Simply Pastor Matt

John Westerhoff, the godfather of Christian Formation, was our second day keynote speaker. This man is winsome and wise, humble and humorous. He said that a professor is someone who professes what they believe at that moment in order to stimulate people to think for themselves. He said we should take our notes and not his notes, because the notes we take are what we hear, anyway, and not what he says. Even so, my notes were so extensive I think that you will see why it took so long to summarize them!

John began by reminding us that it is important to remember the past in order to envision the future. Revisionist history, as an aside, is the history of history. We ask, “is this something I ought to follow; is it beneficial to my faith?”

Truth, John said, comes when two counter opposites are held in tension, or equilibrium; like the tension between Christ-fully-human and Christ-fully-divine, neither being the whole apart from each other . The whole is seen by us then, when we seek out the people who hold the piece we do not hold; everybody has a piece. Heresy, then, is a truth gone mad, a piece absent the tension.

Historic ages and their transitions

The church has moved through ages, along with the rest of the world; from Apostolic, to the Christendom era, to the Age of Faith (Middle Ages), and the Age of Reason. The Age of Faith had intuition as its guide, and was immersed in the arts. The Age of Reason was a response to the prior in which intellectualism ruled the day.

The key to understanding an age is to understand its transitions. We are in a transitional phase at the end of the Age of Reason, or Modernity. This transition, Post-modernity, began in 1950 and may very well end by 2050.

In every age, something is lost and something is gained. We must ask ourselves how much should we keep and how do we keep it? What is needed in the next age? John posits that we are in an age of great loneliness which can only be countered with intimacy and community. The world has gotten smaller, and at the same time more isolated with the marriage of globalism and technology. Interaction is very different across social realities and “our” reality is not necessarily desired by others anymore. We find ourselves greatly challenged. Read the rest of this entry »

Blankets of White Dutch Clover came up voluntarily in our church’s native prairie rain garden this year and, though unplanned for, provides some benefits. Its density smothers annual weed seedlings while allowing the 2nd year prairie species to ascend right through to their mature height; eventually diminishing in their shade. As well, the clover provides early nectar for both wild, native pollinators and domestic honeybees, all threatened by loss of habitat and misuse of pesticides. Clover was once considered to be a vital part of turf seed blends, but has all but vanished because of broadleaf herbicides meant to kill off things like plantain and dandelions.

Day two of the Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity (CYNKC) began with a ragged assembly of participants slumping into morning worship , tired from the good, but intense work of the first, half-day. One person equated the conference so far as “drinking from a firehose.” This summary will be a bit more spartan than yesterday’s. I’ll summarize John Westerhoff’s talk in a separate post.

Morning worship
Regarding the Emmaus road “Bible study,” Bryan Moyer Suderman said that these were people who knew the scriptures, but who needed to have their eyes opened to new understandings. The notion of Messiah crucified did not fit into their interpretive key. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 2 reflects the “enlightenment” which occurred in the conversation on the Emmaus road.

Morning panel of practitioners
Erika Funk, Youth Initiative Minister at Broad St. Ministry in Philadelphia spoke of the model they have of “social justice immersion” experiences; an incarnational focus on relationships with a significant component of expressive arts.

Rebekah Lowe, Director of Children’s Ministry, Brentwood Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles shared about the children’s choir, made up of kids in grades 1-5, which incorporates multi sensory learning: singing (auditory), demonstration (visual), and creating (kinesthetic). I liked her idea of “task cards” as a way to give kids a role in the formative experience.

Catherine Maresca, of Christian Family Montessori School, encouraged us to get out of the way and to let our children become directly engaged in learning the story of Jesus. She tells incarnational stories, and provides materials for manipulation which augment the story among which children may choose to interact with what they will.

Greg Bolt and Donna Jacobson, Bend Youth Collective, told the great story of how three churches’ youth groups (Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopalian) came together for mutual expriences. Read the rest of this entry »

Brian McLaren, whose book A New Kind of Christianity lends its title to the CYNKC conference, was the first day’s keynote speaker. Brian began by sharing about visiting the Czech republic after the fall of communism and the dismantling of the Berlin wall. The early 1990s was a time of such rapid change and the youth and young adults were the ones to most fully embrace the new freedoms. That the church survived communism was to be celebrated; it had such courage and endurance. But change was coming so quickly that church leaders were paralyzed and unable to adapt. Missionary facilitators of a local youth program with whom Brian visited said that their gathering of tattooed and pierced young people might look like a traditional youth ministry, but it was really a seminary for the church of tomorrow!

In the United States, Mainline denominations have been in a narrative of decline for 50 years. Evangelicals have been in a narrative of growth, perceived to be caused by increased conservatism, but they are beginning to mirror mainline decline. Catholic statistics are worse than Protestants, if one doesn’t count immigrants. Everybody is in the same boat, losing young people in droves, and preservationism of the old way of doing things is becoming a typical response; case in point, look at the appeal of Catholics to return to pre-Vatican II polity.

The result is that we are inducting children into a form of Christian faith that no longer works for an increasing number of adults! Read the rest of this entry »

What a great, full HALF-DAY on the opening day of the Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity (CYNKC) conference hosted by Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.! If a half-day was this awesome, the full days are going to be phenomenal.

CYNKC gets part of its name from the book by Brian McLaren, “A New Kind of Christianity,” and focuses on the work of Christian formation of youth and children.

