Now that I’m the Chair of the Communications Committee, I figured I better get more familiar with the blog. I’ll have to admit I know almost nothing about how a blog is structured, how it works or what it’s capabilities are. If you would, do me a favor and comment on this post, and just let me know that you have seen it, and know enough about this blog to be able to comment on someone’s post. I’m curious to know who is reading it.
Charlie Cwiek
When I wrote last week I was trying to capture I genuine sense of gratitude that many of us feel during the Thanksgiving holiday as we gather around tables with enough food to feed three times the number of people present, as we make long drives to visit family we love and miss, as we remember the blessings from out God, most importantly that blessing of Christ. I posted this, however, with some hesitancy, knowing that for many holidays are difficult. They bring up family conflict, they remind us for those who have died, or for many people Thanksgiving is no different than any other day that they struggle to make ends meet, simply have enough food for one meal, and think about how to survive once the cold weather comes. Even as I write this blog post I know of a friend who has spent Thanksgiving with his mother who is fighting breast cancer, and I read e-mails from others struggling with disease, questions about the future, fear for the safety of themselves and their children.
To be honest, I kind off wanted someone to express outrage at my post last week for denying a realistic look on the world. You see, in the very act of my giving thanks for all the blessings God has given me, there is an undertone that questions why everyone does not have such blessings from God. Does God favor some people more than others? Did I do something to earn God’s favor? Why can’t the whole creation rejoice in Thanksgiving and share at a table full of food? Is God not powerful enough to do that? Does God want to exclude some people?
These are big questions that are really beyond human comprehension, but they are legitimate questions which we must face. Last week I wrote about gratitude; this week I write our gracious response to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. I stand by what I said last wee, that Christians can be genuinely thankful at all times for what God has shown us in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Our ways are different from the world, so much so that in our gratitude we boast in God even in the midst of suffering (Romans 5:11).
Yet, our gratitude to God, the knowledge that we gain that we have been reconciled to God and have the promise of salvation, that is not the end of our Christian journey. In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes the situation in which we live
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as heirs, the redemption of our bodies.
In this statement, Paul is reminding us that salvation has not yet come. God has raised Jesus from the dead and has defeated the “axis of evil” consisting of the cosmic power of sin, death, and the “realm of the flesh.” We have been given the Spirit of our risen Lord as the “first fruits” of a new creation. Yet we continue to groan, we continue to cry out, we continue to struggle to come into the kingdom that is breaking into the world.
You see, when we look out on the world with the eyes of faith, a faith that tells us that there is a purpose to the world and that God is guiding the world to that purpose, we begin to see that our salvation will never be complete without the salvation of the whole creation. Because we are blessed with the gift of the Spirit, when we see neighbors near and far struggling to find clean water or to gather enough food to eat or who live without any hope, we hurt with them and for them. Even in our gratitude for what we have known in Christ, we groan in the pains of childbirth with the whole creation, for we realized that God’s kingdom that has been revealed in Christ’s resurrection has not yet been fully realized.
And that brings us into the season of Advent. Advent is that season with a dual focus. It is a time of looking back on the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ that showed us the extent of God’s love and care for us. Advent, however, is also part of this groaning of our present age. Advent is a time when we awaited our Lord’s coming again in glory to establish his reign on earth forever, to usher in a new creation where all are fed and housed and welcomed and we celebrate with each other at his table and sing endless praises to God. Advent is a time when we remember that God’s kingdom has “not yet” been fully realized.
In our time, with the Spirit as our guide, we seek to follow our Lord into the world which he loved and for which he died. We do this not out of arrogance that somehow we will usher in the kingdom of God but because we have been transformed by the saving knowledge of our Lord, and we trust that because God raised Jesus from the dead, that God will remain faithful and Christ will return.
For those who visit the First Presbyterian blog often. During this season of Advent, daily devoationals from members of the church will be posted on the blog daily. Come and await the birth of our Lord and come to groan in the birth of the new creation. Join us! Marantha! Come Lord Come!
After preparing for a Hebrew quiz this morning, I read Peggy Noonan’s weekly column in the Wall Street Journal. In the column she describes how people she has been talking to recently are describing how thankful they are this year that we are all “still here.” This new-found sense of gratitude comes out of the fear and anxiety many of us felt this time last year as we were told by forecasters that 2009 would be a tough year on the economy. People were losing jobs, homes, and savings. But this year, Noonan observes, people are more grateful as we move toward our national holiday of Thanksgiving. Our thoughts are refocused, our priorities somewhat realigned.
