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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

What is the purpose of the church?

Today we got into a pretty heated discussion in one of my classes about what should have been simple, the observance of the three simple rules: do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. We only got through the first two rules. Why? Because some people think they are so unrealistic that we shouldn't even try. What type of Church is that going to lead to? By the grace of God we at least need to try. The decrepited state of some of our relationships screams this at us.

Of course during the course of the discussion the topic of loving others came up. Some said that we need to limit our love towards others so that it doesn't harm us. Aparently I missed this rule in my "How to be a Good Christian" handbook. The conversation continued to the point where it was concluded that we need the church to hold us accountability for our love towards others.

That didn't sit very well for me. I've put myself in more than one dangerous situation when I was pouring love out to others. And there were pleanty of people who protested, but in the end I did it anyway. Sometimes other's fears get in the way of their hearts. We need to let love guide our actions, love towards others and love towards our neighbors.

And now we get to the kicker. The point was then presented and elaborated upon that sometimes we need to please the congergation in order to keep money flowing in so the church can at least help someone. So if the church has ill feelings towards helping someone (like hurricane victims or AIDS patients) because they are different then "us" then just don't help them if its going to cost you attendance and income.

What is the point of the church then? An eltisit organization which picks and chooses who to love by their class and comfortbility? I would like to point out that Acts 2 helped pleanty of people without a working income or budget. We need to stop having an us vs. them mentality in the church and live in solidarity with all people. No concerns with money. No cocnerns with limiting our love to those who we deem worthy. Love was given freely by God and thus should be freely given to all people.

Because we are LOVED!

Bagpipes

Is there an instrument that sounds the voice of morning and celebration as well as the bagpipes? Yesterday I was awoken at the sound of bagpipes at the church across the street, where they continued for almost three and a half hours through the full course of the funeral service. The bagpipes seemed to mirror both the sound of hope and dispear the mourners were feeling.

Contrastingly, bagpipes were used to usher in my graduation processional at Houghton. A sound of triumph and joy. Of an end to one chapter of our lives and a start of a new period.

So I repeat, is there an instrument that sounds so much emotion as well as the bagpipes?

Monday, September 29, 2008

Heresy

In some, well most, of my seminary classes we have been discussing heresy. I'm finding that it is not as easy to recognize heresy as I once thought, especially since so many of the Early Church Fathers perscribed to it in one form or another. It wasn't even a concept until the 3rd centuary, and at that point was read back on to history. I found myself asking in one of my precept groups, why does heresy even matter? Can't we just agree to disagree like different denomiations today?

A few nights after I posed this question I had a horrific nightmare in which a very large group of people I know were gathered in a lecture hall where a woman who had just bought the school was explaining the contract we now had to sign to go there. Essentially, the sum of her stance was Jesus never lived, Jesus never died, Jesus won't come again. Out of the hundreds of people in the classroom only six of us (myself included) refused to sign the document. Everyone looked at us like we were throwing our lives away and many said that we just weren't tolerant. At the end of the dream we were persecuted for our lack of flexibility and toleration.

Upon reflecting on this dream, I realized why heresy is an important issue to the church. The web of doctorines (ie what Chrisians believe) is very fragile because so many things are linked together. If you change one doctorine, all of the others will transform as well. Yes, we should be able to enter into dialogue with other people of different beliefs about what they hold dear, but first we must know what we believe, both as individuals but also in the coporate sense of the Church. If not, we won't be able to say what truly matters or why, this making faith inconsequentual.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Knowing Yourself

In our view of aliments, we tend to be negative as a culture. And rightly so. But at the same time, there are some benefits to having something wrong with you, or at least something that doesn't function the same way as it does for everyone else. For me, I find that abnormalities make me be aware of my body a lot more diligently then most. For example, I know that if I fast for too long and get blood drawn (in a certain quantity) I get ill. Or if I don't sleep or eat for a period of time then I get ill. I even have a good estimate of how much fat and oil my body can handle in one day. Yet, health professionals don't really listen to any of that, because what could I know? They went to school. I've only lived with my body and all of its qwarks for 22 years.

