A Wright Brother
Rev. Alan Claassen
March 30, 2008
In response to the treatment of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity UCC in Chicago.
Written before the interview with Bill Moyers
and the appearance before the National Press Club
It is has been a quiet week on Lake U.C.C.
Actually I have been so busy with Holy Week and the lecture by Michael Dowd that I have not had time to watch TV, see the repeated soundbites of Rev. Jeremiah Wright damning America or hearing Barack Obama’s speech on racism. But I have had time to do a little research on our ucc.org web page and I would like to share with you what I learned from others about my colleague and our brother in Christ, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the church that he built from 87 members to over 1,000 members.
J. Bennett Guess March 14, 2008
“In the wake of misleading attacks on its mission and ministry, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ is being lauded by United Church of Christ leaders across the nation for the integrity of its worship, the breadth of its community involvement and the depth of its commitment to social justice.
Located in the heart of Chicago's impoverished Southside, Trinity UCC's vast array of ministries include career development and college placement, tutorial and computer services, health care and support groups, domestic violence programs, pastoral care and counseling, bereavement services, drug and alcohol recovery, prison ministry, financial counseling and credit union, housing and economic development, dozens of choral, instrumental and dance groups, and diverse programming for all ages, including youth and senior citizens.”
The Rev. Steve Gray, the UCC's Indiana-Kentucky Conference Minister, describes Trinity UCC as a "jewel."
"It's everything a Christian community is supposed to be," says Gray, who has been working with Trinity UCC for the past three years to develop a new UCC congregation in Gary, Ind. "Trinity has given well over $100,000 in support of its partnership with us, and in 15 months of regular meetings with Jeremiah Wright, we always found him to be a man of gracious hospitality, humor, generosity, who paid attention to detail but also a man who does not call attention to himself."
Gray, a member of First Congregational UCC in Indianapolis, has worshiped several times at Trinity UCC and is most impressed by the overflowing sense of welcome it extends to visitors.
"When you're Euro-American, the people [at Trinity UCC] are so exceedingly gracious, warm and welcoming. They hug you and say, 'Welcome to our church!'"
The Rev. Bennie Whiten, retired Massachusetts Conference Minister who prior served for 15 years as associate director of Chicago's Community Renewal Society, says, Whiten, a member of Pilgrim UCC in Oak Park, Ill., is especially taken with Trinity UCC's commitment to the need and importance of quality theological education. More than 60 members of Trinity UCC are currently enrolled in seminary and pursuing masters-level degrees. Moreover, the congregation pays for students' tuition costs.
"They firmly believe in the UCC's commitment to an educated, seminary-trained clergy," Whiten said, "and they have probably had more people feeling the call to ministry than any other church in the denomination."
The Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite, president and professor of theology at UCC-related Chicago Theological Seminary
"Another thing I really appreciate about Trinity is that its ministries are always directed both inward, toward the congregation itself, and also outward in supporting other congregations ecumenically and supporting community organizations that are dedicated to lifting up the wider society," Thistlethwaite says. "We have had so many fine students come through Chicago Theological Seminary who were helped to discern their call to ministry through this church's dedication to serving the wider church."
The Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, pastor of Victory UCC in Stone Mountain, Ga.,
While Trinity UCC is the denomination's largest congregation, Samuel's 5,300-member church is the UCC's second largest. Founded in 1987, it joined the UCC in 2004.
"Trinity was really one of the churches that inspired me to want to affiliate with the United Church of Christ," Samuel said. "My church was originally National Baptist and Southern Baptist, but it was the critical-thinking that [Trinity] brought to this work, the justice work, that helped me to want to become a part of the denomination. I have no regrets about that."
Carol Brown, national president of United Black Christians and a member of Cleveland's Mt. Zion UCC for more than 50 years, describes Trinity UCC as "the flagship church of the United Church of Christ."
"I think it's very interesting that a minority group within a denomination can have the largest church, support the most ministries and give the largest number of OCWM [mission] dollars," Brown says. "That speaks well for us as an accepting, open and affirming denomination. Especially, as a justice-oriented church, [Trinity UCC] sets a standard for all the denomination that all are welcome."
