an open and affirming community of faith
n open and affirming community where faith is questioned and formed, as relationships are made and upheld.
The Leo Weekly Readers' Choice Awards announces what we've all known for some time: the Douglass Loop Farmers Market (a ministry of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church) is the best farmers market in Louisville.
Thank you to The Leo and everyone who voted!
Saturday, October 26th
4-6 p.m.
at Douglass Blvd. Christian Church
2005 Douglass Blvd.
Come on out for a fun, candy-filled afternoon.
We thought the safest place to be . . . would be . . . to be . . . where we’d been . . . where we used to be.
We thought if we could just recapture what was here before, we’d be able to handle what was happening now.
The message of Jeremiah, however, is that the safest place to be is the place where God has placed us—which is to say, where God has made a place for us.
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"As someone who loves the church, I am saddened by the perception of Christianity as a vehicle of moral control and good behavior, rather than a haven for the discouraged and dying. It is high time for the church to remind our broken and burned out world that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a one-way declaration that because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak; because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose; because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail."
~WILLIAM GRAHAM TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN
Join us for our first Sunday evening Concert in the Park. Bring a chair, cooler and your friends!
WHEN: 10/20/13
WHERE: Briney Circle
TIME: 5-7 p.m.
Sponsored by: Douglass Blvd. Christian Church
Remarks by Derek Penwell at the public dedication of Woodbourne House on September 30, 2013.
Generally speaking, when the church makes news something’s gone horribly wrong. Some group of Christians, brandishing bullhorns and grammatically dubious placards has elbowed its way into our living rooms by way of the cable news channels to inform us about what worthless reprobates we really are because we don’t believe _____ (X), or because we’re way too lenient when it comes to the issue of _____ (Y).
Then there are the scandals. We’ve witnessed too many shocking improprieties—sexual and financial—to deny it.
Christians have demonstrated an uncanny ability to avoid living up to what they say they believe. This kind of hypocrisy … of over-selling and under-delivering on our faith has rightly caused people to question our commitments.
Those folks who claim to follow Jesus need now, more than ever, to start living like he lived; which is to say, they need to start loving the people Jesus loved.
Of course, he loved everybody, but he had a special place in his heart for those living closest to the edge, those separated from the chaos of destitution by the thinnest of margins.
The author of 1 John says it well:
“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:17-18).
Here at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church—beginning with the leadership of Lively Wilson—we’ve been asking ourselves over the past few years how we—who’ve been blessed with “the world’s goods”—can use what we have to offer life, and love, and justice to those whom Jesus loves. We’ve taken to viewing the resources we’ve been given as tools to be used to love people—not as artifacts to be curated in a museum.
We have this wonderful location, these beautiful buildings. Why not use them for others? Why not give them away?
I’m talking about seeing these resources as gifts that we can share with the community, not as heirlooms be covered in plastic and stored in mothballs. The buildings churches maintain are hammers—if they’re not being used to pound nails, they’re just decorations in a lovely toolshed.
And here’s the thing: If your church building is a tool, and if you spend more time polishing and oiling the stuff in your toolbox than actually making things—it is altogether appropriate for people on the outside to wonder whether you are a carpenter or merely a tool collector.
Woodbourne House is an instantiation of the belief that we’ve been given gifts—not so that we can keep them, but so that we can give them away in the service of loving those people whom Jesus loves.
Woodbourne House is our modest attempt at DBCC to extend the history and to honor the tradition of this faith community by giving to seniors in need of low cost senior housing from “the world’s goods” with which we’ve been blessed.
It is, finally, our effort to love “in truth and action,” and not just in “word or speech.”
An article about the amazing contributions of Volunteers of America, headed up by our favorite CEO, Janie Burks.
Our very own attorney of awesomeness, Ben Carter, in Business First! Click on the link to read more about Ben's decision to go into solo practice.
