Saturday, July 7, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Becoming an Innovative Church!
As part of our ongoing mission and call, we want to be Sacred Space for the City. And in that posture toward the people and neighborhoods around us, we are curious about innovative forms of ministry and mission that are happening within our larger Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) denomination and in other churches and community groups. We are also interested in questions being asked around us - by those who have a faith commitment and by those who do not.
We have much to learn from everyone!
Here are some commentaries. We hope that they will call us anew to be an innovative, creative church that meets the needs of people around us!
Insights from Brian McLaren
What is Your Vision for the Church in the 21st Century?
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Why Seminary Debt is Killing Our Clergy
There is conversation going on at general assembly about capping the salaries of our pastors. they show this graphic and cite that we are being paid too highly. However, the injustice here is not what the graph shows but what it does not.
We have one of the hardest ordination processes in Protestantism. The amount of education required to become ordained disqualifies most people from even attempting the process. Those that are wealthy can pay their way through (they are few and far between) those who are brave take on student debt trusting in the call that God has placed in their lives.
The result for me is 100,000 in debt. Well technically it is a little more than that but I will let that nice round number sink in because it is not unreasonable. (Yes I have worked part time through the whole process but part time at a small church does not pay much.) The impact of student debt effects me and my choice for future calls.
On average I will face 2-18 months of crushing student debt payments with no means to pay. I am not allowed to look for a job until I graduate. The average search for a first call is 6-24 months. I can get 6 months worth of debt deferment. For every five pastors seeking a call there is one position open.
I am in no position to get married. I live life on a lean budget. I have a girlfriend of over two years that I love. We talk about marriage but I cannot afford a ring let alone be a financial contributor to a marriage. Furthermore, I have no idea where I might be called. Am I going to marry her only to move out of the area only to have neither of us have a job?
I can not seek a call that is innovative, experimental. The innovative stuff is fledgling. It starts small. Church planting, missional outreach, things of this nature are important but they do not pay much. I know that we as pastors are supposed to be people of principal but student debt encourages pragmatism.
The calls I do receive I will live in fear of being fired. Let's be blunt for a moment. Being a pastor can be tough. This is especially true in a denomination set on its ways. I am more likely to tempted to appease the status quo (which is resulting in a dying congregation) because I have bills that need to be paid.
So yes, we may be the highest paid on average. But we have a lot of debt to pay off. If you are a twitter person who feels similarly tell your story #ga220 #debt.
I will leave you with a question. Could it be that we are having trouble with the decline of our church because we are setting our pastors up to fail?
How much debt is it just to ask of seminarians and how are we working as a denomination to help people stay within those boundaries?
-David Derus
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Young Adults in the News!
You Are Not Special Commencement Speech From Wellesley High School
Open Letter from a Millennial: Quit Telling Us We're Not Special
Young Adults Choose Cities Over Suburban Living as 'Generation Rent' Faces Tough Economy
Monday, July 2, 2012
Following General Assembly
Commissioners and delegates will consider and vote upon a number of issues. A few of these considerations are controversial, particularly the possibility of divestment from some companies that do business in Israel and an overture that would allow for clergy to wed same-sex couples in states where it is legal to do so.
The Rev. Neal Presa has been elected to serve as the Moderator for General Assembly for the next two years. Our thoughts and prayers are with him, with those who are serving at GA, and with the wider denomination.
Today we offer some links to help you follow what is happening at General Assembly:
Real Time: Twitter Hashtag #ga220
Live Video Streaming
Neal Presa Elected as Moderator
Divestment
Presbyterian Divestment Propostal Spurs Heated Debate
Middle East Committee Votes to Divest, Encourages "Peaceful Pursuits" Investments in Israel and Palestine
Marriage
Civil Union and Marriage Issues
Live Blog: Civil Union and Marriage Committee
Sermon: Jesus Notices
“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Desperate, Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet.
