Sunday Happenings!

Here are some of the cool things happening the next few Sundays here at DBCC:

Jan. 29: Fiesta Dinner

• Come join us in the Robsion Family Life Center for a Mexican Fiesta meal! We'll have all sorts of Hispanic-inspired cultural dishes. All donations from the meal will be attributed to our Mission Trip Fund!

Feb. 5: Super Bowl Party!

• If you haven't already bought your catered tray of hot wings, come on down to the church and hang out with us for Super Bowl XLVI! Whether you are a die-hard football fan, or prefer to partake of snacks and non-sports related conversation, please feel free to join us. We will also be visited by our friends from the Grace and Freedom House.

Feb. 12: Planning Meeting Follow-up

• Join us for a follow-up to our January 7th Event Planning Meeting to dine and discuss the progress of our 2012 events and ministries. As well as discussing plans in greater detail, we will also be giving dates to those events who have progressed to a hard date. This is also a great chance for those who couldn't attend the Jan. 7th meeting to offer their support and assistance for one or more of these initiatives.

Feb. 19: DBCC Dessert Auction

• To raise money for the Mission Trip, some of the members have donated some of the fabulous desserts for auction. Bring your sweet tooth, wallet, and your bargaining edge. These deserts will be in high demand!

Friday Night Movies!

Join us for our next Movie Club event on January 6th.  We will celebrate Sherlock Holmes' birthday by viewing a vintage Sherlock Holmes movie.  We gather and snack at 6:30, and the movie begins at 7:30.  We will meet in the Youth room.  If you have any questions, see Paula Spugnardi.

Grace & Freedom House Angel Tree

 

This Holiday Season we are sponsoring an Angel Tree for our friends at the Grace House and Freedom House of Volunteers of America.  On each Angel Ornament on the Christmas Tree in the Gathering area is a Christmas gift wish along with the name of a mother or child at either Grace or Freedom House.  If you would like to buy a gift for one of these, please pick an angel from the tree.  Take as many as you like!  Wrap your gifts with the angel ornament attached and return to the church no later than December 21.  Join us in sharing the Christmas Spirit with all of God's children this season!

Trunk r' Treat!

The Youth are planning to help sponsor a Trunk r’ Treat here at the church on this coming Halloween Weekend, the 29^th of October.  Our hope is to create yet another chance for outreach in our Highlands Community.  There will be lots of candy to be had, as well as chili and some interesting costumes to behold. However, we CANNOT do this on our own!  Being that none of our students actually have their own trunk, we’ll need some of you to lend yours.  If you know any children who would like to make a stop on the Trick r’ Treat trail on Saturday night, send them over!  If you know any youth who would like to participate in this event, direct them to us and we will certainly appreciate the helping hand.  

If you would prefer not to decorate your own trunk, the students have said they would be happy to help decorate your trunk on the day of (or the day before) the Trunk r’ Treat.  To make sure we have a student decorator available, please contact Jennifer or myself.

With so many wonderful bakers in our congregation, the students have decided that this year’s Trunk r’ Treat should include a cakewalk.  We have already been rallying for pledges of cakes and deserts.  If you would like to pledge a cake for the cakewalk, we’d be more than happy to accept.  There is no such thing as too many cakes, after all.  We are also still taking pledges for chili.  We’ll accept all kinds! 

If anyone would like to sign-up for a trunk, or pledge cake, chili, or candy, contact our Secretary, Jennifer Vandiver, or our Youth Minister, Geoff Wallace to set you up! 

Honesty Isn't Our Policy

Honesty, as the saying goes, is always the best policy.  If we believe that, the question is: Do we practice it?  Do we live our lives truthfully?  Now, someone might object that telling the truth and living the truth are two different animals.  That is to say, the question of telling the truth without living that truth begs the question about whether it is possible to be Charles Manson (i.e., a complete schmuck) and still speak something approximating the truth, inasmuch as it is argued that the truth is not contingent on anything outside itself to be true.  In other words, one account of the truth maintains that there is something that exists independently, objectively “out there” that is called the “Truth.”  What one needs to do when there exists competing truth claims, goes the thinking, is to appeal to the “objective standard” of “Truth.”

This formula works serviceably well when the question has to do with whether or not 2 + 2 = 4 or whether the population of Louisville is larger than that of Lexington.  If, however, the question raised is whether or not University of Louisville fans are less dedicated fans than University of Kentucky fans or whether or not Christianity is true, to what uncontestable “objective standard” does one appeal?

Absolutism, or the belief, not merely that there is an “absolute truth” but that that “absolute truth” can be apprehended by human beings—if they only “try hard enough”—is a difficult argument to sustain, just to the extent that it is possible to have two reasonably intelligent, reasonably passionate, reasonably sincere individuals disagree on where to go to find the absolute truth that will settle their argument.  Should they look in the Bible?  The Koran?  The Bhagavad-Gita?  The DaVinci Code?  Dr. Phil?  The periodic table of elements? Who gets to decide what’s true?  Or where do we expect to find the true account of truth to which everyone will defer?  Absolutism runs the risk in the end of only being able to communicate by monologue.

“Does that mean,” as many will quickly ask, “that everything is relative?  That there are no standards of truth to which we may appeal?  Do we throw our hands up in the air because there is finally no way to adjudicate between competing truth claims?”  No.  Relativism, as a set of truth claims, collapses under its own weight.  As James McClendon has pointed out: “As a general theory [relativism] seems to ask us to believe (a) that it is (in general) true, and (b) that nothing is (in general) true—and both can’t be the case” (Ethics: Systematic Theology, Abingdon, 1986, 350). Relativism as a theory of knowledge is logically absurd—or should we say, it’s only relatively true—whatever that means.