Now Peggy Noonan is a Roman Catholic, so I don’t fault her for not thinking of the Reformed theologian John Calvin when considering human gratitude, but for those of us who are part of this tradition, continual gratitude is part of our DNA. You see, for Calvin, gratitude is the beginning of the Christian life. The progression goes something like this. First, we are given the gift of faith which Calvin describes as
a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
This knowledge of God’s benevolence is one of Calvin’s ways to describe the human experience of grace, that gift from God that shows us God’s love for us and lets us know that God accepts us simply out of God’s love and not out of anything we do to earn God’s favor. Possessing this knowledge, we look into scripture and we look out on our world and we begin to see God’s blessings all around us. With the author of Psalm 24 we exclaim, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it!” and with Calvin we profess
God as our Maker supports us by his power, governs us by his providence, nourishes us by his goodness, and attends us with all sorts of blessings– and another thing to embrace the grace of reconciliation offered to us in Christ.
When we see the world in this way, when we experience that Gospel message that Christ brought and exemplified for us, the only response of the Christian is thanksgiving. The authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, themselves followers of Calvin’s understanding of scripture, title the third part of the confession Thankfulness and begin in this way:
Since we are redeemed from our sin and its wretched consequences by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why must we do good works?
Because just as Christ has redeemed us with his blood he also renews us through his Holy Spirit according to his own image, so that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness and that he may be glorified through us
Now there is an even greater linkage between John Calvin and our American holiday of Thanksgiving. We are quick to forget in our contemporary time that the pilgrims whom we remember on Thanksgiving were Calvinist Christians persecuted by the English church. They came to the New World seeking to follow God as they had seen God revealed to them in scripture. They read scripture in much the same way as Calvin, so much so that John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony describes the Christian life in much the same way as Calvin and the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism:
For patterns we have that first of our Savior who, out of his good will in obedience to his father, becoming a part of this body and being knit with it in the bond of love, found such a native sensitivity of our infirmities and sorrows as he willingly yielded himself to death to ease the infirmities of the rest of his body, and so healed their sorrows. From the like sympathy of parts did the Apostles and many thousands of the Saints lay down their lives for Christ. Again the like we may see in the members of this body among themselves. So Phoebe and others are called the servants of the church. Now it is apparent that they served not for wages, or by constraint, but out of love. The like we shall find in the histories of the church, in all ages; the sweet sympathy of affections which was in the members of this body one towards another; their cheerfulness in serving and suffering together; how liberal they were without repining, harborers without grudging, and helpful without reproaching; and all from hence, because they had fervent love amongst them; which only makes the practice of mercy constant and easy.
This love that Winthrop describes is the result of that knowledge of our being reconciled to God in Jesus Christ. Love of God and neighbor is our thankful response to the gift God has given us. This same God who raised Jesus from the dead is the Creator of the world, the nourisher of the earth, the caretaker of humanity, the God who is guiding the world to its ultimate end in Christ’s return to usher in the Kingdom of God.
So give thanks next Thursday for the blessings we have. Give thanks for food and family and time off from school and work. But remember the ultimate cause of our thankfulness on this day, that in Christ God reconciled the world to Godself and this good news has been revealed to us in our time. It is the cause of our joy, it is the source of our hope, it is the reason for gratitude. Thanks be to God! Happy Thanksgiving!
In recent weeks I have posted several statements I composed as part of my next phase of the ordination process. I met with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry last month to review and discuss my move into candidacy for ministry. With their approval I went before the Presbytery of East Tennessee yesterday in Chattanooga and was accepted as a candidate for ministry in the PC(USA). For this day, I submitted a narrative of faith and call and read a statement I was to prepare for the meeting. For anyone interested, I have posted those below. I thank all of you who have supported me in this discernment time! You are a blessing from God.
Introductory Statement
In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, two of John the Baptist’s disciples hear John declare Jesus to be the lamb of God, and they begin to follow after him. When they gain the confidence to ask where he is staying, Jesus simply replies, “Come and see.” As these two disciples spend the day with him they become convinced that they have found the messiah and begin to seek out others to join them on their journey.