Jairus was likely overwhelmed to the
point of exhaustion and helplessness, but he kept going and kept pleading
because he was desperate. His precious
little girl – only 12 years old – was in his words,” at the point of death.” We only hear two sentences from Jairus, but
they’re packed with desperation. “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she
may be made well, and live.” Just two
sentences. But perhaps we can imagine the
urgency in Jairus’s voice as he spoke to Jesus, because the text also tells us
that while he was lying on the ground at Jesus’ feet, Jairus was begging Jesus
repeatedly. Jesus had compassion at the
first word, but we can imagine the desperation in Jairus’s voice. Perhaps he repeated himself and begged again
and again, just to feel a slight amount of confidence, like he was making
something happen. Sometimes silence can
feel very scary in times of great need.
Or perhaps as he kept speaking in urgency, his sense of panic and
anxiety grew even stronger like fearful refrain. We don’t know.
But we do know this: Jesus noticed this desperation
and had compassion on Jairus and the little daughter that he had yet to
meet. We don’t know what Jesus said to
Jairus as he lay at Jesus’ feet. But we
can imagine that Jesus’ was moved with love and care. The text says it simply. “So he went with
him.” Jesus entered Jairus’s need and went with him.
Jairus was a person of prominence in his
town and in his religious community. As
the leader of the synagogue, he was revered as a person of significance and
honor. But even people of privilege can
be reduced to desperation when death is so near, especially when a child’s life
is in danger – something that should never be, something more frightening and
heartbreaking than just about anything else we can experience.
Jesus noticed. He was present to Jairus’s desperation. Jesus went with him.
But things did not go smoothly or
according to plan. Desperation was
arising in other places too. There was a
woman. There was a woman whose identity
had been reduced to mere nothingness. In
her experience, it wasn’t as though she were simply ignored. That would be a difficult reality for sure,
but it would be simpler than the one she was living. She wasn’t simply ignored. She was isolated. Others feared her. She had a difficult hemorrhaging disease which
caused her to bleed continuously, and under the law at the time, that made her
continuously ritually unclean. She
couldn’t worship in the public spaces. She
couldn’t come into contact with anyone else.
Because if she did, she would make others ritually unclean too, at least
until they performed the essential rituals to become clean again, rituals that
would allow them worship freely and publicly.
But she didn’t have that option. The bleeding never stopped. She had done everything she could imagine to
be healed of this disease, everything in her power to become ritually clean
once again, but nothing worked. She had
spent all her money, everything she had on doctors who couldn’t heal her. Now she was not only sick but financially
destitute. She had nothing, and she had
no one. She had been isolated for twelve
years of her life. Socially, she was a
nobody. She had no prominence, and she
too was desperate.
And as the saying goes, desperate situations often lead to desperate measures. She had heard about Jesus, and she came up with an audacious plan. She said to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” In all of her experience so far, every typical avenue for healing had not worked. It would be easy to doubt in this plan, but she seemed so convinced and convicted. What an shocking and offensive plan it was! If she touched Jesus, she would make him ritually unclean under the law and render him incapable of laying hands on anyone else for healing. She could hijack his ministry, at least for a while. How offensive this was! But she was convicted and she trusted in this plan. It went from an audacious idea to an offensive action. She put that plan into place. She touched Jesus.
On one hand, such confidence. She had confidence in Jesus. She believed she could simply touch his robe and she would be made well! And maybe. . just maybe, I wonder if she had confidence -- even just a little bit – that she had worth as a human being made in the image of God. She needed this healing.
Of course I wonder, if at the same time she thought this action would be insignificant to Jesus. . .perhaps because another part of her believed that she was insignificant, a nobody. She could just touch him! No one would notice! After all, no one else seemed to notice her pain! No one else seemed to see her as the human being she was! This would be easy. She could be healed, and it would over. Simple and done.
But things did not go smoothly or according to plan.
Jesus noticed.