Therefore, to assert that honesty is the best policy is only to have begun the discussion, not to have settled it.  If absolutism is problematic and relativism is logically indefensible, how are we supposed to talk about truth?  Or as Pilate put the question to Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38)

When asked “What is truth?” how did Jesus respond?  We are left to assume that Jesus said nothing, because Pilate immediately left Jesus and went outside to address the Jews.  Why didn’t Jesus say, “The truth is x, y, and z, and you would know that if you only studied your _______?”  Or why didn’t Jesus say, “Truth is such a slippery subject, I’m not sure we ought to waste time trying to nail it down to a single definition.  After all, all definitions are ultimately equal?”  In fact Jesus let the silence hang in the air, as if to say, “If you want to know what truth is, look at me.  I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

In a world in which we seem incapable of sustaining a conversation about truth between faith systems, perhaps the only way we have of judging their truthfulness is by observing the kinds of people they produce.  It seems to me that the only way we have of judging the truthfulness of a particular set of truth claims is by examining whether, and to what extent, there exists a people capable of embodying those claims.  That is to say, are the people named by a particular truth claim living the truth to which they appeal, or more to the point, are they living truthfully?  Do people who claim to follow Jesus, for example, live in ways that honor Jesus’ commitments?  Or, as Samuel Wells remarks: “Pragmatic tests of Christianity focus on Christian tradition and the ‘richness of moral character’ it produces in much the same way that science judges its theories by the fruitfulness of the activities they generate, and significant works of art become so in the light of the interpretation and criticism that surround them” (Transforming Fate into Destiny, Cascade Books, 1998, 86).

If I am right that the only real way to decide between two truth-claims from competing systems of belief is to look to the sorts of communities of character they produce, and if the only way to judge communities of character is by whether they produce people capable of living the claims they espouse, then living truthfully is the only way to establish the truth of those claims.  Put another way, brick-layers lay brick, cooks cook, and Christians live like Jesus.  Clearly, not everyone who wears the name has mastered all the practices necessary to be named a master craftsman in these crafts, but the shape of one’s life is determined by one’s commitment to living faithfully with the name—brick-layer, cook, Christian.  It is, after all, possible to take any of those names in vain by failing to practice, or practicing poorly, the disciplines of each craft.

However, when practiced well the very product of the craft (i.e., the wall, the cake, the life) stands as legitimating evidence of the value and veracity of the craft.  Consequently, for Christians, living truthfully isn’t only a matter of practicing the craft of Christianity well; it is the very means by which the truthfulness of Christianity is judged in a world where truth claims abound and compete.  In other words, speaking the truth is the product of a truthful life.

The Hands of a Living God

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).

“We die and we die and we die, not only physically—within seven years every cell in our body is renewed—but emotionally and spiritually as change seizes us by the scruff of the neck and drags us forward into another life. We are not here simply to exist. We are here in order to become” (Susan Howatch, Absolute Truths).

The writer of Hebrews writes a letter to a community that was apparently on the verge of reconsidering its commitment to Christ. The author uses an extended argument to demonstrate to the reader that living as a Christian, as painful as it might be because of institutionalized persecution, is superior to their former lives. Commitment to Jesus surpasses all other attempts at worshiping God. Apparently, however, the readers of the letter to the Hebrews were having second thoughts, and were beginning to abandon their faith in Christ in favor of their former attachments.

The Hebrews’ writer writes: “How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of Grace?” (Heb. 10:29). In effect, the Hebrews writer says, “You can’t go back.”

Let’s be honest: there are times when each of us wishes our faith didn’t ask as much from us. We wind up organizing church events for people who don’t come. We have to get out of bed on our only day off. We can’t do all the things that television causes to look so appetizing. Then we start to think that our faith is certainly cumbersome, not allowing us to do all the things we’d like. And we wonder what life would be like if we didn’t have God telling us what to do all the time, which we guiltily admit to ourselves sounds pretty good.

Prayer starts to come harder. We begin to think of places where we can get a better return on our hard-earned money. Lies come easier. We find an unlimited number of excuses for being away from the Lord’s Table.

God, this whole faith thing is costing an awful lot more than I expected. Can’t we just tone it down some? No sense being fanatical about it, is there? I thought faith was supposed to help me feel better about myself.

All of a sudden, we hear the echoes of the Hebrew writer saying, “You can’t turn back. You can’t return to the security of your former life, because you died and your life is hidden now in Christ. You must stay the course. You must grow.”

“But it asks so much of me.”

“We are not here simply to exist. We are here in order to become.”

“I don’t know if I’ll survive the changes God requires of me.”

“One thing’s for sure: you won’t survive not changing—because not changing is, by definition, death.”

“But, I’m afraid.”

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.”

Integrity Can Be Lonely

“All of them deserted him and fled” (Mark 14:51).

I was reading an article not long ago about a famous preacher. One of his admirers made the comment that one could tell this preacher’s ministry had “integrity” by virtue of the number of people in his church (50 bazillion people, or some other astronomical number). I often hear something closely approximating that same sentiment from well-meaning church folk. I was talking to a colleague on the phone awhile back, when the topic of one of this state’s “premiere” evangelists arose (I’m not sure how “premiere” qualifies as a theological descriptor). He said: “Well, look how many people he draws. He must be doing something right.” To which I replied, “Obviously, he’s doing something right — but it may or may not have anything to do with God, or faithfulness, or discipleship.”

I was taken aback by the assumptions underlying such a statement, that is, that God is most intensely present in the large, the successful, the well-attended. I am amazed that people who read the Bible are still naïve enough to make comments to the effect that the bigger the church, the more “integrity” is in evidence. If mere size is the only criterion for judging faithfulness, then Jim Jones had more integrity, was blessed in richer fashion than 99% of the ministers in the world. If size is what God uses to show us who is doing a better job at proclaiming the Gospel, then the bozos on televisions who preside over vast broadcasting empires are, by definition, closer to the kingdom of heaven than the rest of us laboring in tiny, “unblessed” congregations lacking “integrity.”

On the other hand, that leaves us in pretty good company—I mean, what with Jesus dying abandoned and alone—presumably stripped of his blessedness and integrity. (His ministry fell on hard times. I imagine it was hard to make budget after Good Friday.) Where did we get the idea that if it is getting bigger, God must be in the middle of it? Is God to be found in the market analysis? If popularity is the standard by which faithfulness in ministry is judged, then Jesus is not the person we ought to hold up as the standard-bearer for our vocation. Because Jesus nailed all that hooey about popularity and big crowds and succeeding according to this world’s standards on a cross one Friday afternoon. Tell Jesus how blessed he was as you stare into his face on the cross. (Just try not to get any blood on yourself. It can get messy being a Christian.)

That is not to say that the Gospel doesn’t have appeal; it does. But any appeal that Jesus has has to do with losing our lives, with turning the other cheek, with the first being last, with forgiving our enemies and those who persecute us, with selling all that we have and giving it to the poor, with dropping our nets and all the things the world says we need to be successful, in order to pick up our crosses and follow him. (Try selling that stuff with your anointed prayer cloths. “User-friendly God,” indeed.) The appeal of Jesus is to the last, the least, the lost, and the dead—presumably because they are the only ones who know that they aren’t successful enough to sail in under their own steam. At least in the gospels, it is precisely the big religious muckity-mucks that Jesus avoids like the plague. Jesus isn’t impressed with toothy smiles, blow-dried hair, and healthy Neilsen ratings. He spends his time with those that this world has declared losers.