It is through stories like this calling of the first disciples that I understand my faith journey as a follower of Jesus Christ. As I have grown up in the Christian church, I have experienced the call of the risen Christ inviting me to “come and see” where he continues to stay and work. I have seen the risen Christ at work in the faithful witness of Sunday school teachers and choir leaders. I have seen the risen Christ in youth pastors who know the joy of the life of faith and who aren’t afraid to challenge young people to work with our Lord for justice and peace for those on the margins. I have seen the risen Christ at work through water in baptism and through common elements of bread and wine at the table.
I have seen the risen Christ at work in visits with shut-ins, in meals shared in soup kitchens, in the building of bunk beds for Sunset Gap in Appalachia. I have seen the risen Christ at work when mixing mezcla in Reynosa, Mexico, in holding the hand of a friend nearing death, and in songs lifted to God in the pavilion of John Knox Center as the sun sets behind the cross on the hill.
These are just some of the places where I have felt the call of our Lord inviting me to “come and see” what he is doing. And again and again I find myself not saying that we have found the messiah, but the messiah has found us and loves us so much that he invites us to join him in his work. It is in response to that invitation that I desire to live out a life of ministry to Christ and his church as a minister of word and sacrament. My faith journey is not one of quaking barefoot at a burning bush or of a lost prodigal returning home. I have not heard a repeated voice in the night like Samuel or been blinded by the light like Paul, but I have known Jesus as my Lord and I have felt his call on my life and I have known his grace in the cross and the empty tomb. And I wish to follow him into the world he loves and for which he died as he continues to invite me to “come and see” what he is doing.
Narrative of Faith and Call
My journey of faith does not begin with me but with God. When I was baptized as a child into the family of faith at First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, the community around me celebrated God’s gracious act of choosing us in Jesus Christ, but my baptism was also a call to a life lived for God. Through the faithful witness of the Christian community around me, the Holy Spirit began to shape me to see my own existence as a child of God and a follower of Jesus Christ.
Growing up we attended church and participated in many of the activities there. I went to Sunday school weekly, sang in children’s choir, and played with friends. I remember always enjoying church on Sundays or Wednesday nights; frankly it never seemed there was not any alternative to those activities. If it was Sunday, we were going to church; that was what Christians did. I never had any reason to think otherwise, for the church was a place of joy, a place where people loved me for no other reason than that they had first been loved in Christ. In the church, something felt more “right,” than in the rest of the world. People were kind, generous, they looked out for others, and they sought to follow Jesus into the world in lives of service to him. As I grew up, I participated actively on the presbytery’s youth council, attended Presbyterian Youth Triennium and Presbyterian Youth Connection. All of these experiences in the larger connectional church continued to confirm that there was something “right” about life lived together for God.
My call to ministry comes from this feeling that there is a difference in the way of life in the church than in the world and that a life lived for Christ is a life of acceptance and wholeness and peace. Even in the midst of feeling whole and accepted in my local congregation and larger church community, though, I noticed through high school and college that there remains much injustice and hurt and pain in the world. There are many people who live without any physical or spiritual good news, and something about their pain caused me pain. I began to hear that “still small voice” calling me to share Jesus’ vision of the world with those outside of the church and inside of it too. This is a vision of plenty where the world sees scarcity. It is a vision of generosity instead of greed. It is a vision of a world where the last are first and the first are last.
The only reason I could possibly respond to this call, however, was to remember that the power of the gospel does not rest on my skill or ability but on the risen Christ who goes before me, continues to call to me, and who through, with, and sometimes in spite of the church ushers in a new creation.
It is with this awareness of the power of the Holy Spirit which continues to work in the world, that I desire to affirm my baptismal calling with a life of Christian vocation lived out in the ministry of word and sacrament. In response to this call, I put my trust in God’s promise of a new creation, a world based on the love and righteousness of God shown forth in Jesus Christ. I wish to proclaim this good news from table, font, and pulpit as well as in faithful acts of service. The church in which I was raised and the church I love is a witness to that good news. It is my hope to continue to serve Christ’s church as we witness together to the gospel we know in our Lord Jesus Christ.
On July 31 – August 8, 2010On July 31 – August 8, 2010 people from First Pres. will be going on a mission trip to Philadelpia. We’ll be learning more about homelessness, our misperceptions and what we can do, at Broad Street Ministry, www.broadstreetministry.org. You can read below to learn more about what the trip will be like. For many year’s youth and adults have been going to Reynosa, Mexico as well as trips to Washington D.C. and New York.
