by Fletcher Lowe
As a change of pace, my blog for this week is a video that I discovered on a New Zealand Faith@Work site. It visually tells the radical sending message. Enjoy and be inspired!!
Blog
Justice now as well as then
by Wayne Schwab
This week’s post is a recent podcast featured on The Member Mission Network website:
Welcome to another adventure in love and justice. I’m Wayne Schwab of the Member Mission Network. We help people to live better every day. This time two stories about justice – one from the present, one from the past.
The present day story is about lawyer, Alicia. She defends criminals. Each client wants a miracle. That result is usually unavailable. So she is under great pressure. Yet, she never yells or raises her voice with clients or staff. How does she do it her colleagues and staff ask. And so do we. For the answer, a story from the past.
Jesus loved to dine with people who were social outcasts. Some religious leaders of the Jews were shocked and angry. In their mind, good Jews were supposed to avoid outcasts. “Why does he eat with those people! (They were wrong-doers and tax collectors working for the Roman oppressors.) He’s breaking our laws!” The religious law governing Israel could be applied unfairly and outcasts could be treated unjustly as a result. Jesus corrects the injustice by eating with the outcasts over and over. Jesus says those leaders interpret wrongly. He is not against the law itself.
Jesus is living God’s justice. When people’s customs are unfair and abusive, Jesus breaks those customs and laws – even when he angers others so much they want to kill him.
Where does he get the power to befriend social outcasts in the face of threats to his life? From the Holy Spirit – from God’s power at work in him.
The good news is that the Holy Spirit, God’s power for justice, works in us too! That’s Alicia’s story. Criminals are outcasts and Alicia befriends them by taking their cases. How does she keep her cool? She says, “God helps me to be patient. I’ll keep asking God to help me to be patient.” God supports Alicia’s patience and her clients get a decent defense. Regardless of the outcome, she has done what she could for justice – with God’s help.
So that’s today’s adventure in justice.
For more, see membermission.org.
Living everyday life as a ministry
by Demi Prentiss
In the last week I’ve encountered two stories on the internet that spoke to me in a new way. The first, usually titled “The Last Cab Ride,” been making the rounds since about 1999, according to Snopes, which puts it in the “glurge” category for its “feel good” quality. The author, Kent Nerburn, calls it “The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget.” He tells the apparently autobiographical story of setting aside his own agenda in favor of the needs of a troublesome rider.
The second, “Being Generous Even On My Worst Day,” showed up in Episcopal Church Foundation’s Vital Posts blog. In spite of its title and being published in this season, it’s not an annual stewardship campaign pitch. Jeremiah Sierra, the author, instead talks about the transformative effect of being “stewards of our good will and the time we take to understand each other.”
Both of the authors make their way in the world in secular settings, though I’m inclined to think they would describe themselves as walking a spiritual path. Nerburn explicitly names his stint cab-driving as a ministry. Sierra, managing editor of Trinity News magazine, helps us see what “loving our neighbors as ourselves” really looks like.
Would these authors name writing or cab driving or editing as their baptismal calling? Perhaps not. But they would likely acknowledge that, with God’s help, their everyday work, at least every once in a while, has given them the opportunity to take action that has transforming results – in other words, to do God’s work.
Who are we blessing?
by Fletcher Lowe
Did your congregation recently have a blessing of the backpacks as your students went off to school? It’s becoming more and more an add-on to our Episcopal Liturgical calendar. Questions come to mind:
- Were the students themselves and their parents also blessed?
- What about the teachers and professors and the school administrators and their staffs and the principals and the members of the school and university boards—were they too blessed?
Well, they were blessed at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Chesterfield County, VA. Those added blessings broaden the backpack “liturgy” to include and affirm those who are giving their God-given time and talent to the all-important educational enterprise.
Soon many congregations will celebrate St. Francis by having a blessing of the animals.
- What about the “owners’ of those animals—will they, too, be blessed?
- What about those who work in pet shops and zoos?
- What about veterinarians and their co-workers?
- What about SPCA and animal rescue workers and those who provide temporary care and shelter to foster animals?
Will they, too, be blessed and affirmed for their ministries with God’s blessed pets? I hope so. If not we are missing a significant teachable moment and opportunity to affirm the calling that people have in their daily life and work.
And then there is
- Labor Day and
- Luke’s Day (those in the medical profession) and
- May 1- Lawyers’ Day and
- August 15th Mary’s day (parents), etc…
Our Liturgical calendar is filled with opportunities to celebrate and affirm the ministries of the Baptized as they offer their God-given time and talent day by day.
What about Rogation Sunday (the sixth Sunday of Easter) when the means of production not only of farm and fishing but of all of us can be offered up as symbols of our daily life and work?
All of this helps a congregation connect with the real world of those who come in and are fed in order to go out into their worlds of home and community and work, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.