Jesus doesn’t call us to succeed; he calls us to die. Success is his alone; and alone is how he died. Sometimes, integrity can be lonely.

Tying It All Together

 When God created us, God gave us a special gift unique to human beings.  It has to do with our ability to think.  Of course, other animals can think—they have a sort of rationality we recognize.  What sets humans apart is our ability to think about thinking.  Put differently, we have an awareness that ties our past, present, and future together in, what we experience as, a long and consistent chain of consciousness.  Not only do we have memories, for instance, we can recall those memories, enjoy them, study them, and in some ways re-live them as often as we need to.  It is our memories that give us the wisdom we need to flourish in the present, and the confidence that our lives will continue to have meaning in the future.

The church, from its earliest days, has recognized the need to be intentional about attending to memory.  Every Sunday we eat a meal that recalls for us the saving love of God that has formed us into the people we are—which calls attention to a larger, but often unremarked truth: communities have memories.  And community memory must be just as assiduously attended as our personal memories.  In fact, we say that the table set by Lord is a table of remembrance.  Every time we gather around that table we set about the practice of remembering.  But a big part of what communion accomplishes goes beyond rehearsing the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection—as important as that is.  As the body of Christ, every time we come to the table we not only remember, but we re-member everyone who gathers around the table with us, past, present, and future.  In other words, the body of Christ consists of all those members who not only spread across the globe, but who spread across time.  We are who we are because of those who’ve gone before, and those whose way we are presently preparing.

Douglass Boulevard Christian Church has a memory that stretches over parts of three centuries.  At present we‘re experiencing feelings of great anticipation about what the future holds.  We’ve had many new faces in our midst who lead us to think about the possibilities ahead of us, and that alert us to God’s movement in our community.  It’s an exciting time to be at DBCC.

But as aware of the future as we are, we cannot leave the past behind.  As William Faulkner said, “The past isn’t dead.  It isn’t even past.”  That is no less true in the church, where, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, we’re aware that who we are is inexorably linked to who we’ve been.  As we chart new courses, discerning God’s future, it’s important to remind ourselves that we’re not departing from or abandoning our past, we’re extending it.  That is to say, we’re carrying it with us everywhere we go, with everything we do (whether we want to or not).  The new kinds of ministries we’re engaged in at DBCC aren’t a departure from, but a continuation of the kinds of ministries we’ve always been engaged in—social justice, spirituality, compassion, and education.  We are busy carrying on the tradition that was lovingly stewarded, then handed down to us by those who came before.

On the surface, what we do may look different from what we’ve done in the past, but at its heart, our first responsibility—which is to to equip disciples for the reign of God—remains the same; and it ties together our past, our present, and our future.

Sermon Podcast: "Treat 'em Like Gentiles"

Here's this weeks's sermon podcast, "Treat 'em Like Gentiles" delivered by Rev. Derek Penwell:

Remember, you can subscribe to our weekly podcast in iTunes and download all of the sermons automatically to your computer, as well as to your iPhone, iPad, or other mobile device.

You can save the sermon to read later with this .pdf.

Or, just read it beginning here:

Treat ‘em Like Gentiles (Matt. 18:15–20)

We live in a society that’s grown increasingly permissive. That’s not news to you, right? Scandals in politics, in the church. Corruption. Violence. Treachery. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.

We’ve come a long way down some very undesirable roads, both as a nation and as a church. With the media and liberal preachers forever expounding on the virtues of “tolerance and diversity,” we bought into the lie that it doesn’t matter what I do, as long as nobody gets hurt. And the logical conclusion of such an argument is that nobody (and I mean nobody) better tell me how I’m supposed to live. How I choose to live my life is my decision, it’s between God and me. Butt out!

Of course, it hasn’t always been that way. There was a time when the needs of the community superseded the demands of the individual. But to say that today is to be labeled a socialist. There was a time, however, when the church had authority, and that authority meant something. And with all the permissiveness in our culture, it doesn’t seem too outrageous to think that the church might move to regain some of that authority. It has to do something. The church can’t stand idly by while everything deteriorates. There has to be accountability somewhere.

I'm a Minister

I’m a minister.  Which is to say, I work as a minister in a church.  Historically, I’ve found myself reluctant to offer that bit of information in casual conversation, not because ministry occupies a position inherently more shameful than a host of other vocational options, but because when people find out that I’m a minister they either want me to answer their questions about I watch TBN, or they want to impart some theological nugget they’ve mined from The Prayer of Jabez or The Left Behind series.  Please don’t misunderstand—I like questions.  In fact I entered the ministry because of some of the questions I had about life and its ultimate meaning.  My problem lies not in questions in themselves, but in questions about whether or not I believe that the World Council of Churches, Democratic politicians, and certain cartoon characters on prime time television form a shady cabal intent on ushering in the anti-Christ and a one-world government—complete with standard issue UPC codes emblazoned on everyone’s forehead, or whether I’ve finally come to my senses and realized that mega-churches are the goal of God’s reign here on earth.

The fact is I like being a minister, in large part, because of the conversations that attach to a life spent following such a strange, quixotic, compelling character as Jesus.  The conversations, however, that seem to me to be important to have center on questions of justice, non-violence, grace, faithfulness, friendship, and devotion, rather than the sort of mass-produced fare provided by a popular religious culture that asks nothing more of Christians than that they act nice, refrain from swearing in public, and support any military action proposed by the American government as, ipso facto, God’s will.

To put a finer point on it, I like being a minister at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church.  I’m blessed to belong to a community of faith that takes seriously our call to live out the example of Jesus in the best way we know how.  DBCC is a community unafraid to take a chance on following Jesus down a dark alley.  I like that.  I like the sense of adventure I find at DBCC, as well as the adventurous thoughts I have when I think about what we can do together.

I guess this is all a long way of saying that my thoughts about ministry have evolved since coming to Douglass.  Many of the things I do don’t even feel particularly like work.  In fact, now when I’m asked what I do, I tell people I’m a minister at this really great church that seeks justice for the marginalized, that provides embrace for those who’ve been excluded, that looks into the eyes of the forgotten and says, “You’re welcome here.”  Though we’re not perfect, we are constantly looking for ways to grow and be better.