Tell us about some of your experiences on mission trips you’ve been on and how that has impacted your life and faith.
Trip Description: The summer immersion program begins with a regular Sunday evening worship service. BSM will provide several days of service learning and opportunities for authentic relationship building with the people of Philadelphia. An effort will be made to take groups to different neighborhoods in the city and discuss poverty, homelessness, hunger, and health care all grounded within a theological framework. A particular goal will be to engage the partcipants with the poor and disadvantaged who are trying to make a difference in their community through social action. Stereotypes will be broken not re-enforced. The week will end in a service of commissioning to send particpants back to their own communities where faithful transformation may continue. The BSM Youth Initiative is born out of a local congregation that values worship, hospitality, community, diversity, social justice, risk, creativity and the arts.
A typical day at Broad Street Ministry’s Youth Summer Initiative
Work Sites may include:
Wednesday afternoon is a free afternoon so your group can explore Philadelphia and have some down time.
To Our Family Promise Friends, We are trying a new form of communication which we hope you will find interesting and informative. Our plan is to bring you up to date news on our guests – current and former, our Board and Staff, volunteer opportunities and our needs. If you like this new form of communication, please let us know (links oat the bottom) Thank you!
Family Update
“I don’t think I could possibly have enough words to express my gratitude to each and every person associated with Family Promise. I have a tear in my eye as I try to think of the words of what your program has meant to our family. Only 2 months ago I was sitting in Joyce’s office crying, scared and having lost everything. Now I am sitting in a beautiful apartment with furniture from many people who donated them and their time to bring it to us. My husband has found a job and again with volunteers donating clothes, he looks appropriate and proud when he leaves for work. Most of all you have given my children their childhood back, filled with smiles and friends who can come over to play. I’ll never forget the smile on my daughter’s face when she said “Mom, let’s go to our home.” So to everyone who is a part of Family promise, my family sends our deepest thanks, love and appreciation, as you have changed our lives. I feel blessed having met you all.
Thank YOU!
LuAnne, Jeremiah, Jennifer and Tyler
P.S. a special thanks and blessing to all the wonderful cooks and overnight hosts!”
Ready or Not -The Holidays are Coming!
As you begin to think about your preparations for the upcoming holiday season, we want to encourage you to think of Family Promise. Some of the most meaningful gifts during the holidays can’t be purchased in stores. Instead of hunting and hunting for that “perfect” gift, give the life-changing gift of hope. This holiday, honor family, friends and colleagues — anyone special in your life — by giving a minimum donation of $20 to Family Promise of Knoxville. Upon receiving your donation, a special full-color holiday card acknowledging your gift will be sent to the specified person. The cards were designed exclusively for Family Promise of Knoxville. Donations can be given through church volunteer coordinators, or simply mail your donation to Family Promise of Knoxville, P. O. Box 10184, Knoxville, TN 37939. Capability to donate online will soon be available. Include the name of the person you want to receive the card and the mailing address. Please consider a generous, tax-deductible donation. The gift card makes a wonderful stocking stuffer, a special “thank you”, or a great hostess gift. Most importantly, you will provide care and hospitality for families as they create self-sufficiency and sustainable independence. Give Hope — the eternal gift of the holidays. Holiday Decorators Needed!!! Would your women’s group be interested in decorating the Day Center for the holidays? We need decorators and decorations. We will supply the music and Holiday goodies and tons of appreciation from the staff and the guests. Please give us a call if you are interested. Our Needs… Our needs are simple, but important. Supplies constantly needed at the Day Center include cleaning supplies, paper products, feminine hygiene products, shampoo, body wash, deoderant, toothpaste and brushes, copy paper, postage stamps and laundry supplies. As our families start looking towards moving into housing, they need the items you would typically associate with setting up your own house or apartment. Duplicates will be used for other families. We don’t have a lot of storage space, but have access to several spots located in different parts of Knox County. We also have a need for the donation of used vehicles, in good working order, to be given to families without cars. We require they have a valid driver’s license and the ability to purchase and continue to pay for vehicle insurance. A donated vehicle can make a huge difference in the lives of these families, giving them more flexibility in looking for employment and housing. A donation of a vehicle is tax-deductible.
Quick Links…
IHN Website
Products
Services
More About Us
Contact Information – phone: 865-584-2822 fax: 865-584-7748 email: jshoudy@familypromiseknoxville.org aumbach@familypromiseknoxville.org
Contact: Sue Wrisberg to be involved with IHN at First Pres.