As I thought about how dismissals of my self-knowledge make me feel, I realized that pastors all too often do the same thing, dismissing people for having incorrect readings of scripture, just because they don't match ours, when really God could be saying something meaningful to the person dis-missed through the passage. May this new generation of pastors, help people discover themselves deeper by listening to all of their wealth of self-knowledge. May we not judge. May we guide with grace.

Giving Life

I'm taking part of a seminary pilot program called Fit to Lead which focuses on re-structuring the United Methodist stance towards total health and well being, mostly because the denomination as a whole is doing horribly. We had our first 3 hour FTL meeting this past Friday, of which there will be four throughout the course of the year. Each will have a different speaker (and emphasis). This first session focused on reframing our view of health in order to give life (ie not only look at the negatives but look at our own assests and hopes along with those of the community we belong to. It had the potential to be a wonderful topic and discussion, but sadly the presenter himself was very critical, to the point of being demeaning. It was hard to affirm what he was saying about giving life, when his own tone and attitude towards others (and I would say humanity in general) was so poor. It made me think a lot about myself and others whom I know are entering the ministry who suffer with the same critically harsh tongue. If we are truly to be God's life giving agents we need to have God transform our speech to make it affirming and even in our rebukes letting ourselves devalue people, because they are God's beautiful and wonderfully made creation. If we love the Holy One we should not attack his handmade, for like an Artist they are a reflection of him or her.



As a closing thought: Is it dangerous of the Church to uplift people to positions of teaching they are not qualified for? What are the risks and benefits?

Friday, September 26, 2008

Communion Pt 2

A few weeks ago during communion juice bounced out of the challice while I was dipping the bread (intinction) and splashed on my hands. Now depending on where you stand on the meaning of and disposal of the elements, this could be anything from a minor glitch to a disaster. However, as I stared at my juice covered hands, I realized that Christ's blood really does stain my hands. Something that most of us need to be reminded of once in a while.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Now Versus Then

My roommate, Donna, said something that intrigued me the other day: she isn't cooking to be a good wife later, she's cooking to be a good friend now.
How often do we engage in activities strictly for the future? Why are you at seminary? To be a pastor in a few years. That's just as bad as learning to cook or sew to be a Proverbs 31 wife later. No we engage to enrich life now. We cook now to share with other now. We cook to take care of ourselves - because it's nice to know what's going into your body. And we learn now to enrich our thoughts, theology, and relationships NOW.
It's not about the future, its about living fully presently now.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Communication

I've been driving a lot in the past two days. Driving that much gave me time to notice things - chiefly that people sometimes, more then they should, forget to use their turn singles. The results lead to confusion and near accidents. As I reflected on this I realized that we tend to do the same thing in communication with others. We may know what we want to say and what we mean, just like we know we are turning left or right, but when we speak in a curt tone of voice the entire message could be lost, just as if we forgot to indicate our intentions about taking a turn in the car. We really need to accuratley signal to others what we are thinking by speaking in respectful tones so our message isn't muddled.

Monday, September 1, 2008

God's Hand

If I can say anything about my experience at Drew thus far it would be that God's hand is at work. He has woven together all of my past experiences from Houghton, to Russia, to Israel, to Clearfield and Pittsburgh and Melbourne, all together in this beautifully complex way, where I wouldn't have adjusted to Drew as well without.
Pittsburgh taught me independance, Melbourne to explore, recycle, and cook. And Houghton, well Houghton has been such a blessing not only academically, but the demeaner of people on Drew's campus is similar, to greet those whom you walk by instead of looking forward and down as you do in the city. And Houghton got me a job today, where ironically the person I was interviewing with had graduated from. God is soooo good! May we all see his hand at work and give him glory where glory is due!