I’m a minister.  I just thought you should know.

Who's Steering This Thing?

"Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.  Serve the LORD with fear, with trembling kiss his feet, or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way; for his wrath is quickly kindled.  Happy are all who take refuge in him" (Psalm 2:10-12).

In the uncertainty leading up to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling, the financial markets have taken a hit.  As I write this the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Dow Jones is posting its "first seven session slide since July 2010."  Republicans and Democrats are fighting it out to to see who will be able to claim to represent "what the American people" want.  What bothers me, though, is that while both are laying claim to exceptional financial vision, they will try to situate themselves as having been right all along, while both will say that the other side of the aisle has been hopelessly tone-deaf to the needs of "the American people," and is therefore incapable of managing the ship of state.  Inherent in such a political argument is that somebody, or some party of somebodies is ultimately in control—that all that stands between us and happiness and prosperity is the right political representation and the silencing of the opponent.  Precious time is wasted while the parties speak about their ability to exert dominion over the economy.  I hope the irony doesn’t escape us.

I love to feel in control.  I imagine, therefore, that other people feel this way.  Further, I imagine that people who have power are prone to feeling this way (which is probably why they got into the power business in the first place).  The illusion that we can ultimately order our world in such a way as to preclude inconveniences like poverty, crime, racism, discrimination, and danger is presumptuous at best, and idolatrous at worst.  We live and move and have our being in ways that suggest we have conjured up life, movement, and existence by our own initiative — by having such things as a sound domestic policy and a strong military.  We have repeatedly failed to see that life itself is a gift.  We have no more real control over our world than we have over God.

And maybe that is the point: We think perhaps that by our tireless organizing and speculating and legislating that we can finally impose order on God — and in the process become (of sorts) gods ourselves.  The problem with that, of course, is that God is even more stubborn about maintaining control than we are.

Thank goodness for that.

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.

True Nonconformity

“Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14).

“The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed.  It is about the character of the consumers of products.  Images of movie stars and famous athletes, of serene lakes and macho fishing trips, of elegant dinners and romantic interludes, of happy families packing their station wagons for a picnic in the country–these tell nothing about the product being sold.  But they tell everything about the fears, fancies and dreams of those who might buy them.  What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 128).

Advertising, at this point in our cultural development, is the proverbial straw that stirs the drink.  We know that.  Instinctively, somehow, it makes sense.  If consumption is the gas that drives the capitalist machine, we understand that somehow or another we must be motivated to go to the pump and do our part to keep the whole thing humming along.  Of course, advertisers do not want us to think of it in such vulgar terms.  Otherwise, the magic would be gone.  Rather, advertising is designed to keep us from thinking much at all, except insofar as it can get us to think about ourselves.  And in that sense, advertising is less concerned with selling us a new product as it is with selling us a new vision of ourselves as the sort of people who might benefit from buying a product.

In other words, commercials are inherently preachy.  Only the moralizing is so subtle that we hardly even notice it.  Later Postman says, “The television commercial is about products only in the sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales, which is to say, it isn’t.  Which is to say further, it is about how one ought to live one’s life” (p. 131).  The seduction happens so effortlessly that we hardly even feel it.

Why, though?  Why does it work so well?  I think commercials have the power to shape us because we are so preoccupied with ourselves.  It seems as though we care less about being good people, for example, than about being perceived as good people.  Why?  Because while actually being good takes a great deal of hard work, looking like a good person takes very little effort at all–just the right kind of aftershave and life insurance.  Nowadays, one doesn’t actually have to put in the grueling hours it used to take to be smart; one need merely stay in the right hotel.

Paul, however, suggests a way to release us from the relentless grip of commercial culture.  He tells us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.”  If what we are primarily concerned about happens not to be our own image, but that of the one who gives us a self with which to be concerned in the first place, then psychodramas about acne and sports utility vehicles will have lost their power over us.  By understanding that what we truly need is not the tweaking provided by the right brand of toothpaste or the coolest brand of beer, we begin to see ourselves the way Christ sees us, rather than the way Madison Avenue needs for us to see ourselves.

According to Paul, maybe being your own person isn’t such a great deal after all.  Living the life Jesus calls you to live . . . now, that would be true nonconformity.

Following Jesus

“If you follow Jesus and don’t end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do.”

-Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution

Following Jesus.  I think it boils down to that, really.  I have struggled for some time with the realization that when the church fails—as it often does—it fails most egregiously in giving people the resources necessary for the outrageously radical act of following Jesus.  My reading of emerging/ent theology has led me to conclude that there is increasing energy around the simple idea that followers of Jesus ought to embody the revolutionary spirit found in the Gospels.  I sense a growing dissatisfaction with the traditional view of the church as either a clearinghouse for heavenly bus passes, or as a respectable organization whose primary function centers on affirming middle-class American values.  People, especially young people, are having trouble squaring the Jesus they read about in the Gospels with the infinitely malleable Jesus they see placed on offer by popular Christianity—Jesus as personal genie, Jesus as chief security guard at the courthouse of private morality, Jesus as a cheerleader for free-market capitalism, etc.  Jesus, stripped of the layers of religious spackling used to domesticate him, is irremediably subversive.

Subversive.  That appeals to me.  Of course, I’d like to continue writing clinically, about the religious climate shift underway at the hands of restless “young people,” fed up with a tame Jesus.  I’d like to make it sound as though I’m just a disinterested observer of religious trends.  But the truth is that I too find myself growing dissatisfied with that image of Jesus.  After all these years of a Jesus who I thought would help make me _______ (holier? kinder? more spiritual? more self-actualized?), I’ve come to believe that Jesus has a more cosmic, more interesting agenda in mind than super-tuning my soul.  On my way to spiritual superstardom, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to squeeze past Jesus, who stands in the middle of the road pointing to the weak, the homeless, the sick, the widowed, the displaced and un-embraced.

I’ve tried.  I’ve put forth a valiant effort.  But I can no longer envision Jesus the way I once did.  I can’t, for the life of me, picture Jesus saying, “Healthcare isn’t a right; it’s a privilege."  I can’t figure out a way to get Jesus to say, “Homosexuality is a capital crime; but fleecing the poor is a misdemeanor.”    I’m trying to track down, but as of yet have been unable to find, where Jesus says, “If you fear someone will strike you on one cheek, dial in a Predator drone.”  The church has too often been asked to give religious cover to moralities that were conceived absent the theological reflection provided by the church.  I find that the chasm between the revolutionary Jesus of first century Jerusalem and the domesticated Jesus of twenty-first century America grows more difficult for me to span all the time.

