Beer w/ Jesus at North End Cafe tonight
It's beautiful outside . We're going to meet at North End across the street from the church. On the back patio at 6pm tonight.
Hope to see you all!
Sermon Podcast: The Teeth of the Storm (Matthew 14:22-33)
And if we're honest with ourselves, isn't that what we all seek—not so much that someone should come and calm every storm, smooth out every rough place, make it all better, but that when we reach out our hands into the black stillness of the darkest night, there will be someone there to take it?
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Camping Trip Update
"That's a lot of smoke."
As mentioned a few weeks ago, DBCC is going camping at Red River Gorge. It's only two weeks away. Here's the skinny:
What:
A cabin of fun people near Red River Gorge
Why:
Balderdash, hiking, sunsets, nature, campfires, grill fires, why not?, wiffle ball, pancakes, fireflies
Where:
When:
August 22-24; We will carpool from DBCC (2005 Douglass Blvd) at 5:30 on Friday, return mid-afternoon Sunday
Cost:
$75
What to bring:
We will provide food. There will be beds for everyone, but you are welcome to bring tents and sleeping bags if outside floats your boat. Comfortable shoes. Board games. Small rucksack if you are so inclined. Your best marshmallow roasting stick.
When:
August 22-24 (Friday-Sunday)
Facts:
- This cabin sleeps 32
- This is a large cabin
- We want you to come with us
- There will be enough space
Please consider coming with us. We promise it's worth it.
If you're interested, email Ben Carter, or call him at 502-509-3231.
Derek is signing books!
Our good pastor, Rev. Dr. Derek Penwell, wrote a book. And it's coming out August 15.
An honest-to-goodness published book. With a cover and everything! No more of this blogging business . . . okay just kidding, he's still blogging.
On August 17th from 4-6pm here at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, Derek will be signing copies of his book, The Mainliner's Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World. Wine, cheese, and good vibes will be provided.
Please come out and support Derek and congratulate him all the hard work that has gone into this huge achievement.
There will be copies of the book to purchase on the day of the signing. But if you'd prefer to purchase one of your own beforehand, you can preorder one at chalicepress.com.
If you'd like to find out more about Derek the author, or read a few excerpts from the book--you know, just to see if it's worth your time--check him out on his website, and on his author page of Facebook.
Sermon Podcast: The Kingdom of heaven is like ... (Matthew 13-31-33, 44-52)
Whatever the kingdom of heaven is going to end up looking like, it's certainly not going to be what we would have expected. It's going to start out small—almost invisible. And then it's going to grow inexorably larger. Huge. And it's going to be wild, untamed—and more than one person will call it merely an inconvenient, unfortunate weed. It's going to be all up in people's business.
What else is the kingdom of heaven going to look like? Well, you're going to find it in the weirdest, most out of the way place, buried beneath the notice of the cognoscenti—you know, the movers and shakers. It's not going to be on the front page, in the showrooms, 9:00 prime time. It's going to be out of the way, some crazy place nobody ever thought to look.
Wanna know what the kingdom of heaven is going to look like? It's going to look like crazy people who, rather than play the percentages, dump it all out on the table on nothing greater than a pair of twos. Not steady as she goes. Not keep her between the lines. Not slow and steady wins the race. The kingdom of heaven is going to look like mashing the pedal down, and trying to blow the doors off in search of something greater than the safe bet. And it's going to be worth everything you've got.
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Penwell's Law of Travel and Why Churches Need to Plan for Failure
Boy, howdy, do I get cranky on the first day of vacation!
For months I look forward to the time off. I do all that pre-vacation planning, thinking about how long we’ll drive each day, where we’ll stop to eat, the kind of hotel that can accommodate five people. I like the planning.
The packing, though? I don’t like the packing. In particular, I don’t like the “getting-out-of-the-house” part. It always takes exactly two hours longer to leave than I planned. There invariably seems to be one more thing that, if it gets left behind, will mean certain calamity—medicine, power cords, the six year-old’s nebulizer.
And I tend to take out my frustrations on my family. For the first hour in the car I’m a sullen jerk. I don’t want to be a jerk. Nobody wants me to be a jerk. But there I am privately (or if you ask my family, not so privately) seething about the fact that now we’re two hours behind my meticulously thought out schedule.