"Jesus’ point is this: No matter what bible passages you use to excuse yourself, no matter how many televangelists tell you that God only wants a new Cadillac for you, no matter how insulated you remain from the cries of Lazarus one simple reality cannot be changed: The reign of God does not exist where some do not eat.
"We want to welcome everybody to the table—but we’d sure appreciate it if they'd clean up some before they get here.
"We like the idea of welcoming, of being in solidarity with those beat too far down to get back up—but we’d feel a whole lot better about everything if we could tell whether they genuinely deserve the help or if they’re just trying to scam the system.
"It’s tough. We don’t have riots in the streets at this point, but we know that we live right smack-dab in the middle of a world where some have and some do not."
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For immediate release:
September 26, 2013
Historic Woodbourne landmark site on Douglass Boulevard is restored and to be rededicated as $3.1 million housing and senior services center
(Louisville, Ky.) In a joint announcement, New Directions Housing Corporation and Douglass Boulevard Christian Church announce the redevelopment and adaptive reuse of Woodbourne House (formerly known as Briney Hall) at 2005 Douglass Boulevard.
Built in 1836 by Starks Fielding, the house was among the first 1,000 brick homes in the region and its 200-acre property originally included Big Rock in Cherokee Park. The property was acquired by George Douglass after the Civil War, whose daughter later donated acreage and Big Rock to Cherokee Park. For 10 years beginning in 1939, Rugby University School operated at the site. Broadway Christian Church, later Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, acquired a large part of the original tract in 1936 and built their current place of worship at 2005 Douglass Boulevard in 1940. In 1949, the church rededicated the historic home as Briney Hall. It was in continuous use until 2005.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer noted that “the challenge of this point in Louisville’s march forward is in finding new purpose for buildings threatened by vacancy and no neighborhood is exempt from the necessary collaborations needed to forge new uses and meaning for such places as Woodbourne House.”
He continued, “That this much-loved place will be home to 11 seniors, continue the Farmers’ Market tradition and welcome others to daily senior activities is the hallmark of Louisville’s compassionate way of life. This is a triple win.”
New Directions Housing Corporation is a nonprofit community development corporation founded in 1969 by members of Saint William Church. New Directions owns and manages almost 1,000 units located in 97 historic buildings located across Metro Louisville. The agency recently marked the 20th Anniversary of Kentuckiana Repair Affair, a volunteer-driven home repair initiative. This summer, New Directions also co-developed the 1321 Community Inspiration Garden in Midtown, New Albany with Saint John Presbyterian Church and completed the 12-unit Wellspring Tonini Apartments at the historic Tonini Building in Phoenix Hill.
Resources assembled for the $3.1 million development include a $190,000 US HUD planning grant followed by a $1.2 million HUD Section 202 capital advance; Kentucky Historic Tax Credits and National Historic Tax Credits that yielded equity of $98,524 and $283,113 respectively; national Low Income Housing Tax Credits awarded by Kentucky Housing Corporation enabling $1,122,000 in equity investment, and grants from Louisville Metro Government ($180,000); Douglass Boulevard Christian Church ($40,000) and nearby neighbors ($13,000.) Construction financing and equity investment came from Stock Yards Bank & Trust. The development team included Bosse Mattingly Constructors and Architect Robert Haffermann with the firm K Norman Berry & Associate Architects.
The primary benefit to residents, now and into the future, is a multi-year HUD Section 202 operating subsidy that enables seniors of very low income to affordably access this housing.
New Directions Chief
Executive Officer Joe Gliessner outlined the need for more senior housing.
“For every unit, there are five applicants, and the need for such housing is
growing as agencies like
New Directions seek resources to provide for people in need while repurposing
vacant properties, in partnership with great institutions like Douglass
Boulevard Christian Church.”
For more information contact:
The Reverend Dr. Derek Penwell
Senior Minister, Douglass Boulevard Christian Church
Cell: (502) 452-2629 / (502) 641-9779
Lisa D. Thompson
Chief Operating Officer,
New Directions Housing Corporation
Cell: 502-396-5111 / 502-719-7106
"The crimes against the powerless Amos lays out aren't just a few rotten apples. The crimes Amos names are institutionalized; they're accepted as part of the fabric of the society—you know, just the way things are.