In the final analysis, the good news of the reign of God is not first that the well taken care of will be even more well taken care of in the next life.  The good news of the reign of God is that God’s reign is present wherever the homeless are sheltered, wherever the hungry are fed, wherever the rich give away their money and power in defense of the poor, wherever the forgotten ones gather to be remembered and embraced, to be told that as long as we follow God not one of God’s children will be left to die alone and unloved.

 

A Note from Gary Gambino

Hello.  I am Gary Gambino and, as the surname might indicate, I'm a "cradle Catholic" who has embarked on a "Magical Mystery Tour" of various denominations since my mid-20s.  The week before Easter I was in a physician's waiting room when the gentleman next to me offered me his Courier-Journal.  Leading the Metro section was a story about how the board of the Douglas Boulevard Christian Church voted to stop signing marriage licenses until everyone, regardless of sexual preference, was afforded that opportunity.  The phraseology is "marriage equality" and is consistent with Christ's own teachings.

I live in Buechel just south of the Highlands, and I made a point of attending their (our) Easter service.  I talked with both pastors and was amused when Pastor Ryan wore as a badge of honor the fact that Pat Robertson thought the church's pastors "were going to Hell."  After learning that the Associated Press had picked up the C-J  story and it had gone worldwide -- viral -- I half expected television cameras to be at the back of the church and was a tad disappointed when none were present.

I advocate for several liberal causes in my private life and on social networking websites.  I have been an advocate for people with disabilities since my injury in 1982 at the age of 18.  This has made me somewhat of an outcast in my own conservative Catholic family, sadly enough.  I did not think a church in my neighborhood (or near it), in arguably one of the more conservative states in the Union, could adopt such a "progressive" stance.  I love this church.  I love the leadership and the members of this church.  Absent a more meaningful phrase, this is really cool.

God bless all who read this.

Gary Gambino

 

What's in It for Me?

An elderly woman walked into a J.C. Penney department store.  Three young salesclerks were standing there (that was in the days there were people around to wait on you), but since the woman’s clothes were a tattered and worn, they figured that it was a waste of time to wait on such an unlikely prospect.  But there was a fourth young man standing nearby, a devoted Christian for whom kindness was second nature.  He approached the elderly woman, helped her make her purchases and then as she checked out, he learned that she was Mrs. J.C. Penney.

Dan G. Johnson, Neglected Treasure: Rediscovering the Old Testament

 

I find stories like this strangely distressing.  So much of what we do as a society is predicated on the idea that if you do something well enough and in front of the right people, you will receive some kind of reward.  Which is to enter every situation asking, not “How can I be of service?” but “What’s in it for me?”  If we’re honest, this story isn’t about helping someone else as much as it is about helping the right person—and, ultimately, ourselves.

Over the years, I’ve heard so many people say when asked why they stopped coming to church, “I wasn’t getting anything out of it”--as if the primary purpose for gathering for worship was somehow only to get something.  This attitude goes something like, “By Sunday morning I’m usually on Spiritual empty, and I come to church to get a fill-up on God.”  But when that attitude emerges, the church becomes merely another consumer proposition, “I’ll go where I get the most for the lowest cost to me.”

Worship is our corporate prayer to God every Sunday.  The church’s life—the way the church is administrated, the education programs, the fellowship opportunities, the acts of service—is itself a corporate prayer.  In that sense, then, our mindset ceases to be, “What will I miss if I’m not there?” but, rather “What will be missing if I’m not there?”  Each member and friend of the church plays a unique role in the prayer of faithfulness we lift to God.  Consequently, everyone is an equally vital part of the body, even if someone’s role is not always noticed by the rest.

My vision for the Church is that we begin to see ourselves as a family who, when sitting down to the table together, genuinely perceives the family as a whole, not just the sum of its constituent parts.  Indeed, when I begin to understand our connectedness, I’m freed to realize that I’m not in this just for me at all—I’m in this for you as well (and maybe even Mrs. J.C. Penney, too).

 

What Is the What?

Brief note: Since the church where I pastor, Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, voted on Sunday, April 17 to honor all marriages (gay and straight) by refraining from signing marriage licenses, I have been asked to present a justification of my views on receiving LGBTQ folks as equals in all aspects of the life of the church.  Here is a brief glance at the nature of my thinking on this issue--which is to say an answer to "What is the what?"

On Facebook, as many of you know, I tend to be kind of a smart aleck.  More to the point, I tend to be a decidedly liberal smart aleck—a fact that annoys some people, while others seem more appreciative of my sarcasm.  At any rate, I received a message on Facebook the other day from someone about whom I care a great deal.  It read, in part:

“Many of the people in my generation are politically what they are because of their upbringing. It would do us well to hear the "other" side in a constructive manner. For instance, I have been thinking about the homosexual question, and all of my learning and understanding comes from my conservative teaching.”

The note went on to ask that I offer some clarification of my views on the “homosexual question.”  Notwithstanding the implication that my snarkiness is often less than “constructive,” I take the message to be a genuine attempt on the part of the writer to understand a different view—admittedly, something about which I could do better myself.  Since I believe the request to be a serious one, and since my early “learning and teaching” also came from “conservative teaching,” I feel a certain responsibility to try to offer a serious answer about how I have arrived at my current theological convictions.  And while the nature of the medium in which I provide my response necessarily narrows the scope of how thoroughly I can address each issue associated with this question, I will try to provide a general account of how my beliefs have changed.

At the heart of what my questioner refers to as conservative teaching, it seems to me, is the issue of authority—namely, who or what guides my theological beliefs, and how those beliefs get converted into action.  Growing up, I learned that it was the bible that provided a blueprint for what to think and how to act.  If the bible said it, I was taught to believe it.  On this reading of scripture one operates under the defining assumption that the bible was written with the intention of providing a clearly understandable set of universal guidelines by which to live, one that extends to all times and all places.  In other words, what the bible said 2,500 years ago is just as binding today as it was then.  When it said not to steal, that was a universally binding command.  When it said not to murder, that was meant for me as much as for the Israelites wandering in the desert.  When it said, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death” (Lev. 20:10), that was supposed to apply to . . . wait a minute.  It was there that I ran into problems with reading the bible as a timeless blueprint, since big portions of it were ignored as being only for certain times and places.

