Shared values answer needs — with God’s help

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Wayne Schwab

God is on mission to make the world more loving and more.  Baptized, Phoebe’s mission is to be part of God’s mission to make the world more loving and more just. As a strong secular humanist, Liz holds love and justice to be among the values guiding her daily life.

No wonder Phoebe and Liz could work together easily.

Liz works full-time for the county branch of the food bank.  As part of her work, she addressed some church members at their Sunday coffee hour.  One of the members, Phoebe, resonated with Liz’s commitment to developing community-wide support for local and county programs to feed the hungry.

Phoebe believed Liz must have wrestled with a sense of need – Phoebe would say a “call” – to meet the needs of many for an adequate food supply; must have assessed her talents for what she could do; and then, must have made the decision to take the job at the county food bank.

Phoebe had been wrestling with the same issue in the church committee she headed.  She connected with Liz after the coffee hour and shared her concern.  Liz suggested Phoebe’s committee might like to sponsor a “fun run” to raise money for the food bank.  Phoebe welcomed Liz’ offer to mentor her in setting up a “fun run” at her church.  It was hugely successful with 225 participants and $1,567 for the food bank.

Together, Phoebe and Liz had made a part of the world more loving and more just – with God’s help, Phoebe told her committee and church.

To know Christ and to make Christ known

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by Pam Tinsley

“To Know Christ and to Make Christ Known” is the mission statement of the church I attend. As I’ve been thinking about Living God’s Mission, especially in the context of Demi Prentiss and Fletcher Lowe’s book Radical Sending, I’ve been pondering this mission statement. What does it mean to “know Christ”? How do we come to know Christ? And how do we make Christ known – especially today in a nation that’s increasingly secularized or where we are surrounded by many good people who are “spiritual, but not religious”?

One of the ways I’ve come to know Christ is to watch people whose lives reveal Christ to others. I attended a Celebration of Life for one such person recently.

I knew Darlene only within the context of our church. She had touched me with her warm hospitality on my first visit at a time when our family was grieving and seeking a community that would simply hold us and help facilitate our healing. Certainly, Darlene was making Christ known to me by her welcome that day!

As friends and family members remembered Darlene at her funeral service, over and over they shared the different ways that she had shown how much she loved and cared for them. As wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend and neighbor, Darlene’s vocation was caring for and loving others as she offered comfort, an extra plate for her sons’ friends at the dinner table, a kind word to the neighborhood kids, or the many sweaters and scarves she knitted as gifts.

Darlene’s faith in Christ was a quiet faith. Sunday worship and church community nurtured that faith and sustained her in her vocation of living Christ’s love in her care for others. And her actions are a reminder that anything we do in our daily lives can be transformed into vocation – making Christ known – when they are centered on Christ.

Surprised by Love at the Workbench

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Wayne Schwab

The Member Mission Network offers Daily Adventures in Love and Justice, helping people to be more loving and just every day.  This adventure in love will surprise you.  It will sound like an issue in daily work.  Can you spot where love comes up?

Let’s define love – in a way that is both fresh and biblical.

Love is valuing other people as they really are
– caring for them
– forgiving them
– helping them to develop their skills and talents.
Love is valuing others as they really are.

Here’s a time that love will surprise you.  It surprised me.  It’s about a whistle blower.

Jack assembles automatic door closers for subway cars.  He threw down the parts one day.  “They’re poorly made – they won’t last long.  They allow for mistakes of four hundredths of an inch.  It ought’a be two hundredths of an inch.  I will not make any more!”

Did the place ever blow up!  Even top managers showed up.  Guess what?  They found Jack was right.  They changed the specs and Jack became an advisor of sorts.

When Jack told me about it, I had to ask, “You risked your job!  Why?”

His answer: “I could see a single mother on her way to work.  The door wouldn’t open.  She’d miss a day’s work – with kids to feed at home.  All because I had put together a door opener I knew wouldn’t last.”

Did you get it?  Love showed up in the midst of the work place!

Jack loved a person he did not even know about.  He risked his job for her.  He valued that single mother as she was – without even knowing her.  That’s real love.  He valued that mother just as she was.

Love will surprise you.  You never know where you’ll find love.

Where have you been surprised by love?

When necessary, use words

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Fletcher Lowe

As a graduation present for our two granddaughters, our daughter recently gave them a trip to France. My wife and I were invited to join with them – and we accepted – as you can well imagine. We engaged a cabbie at the Paris airport to take us to the AirB&B where we were to be staying. When I got into the front passenger seat, I noticed a cross hanging from the rear view mirror. Upon reaching our destination, as I was paying the driver for the trip, I asked him about the cross. He said – in English!! – “I am a Christian and the cross reminds me of who I am working for.”