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money* to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ Mark 10:17-23
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. Matthew 16:24-25
As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4
Within many churches these days we have entered the non-liturgical yet very real season of stewardship, a time when we examine our lives and consider our offerings to God. I must admit that I always struggle with a sense of guilt during this time of the year, and it has more to do with reading the Bible than it does with considering my annual pledge to the Church. You see, in stewardship season, letters are sent to your home, sermon series are preached, and particular ministries are highlighted in worship that need our financial support. We provide easy-to-read cards to break down our giving into anything from 1% to a max of a genuine tithe of 10%. All-in-all it is done with tact as the church tries not to appear “after your money.” People make modest requests and expect a modest response. I’m good with all this tact and modesty, but my struggle comes when I read the Bible.
To introduce this post I quoted several Bible verses and stories that come to mind for me during stewardship season. The story of the rich young man, the call to discipleship Jesus makes to the apostles, and the praise Jesus offers a poverty-stricken widow who puts all she owns into an offering to God. Jesus’ words in these situations are hardly modest and frankly not tactful. Jesus isn’t interested in making the life of faith easily digestable or congruent with the other parts of our lives that lay claim to us. And so here is where I struggle.
What financial pledge can possibly be enough? I’m left wondering with the prophet Micah, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” What could I possibly offer God that could in any way acknowledge and honor the creator of the universe who showed us love in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?
The other issue has to do with competing allegiances. There is a dream in our culture, a story which shapes our lives. Even in its most modest forms it says, “You should be saving to buy a house, putting money away for retirement, making sure the kids can go to college,” and so forth. We see this story lived out around us. This is what happiness is about, having enough, being secure, living in safety. It is this story that runs through my head and prevents me from giving more fully and with greater generosity. If I give this much, then my safety and security are in question…
Leaving me to wonder, where have I put my faith? Do I trust in the Gospel which lays claim to all I have? Do I trust the God I know in Jesus Christ to care for God’s world and for me individually? Am I willing to give up my wealth and security and safety for the sake of my lord?
In addition to scripture, I also remember a wise Sunday School teacher’s words during stewardship season, “The sooner you realize what you have is a gift from God and isn’t yours to begin with, then the easier it is to give it back to God.” And this too is the gospel, this too is grace. Our culture may tell us that we are self-made and self-sufficient, but our faith tells us that we are made in the image of God and we depend on God for everything. To have any blessings, then, is an act of grace, an undeserved gift from God.
And so we must give, not out of guilt or shame. We don’t give to prove that Jesus is our Lord and not our wealth or financial security. We give our money in gratitude to God for God’s grace which we have known in Jesus Christ. We can never repay God for that gift, no amount of money could do that, but we can offer our whole selves. We can trust in God’s story, in the good news of the Gospel which will not let us down, that God is working to redeem the world and those of us who know God in Jesus Christ serve God’s mission in thankful giving. Happy stewardship!
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Last week I attended the meeting of the Committee on Preparation for Ministry to be examined as a potential candidate for ministry. It was a pleasant and support-filled meeting, and I received the approval of the committee. From here I go on before presbytery for a final approval and then I will be officially a candidate for ministry. Here’s another statement from part of that process:
Analysis of an Aspect of Personal Faith Statement regarding what it suggests about God, Humanity, and their Interrelationships
Jesus is Lord is the most basic Christian confession of faith and is the central aspect of my personal faith statement. Through this confession, spoken by Christians throughout the life of the Church, we proclaim that the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus are a full manifestation of God on earth. In the incarnation of Christ, God showed us what it means to live as God’s people, and through Christ’s death and resurrection, God showed us God’s grace to claim sinners and God’s power to defeat even death.
The life of Jesus tells us that God is compassionate, that God does not ignore lowly people or sinful people. The life of Jesus shows us that God reaches out to the most marginalized and the wealthiest and most successful; God is active in history. Jesus’ ministry teaches us that in God’s eyes, we are all beloved children and we are all called to turn from selfish desires to pursuing God’s will on earth.
Jesus’ death and resurrection, however, help us know that we are incapable of following God when left to our own thoughts and wishes. This is why we proclaim Jesus is Lord, for through his defeat of death he has claimed us and given us an example for daily living, for lives of sacrificial love. Through God’s grace in Jesus Christ we live faithful and joyful lives, having someone to live for and having hope for the final resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting.