So when Paul said that a woman “ought to have a symbol of authority on her head [either a veil or long hair], because of the angels” (1 Cor. 11:9, cf., also 11:6), and I noticed that the women I knew never wore veils and often cut their hair short, I was told that Paul was issuing only a situational command.  That is to say, Paul was only speaking to women of his time.  But when, some verses later, Paul said, “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches.  For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says” (14: 33b-34), I was told that he was speaking to women of all times and places.  It wasn’t clear to me how I was supposed to tell consistently between time-bound and timeless commands.  I just couldn’t figure out why the command for women to be silent in church should operate beyond the first century Roman Empire, but that the command that women ought to wear veils and refrain from cutting their hair shouldn’t.

I concluded that the church operates in a decidedly different context now—one the apostle Paul could not have foreseen.  That argument began to change my mind about women’s ordination (another “question”—that is, the “women’s ordination question”—I had learned from early on was a theological no-no).  In fact, it made enough sense to other Christians around me that there had already been a substantial shift in many parts of the church over the issue of ordaining women.  As important as that hermeneutical shift was, however, my ideas about women in ministry were cemented when I finally received the honor of working side by side with them as colleagues.  I saw how gifted they were at tasks that I had been taught were to be reserved to males.  I worked with women who could preach and teach and administrate much better than I could (not necessarily a heavy lift, that).  I saw this as a way that, over time, the Holy Spirit was able to reveal a new conception of what God intended.  It didn’t necessarily mean that God had changed, but that the world in which we lived had changed enough that God’s true vision of the way things ought to be could finally be received.

It occurred to me, though, that another gradual revelation of God’s true design had happened even before the shift on women in the church.  The bible, while not commanding slavery, certainly seemed to condone its practice.  In fact, many people who, at one time, defended the practice of slavery did so while standing firmly within the tradition of biblical interpretation, using the bible as the defensive tool of choice.  However, we’ve reached a point where, looking back, it seems outrageous that anyone ever used the bible to defend this kind of treatment of other human beings.  It struck me that perhaps the church’s stance toward gays and lesbians might follow this same trajectory.  In other words, I thought that maybe the Holy Spirit is in the process of revealing to us God’s true vision of the way things ought to be with respect to homosexuality.  If this is the case, then we need not necessarily say that God has changed (though my colleagues who are Process theologians probably wouldn’t object to this description), but that the world has changed sufficiently to be able to receive the fullness of God’s truth on this issue.

But beyond what I take to be the inadequacies of a static view of biblical interpretation that seeks to match the brown shoes of scripture with the often black tuxedos of context, the thing I found most persuasive in changing my theological views of homosexuality was my contact with my brothers and sisters who are gay and lesbian.  In the church where I minister there reside some of the finest people with whom I’ve ever been fortunate enough to work—people who just happen to have been be born loving others of the same gender.  These people are my parishioners; but more importantly, they are my friends.  My gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have the same love for Jesus in their hearts as all the rest of the people with whom I work.  They want to be a part of a community seeking to live faithfully as followers of Jesus.  They want this.  Unfortunately, though, the church has not traditionally wanted them back.  We have caused grave damage to people whose only crime was to be created different.  I found I could no longer view people for whom Jesus died as defective or degenerate just because the object of their affections happened to share the same anatomy.

I don’t have the space to go into a separate exegetical defense of the seven “clobber” passages, those passages in the bible usually cited as arguments against homosexuality; those arguments are well rehearsed on both sides (stay tuned for future articles on the “clobber” passages, where I’ll rehearse the arguments again).  My point here centers on how we identify authority.  I want to be clear about the fact that I’m not suggesting that the bible isn’t authoritative; I believe it is.  Instead, I’ve come to the place where I can no longer accept as authoritative the view that scripture is a handy guidebook, indexed with rules for every occasion.  Scripture acts as authoritative when interpreted within a community that seeks seriously to understand the story of God’s loving interaction with humanity in the person of Jesus the Christ.  And the community in which I interpret scripture consists of people who are better disciples than I am, but whose gender identity or sexual orientation differs from my own.   And, as someone who claims to follow Jesus, my primary vocation is to learn to love others (all others) with the same radical abandon as the Jesus who radically abandoned good sense by answering “the Derek question” and loving me.

 

Douglass Loop Farmers Market: A Ministry of DBCC

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.  You shall not strip your vineyards bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus19:9-10).

From early on God showed concern for the way resources were allocated among God’s people, embodying that concern in the law by making certain that those who had little could still eat.  Leviticus reminds us that it’s not enough for those in the community who have enough to forget those without.  Those who had resources were required to look out for those who occupied the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum.  This passage from Leviticus is a glimpse of God’s idea of a social safety net.

In our contemporary world we also have inequities in the way food is produced and consumed.  The Douglass Loop Farmers Market, beginning Saturday, April 16 (10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.) is an effort on the part of DBCC to take seriously God’s concern that everyone has enough to eat.  As a ministry of the church the market has three important goals: 1) to provide a place for producers to sell locally grown food, so that they can make a decent living, 2) to provide access to nutritious locally grown food at a reasonable price, and 3) to help create a community atmosphere where we can begin to understand the ways we are connected to our neighbors.  In the service of these goals, we will soon be offering the option—to those able to take advantage of it—of using Food Stamps.  We want to help foster a just, sustainable food community here in the heart of the Highlands that gives producers a chance to sell and consumers a chance to buy.

We will be offering locally grown meat, eggs, produce, honey, herbs, wine, and plants.  To add to the neighborhood atmosphere, we will also be offering a mix of regular food vendors and guest chefs, all to the sounds of local acoustic musicians.  We will be dog-friendly, offering an area for people to tie up their dogs while they shop.

As people of God we have more to do to make certain that everyone has access to the food they need to survive, but this is a good place to start.  Come on out and join us every Saturday!

 

Japan and What It Means to Follow Jesus

Looking at the pictures of the devastation coming out of Japan as I sit in my overstuffed chair brings into stark relief the vast chasm that separates me from most of the rest of the world.  Reading back over the previous sentence, I can hear my mind consolidating its defenses against the guilt that the fact of that vast chasm raises.  The recognition that I have an overstuffed chair in which to indulge guilty feelings leaves me ambivalent, because in reality what’s going on in Japan right now has nothing to do with me or my fat chair.  All of this has me thinking about how I continue to be amazed at the extent to which I am able to bend the arc of history inward—as though what happens in the world must ultimately have some relationship to me.  I am struck by the thought that pushing past self-absorption is, if not the point of Christian discipleship in the reign of God, then at least one of its most desirable outcomes.