Except it’s not that meticulously thought out, is it? I never seem to factor in the two extra hours that, no matter how much we’ve packed and prepared the night before, it takes to get on the road. So, either because of my poor planning or my bad memory (or more likely, some combination of the two) my family has to start its time together with a Dad who blames everybody but himself for the late start and the bad mood he’s in.
It strikes me that often churches also start new journeys with much of the same kind of crankiness. Churches plan. The good ones plan some more. And the really good ones try to anticipate in advance the problems they’re sure to encounter along the way.
The problem, though, is that you can never anticipate all the wrinkles that will inevitably throw off your scrupulous preparations. No matter how methodical you are, you’re still going to leave your contact case behind.
Call it Penwell’s Law of Travel: No matter how hard you plan, you’re still going to leave something important behind, still going to wind up with a bad radiator thirty miles outside of Des Moines, still going to find yourself in a smoking room at the Holiday Inn Express (when you very clearly told the reservations manager that you have kids with asthma, and so cannot possibly take a smoking room).
A version of the same law applies to churches: No matter how hard you plan, you’re still going to have someone forget to remind the AA group that they can’t have the fellowship hall on Friday night when you launch your soup kitchen, still going to wind up forgetting to make sure that the heat gets turned up in plenty of time before the attendees show up for the new adult day care center and start complaining about how “it feels like a meat-locker in here,” still going to find yourself playing host to a surly group of young adults who are pretty sure somebody promised there’d be beer at the Bible study kick-off.
So, the question isn’t “Will something go wrong?” The question is “How are you going to respond when something goes wrong?”
Churches in decline tend to obsess over the accidents, the mistakes, the unforeseen misadventures. In fact, so afraid are they of mistakes, so undone are they by accidents that they will use the memories of those things as an excuse for never launching out into the unknown again.
Mistakes, to struggling churches, are viewed as an enemy and accidents as a moral failure of planning. The problem with undertaking a journey with these prejudices is that it fails to take into account Penwell’s law: something is going to go wrong, be forgotten, get busted, remain unappreciated. If you keep living as though it won’t, you set yourself up for frustration and crankiness.
Make peace with the fact that on any new journey, any new initiative someone or something will screw up in ways you failed to anticipate. Figure that into your planning—or at least your mental preparations—so that when it does happen you’re not thrown by it. Or worse, you’re scared out of packing up and taking the family someplace next time.
Indeed, you’ll never know success unless you learn to understand mistakes as a necessary part of the information gathering process. If you want to succeed, you have to be prepared for failure. It’s the law.
Look, nobody wants to travel with a sullen Dad. Even sullen Dads don’t like it that much. Believe me, I know.
AUDIBLE!
BEER W/ JESUS AUDIBLE:
Meet at North End Cafe, Highlands at 6pm!
We'll be on the patio in the rear.
New Roots cooks for DBCC
New Roots and DBCC would like to invite you to lunch this Sunday after church.
When: July 27th around 12:30pm
Where: DBCC Gym
Why: We'll be celebrating the work they are doing as well as hearing about how DBCC may be able to support their endeavors and other communal initiatives. Lunch will be prepared by a New Roots' Farmer and his family, but you're more than welcome to bring a dish to share. The menu will include meat loaf, fried chicken, (pork-free) collard greens, watermelon, etc., all from Barbour Farms in Hart County, KY.
The Outreach Committee of DBCC has met and prepared a proposal to begin a conversation about how the congregation can focus on outreach as part of our mission and identity. We’d like for you to read it and tell us what you think. We’ll talk about it during the lunch, but we’ll also have an opportunity to continue the conversation during Sunday School at 9:45am on August 10th and then again on August 17th. We’ll then have a congregational meeting AFTER church on August 17th to vote on the proposal.
This is an exciting time for DBCC! We’re glad you’re with us.
If you'd like to read our outreach proposal before Sunday, we're hosting a copy online:
Sermon Podcast: Therein Lies Our Hope (Romans 8:12-25)
See, I know some of your stories. I know where you’ve come from on the path to being who God wants you to be. You’re not self-made. God’s been busy working on you. Oh, you may not notice it much, but God’s busy being present to the world through you.
A little peace here, where the world expects only violence. A little forgiveness there, where the world expects only vindictiveness. A little love in a world of hate, a cup of cold water to someone who’s thirsty, a hand on the shoulder of someone who’s spent a life being bullied . . . and all a sudden, you’re a part of God’s ceaseless adventure to tip the world on its head.