Last week I wrote a post about the six statements required of all enquirers in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who wish to move into candidacy with their presbytery. I was my desire to share with you what these kind of statements entail. This is my response to the second question for candidates.
2. A statement of personal faith which incorporates an understanding of the Reformed tradition
I have been brought up in a time of religious pluralism, in a time of competing worldviews, and raised in a country where active participation in a religious community is becoming less and less important. Through my life, however, I have been taught and come to claim for myself that I am not my own, but that in my baptism I belong to God because of the life, death, and resurrection my Lord Jesus Christ.
The God to whom I belong has the power to create the world through speaking, a God who loves the marginalized and the mainstream, and calls undeserving people into covenants of service. The God to whom I belong does not seek fame, monetary success, or military victory but carries out His purposes in sacrificial love, displayed by Jesus on the cross and to amazed women at an empty tomb. Jesus is Lord: not nation or political platform, neither ambition nor desire and certainly not self.
Unlike Jesus, I am a sinner who cannot overcome my sinful nature, who cannot live fully into the image of God in which I have been created. Jesus is the only person ever to live fully into God’s image, without sin, because he was God incarnate. Through his death and resurrection, I am adopted as God’s child, eternally loved and given a purpose in life. Because Jesus is Lord, I am to follow his example in daily living, which I find in the scriptures, which are my guide to faith and life.
The scriptures call Christians to seek Christ’s kingdom where all are accepted and loved, where each person finds meaning for his or her life, where we pursue not momentary pleasures or quick fixes but where we strive for more compassion and love in the world. In the scriptures, we learn that the life of Christian faith must be lived out together, for we need each other to remind us who we are and whom we serve. The purpose of the church, then, is to pray continually for God’s Holy Spirit to fill us, to give us eyes to see where God is working in the world and to join God in that work. As a member of Christ’s church, I know that God has won the final victory, that death and war and disease and pain have been defeated, and that Christ will return and establish his kingdom on earth, but I also know that Christ’s kingdom is not yet realized.
As we wait for that day of glory, we continue to strive to live for God and not for ourselves, to serve our neighbors and not our own interests, to pursue peace in a world of violence, to proclaim undeserved grace to a judging and vengeful world. I do this because Jesus is my Lord and that is the example Jesus has set, and it is the world God continues to create through the work of the Holy Spirit working through the Church.
In 2007, Rebecca and I spent the semester studying abroad in England. During this time, we connected with a family in Edinburgh who hosted me through a week of study in the Scottish National Archives, and who helped us find our way around Edinburgh. This couple is very active in their local Church of Scotland, where the husband serves as Clerk of the Session. They have a thriving and growing church, which is a rarity in the UK these days. While we were visiting, Rebecca and I asked them if they celebrated World Communion Sunday (as we did this Sunday in the PC(USA))? To our surprise, they said that they had never heard of this day of celebration. This made me wonder if World Communion Sunday is actually a PC(USA) creation instead of an ecumenical movement. I’ve done a little research into the creation of this special Sunday and here is what I’ve found.
World Communion Sunday (originally called World Wide Communion Sunday) originated in the Presbyterian Church (USA). In 1936, for the first time, the first Sunday in October was celebrated in Presbyterian churches in the United States and overseas. From the beginning, it was planned so that other denominations could make use of it and, after a few years, the idea spread beyond the Presbyterian Church.The Department of Evangelism of the Federal Council of Churches (a predecessor body of the National Council of Churches) was first associated with World Wide Communion Sunday in 1940 when the department’s executive secretary, Jesse Bader, led in its extension to a number of churches throughout the world.
Today, efforts to promote World Communion Sunday are carried out by participating denominations, and several produce materials geared toward this observance. (from National Council of Churches website)
So based on this information from the National Council of Churches, World Communion Sunday was a creation of the Presbyterian Church (though the PC(USA) as such did not actually exist in 1936…) but has since spread through other denominations. It still appears to me, however, that it is primarily an American ecumenical movement as opposed to an actual worldwide celebration.
Here’s a list of the American denominations in the NCC. Ask your friends who are part of these communities if they celebrated World Communion Sunday this week. Also, if you have friends who live overseas, ask them if they have ever heard off this celebration.
What are your thoughts about World Communion Sunday?