In thinking about Japan (indeed, in thinking about thinking about Japan) the whole issue of discipleship keeps popping up: Where is Jesus in all of this, and what does being one of his follower’s require in the face of it?  Luke tells us in chapter six that just prior to calling the twelve apostles, he “went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God” (6:12).  All night is a fairly long time to spend in prayer, which suggests that he had something weighing heavily on him.  After enduring this all-night prayer-a-thon, the first thing Jesus did was call all his disciples together and choose twelve from among them to be apostles, that is, those who were to be sent out on his behalf.  The twelve Jesus chose would eventually serve as the foundation upon which the church would be built—which makes it understandable why Jesus would have struggled all night over whom to call.

Consequently, when in Luke’s version of the story Jesus finally addresses the twelve who’ve been chosen, we have high expectations about the significance of what he will say.  This is what, in our culture driven as it is by organizational business models, we would call the vision speech, the one where Jesus sets down what’s at the heart of the ministry he has in mind (the ministry to which the twelve have just been called).  Luke tells us that while all of his followers are still gathered around him, Jesus begins to clarify the principles of this new endeavor, which is obviously highlighted by this latest major personnel move.  So, what will it be?  What does Jesus indicate will animate the new ministry upon which he and his friends are about to embark?   The first words Luke has Jesus say after calling the twelve?

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh . . . But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.  Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep” (Luke 6:20b-21, 24-25).

Now, I want to say right off that I’m not particularly happy about Jesus’ newly identified Platinum Club members.  By just about any accounting done on a macro level, I’m sure to be lumped in with the latter rather than the former.  When the truth is told, though I sometimes struggle to make ends meet, the ends I have to make meet are quite a bit nicer than most of the rest of the world; and the means I have at my disposal to meet those ends would surely evoke envy among all but those in the highest percentiles when it comes to the world’s wealth.  So, my ox is being gored too as Jesus trots out the core values for the new business model.  Unlike most successful ventures, though, Jesus has the powerful in his sights as the problem, rather than the solution.  This makes things difficult for me, because as an individual, I’d much rather be part of Jesus’ target audience than the targeted audience; and it is as an individual that I am most likely to experience Jesus’ call to discipleship.

The locus of popular American piety, it seems difficult to dispute, resides in the individual.  Most strains of American Christianity set up shop in the heart, falling back on what Charles Taylor has called radical reflexivity.  According to Taylor, radical reflexivity is not only an awareness of the self, but is an awareness of awareness; it is the illumination of “that space where I am present to myself (Sources of the Self, 131).”  It is in this space where I think not only about myself, but about myself thinking about myself that much Christian discipleship gets done—or fails to get done.  I say, “fails to get done,” because, unfortunately, much of the emphasis in popular Christianity rests on getting one’s individual soul “right with God,” on having a “personal relationship with Jesus,” that is, on intensifying radical reflexivity.  Not much gets done when my preoccupied gaze extends only so far as my own navel.  I want to be clear that I’m not rejecting intimacy with God, but rather a view of intimacy that is so self-absorbed that the life of the rest of the world is the camel that must first pass through the eye of my personal needle; which, it seems, is precisely backward from the discipleship Jesus offers.

Unlike the way much of Christianity is presently practiced, following Jesus, if Luke has it anything like right, appears to consist in a radical outward orientation—an orientation, not coincidentally, that is much more difficult for the rich and the powerful, who have more than sufficient resources to maintain insularity.  Of course, even if Luke is right, it’s not immediately obvious just how being poor, hungry, and aggrieved constitute a state of blessedness.  Leaving aside for a moment how Jesus thinks that blessedness will be achieved, I want to suggest that those who follow Jesus ought to be orienting their commitments to him in ways that first involve an outward identification with the poor and the powerless.

All of which brings me back to Japan.  If our discipleship is shaped by Luke, the question of the reign of God has less to do with first renovating our interior lives than with figuring out how to embody the gospel to people up to their knees in mud, terrified of radiation in the air.  Maybe the blessing indicated by Jesus that the poor, the hungry, and the grieving experience is to come through us—whose primary concern is not for ourselves and the state of our own souls, but for the powerless and the state of a world in which the powerless must rely on the good will of the powerful. If picking up our crosses and dying to ourselves means anything, surely it means figuring out some way to be Jesus for people in Japan, for the thousands of Japanese struggling just to hang on, for all the poor, hungry, and grieving—halfway round the world, or halfway down the block.  It is giving our lives first for them and not for our own spiritual enrichment that Jesus identifies as the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

 

DBCC Co-sponsors a Karen Refugee Family

One of the things we’ve been looking to do as a congregation is to find ways to live out the difficult demands of discipleship in ways that express our commitment to love and hospitality. DBCC has been presented an opportunity to co-sponsor a Karen family with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. DBCC has done this in the past with great success, and we feel like the time is right for us to sponsor another family.

The family we’ve agreed to sponsor is a family of five—father, mother, two daughters, and one son. They will be arriving in Louisville on July 21^st at 10:00 p.m. at the airport. A number of people have already volunteered their time and resources to help resettle this family. I want to appeal to you, if you haven’t already, to think about how you might help our congregations extend the embrace of Christian hospitality to strangers—in this case, political refugees.

Here is a sketch of some the important information about our endeavor.

Sponsorship Commitment:

The sponsorship team is asked to commit to a 3- or 4 -month sponsorship of the family. This includes meeting the family at the airport; arranging for housing; helping to provide initial food, clothing, household goods, and basic furniture; providing transportation to and from our office, school, the grocery store, and other important places until the refugees have learned to use public transportation; assisting with health screening and other medical needs; helping the family become acquainted with their new community; and being a friend. This is a financial commitment of approximately $2500 and many volunteer hours. Sponsorship itself carries with it no legal obligations and is considered a commitment on the part of the co-sponsoring congregation with Kentucky Refugee Ministries (KRM). KRM carries the ultimate legal responsibility for resettlement and is responsible to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Department of State. When a sponsorship team agrees to sponsor a family, our agency assists in every facet of the sponsorship. An initial orientation for the sponsorship committee is provided prior to arrival. After the family’s arrival the case manager will make appointments and advise you and the family on all facets of resettlement. Our job developers will work with the refugees and employers, matching employable adults with appropriate work opportunities. This includes the very important aspect of finding initial work opportunities and upgrading jobs. At the end of three or four months the church’s commitment is fulfilled; our agency will continue to work with the refugees for up to five years after arrival. At the end of the co-sponsorship KRM will continue to work with the family towards self-sufficiency, the most immediate need being finding employment for at least one of the adults in the family.