The Rev. Dr. John P. Gardner is senior minister of Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, United Church of Christ, Fort Wayne.
How ironic that a pastor and congregation which, for forty-five years, has cast its lot with a predominantly white denomination, participating fully in its wider church life and contributing generously to it, would be accused of racial exclusion and a failure to reach for racial reconciliation.”
m
By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News
“More than two dozen well-known black preachers and scholars, in Dallas for a long-planned conference, offered unequivocal support Friday for one of their number who was not there.
“The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now world-famous as the former pastor and spiritual mentor of presidential candidate Barack Obama, was to be the guest of honor at the Black Church Summit held by Brite Divinity School. Amid the recent controversy about some of his sermons, Dr. Wright decided not to attend, but the summit started Friday as scheduled.”
Most of the event was not open to the media, but several of the scholars and preachers spoke at a news conference. They said that Dr. Wright's sermons fit into a long-standing black tradition of prophetic preaching – one that the Rev. Martin Luther King also emerged from.
Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, director of the black church studies program at Brite, said that the controversy over Dr. Wright's sermons is an indication of how little many whites know about what happens routinely at many black churches.
"It's news to you," she said. "Black America has long known about the tradition of religious formation within mainline white congregations. Now, for the very first time in history, mainline America, white America is finding out something about its black church."
“Mr. Wright has been cited by Mr. Obama as his longtime pastor and spiritual mentor. In the last couple of weeks, parts of some of Mr. Wright's sermons have been repeatedly rebroadcast. In the sound bites, he attacks the Iraq war, says that AIDS was produced by the U.S. government and calls for God's condemnation of the U.S. for its policies on illegal drugs.”
But that needs to be set into the context of preachers like Dr. King, who once called America "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today," Dr. Floyd-Thomas said. And he had been scheduled to deliver a sermon entitled "Why America May Go to Hell" on the Sunday after he was assassinated in 1968, she added.
That is some of what I read at ucc.org. Here is what I read in the gospel of John this week.
“When it was evening of that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the authorities, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his wounded hands, his wounded side.”
And Jesus said to his disciples. As God has sent me, so I send you. When he said this he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The healing begins and peace enters our hearts when we forgive one another the sins of our frightened forefathers who taught us to fear someone because they were different than us; whether the difference was race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, age, nationality, political party, or denomination.
The healing begins and peace enters into our communities when we move from the safety of our familiar homes and move out into the wider world and see how the other half lives, to walk a mile in their shoes.
The healing begins and peace enters our world when receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit that unites all of humanity with all of creation and with the understanding that peace and reconciliation can only come through our commitment to:
Sacrifice – Sacrifice that is spiritual; that is courageous and steadfast in its willingness to endure great hardship for others. Service to Others – Service that is predicated on empowering others; engendering self-help, self-determination, and self-sufficiency versus charity.
Acceptance of all People – An essential ingredient for success in organizing diverse forces to achieve social change, create community, and actualize democracy is the acceptance of all people; an absolutely indispensable necessity to the well-being of this country.
By the way, those three commitments to Sacrifice, Service, and Acceptance come from the Core Values of Non-violence of Cesar Chavez, who birthday was today. Happy birthday Cesar Chavez. Another prophet like Jeremiah Wright whose complaint about what is wrong in our society and his commitment to the foundational values of this nation caused him to do something …right.
Also, in the Gospel reading for today we read that Thomas needed to touch the wounds of Jesus in order to believe that he was the risen Christ. The wound that we in America need to touch is the wound of racism, that in spite of all the distance we have come, including a black American, possibly becoming the next President, too many Americans of color are treated as second-class citizens in this great nation. It is not an excuse for violence or victimhood, but it is an illness that needs to be treated with peace, with honesty, with forgiveness and reconciliation.
Finally, as a sign of life coming out of death, the United Church of Christ is currently raising funds to buy a full page ad in the New York Times to explain to the nation who we are as a nation and what we truly stand for.