Sermon Podcast: Crazy Farming (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)
So, the interesting question our Gospel raises this morning isn't about how you can turbocharge your spiritual life by becoming the right kind of soil. The really compelling question is: "What kind of crazy farmer are we talking about who walks around, ignoring the voice inside that says, 'Play it safe. Don't waste anything. Don't crawl out too far on any particular limb.'"—and instead just starts slinging seeds with holy and hopeful abandon?
Garage/ Yard/ Gym ... What-have-you Sale
We sold our books. Now it’s time to sell everything else. On July 26th, we’re having another garage sale.
Every year we sell some of the awesome stuff cluttering our attics and closets to fund our sorta-annual trip to San Luis Potosi.
Basically, you donate your sell-ables, and we make sure you never have to see them again. You know, for charity and such.
Bring all of your what-nots to the church starting Monday, July 20th. We’ll find a place to store it. We’ll soon be soliciting volunteers to help us work the setup, sale, and tear down. But, until then, just put in on your calendars.
Note: Please don't bring anything in until the week of July 20. Due to a lack of long term storage space, we can't guarantee the amount of space needed until then.
Sermon Podcast: A Come to Jesus Meeting (Matt. 11:16-19, 25-30)
Welcoming Rev. Mary Ann Lewis to the Pulpit!
I was struck by what seem to me almost a lullaby as I read the words of the passage over and over. When I was a kid, my family shared a lot of traditions---many of them couched in music. We could always count on one or two songs at the end of the day. Those songs did what lullabies do: provide comfort, soothe pain, offer a safe place to rest.
The invitation is to “Come”. Embraced by the “lullaby”, we are empowered to share ministry with others who have “come to the meeting” We hear the invitation to make a difference in the lives of the disenfranchised and oppressed, in relationships with those with whom we share life. Resting in the womb of God we find energy to work toward the becoming beloved community with a song for the new day.
Sermon Podcast: Even You're Welcome Here (Matthew 10:40-42)
When Jesus talks about welcome, about hospitality, he’s not concerned with drawing boundary lines to indicate just who’s eligible to receive it, he blows open the doors and invites everyone in. Trouble causing prophets, the subversive faithful followers, the little one ones—that is, the one’s usually on the outside of polite society with their noses pressed up against the glass wishing someone would ask them to come in—Jesus says, “Let ‘em all in. Don’t cross-reference the guest list; don’t check I.D.s at the door, don’t ask for the password and the secret handshake. Look them in the eyes, embrace them, and say, ‘You’re welcome here.’
Five Fears That Make Change Difficult and the Ways to Address Them
By Derek Penwell
She placed one more faded greeting card into the brown box she’d bought in a package of boxes from the U-haul place. Afterward, she taped the box and left it sitting for the custodian to collect. It needed to go upstairs to the attic with the other faded greeting cards, old swatches of fabric, and stray skeins of yarn.
As long as she could remember—which, being eighty-five, turned out to be a long time—there’d been a women’s circle. For generations it had existed as the heartbeat of mission and outreach in her congregation, the most active group by far—organizing, fundraising, cooking, sewing, comforting, loving, ministering. But not long ago she’d said goodbye to her last “partner in crime” at a nice, if sparsely attended, funeral bathed in blue and pink lights and smelling of lilies. And now, bitter as it tasted, she was admitting defeat.
Scrawled in Sharpie on the top of the box it said, “cards.” But one word could never do justice to all that she’d packed up for storage.
She’d insisted on doing it herself. After all, she knew not only what the boxes contained, but also what they represented. And she couldn’t quite bear the thought of turning over stewardship of that legacy quite yet.
So, as she mopped her brow, she thought of the old offertory sentence from the Book of Common Prayer, bidding us all “with gladness” to “present the offerings and oblations of our life and labor to the Lord.” Looking up from the Sharpie-marked carton, she decided it was with gladness that she offered up the offerings and oblations of the life and labor of dozens of strong women to the Lord.
But she also had to admit that, beyond the odd ambivalence of claiming this heritage with one arthritic hand and passing it on with the other, there was something else. Deep down beneath the cobwebs and the doilies, beneath the gratitude and the disappointment lived something perhaps even more elemental.
Fear.
Let’s be honest. She’s afraid … afraid all that work will get lost in the hurly-burly, afraid of irrelevance, afraid, as the song says, of being forgotten and not yet gone.
She lives in the fear that the young people who’re running things now will forget not only the things those women did, but more importantly the reason they did them.