"In other words, there are good church-going people who know what's going on—those who see the injustice being perpetrated on the helpless—and yet who remain silent. The big crime isn't just that greedy people are cheating the poor—that's nothing new—but that there are average people who know about it, and who ought to know better, but who stand by and let it happen anyway.
"God's putting the whole country on notice. It'd be nice to avoid blame by saying, 'It's those shady grain sellers, those dang pawn shop brokers, those lousy chaff vendors.' Unfortunately, that kind of abuse requires—if not the explicit endorsement—then the quiet approval of the community.
"That is to say, Amos calls out the whole country for turning its back on the poor."
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"The cost of discipleship is pretty steep. As Bonhoeffer said, if you accept the invitation to Jesus’ party, you don’t have to wander around looking for a cross to bear—there’s one waiting for you with your name already on it.
"Why? Because experience tells us that the cost of inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind to the party is extraordinarily high. You go out on a limb for those folks whom everybody else says aren’t worth the effort and somebody might just come along behind you and saw it off.
"But we who follow Jesus can’t avoid doing the right thing, because somebody already crawled out on that limb for us and had it sawed off behind him. That’s what it costs. So how much choice do we really have?"
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By David Sprawls
"God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor." — Rousseau
I was watching a news story on television with my son. The story was from Southeast Asia and presented predictable issues: exploitation, abuse, oppression, injustice. My son said: "Dad, there's proof that there is no God." He is right.
There is no God who functions for the convenience of human beings.
There is no God who descends ex deus machina to set right that which we view as wrong.
There is no God who fulfills the job description humans create for God.
None of this is the same as saying there is no God. If anyone says this means there is no God worthy of our worship, attention or consideration, I cannot argue with them. If anyone says this means there is no God who could be relevant to them, I cannot argue with them. But what the insistence on a God who meets the believer's (non-believer's) criteria reflects is humanity's insatiable appetite for small gods. Insisting on a god who functions the way a human thinks the god should boils down to the human creating god, rather than the other way around.
Any rational human being should look at the evil, suffering and injustice in the world and doubt the existence of a just, loving, caring God. But denying the existence of such a God is myopic. It reflects mankind's endless, constant and irresistible quest for a small god. A god small enough to fit between our ears. A god who is comprehensible. A god who is without mystery.
The God whose existence I doubt but in whom I am convicted with faith is mysterious and incomprehensible. Although this God is almost a complete mystery to me, I am blessed with convictions regarding my relationship with this God, what that relationship calls me to do and how it calls me to live. This faith is a blessing. I am not under the illusion it is a personal virtue.
If we are to move forward, what the church really needs are innovative lay people; willing to adopt, suggest, and try new things. When a lay person puts forth a new idea and builds their group of advocates (early adopters), their innovation, particularly if it challenges the church culture, will still hit Moore’s chasm. The difference however is that now the pastor is free to insert their authority and influence to help good ideas to bridge this gap. And when they do so, they also create goodwill and affirm the gifts of their laity to boot.Our churches need, desperately, to become places of change. While the occasional new idea from the pastor can be good modeling, the pastor that innovates continuously sucks the air out of the church and leaves no room for innovation elsewhere. Our churches would be better served by clergy who excelled at creating and nurturing cultures of innovation.
I would expect that some might say that this sentiment is nice but they know, or serve, churches where creating a culture of innovation is impossible. Where we find this to be true we should be quick to lock the doors and shutter the windows. Before we do this however, we should consider that there is a difference between a church that continuously rejects its pastor’s new ideas and one that refuses to create their own when given a chance.
But in this story from Luke Jesus puts the lie to the notion that faith is best expressed in terms of "having a personal relationship with Jesus." This is a story about politics, about the ways we arrange all of our relationships . . . personal and otherwise.