In the meantime, you can be a part of this work by simply telling one another what you know and love about this church where it is said, every Sunday, “No matter who you are and where you on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Spread the Love
Spread the Love
Rev. Alan Claassen
Pentecost Sunday May 11, 2008
Acts 2: 1-13 John 4: 7-21
Four weeks ago I began a sermon series on the “E” word. Acknowledging that many people are uncomfortable with the idea of evangelism, I suggested that our “E” word be “Enthusiasm.” Which is a perfectly good replacement of a word, because enthusiasm comes from the Greek words , en theos, en-god-ed.
The source of actions, the source of our mission in life, in church, in work, in family, in retirement, is God. Our enthusiasm comes from experiencing being loved by God.
Beginning in the love of God, we see that our mission is to bring more kindness, love and honesty into every action and choice that we make. When we practice the presence of God in our actions and choices we begin to deepen our experience of God, our trust in God, and we also deepen our knowledge of ourselves. We gain in self-confidence as we gain in God confidence.
We realize what it means to be called children of God, as in said in the first letter of John, we are called children of God because that is what we are.
We are children of God, when we love one another. We abide in God when we abide in active love for our fellow human beings and for all of God’s creation. So the mission of the church is not to get more more people to join the church. The mission of the church is not to convert or to save others.
The mission of the church is that we become a spiritual community, abiding in God, seeking to live lives of compassion for one another and for our community. Where our actions are grounded in, planted in, nourished in God. And so we can grow in love, with confidence, in faith. The mission of the church is to receive God’s love for us so that we create a spiritual home where we feel safe and en-God-ed.
Now, today, in this final sermon in the enthusiasm series, we focus our attention on the third part of our mission, which is to
exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use,
in those places which God has caused to appeal to you the most,
for the purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.
So far we have been talking about the mission that we all share, grounded in the presence of God we make the world a better place. The third part of the mission is to ask where you are particularly called to be God’s active verb of love in the world.
We affirm in the church why Jesus came to earth, to be God’s word of love to humanity and to restore our broken relationship with God.
Well God had a reason for sending each one of us to Earth too. Can we remember what that reason was? What if we thought of people like Carroll Lang for a moment and thought about this, it wasn’t that he was that extraordinary, he just had a good memory, he remembered why God put him on this Earth.
Carroll’s purpose was to push the earth with his bulldozer and to people with challenging questions.
We all have a reason for being here. We just suffer from amnesia.
Let these words of Psalm 139 help remind you,
“For you formed my inward being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for you are to be reverenced and adored. Your mysteries fill me wonder! More than I know myself do you know me; my essence was not hidden from You, when I was being formed in secret intricately fashioned from the elements of the earth.”
Remember?
Let these words of Jesus from the Gospel of John help remind you,
“As the Father has loved me, so I love have loved you; abide in my love. Keep my commandments, and you will in abide in my love, just as I have kept my father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Ringing any bells, yet?
Let these words from the first letter of John remind help remind you,
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as Jesus is, so re we in this world. There is no fear in love...”
We love because God loved us first.”
There is our source and our mission, because John goes on to connect the love and the commandment to love.
We cannot say that we love God if we are not bringing more kindness, more truth, more gratitude, more love into the world.
Now that we are reminded of our purpose as disciples of Christ, what is our particular mission, in the place that God has caused to appeal to us the most, for the purposes which God most needs to have done in the world?
“God has written this into our hearts, first in the talents given to us and secondly in the guidance given to us in our hearts.” “Even as an anthropologist can examine ancient inscriptions, and divine from them the daily life of a long lost people, so we by examining our talents and our heart can more often than we dream divine the will of the Living God.”
(pg 43, Richard Bolles, "Your Mission in Life.")
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Where?
Let these words from the great writer, Frederick Buechner, guide us.