Symbols of our faith in the workplace. What about crosses in cubicles, Bibles on desks, prayer books on work tables? What about wearing crosses or doves or other symbols around one’s neck, or on one’s jacket lapel? What about religious pictures or statements on one’s wall?

How do we use “outward and visible signs” in the workplace to express our faith? And how do we use those signs as “door openers” for transformational conversation? It is in the details of our daily lives that we offer our most powerful witness to the work of God in and through us. And as St. Francis reminds us, “[only] when necessary, use words.”

What’s your vocation?

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Demi Prentiss

Discerning how God is calling us to life appears to be a life-long process. Sometimes I’d like to think it’s a “one-and-done” task, to be envisioned as a young adult and then worked at for a life-time. I’m learning that God is much more implacable. Br. Geoffrey Tristram, in a sermon on the website of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, offers a story about how our loving and relentless God persists in calling us to new life:

There is a story I like about the Russian rabbi Zusia.

 

          One day some students were talking with him and the first said, “Rabbi Zusia, I am afraid that when I appear before the Holy One he will ask me, ’Why did you not have the faith of Abraham?’ A second student said, ‘I am afraid that when I am before the Holy One he will ask me, ‘Why did you not have the patience of Job?’ Then a third student said, ‘Rabbi, I am afraid that when I stand before the Holy One he will ask me, ‘Why did you not have the courage of Moses?’

         Then they all asked Rabbi Zusia, ‘Rabbi, when you appear before the Holy One which question do you most fear?’ Rabbi Zusia answered, ‘When I appear before the Holy One, I’m afraid he’ll ask me, ‘Zusia, why were you not Zusia?’”

 

So what is your vocation?  Who are you at the deepest level? When Jesus looks at you and loves you, who does he see? What is it which truly makes you come alive?  Have you discovered it yet?  Is God inviting you to take a risk and to go deeper?

Again and again, I’m called to remember the saying, “God isn’t finished with me yet.” Day after day, God reminds us of our baptismal mission, and that we are “marked as Christ’s own forever.” Each day as we wash our faces and remember our baptisms, God renews the challenge for us to be ourselves — to risk being the person that God dreams of us being.

On mission in your home – 1930s and 2016

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Wayne Schwab

In the 1930s in Cleveland Park in Washington, DC, it was safe to leave the front door unlocked at night.

One night the high school brothers were out late.  Dad heard the front door open and the refrigerator door followed.  He assumed the boys were getting a snack before bedtime.

Then he heard the front door open and close again.  Who was it?

He called out the window, “Who are you?”

“It’s Randy.  I just needed a sandwich before going to bed.”  Things were tight at home for Randy.  The boys’ parents had told all their friends, “You are welcome at any time.”

Randy was taking them up on their offer.

Could your home have such a mission?

Doors have to be locked today – especially, at night.

What might happen if you said to friends of your teens, “You are always welcome.  Just knock.”

It’s a caring home mission.

Real ministry happens during real life

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by Demi Prentiss

In a recent review of Radical Sending, Gayle Hunter Hagland offered praise for the book, saying it reminds congregations “that real ministry happens during real life.” What clarity that brings to the difficulties of truly being a follower of Jesus, refusing to settle for being a “Sunday only” Christian.

We don’t need to bring Jesus out into the world. The Living God is already there at work, in the real lives of people. God’s challenge to us is to tune our hearts to see where God’s Spirit is moving, and to partner with whatever the Spirit might be up to. Often that means immersing ourselves in the messiness of real life.

Jesus spent much of his earthly life living on the messy margins, outside the boundaries of acceptability – talking with women, healing lepers, befriending tax collectors, breaking bread with sinners. Hanging out with “the wrong people” didn’t earn him any points with the powerful, rich, and famous. He immersed himself in “real life,” and brought real life – life abundant – to those who chose to walk his way.

Jesus’ entire life was his ministry. May we become living members of “the Jesus Movement,” claiming each moment of our own real lives as opportunities to be “on mission” with Jesus.

Communicating God’s Love in the Workplace

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Pam Tinsley

I walked into the gym the other day and struck up a conversation with a friend I hadn’t chatted with in quite a while. Eventually, our conversation led to her work as a labor and delivery nurse and her consideration of retirement. She shared with me that, as much as she loves nursing, after 40 years the physical demands of the profession are telling her it’s time to slow down.