In the midst of a crowd that was pressing in on every side, Jesus noticed. When the woman touched his robe, he felt that power had gone out from him. And he asked a seemingly ridiculous question: “Who touched my clothes?” The disciples were perplexed by this question. The crowd was so large and intense, that the people were pressing in on them, likely making it difficult to keep moving ahead with Jairus to meet his daughter. “You see the crowd pressing in on you,” they asked. “How can you say, ‘Who touched me?” But Jesus pressed on with his question, turning around to see who had done this.
Then the woman, who thought she would be invisible, could not avoid being noticed.
Jesus noticed and loved her.
Desperate, the woman fell at Jesus’ feet.
We don’t know what this woman said to Jesus, but we can imagine the desperation in her voice. The text tells us that as she lay there at his feet, she told Jesus the ‘whole truth,’ – the truth about her condition and the truth about her audacious and offensive plan. She must have expected great condemnation, first from Jesus who was now ritually unclean because of her choice and also the crowd who was admiring him and pressing in on him the entire way. She must have expected a terrible ending to this attempt at healing, just like all the other attempts.
But things did not go smoothly or according to her expectations. Jesus was overcome with compassion and was in awe of her trust and conviction. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Daughter! What an amazing word! What an amazing thing to say to a woman who had been robbed of all her dignity. This woman was no less worth healing – she was no less worth noticing – than the little daughter that Jesus was on his way to save. Jairus’s little girl was twelve years old, at the point of death, and this woman, who had been bleeding continuously for twelve years, was always at the point of death, just as long as Jairus’s daughter had been alive. This woman was also a daughter, a person of great faith, a person of worth to God. No sense of desperation could ever take that holy birthright away. In the moment, she was healed of her disease. But she was also healed of her invisibility. She was seen and noticed as the person of worth she was.
But then tragedy struck. Some people came from Jairus’s house and said, “Why trouble the teacher any further? Your daughter is dead.” These were the words that Jairus had dreaded and feared. They had been delayed too long, in large part, by this audacious woman. What could be done now?
Surprisingly, Jesus could not be deterred in his determination to accompany Jairus in his own pain. Jesus noticed, saw Jairus in need, and saw more possibilities than could anyone else could imagine in the moment. Jesus, who was now technically ritually unclean, marched into a scene with mourners who were weeping and wailing, and he said, “The child is not dead but sleeping.” How audacious that was. If he but touched the girl, she would be made whole, and she would live. And that is what he did. “Talitha cum! Little girl, get up!” And this precious daughter of Jairus and this daughter of God was made whole, restored to life.
In life and in death, we belong to God. That is the conviction we voice together. We say it in our creeds and confessions. And we hear it in the words of scripture, written by the Apostle Paul. In life and in death, we belong to God. This is good news for us today.
This is good news for us every day of our lives because we too know desperation and we live in a world where people are experiencing desperation greater than anything we can imagine. In life and in death, we belong to God. We are God’s people. And God desire to heal us.
This is good news for us today because we can take such a conviction with us when times get difficult. We do need healing. We have weathered forms of sickness from which there has been no cure. We have also known death. I wish I could preach from this passage and tell us that every disease will be healed in this lifetime and that even when little children die, they can be raised to life again if we will just take them by the hand. I wish I could say that. But we have seen difficult situations.
But here is healing truth: Jesus notices. Jesus enters our pain and transforms it, and he will not let us go. He will not let disease or death or any other kind of tragedy separate us from the love of God. He will not let anything separate us the worth we have as God’s human beings. He will always accompany us. And he will heal us in a myriad of ways along the journey. His ways of walking with us are healing, and we are on that road together. We can have peace in the midst of great difficulty: That is healing.
In just a little while, we will experience love and healing in a very tangible way at the table, where we will take our need, and we will bring it to Jesus who says, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Come in audacious faith. Come and see him. Come and touch. Come and be touched by a Holy God who will walk with you toward healing – toward faith, toward peace, toward confidence, toward worth. Come.
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