Being the church
by Demi Prentiss
Being the church – it takes more than “being nice” or preaching salvation or converting the heathen. “Being the church” means “being the Body of Christ.” A transformative agent in the world. One of a community of followers in the Way of Jesus.
Few of us are capable of doing that 24/7. With God’s help, it becomes possible when do what we’re commissioned to do: be disciples. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) gives the orders:
+ “Go” – into the world, not just to church
+ “Disciple” – be one, rather than “make” them
+ “Baptise” – as a sign of being born into a new life, not into membership
+ “Teach” – “at all times,” as St. Francis recommended, adding, “When necessary, use words.”
Jesus isn’t interested in our delivering a product, he’s asking us to be transformed into a new way of being – walking the Way of Jesus. For support, we draw on resources that have been part of the Christian life for millennia – prayer, study, worship, fellowship with other believers. Some of those things are provided in our church communities; all of them are accessible at all times, and in all places.
Let’s go be the church. Let’s change the world.
The most powerful phrase in our language is ‘Thank you’
by Peyton G. Craighill
How many times a day do you say “thank you”? I’ve never counted, but it must be many times. Sometimes the act’s casual, and sometimes it’s heartfelt. I say “thank you” to the clerks at the supermarket when they count out my change – that’s casual. And I say “thank you” to my wife when she carefully picks out a birthday card for me and inscribes it with a loving thought – that’s heartfelt!
Whether casual or heartfelt – or somewhere in between – “thank you” always carries a message of bonding between you and the person to whom you say those words. It acknowledges a human act of kindness, however casual, that binds two people together. And in bonding them together, empowers them, however slightly or however much. In empowering the two people, the phrase give them a blessing.
Among people of faith who sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”, any blessing, however secular, comes from God. However remote from your thoughts, when you say “thank you” to a person, you are serving as God’s messenger, empowering that person with God’s love and God’s power!
What’s a congregation for?
by Fletcher Lowe
I am at the stage in my life when I am attending more funerals than weddings!! As I hear the eulogies of the deceased from friends and family, I have been impressed with their accomplishments in their civic and business lives as well as in their family relationships. As I have listened, among the several thoughts going through my mind has been what role did the person’s faith community play in supporting, affirming, equipping him/her in that impressive journey.
It is a reminder to me that we in the church need to reinvent ourselves: less directed toward building up a congregation’s programs and more toward “equipping the saints for their ministries.” (Ephesians 4:12). How special it would be—as I have heard once in a recent funeral—to learn how the person found in her faith community a watering hole, a place where she was affirmed and supported in her significant gifts as a doctor. After all, what is a congregation for but to empower its members in their daily lives of family and community and work?
Salty Christians
by Fletcher Lowe
I like to salt my food, sometimes even before I taste it. A little salt gives the vegetables and the salad and the meat a better flavor.
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount has called us to be the salt of the earth—note earth, not church. A congregation is called upon therefore to “equip the saints for their ministry” (Eph 4:12), in short to aid us in being “salty Christians.” We are to flavor our environment—our workplaces, our homes, our communities. The Episcopal Church’s Baptism Covenant fleshes that out: Proclaim by word and example…, Seek and serve Christ in all people…, Strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. Other faith communities have their equivalent.
The message is clear. We are to use our time and talent as God-given, using our abilities and experiences to bring the values of our faith into our daily lives. We are Christ’s salty ambassadors, exercising our kingdom citizenship in our earthly citizenship. Our oft-repeated Lord’s Prayer puts it this way: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven….”
What is salvation?
by Wayne Schwab
“Salvation” and being “saved from sin” are familiar words in the church and, often, in the media.
How can we talk about them afresh in today’s world?
There is a fresh and biblical way to understand them.
We have a problem. So often we fall short of being loving and just. We even do the opposite at times.
While we are strong in so many ways, we are also weak in so many ways and need help–we need more strength than we have in us.
We need strength or power to back up our limited strength or power to be loving and just.
“Receive the Holy Spirit,” says Jesus. He shares his strength, his power, the Holy Spirit, with us!
With the Spirit’s power backing up our power we can begin to be more loving and just.
We are saved from our weakness. Thanks be to God!
Coaching the Baptized
by Demi Prentiss
One of the key tools of good coaching is the ability to ask powerful questions—questions designed to open the door to fresh perspectives and new insights.
What happens to your understanding of ministry when you answer the following questions? How does that understanding shape your identity as a Christ-follower?
- What is God up to in your environment? (That could include home, neighborhood, social circle, town, school district, county, state, nation, world, even your church)
- What about that thing that God is “up to” stirs your passion and your desire to engage?
- What can you offer—of yourself, your gifts, your resources—to partner in that work that you perceive God is doing, to increase love and justice in the world?
- How can you help others—especially your faith community—partner with you as you answer that call?
Living God's Mission 