This is a story, not about the lofty things that might otherwise occupy our religious reflection. This is an ordinary story about people, and lunch, and guest lists, and who gets invited, who gets left out, and why.
This is a story about how Jesus turns our world on its head, putting the first class folks at the back of the plane with pretzels and that little over head compartment that only has enough room for a couple of blankets and a fire extinguisher . . . while the folks who spend their lives sitting in the middle seat between the snorer and the salesman from Des Moines get ushered up to the front.
This is a story not just about how big our welcome has to be if we follow Jesus, but about how crazy and unrealistic it's going to appear to the rest of the world when we roll it out.
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I remember getting my first ministerial call as I prepared to graduate from seminary. Small town in the heart of Appalachia. The church was beautiful, a traditional Protestant downtown county seat kind of church.
The parsonage was nice … big. It had a large yard with an enormous swing set, new landscaping in the front. And to complete the perfect vocational/domestic idyll, the parsonage sat across the street from the fourth tee at the country club—to which the church bought me a membership.
So, back at the seminary I told my buddies about it … saving the country club part for last. Let’s be honest I was bragging. Looking back, I’m not proud of it. I was twenty-six and insensitive in that obnoxious way young people who figure they’ve got the world by the tail can be.
My pride didn’t even make it through that first conversation with my friends at seminary, however. Because after I finished recounting the glories of my new job, complete with the country club audio tour I wanted so badly to share, one of my friends, Marcus, spoke up and said, “Are you going to take that membership?”
I thought surely this must be a rhetorical question, because … really? Are you nuts? Of course, I’m taking it.
“Good for you. But let me ask you something: Can I come visit you at your new church?”
“You’reracis my friend. Of course.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. Let me ask you another question: If you take me to play golf at your country club, will they let me play? Or will I have to caddy for you?”
Hearing those words hurt my heart. Marcus was my friend. So, it never occurred to me that a country club anywhere, including the South, might accept me but not my African-American friend.
LIke most middle class white kids, it never much occurred to me that a world of injustice exists, one that thrives beneath the horizon of my awareness. I knew about instances of unfairness, but it never occurred to me that those instances were connected on a deeper level.
But what struck me about Marcus’ question—beyond the fact that we still lived in a country where African-Americans could be refused access because of something as uncontrollable as the happenstance of birth—was my casual assumption that if I wasn’t being hurt by it, then nobody was.
For a couple of weeks we’ve watched as the implications of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman fiasco unfold. Without rehashing all the details, it seems clear that Trayvon Martin’s race was more than just a coincidental factor in the confrontation that led to his death.
It would be easy for me to chalk this whole tragedy up to the problem with Stand-your-ground laws, which, as Walter Breuggemann has rightly pointed out, should be unthinkable to Christians—inviting violence as these laws do.
I could very easily look past this case as merely another instance of the breakdown of civility, another rending of the social fabric through an insistence that my life is more important than yours.
But I have dear sisters and brothers who, themselves African-American, see this case as just another illustration of how injustice is embedded in our society. And because they are my sisters and brothers, I have a responsibility to add my voice to theirs in drawing attention to a system that regularly puts a thumb on the scales of justice, disadvantaging people of color.
It doesn’t affect me, though, right? I wasn’t shot. I’m white. I’m generally not in danger of inviting violence because of how I look.
The popular assumption seems to be that we have varieties of injustice, complete with interest and advocacy groups for each. Which interest and advocacy groups dedicate themselves to seeking redress and reform for their particular cause. You take care of your stuff, because I’ve got my hands full taking care of my own.
In such a world, I need not be concerned so much with Trayvon Martin for two reasons: 1) I’m not African-American, so his death doesn’t seem to affect my world, and 2) there are already competent and passionate interest groups taking up his cause.