“ There are different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than the voice of society, or the hyper-critical ego, or self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this:
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (pg 48, Richard Bolles, "Your Mission in Life")
In other words, abiding in the love of God, who knows you better than you know yourself, how can you bring more love, kindness, truth, beauty, gratitude into the world and have a good time doing it?
To be connected to de-vine of God’s love and having complete joy.
The place that God calls you to is that place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
The world hungers for a kind word. The world hungers for a kind heart. The world hungers for a kind teacher. The world hungers for a well played soccer game. The world hungers for a beautifully stitched quilt. The world hungers for a sharpened pencil, good food, justice, a loving home, a repaired fence, a painted house. The world hungers for happiness and compassion in times of grief.
The world hungers for peace based upon economic justice not brute force.
Our mission, is where we meet God in confidence and joy. Our mission is where we remember what God fashioned us to do.
Remembering I think is the difficult trick.
Remembering why we are here. And then remembering what we remembered.
I have so many times made great self-discoveries only to have forgotten them a few weeks later. Then coming back to my old notes, journals, or sermons, and saying, “Oh I already knew that, how could I forget.”
Some missions that we embark on require diligent attention because the goal is not achieved in a day, but it is achieved by daly practice and remembering.
And I see in the passage from the letter of John to helpful suggestions for our spiritual practice, for our enthusiasm campaign, in which we seek to make this church and our lives a place where God’s love is experienced.
It’s in verses 19 and 20 of the fourth chapter of John’s letter.
First, We love because God first loved us.
Secondly, Those who say, “I love God” and hate their brothers and sisters are liars.”
To help us stay the course we need to begin and end the day in prayerful rememberance of God’s love. What we focus our attention on we become. If we focus our attention on God’s love and grace and desire for all of creation then we can hep make that real.
The first step of our mission is to be grounded in the presence of God.
How else can we do that without daily prayer or medititation. Done in whatever way suits you best. There are many different approaches to prayer, the approach doesn’t matter as much as the fact we each decide to begin and end the day in dialogue with a love and power greater than ourselves. Approaches to prayer include reading scripture or it may be walking in nature or it may be listening to music. It may be silence or reading devotional literature. Regardless of the path chosen, the central meditation is, God’s love is in me.
The second source of remembrance is to keep the commandment to love one another. Our love is known in our actions, our compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves. It is also known in being aware of our feelings when we are angry or feeling hateful to someone else. To remember God’s self-giving and forgiving love as we seek to let go of our hatred and find the source of love as best we are able with guidance of the strength of the Holy Spirit.
When we engage in acts of love for our brothers and sisters, and we do this from a place of remembering God’s love, we begin to take risks. And in taking risks, in moving out of our comfort zones, we begin to experience God’s love.
In praying and in loving, we know God’s love.
In loving and praying, we gain the strength and confidence that is beyond our own imagination.
In loving and praying, we see a course of our lives that brings joy to humanity and to ourselves.
When we pray as if everything depends on God, and act as if everything depends on us, we are getting at the heart of this mission.
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
Where can I be of service and be joyful?
What form of prayer is right for me in the morning and in the evening?
Who do I know that needs the kindness that God has given me the gift to offer? How can I bring my prayer life into the world and show my brother or sister a little bit of love, a little bit of God?
God is love. and we love because God loved us first.
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
God loves us into loving one another. No force of will. Self-giving, self-sacrificing love. As Jesus said, I gave my life because it was mine to give. We were each given a life to give.
And as Jesus also said, If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete.
Connected to God, doing what were called to do, no matter big or small, doing what brings us more happiness and the world more kindness,
that is something to be enthused about.
To be spiritually borne is to remember why God brought you here to life.
How will you choose to pray?
How will you choose to love your brother and sister?
How will your great desire help serve the needs of this church, which seeks to meet the needs of this community?
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
I think that there is a need for a spiritual community where people are encouraged to make a personal connection with God that gives them the confidence to serve humanity.
A community centered around the words,
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
Pentecost is the moment when we realize, when we make real, that we are called to Spread the Love that God placed on this earth in Jesus Christ.