My friend’s voice revealed how conflicted she was about this major transition in her life. Nursing was what God put her on earth to do, she told me.  Even as a small child she and her family recognized her vocation because of the care she showed toward others.

She went on to describe nursing as her spiritual calling. She expressed it as life-giving – not only because of the new lives she helps moms deliver, but because of the people she comes in contact with, from colleagues to patients and their families. The relationships she forges with others, even for a short time in the hospital, are life-giving and life-changing.

“Ah,” I responded, “you’re living out your baptism. Nursing is your baptismal ministry.” No further explanation was needed. Instead, she told me about helping a woman in labor who spoke no English. With the aid of an interpreter, she communicated maintaining eye contact with the woman throughout the conversation – thus respecting her dignity. She then posed a last question through the interpreter: Do you have any questions for me? To which the woman responded, again through the interpreter, “I just wanted to tell you that I see God’s love in your eyes.”

My friend found the common language of God’s love to communicate with her patient. Sharing Christ’s love with another in need, even if only through her eyes, is one of the many ways she lives into her baptism through her spiritual calling as a labor and delivery nurse.

Have you had an experience in your daily life – at work, in the community, in the local supermarket – where your actions were shaped by your belief in a loving God and a commitment to your baptismal promises? How might another person’s life have been touched by that experience? How was your life changed?

Ninth grade justice

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Wayne Schwab

This blog entry is from a podcast by Wayne Schwab of the Member Mission Network.  We help people to live better every day.  This time a unique story of justice.  It’s unique because it’s justice lived by two ninth graders, Diana and Laurie!

Diana and Laurie were with friends at lunch time.

Boys at the table next to them were throwing trash into a nearby container.  They didn’t want to bother with walking over to drop their trash in the container.

As you’d expect, one boy’s throw missed the container and splattered its contents across the floor.

A Chinese friend of Diana and Laurie said, “Pick it up.”

The thrower mocked her, saying, “I don’t speak Chinese.”

Diana and Laurie caught the insult and its bit of racism.  They objected loudly.

The boy turned and ran.

Diana and Laurie chased him.  Laurie, the bigger of the two, cornered the boy in a stair case.

They both insisted he apologize to the girl.

He did.

For the rest of the day, their Chinese friend thanked Diana and Laurie almost every time she saw them.

Diana told me the story – a neat story of advocacy.  Advocacy is defending people who need help.  That’s the promise made in her name at her baptism and affirmed by Diana herself in confirmation.  That promise is “to strive for justice” and to “respect the dignity of every human being.”

I said, “Hooray.  How good to hear you defend someone who had been insulted!”

That’s today’s adventure in justice.

For more such stories go to our website at membermission.org.

Thanks for listening.

Disenfranchising the Baptized

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Edward L. Lee, Jr.

This past Saturday, March 12, the Diocese of Pennsylvania elected a new bishop from a slate of five nominees all of whom were well vetted and qualified. It took four ballots but from the outset the bishop-elect led in all of them. He clearly was the choice of the clergy and the lay delegates who in such elections must vote separately “by orders.” And to be elected the nominee must garner a majority of votes in both orders (clergy and laity) on the same ballot.

So what’s the problem? Certainly not the outcome nor the process. No, it is the voting math as prescribed by Pennsylvania’s peculiar diocesan canon which defines the lay vote as one vote per parish, not one vote per delegate. In this diocese all parishes, small and large, have two delegates, a kind of institutional egalitarianism that seems appropriate for Christian community. But is it in this case?

Let’s do the math. Remember all duly qualified clergy are entitled to vote and on the final ballot this meant 194 individual votes were cast. However, on the same ballot the lay votes totaled only 126. Why? Because that was the number of parishes present, not the total number of delegates. If multiplied by two, there were in fact around 252 baptized lay persons on hand but each had only a half vote with which to negotiate a choice for their parish’s preference. How egalitarian is that!

Truth be told it’s canonical clericalism. It values ordination over baptism. It disenfranchises the laity rather than empowering them. It’s like the early Constitution of our country: women, no vote; slaves, defined as three-fifths of a person. In the Episcopal Church whose membership is about ninety-nine percent laity this discrepancy in power and entitlement is unacceptable. Nothing in the Gospel can justify it.

If the first order of ministers in the church is the baptized laity, and not the ordained  clergy, then let that be consistently evident in its polity, practice and privileges. To be baptized is not a second class status in God’s commonwealth and Christ’s blessed community of disciples. Never.