But she doesn’t quite know how to say so much, afraid that there isn’t enough packing tape in the world to hold back what would break forth if she really stopped to talk about it. So, she expresses her fear the best she can.
When asked what’s wrong, she says: “Nobody seems to care about __ anymore.” [Fill in the blank: tradition, outreach, old people, young families, pastoral care, the neighborhood, the throw pillows my mother made, the Christmas Bazaar … me.]
If you listen closely, you can hear the quaver in the voice that reveals a trembling heart. The fear is so broad and unspecific, it’s hard to pin down. But it’s there. The anger, the reticence, the stubbornness often are merely a mask to hide the fear:
- I’m afraid that what we’ve done won’t be valued. I don’t want the things we cared so much about to be ridiculed, or worse, forgotten—as though what we valued isn’t worth anything. We worked so hard on these things. We planned and fretted and cried over this stuff. We spent hours polishing, mending, painting, storing, patching, and propping this stuff up. So, fine, maybe things don’t look so good anymore bathed in the harvest gold and avocado green of our memories. But a lot of the stuff we did worked. We just want someone to care that we cared. We know everything changes, and nothing lasts forever, but all we’re looking for is a little gentleness when it comes to the things we tried to pass on.
- I’m afraid that the choice to do a new thing is only a sneaky way of criticizing what we did. It feels like if you change it, if you stop doing it, if you throw it away, you’re denigrating what we did. Like it was stupid to think what we thought and care about the stuff we cared about. Change, as much as we don’t want it to, too often feels like censure.
- I’m afraid that the good we did will be undone through a lack of attention. If you young people don’t carry this on, we’re afraid that people will suffer. We really helped folks. It took a lot of time and energy to build the programs, organization, and physical structures we’re handing on to you. We’d like to know that you’ve at least tried to figure out how to make sure the people we helped continue to be helped, and that you’re not just walking away from an opportunity to make a difference in the world.
- I’m secretly afraid we made some bad decisions that will cripple the congregation/denomination moving forward. We bought it and now it’s an albatross. We sold it and now we need it back. We planted it; it died, and now we can never plant there again. We loved it and now it’s killing us. We didn’t welcome them when we had the chance and now they won’t have anything to do with us anymore.
- I’m just afraid that I’m going to wake up one day, and I won’t recognize this place anymore. We had a hand in shaping this, but now our fingerprints all seem to have been wiped off. We had a dream of the future, but what we have now doesn’t look anything like what we envisioned when we were in charge of mapping out the future.
If you want to make change, you need to address the underlying fear. And telling someone not to be afraid, or that they’re silly for being afraid, or that they should just trust you more isn’t addressing the underlying fear; it’s a lazy way of telling yourself that you’ve done everything you can.
If you think there are tough changes ahead, here are a few tips getting as many people on board as possible:
- Celebrate the past. Rehearse the history. Raise up the successes. Seek to understand the failures. Let people know that what they did was indispensable to bringing everything to this point where exciting opportunities mark the future. Let them know you value their contributions.
- Offer reassurances that the people and institutions that have been helped in the past will continue to be helped as you move into the future. Or, if you’re going to go in a different direction leaving certain things behind, identify what needs were being met and values were driving the passion of the old system. Then reframe the new system of changes using those needs and values as touchstones for the new work you want to do. (So, you’re not going to continue knitting Walkman holders for the kids going to college anymore. Fine. But be sure to emphasize the fact that the new pub night with the college students is just a continued attempt to show support for young people heading into uncertain times of transition.)
- Root change in story. Congregations and denominations are always telling stories about who they are and where they come from as a means of self-understanding. As you seek to tell a new story of where you’re headed, make certain to set it in the established narrative. In other words, make clear that changes aren’t a disruption of the story that’s always been told, but the logical extension of that same story moving into a different world. (So, you’re discussing becoming an Open and Affirming congregation or denomination, offering welcome to all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender expression. Fine. Name this as an issue of justice. Then tell the story about how you’ve always led on issues of justice—from civil rights, to support for undocumented workers, to equity for women, to your work for Habitat for Humanity or the soup kitchen or advocacy against payday lending. You get the point. Tell the story with change as part of the plot trajectory, and not as an attempt to set the old story aside in favor of a new one.)
Here’s the thing: It’s ok to box up old things and move on. But the kind of boxes you use, and the care with which you store them will make a big difference when you start unpacking the new stuff.
DBCC is going camping!