Financial “Picture”

Upon arrival, each family member receives a one-time sum of $900 (R & P) per person, or $4500 for this family.

This money is designated by USRP to be used for set-up expenses. Many co-sponsors absorb much of these initial costs during the first few months allowing the family to use this money to open a bank account and access as needed.

After arrival determination will be made as to which program best fits this family. The case manager, the match grant coordinator, and the family make a determination of the program by the end of the first month. There are currently two programs for which the family might apply. After arrival determination will be made as to which program best fits this family.

If the family’s best fit is KTAP, after 30 days an application is filed. Currently a family of 5 on KTAP receives a monthly stipend of $383 monthly cash assistance and childcare until the adults are employed and able to take care of their expenses. It takes from 10 days to 1 month to receive the first check. If the family is enrolled into the Matching Grant program after the first 30 days they will receive a weekly cash assistance of $50 per adult and $10 per child until their 120^th day and they are guaranteed that the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th months’ rent will be supplied either by the church or by another donor source. Both of these programs will be explained to the family (and to you) after the family’s arrival. After arrival determination will be made as to which program best fits this family.

HOUSING INFORMATION:

The family will need a three- bedroom apartment. I will be happy to discuss housing with you. KRM will secure safe, affordable housing on a bus line for the family in a neighborhood where other Karen families are living (depending upon availability).

Additional Initial Approximate Expenses and Costs:

The apartment deposit and first month’s rent will be paid by the case manager out of the family’s R&P funds. KRM will also request that the LG&E account be put in the family’s name. The LG&E deposit will be spread out over the first three month period and included in the monthly bills. Bus Pass-- $45.00 per adult Food—enough for period before food stamps are processed (up to 2 weeks), Paper Products, etc. Note: Paper and cleaning products and personal hygiene items are not covered by foodstamps and can be quite expensive for new arrivals. Pocket money for the first month--$30-45 weekly ($10 per adult plus extra for children’s expenses)

INSURANCE:

All members of the family will have health insurance coverage for a minimum of eight months upon arrival. After employment the family will be encouraged to use the medical insurance provided through the job.

ARRIVAL:

The family will arrive in the US on July 20^th and spend the night in Los Angeles. They will travel to Louisville on July 21^st on Delta 6079, arriving at 10:00 pm. Be sure and check with the airlines before leaving for the airport. Arrivals are often late and sometimes re-scheduled. If flights change we will try to reach you as soon as we hear.

Thank you very much for wanting to extend hospitality to those newly arrived in our city. We look forward to working with you.

Here's a link to the refugee camp they will be arriving from: Mae La Oon Camp.

If you'd like to help out, call or email the church office (javandiver@insightbb.com) or contact Cheryl Flora or Susie Buchanan.

The Shape of Ministry

(Adapted from The Art of Getting Things Done by David Allen)

1. Defining Purpose and Principles

a. This is the “why” question.

b. Why are we doing this ministry?

c. Why, specifically as Christians, do we care if this ministry gets done?

d. What are the theological consequences of failing to do it? The practical consequences?

Note: The theological/practical questions must always be asked in this order—this differentiates ministry from management. We have a primary stake in the first, and secondary stake in the other.

· This helps us define what success will look like.

· It helps to set the parameters for the resources necessary.

· It clarifies focus.

e. What standards and values do we operate under?

· What behavior or approach might undermine what we are trying to accomplish?

2. Outcome Visioning

a. This is the “what” question that defines success for this ministry.

b. What would success look like?

c. How will we know we’ve done what we set out to do?

d. Envision “WILD SUCCESS.”

3. Brainstorming

a. This is the “how.”

b. Capture as many ideas as possible without editing.

c. Write them down—get them onto something (paper, whiteboard, etc.).

4. Organizing

a. This is where ministry begins to take shape.

b. Begin to notice natural relationships.

c. Now, begin to sort by:

· Sequence, date

· Like directions

d. Begin to narrow down options.

· Set priorities (What’s most important? What can we put on the back burner?)

5. Identifying Next Actions

a. This is where the rubber meets the road.

· Decide on next actions for all moving parts.

· Next actions—literally. What is the next physical activity that needs to be done to move the action forward? Place a call? Write an email? Approach someone to solicit help or resources?

· Decide who is going to be responsible for each next action, and how that person will report on its completion or lack of completion.

· Are there some things on which you must wait? What are they? How long should you wait?

· Is another meeting necessary?

· Set the date and time before leaving.

Some Thoughts:

· If what is needed is greater clarity, then move further up the scale (Purpose and Principles, Outcomes, Brainstorming). The less clarity, the higher up the chain. Revisiting Purpose and Principles regularly is an important practice. If you don’t know why you’re doing anything, then it doesn’t matter what you do.

· If, on the other hand, there’s too much spinning of wheels, move down the scale (Organizing and Next Actions). If you know what needs to be done but are spending too much time talking about it and not doing it, identify next actions. As Will Rogers said, “Plans get you into things but you’ve got to work your way out.”

A Reminder about the New Structure

New Terms:

• Leadership Coordination Ministry—formerly “Leadership Team”
• Ministry—(e.g., Worship Ministry, Nurture Ministry, etc.) formerly “Committees”

Purpose: Renaming organizational bodies ministries reorients the focus from organizational structure to ministry. Seen this way, the organizational structure exists to provide resources for ministry, rather than as an end in itself. Moreover, the Leadership Coordination Ministry exists to coordinate the ministries of the church, rather than to be responsible for initiating them.

Organizational Focus: Under the new by-laws adopted in Spring 2009, DBCC has organized itself with its chief focus on facilitating ministry. To do this the emphasis has shifted from organizational maintenance to ministry. We have put in place an organizational model that is responsive to the vision DBCC has for ministry—a model not concerned with filling spaces on the organizational chart, but with correctly discerning people’s gifts and providing the organizational structure to free them up to do ministry. The primary orientation, then, will be to seek ways to support and encourage ministry, rather than to put up roadblocks to it. Organizational structure seen in this light is to support the body just like a skeletal structure. It is vitally important, but it ought to be as imperceptible and unobtrusive as possible. It simply supports our mission; it is not the mission.