Are you ready to be the First Congregational Church of Murphys, United Church of Christ?
Are you ready to be yourself in this community?
Let the people say,
Amen
Rev. Alan Claassen
Pentecost Sunday May 11, 2008
Acts 2: 1-13 John 4: 7-21
Four weeks ago I began a sermon series on the “E” word. Acknowledging that many people are uncomfortable with the idea of evangelism, I suggested that our “E” word be “Enthusiasm.” Which is a perfectly good replacement of a word, because enthusiasm comes from the Greek words , en theos, en-god-ed.
The source of actions, the source of our mission in life, in church, in work, in family, in retirement, is God. Our enthusiasm comes from experiencing being loved by God.
Beginning in the love of God, we see that our mission is to bring more kindness, love and honesty into every action and choice that we make. When we practice the presence of God in our actions and choices we begin to deepen our experience of God, our trust in God, and we also deepen our knowledge of ourselves. We gain in self-confidence as we gain in God confidence.
We realize what it means to be called children of God, as in said in the first letter of John, we are called children of God because that is what we are.
We are children of God, when we love one another. We abide in God when we abide in active love for our fellow human beings and for all of God’s creation. So the mission of the church is not to get more more people to join the church. The mission of the church is not to convert or to save others.
The mission of the church is that we become a spiritual community, abiding in God, seeking to live lives of compassion for one another and for our community. Where our actions are grounded in, planted in, nourished in God. And so we can grow in love, with confidence, in faith. The mission of the church is to receive God’s love for us so that we create a spiritual home where we feel safe and en-God-ed.
Now, today, in this final sermon in the enthusiasm series, we focus our attention on the third part of our mission, which is to
exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use,
in those places which God has caused to appeal to you the most,
for the purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.
So far we have been talking about the mission that we all share, grounded in the presence of God we make the world a better place. The third part of the mission is to ask where you are particularly called to be God’s active verb of love in the world.
We affirm in the church why Jesus came to earth, to be God’s word of love to humanity and to restore our broken relationship with God.
Well God had a reason for sending each one of us to Earth too. Can we remember what that reason was? What if we thought of people like Carroll Lang for a moment and thought about this, it wasn’t that he was that extraordinary, he just had a good memory, he remembered why God put him on this Earth.
Carroll’s purpose was to push the earth with his bulldozer and to people with challenging questions.
We all have a reason for being here. We just suffer from amnesia.
Let these words of Psalm 139 help remind you,
“For you formed my inward being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for you are to be reverenced and adored. Your mysteries fill me wonder! More than I know myself do you know me; my essence was not hidden from You, when I was being formed in secret intricately fashioned from the elements of the earth.”
Remember?
Let these words of Jesus from the Gospel of John help remind you,
“As the Father has loved me, so I love have loved you; abide in my love. Keep my commandments, and you will in abide in my love, just as I have kept my father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
Ringing any bells, yet?
Let these words from the first letter of John remind help remind you,
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as Jesus is, so re we in this world. There is no fear in love...”
We love because God loved us first.”
There is our source and our mission, because John goes on to connect the love and the commandment to love.
We cannot say that we love God if we are not bringing more kindness, more truth, more gratitude, more love into the world.
Now that we are reminded of our purpose as disciples of Christ, what is our particular mission, in the place that God has caused to appeal to us the most, for the purposes which God most needs to have done in the world?
“God has written this into our hearts, first in the talents given to us and secondly in the guidance given to us in our hearts.” “Even as an anthropologist can examine ancient inscriptions, and divine from them the daily life of a long lost people, so we by examining our talents and our heart can more often than we dream divine the will of the Living God.”
(pg 43, Richard Bolles, "Your Mission in Life.")
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Where?
Let these words from the great writer, Frederick Buechner, guide us.
“ There are different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than the voice of society, or the hyper-critical ego, or self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this:
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (pg 48, Richard Bolles, "Your Mission in Life")
In other words, abiding in the love of God, who knows you better than you know yourself, how can you bring more love, kindness, truth, beauty, gratitude into the world and have a good time doing it?