After DBCC's initial and epic (EPIC!) foray into the wilderness in March, we are returning to the Red River Gorge area on the weekend of August 22-24. We have reserved Pine Crest Lodge and Camp.
Last time, we filled the weekend with lots of board games, hikes, pancakes, and grill fires. This time, the plan includes more hiking and pancakes. Fewer grill fires.
Friends and family are welcome!
The final price of the weekend will depend on how many people go on the trip, but it will not be less than $75 or more than $100 per person.
Reserve your place by contacting Ben Carter: notbencarter@gmail.com or 502-509-3231.
Book Sale this Saturday
We're selling our books again.
The sale will be on Saturday, June 21 from 10am - 2pm during the Farmers Market. The books will be in the gym for you to peruse.
Paperbacks will be $1—hardbacks $2.
It's really a great deal and there are always some good finds. The folks in our congretaion have some pretty impressive personal libraries to contribute. And all of the proceeds go toward our trip to San Luis Potosi, Mexico in the fall!
If you'd like to contribute some of your books to the cause, bring them to the church this week during office hours.
Meet us at Shenanigan's!
Beer w/ Jesus & Friends is at Shenangians at 6pm. See you there!
'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Auditions July 1st
The first ever production of the Douglass Blvd. Christian Church Drama Geeks will be a production of William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Auditions will be held on Tuesday, July 1 from 6pm-9pm. Applicants can either choose an excerpt below, or prepare a monologue of their own choosing.
If you have any questions, concerns, or would like to make an appointment besides the times listed, feel free to call the stage manager, Simon Isham, at 502-407-2452.
We hope to see you there!
Audition Excerpts
HERMIA
Lysander riddles very prettily: Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied. But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy Lie further off; in human modesty, So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend: Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
DEMETRIUS
You do impeach your modesty too much, To leave the city and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not; To trust the opportunity of night And the ill counsel of a desert place With the rich worth of your virginity.
OBERON
Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing then she waking looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, She shall pursue it with the soul of love: And ere I take this charm from off her sight, As I can take it with another herb, I'll make her render up her page to me.
PHILOSTRATE
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, Which is as brief as I have known a play; But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, Which makes it tedious; for in all the play There is not one word apt, one player fitted: And tragical, my noble lord, it is; For Pyramus therein doth kill himself. Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess
HIPPOLYTA
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy: And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind. But with thy brawls, thou hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, Have sucked up from the sea contagious fogs;
PUCK
If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
QUINCE
If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Consider then we come but in despite. We do not come as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight, We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand and by their show You shall know all that you are like to know.
BOTTOM
That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes: I will move storms. I will condole in some measure. The rest yet, my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play Hercules rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks And shivering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far And make and mar...the foolish Fates." That was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.
LYSANDER
I am, my lord, as well derived as he, As well possessed; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly ranked, If not with vantage, as Demetrius'; And, which is more than all these boasts can be, I am beloved of beauteous Hermia: Why should not I then prosecute my right?
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander. And my gracious duke, He hath bewitched the bosom of my child; Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchanged love-tokens with my child: Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice verses of feigning love, And stolen the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart, Turned her obedience (which is due to me) To stubborn harshness.
HELIOS (formerly Helena. to be male for this production)
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can, Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, But you must flout my insufficiency? Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do, In such disdainful manner me to woo. But fare you well: perforce I must confess I thought you lord of more true gentleness. O, that a lady, of one man refused. Should of another therefore be abused!
Sermon: For the Common Good (1 Corinthians 12:4-13)
Pentecost Sunday
Paul is arguing here for the appreciation of diversity that makes up the body of Christ, which is a way of arguing from the back side that the purpose of the body is to live and thrive—not merely to satisfy the toe or the elbow, not merely to give me unlimited opportunities to display my gifts, to fine-tune my soul. The body flourishes when the widest possible diversity is welcomed.
Happy Birthday, Church.
Summer. It begins . . .
LCA last week. JCPS today. School is OUT.
It's summertime, y'all.
For students and teachers, hope has sprung anew. Flowers are more fragrant. The sun warms the soul, for you have seen a new heaven and a new earth.
For local Highlands businesses and neighborhood assocaitions, watching as the oncoming herd of teens top the horizon, perspective changes . . .
And the rest of us will just spend a few months of feeling like our city sits directly inside a closed mouth.
But for tonight, it's BEAUTIFUL out there. Let's all enjoy this one, eh?