But beyond the laziness of such casual assumptions about somebody else doing the heavy lifting, the problem with thinking that I don’t have a responsibility to speak out about the racism baked into the American cake is a reality we don’t often name: racism isn’t a thing unto itself, but an expression of the larger problems of injustice and oppression committed by those in power against those who too often don’t have a voice. And that, my friends, affects us all … whether we realize it or not.
“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you,’” (1 Cor. 12:21) is how Paul says it.
I cannot say to my African-American sisters and brothers, “I have no responsibility for you.”
I cannot say to my Hispanic sisters and brothers, “I know they’re ripping your families apart through deportation; I know they’re slandering your character, calling you unspeakable things for having committed the ‘crime’ of seeking to make a better life for those you love—but you should have thought of that before you crossed the border.”
I cannot say to my LGBT sisters and brothers, “I know you’ve felt like everybody’s favorite punching bag (sometimes literally); I know some of you are living on the streets or dying because you can no longer bear the hateful world we’ve made for you, but I’m straight, so I’ve got no dog in this fight.”
I cannot say to my sisters, “I know many of you live in fear that you’ll attract the unwanted attention of violent men; I know that you have to work harder to find a job that will pay you what you’re worth (or as is the case in my profession, that you’ll find a job at all), but you just need to quit being so ‘sensitive.’”
I cannot say to my sisters and brothers who live in other parts of the world, “I know that many of you cower in your homes, afraid of American bombs falling out of the sky; I know that you shrink behind locked doors, waiting for armed men to come crashing through; but if you’d have been smart enough to have been born in our country, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”
I cannot say to my sisters and brothers without housing or adequate healthcare, “I know you worry about how you’ll make it through, but you’re just going to have to quit being lazy and get a job.”
It’s not enough for me to look after my own interests. It’s not enough for me to remain ignorant of the pain others experience. We’re connected in ways that make injustice a problem for all of us.
And if you follow Jesus, if you seek to participate in the unfolding reign of God, you don’t get to choose which injustices you care about. Racism, being anti-immigrant, homophobia, sexism, militarism, poverty … these are all presenting symptoms of the much larger disease of injustice that is at odds with what God desires for those whom God created and loves.
Here’s the thing: Since I happen to be an activist for a particular cause, I can too easily forget that I have sisters and brothers suffering from different forms of injustice to whom I need to offer my support. But they ought to be able to count on me to stand by their side … even if the issue doesn’t affect me directly. Because if I claim to follow Jesus, then—all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding—it does.
According to Paul, when you run headlong into the wall of oppression and injustice, I get bruises too.
I think Marcus would agree with me.
Fred Clark writes:
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee proves yet again that the 1980s buzz-phrase “politically correct” still exists only as a disingenuous qualifier to preface an expression of palpable bigotry. It’s just a slightly broader way of saying, “I’m not a racist, but …”
After warning his radio audience last Monday that he was about to say something not “politically correct,” Huckabee said:
Can someone explain to me why it is that we tiptoe around a religion that promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet in their so-called ‘holiest days,’” Huckabee said. “You know, if you’ve kept up with the Middle East, you know that the most likely time to have an uprising of rock throwing and rioting comes on the day of prayer on Friday. So the Muslims will go to the mosque, and they will have their day of prayer, and they come out of there like uncorked animals — throwing rocks and burning cars.
"Animals.” Huckabee’s word — a word that is literally dehumanizing. Mike Huckabee doesn’t want you to think he’s a bigot. He just wants you to know that he sees himself as superior to more than a billion people whom he regards as sub-human. Huckabee thinks it would be unfair for you to twist that into making him out to be a bigot.
Continue reading at Slacktivist . . .
From the LCA Web site:
We are excited to announce that Louisville Classical Academy has moved to the Highlands and will open on schedule in August, 2013. The new campus is located at 2005 Douglass Boulevard, directly across from Heine Brothers, Graeter's Ice Cream, and North End Cafe. Want to visit? Reach us by email or at (502) 228-7787 to schedule an appointment. We'd love to show off the new space. In the meantime, find us on Facebook!