To be connected to de-vine of God’s love and having complete joy.
The place that God calls you to is that place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
The world hungers for a kind word. The world hungers for a kind heart. The world hungers for a kind teacher. The world hungers for a well played soccer game. The world hungers for a beautifully stitched quilt. The world hungers for a sharpened pencil, good food, justice, a loving home, a repaired fence, a painted house. The world hungers for happiness and compassion in times of grief.
The world hungers for peace based upon economic justice not brute force.
Our mission, is where we meet God in confidence and joy. Our mission is where we remember what God fashioned us to do.
Remembering I think is the difficult trick.
Remembering why we are here. And then remembering what we remembered.
I have so many times made great self-discoveries only to have forgotten them a few weeks later. Then coming back to my old notes, journals, or sermons, and saying, “Oh I already knew that, how could I forget.”
Some missions that we embark on require diligent attention because the goal is not achieved in a day, but it is achieved by daly practice and remembering.
And I see in the passage from the letter of John to helpful suggestions for our spiritual practice, for our enthusiasm campaign, in which we seek to make this church and our lives a place where God’s love is experienced.
It’s in verses 19 and 20 of the fourth chapter of John’s letter.
First, We love because God first loved us.
Secondly, Those who say, “I love God” and hate their brothers and sisters are liars.”
To help us stay the course we need to begin and end the day in prayerful rememberance of God’s love. What we focus our attention on we become. If we focus our attention on God’s love and grace and desire for all of creation then we can hep make that real.
The first step of our mission is to be grounded in the presence of God.
How else can we do that without daily prayer or medititation. Done in whatever way suits you best. There are many different approaches to prayer, the approach doesn’t matter as much as the fact we each decide to begin and end the day in dialogue with a love and power greater than ourselves. Approaches to prayer include reading scripture or it may be walking in nature or it may be listening to music. It may be silence or reading devotional literature. Regardless of the path chosen, the central meditation is, God’s love is in me.
The second source of remembrance is to keep the commandment to love one another. Our love is known in our actions, our compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves. It is also known in being aware of our feelings when we are angry or feeling hateful to someone else. To remember God’s self-giving and forgiving love as we seek to let go of our hatred and find the source of love as best we are able with guidance of the strength of the Holy Spirit.
When we engage in acts of love for our brothers and sisters, and we do this from a place of remembering God’s love, we begin to take risks. And in taking risks, in moving out of our comfort zones, we begin to experience God’s love.
In praying and in loving, we know God’s love.
In loving and praying, we gain the strength and confidence that is beyond our own imagination.
In loving and praying, we see a course of our lives that brings joy to humanity and to ourselves.
When we pray as if everything depends on God, and act as if everything depends on us, we are getting at the heart of this mission.
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
Where can I be of service and be joyful?
What form of prayer is right for me in the morning and in the evening?
Who do I know that needs the kindness that God has given me the gift to offer? How can I bring my prayer life into the world and show my brother or sister a little bit of love, a little bit of God?
God is love. and we love because God loved us first.
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
God loves us into loving one another. No force of will. Self-giving, self-sacrificing love. As Jesus said, I gave my life because it was mine to give. We were each given a life to give.
And as Jesus also said, If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete.
Connected to God, doing what were called to do, no matter big or small, doing what brings us more happiness and the world more kindness,
that is something to be enthused about.
To be spiritually borne is to remember why God brought you here to life.
How will you choose to pray?
How will you choose to love your brother and sister?
How will your great desire help serve the needs of this church, which seeks to meet the needs of this community?
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
I think that there is a need for a spiritual community where people are encouraged to make a personal connection with God that gives them the confidence to serve humanity.
A community centered around the words,
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
Pentecost is the moment when we realize, when we make real, that we are called to Spread the Love that God placed on this earth in Jesus Christ.
Are you ready to be the First Congregational Church of Murphys, United Church of Christ?
Are you ready to be yourself in this community?
Let the people say,
Amen
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