doing.”  I am a big advocate for feelings, for emotions.  I also cringe when I hear that advice being glibly dispensed.  I work with people all the time who suffer from wounds because they or someone they know did what they “felt like doing.”

Maybe that is again the power of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.  Jesus was asking His 12 disciples – dig one deep well.  Don’t be afraid.  Stick with your feelings and move through them.  There is a spring – eternal water – for those who can remain in one place long enough to dig.

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What Has Come Alive For You? (From the the One Year Anniversary Service)

Monday, June 28th, 2010

At our one year anniversary service, people shared what has come alive for them over the past year.  Here are some responses.

  1. The voice for God.  One voice.
  2. Knowing that a church community can be a profound support.
  3. Enjoying singing and praising the Lord
  4. My heart: I have fallen in love with a beautiful woman.  My head: I feel God’s love and He helps me each and every with all of the little stuff.
  5. The power of a genuinely friendly, warm, embracing, staff, and congregation.  A personal relationship with the pastor spearheaded by his outreach.
  6. I grew up in BA but never felt like I was a contributing to the community – nor was I interested in doing so.  NCL has made me want to get involved. volunteer and give back.  Plus the music is awesome.
  7. Actually getting out of bed and wanting to go to church today (rather than sleeping in and watching Argentina – Mexico in soccer)
  8. Love an caring, genuine concern
  9. The sense of community – I am not alone in this place
  10. The Sunday message is a wonderful stepping stone into my week and allows me to view the challenges of the week differently.
  11. Going to church with my wife again.  My wife seeking church again.  Building a new home and joining a community again
  12. What’s come alive for me is that love is the only reality
  13. A spiritually relevant moment
  14. Religion is not complex.  At its root it, living a Christian life is simple.
  15. That spark has been missing for so long.
  16. My marriage, my health, my attitude
  17. Sense of belonging to something greater that the parts that make it up
  18. Desiring to volunteer
  19. Interest in service.  Interest to share the church.
  20. The sense of contributing to a community.   The church.  Small Groups
  21. Commitment to growing and expanding my spiritual path.  Falling in love with humanity.
  22. All religions, faiths. spiritiualities have love and truth at their heart and can be embraced
  23. Surrender gives me peace
  24. Learning that marriage is about teamwork and not just me!
  25. Community, church, time with family, music, happiness, taking home a message from church, empowerment.
  26. Excitement about reconnecting with God
  27. It is not just the dogma, it is the real hands of Christianity that I always hoped Christianity would be.
  28. Bringing the church into my everyday
  29. Being able to finally not feel like I have to do it all.  It is a relief to receive help too!
  30. A desire to attend church.
  31. A new desire to be in community with fellow church goers
  32. My heart feels free each week
  33. For the first time in my life I listen to every word and see the connection to life
  34. Religion has become more real to life
  35. Connections with people
  36. I actually love and look forward to church now
  37. I have a passion for it and want everyone to know about it
  38. Inherently feeling a desire to service others
  39. NCL has given me the time to many so many new friends and spend time to volunteer with my grandson. Thank you.
  40. The story of Jesus inviting the disciples to the place He was staying
  41. I became a better person.
  42. The realization that the Lord is active in  my life all the time, especially when I am open to Him
  43. Anticipation of belonging to a community
  44. Church is safe again
  45. Some different ideas, but you have not really told me that the New Church believes.  Good ideas.  But what is the theology?
  46. The importance of being a church community
  47. The ability to share my church with my friends
  48. The way God is in every little thing – right down to the secular music.
  49. The ability to volunteer gracefully/ easily
  50. To be a better person
  51. Hope for the future
  52. Service becoming a living part of the community and my life
  53. Being part of the Sigma (a local secondary school boys club) and helping out that was actually really fun, and we got sweet T-Shirts
  54. I am new hear but I could see my kids liking it because it doesn’t feel too religious.
  55. Being around great people
  56. Creating new relationships
  57. An appreciation for all the variety of ways the Lord constantly works to reach out to us His people
  58. Appreciating the hard work my dad puts into bang on the drums all day
  59. New direction, self assurance, many new friends, and a renewed spirit
  60. Seeing my children invested in the Lord/ worship in a more tangible, personal way
  61. Being part of a new supportive community
  62. Living the Monday church
  63. My son’s involvement
  64. Giving up my agenda.  Turning it over
  65. Community and fellowship
  66. A sense of belonging and the importance of relationship
  67. I actually listen to the message because it feels relevant to me here.  It feels like it is modern and fun
  68. The ability to give freely.
  69. Service to others
  70. I do matter
  71. NCL gives me the tools to be able to leave church and apply what I learned to my life right away
  72. Religion, Christianity, never made sense to me.  I never knew people in my church even after 15 years.  At NCL, the connection with God, community, and the clarity of the message has made church come alive for me
  73. It softened my hard heart
  74. it is something I can share with my son
  75. My husband and I are going to church on a more regular basis
  76. Togetherness, peace
  77. The willingness to be real.  Kindness, Love, Giving

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