CYNKC founder and author Dave Csinos kicked off the conference and handed things over to emcee Melvin Bray who “grows kids.” Melvin retold a Biblical story and had us guess what story he was telling…

…seeking counsel in the dark of night, worries about the future…must be Nicodemus? No, he was telling the story of Saul seeking to summon the dead for advice. Melvin encouraged us to not let what we anticipate get in the way of what the Spirit has to teach us.

Opening worship was led by Rev. Amy Butler and Bryan Moyer Suderman and focused on the Emmaus road text from Luke 24. Bryan emphasized, with his playful Biblical song-smithing, that Jesus walks with us even though we may not recognize him and that he asks us, “what are you trying to make sense of?”

After a break, our first slate of presentations began with Janell Anema. Janell shared her story of growing up in the church and asked, “what happens when the Sunday School Superstar grows up?” Janell found her childish faith unraveling when she experienced a world that was too big and too broken for her to make sense of with the faith she had at hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Mennonites, part of a Christian tradition dating back to the 16^th century Anabaptist movement, have historically held to the notion from the biblical Psalms that the earth and everything in it belongs to God. The confessional document of the Mennonite Church USA denomination names Christians as “stewards of God’s earth” and teaches that Christians are “called to care for the earth and to bring rest and renewal to the land and everything that lives on it.” Many historic Mennonite communities in Europe and Russia were known for their innovative agricultural practices and large-scale conservation initiatives.

It should come as no surprise, then, that resource-stewardship in all aspects of individual and community life is considered a virtue. When we speak of this in spiritual or theological terms, we usually speak of Creation-care.

Our particular congregation, the Mennonite Church of Normal, has stewardship in its organizational DNA. From its inception it has incorporated aspects of Creation-care:

• Building design and operation: earth-bermed on three-sides for insulation and temperature regulation, solar baffles in the atrium for light and temperature control, deep attic insulation, HVAC zoning, fluorescent lighting and more.
• Parking lot medians were planted with shade trees to decrease the heat-island effect of sun-on-pavement.
• A native prairie rain garden was installed in the swale adjacent to the parking lot to filter stormwater and to enhance biodiversity.

Part of our congregational culture of resource-stewardship and wellness includes biking. It has been the practice for a number of years for a group of people to bicycle 80 miles together to a church retreat at Menno Haven Camp and Retreat Center. Our lead pastor, Tim Schrag and his wife, Sue, “pedaled for peace” across the country during Tim’s last sabbatical and they still bike to work, about 8 miles one-way during good weather. You can read about my own solo-driving fast during Lent, here.

With this proclivity in place, as a congregation, it seemed natural for us to participate in the WGLT Good to Go Commuter Challenge. The Good To Go Commuter Challenge is a weeklong event designed to encourage healthy living and promote the use of alternative transportation instead of driving alone. The annual challenge is the third week of May (May 12-18, 2012). It’s open to anyone who lives, works, goes to school, or regularly commutes in, to or from McLean County, IL. The Challenge is a friendly competition between workplaces for the highest employee participation rate, and between individuals, teams, groups and organizations to see who can tally the most miles. During the week, participants track and report their commutes online. Public transit, walking, bicycling, car sharing, carpooling, vanpooling, and telecommuting all count for the competition.

I warned the folks at WGLT that pacifists can be fierce competitors! More than 20, out of 200, active members signed-up at our first registration event. Are you the next to sign-up?

Mennonite Church of Normal ”Sermon”: Sunday, April 29, 2011

Singing the Salvation Story [mp3 download]

For all of us as followers of Jesus, the Bible is central. Through it we come to learn about God and God’s mission among us. One can think of the Bible as 66 separate books. And one can also think of the Bible as one story with a plot, with people, with tension and with resolution.

Today we will be singing through the story of the Bible, accompanied by artistic images on the screen which represent the movements of the story. Read the rest of this entry »

A great word from writer Anne Lamott…sometime I’ll tell you how childhood bullying has affected me as an adult.

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.

April 23, 2012 7:16 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@ANNELAMOTT

ANNE LAMOTT

The Sermon on the Mount in the Hot Zone [mp3 download]

Mennonite Church of Normal Sermon: Sunday, March 25, 2011; Psalm 51:1-12 and John 12:20-33

“So, if we want to act against injustice in general, and racial prejudice specifically, we have to seek the way of Christ in the city in which we find ourselves…Guess what brothers and sisters? The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is to be found in the Hot Zone. “Whoever serves me must follow me,” Jesus said, “and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

On February 26th, Trayvon Martin, a high school junior, was visiting his father and watching basketball at his home in the gated community of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida, near Orlando. At half-time, Trayvon walked to a nearby convenience store in his hooded sweatshirt to get some candy for his younger brother.

On the way back home, walking in the rain and carrying a package of Skittles candy and a can of iced tea, Trayvon caught the attention of volunteer Neighborhood Watch captain George Zimmerman, age 28, who was patrolling the neighborhood in his vehicle.

Zimmerman placed a call to 911 telling the dispatcher, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something…It’s raining, and he’s just walking around looking about.”

“Now he’s coming towards me,” Zimmerman informed the dispatcher. “He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male…Something’s wrong with him. Yup, he’s coming to check me out. He’s got something in his hands. I don’t know what his deal is…”

On the recorded 911 call, you hear the sound of a vehicle door opening and closing. The dispatcher asks Zimmerman if he is following the man he called about. Zimmerman replies, “Yep,” and the dispatcher warns, “Okay, we don’t need you to do that.”

Several minutes later the 911 phone bank lit up with calls from neighbors about two men wrestling on the ground. Callers reported someone screaming for help and the sound of a gunshot can be heard in the background. Read the rest of this entry »