Category Archives: Words

September 21, 2012

What We Believe

By Nathan

Disciples of Christ Chalice

I love my church and the tradition in which it belongs – the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Granted, I have questions, critiques, and challenges for it, but in a way, that’s a sign of my appreciation for the peculiar ways we approach some aspects of our faith.

One of our core principles is one of interpretation – that every Christian has the freedom to read the Bible and try to make sense of it on their own terms. There is no central authority, no right or wrong theology. An individual believer must check their understandings against their own community and the witness, life, and ministry of Jesus. This simple framework was an attempt to step away from the schisms and rampant, sometimes violent disagreements in church life. We have freedom to disagree with one another and remain connected and in conversation as brothers and sisters.

However, the downside to all of this is that it makes it difficult to tell folks who are unfamiliar with my tradition what it is we believe. After a few core things like Jesus, baptism, communion, and scripture, there is a lot of wiggle room. This is awesome for someone who is coming at faith in a time of skepticism and searching – there is room to explore different opinions and ideas in our tradition. But it may not be so comforting for someone who is coming from a church that did have a black & white theology. While we have plenty of church folk in our tradition who have a “rigid” theological understanding, we don’t explicitly claim it alone. That can be frustrating or disorienting.

The closest we get to a statement of faith is just an affirmation – a nod at some of the broad notions that we find connect us:

As members of the Christian Church,
We confess that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world.
In Christ’s name and by his grace
we accept our mission of witness
and service to all people.
We rejoice in God,
maker of heaven and earth,
and in God’s covenant of love
which binds us to God and to one another.
Through baptism into Christ
we enter into newness of life
and are made one with the whole people of God.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit
we are joined together in discipleship
and in obedience to Christ.
At the Table of the Lord
we celebrate with thanksgiving
the saving acts and presence of Christ.
Within the universal church
we receive the gift of ministry
and the light of scripture.
In the bonds of Christian faith
we yield ourselves to God
that we may serve the One
whose kingdom has no end.
Blessing, glory, and honor
be to God forever. Amen.

In worship at the Table this Sunday, we’ll use this piece as we explore who we are and where we have come from. I wonder what that affirmation speaks to you. Do you find that you enjoy the wiggle room? Do you wish it said more? What is missing? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Regardless, we’ll be saving a space for you around Christ’s table on Sunday!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Links, Words, Worship Guides

September 13, 2012

It’s tough being a neighbor

By Nathan

Protests in response to the killings of Ambassador Chris Stevens

It’s been a tough couple of days with the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans at the consulate in Libya.

My prayers and the prayers of our community go out to those families suffering, including Libyan security forces who died trying to protect the embassy and other facilities.

I also join with many around the world who continue to cry out for peace and justice.

Jesus called us to “love our neighbors as ourselves”. Sometimes, that charge seems annoying, like when our friend, mentor, or pastor reminds us to have compassion and patience with our next door neighbor who plays music too loud in the evening or shares different political views than our own. But that charge seems impossible when we consider the people we share this planet with – a diverse assortment of folks with different religious, political, and cultural values.

How the heck can we be a neighbor to them?

Our world is interconnected now in some exciting and challenging ways. While we often turn our attention to local problems and needs, we understand that there is a global dimension to everything we do. I’m not sure if Jesus knew that we would understand the idea of a neighbor in such a large sense, but it is the way we our world has changed.

Ultimately, it’s never easy to live in community with people who are very different from you. That is why we bond in cultures, subcultures, churches, clubs, and so on. Rubbing elbows with people outside of our groups leads to anxiety and discomfort, but it also gives us opportunity to learn and grow. Gerald May in Addiction & Grace suggests one of the best ways to respond to this kind of complexity is the contemplative route – “the simple and courageous attempt to bear as much as one can of reality just as it is”.

Reckoning with reality, not easy to do at all, means that we refuse to stereotype, that we seek to understand, that we don’t dismiss the deep challenges and problems of our world, and that we don’t deny our own misgivings and pain in the process.

In other words, we try to figure out how to live together.

In the end, while we disagree on a lot of stuff, it’s also true that we share much in common. With God, there is always hope. For those who seek violence, there are more that seek peace. For those that respond in rage and anger, there are those who bind up wounds and care for the stranger in their midst.

May God guide us in that goal and grant us patience, humility, and compassion. May we know our neighbors as people. May we seek peace, even when it hurts. May those who take up violence find their paths thwarted. May we yearn and cry out and work for a better world.

That’s my prayer anyway. Peace to you all!

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September 7, 2012

How to Pray During an Election Season

By Nathan

Jesus for President

It’s not always easy to find words to pray during an election time.

How do we balance our Christian commitment to love our neighbors as ourselves and our passion about political platforms and candidates?

How do we pray for what we want to happen in our country without making it sound like we are rooting for some people to lose and others to win?

How can we pray so that, no matter what happens, we will trust that God is present in our world and working for wholeness?

How do we pray so that we are moved to live in hope rather than cynicism?

Again, this sure isn’t easy. I am almost always reminded to go back to that line in the Lord’s Prayer which says – “Your will be done“. Not my will – but God’s will. The more I wrestle with those few words, the more I try to let go of my own anxiety and anger.

I am also reminded of the stance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about the power and limitations of government – “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” May I not put too much trust in government, but may I understand what it can do to impact the good of many.

The Empire Remixed blog, posted last year, offers some prayerful words for an election season:

No one would ever elect you, Lord,
…but we dare to call ourselves citizens of your Kingdom.

Send your Spirit upon us so that we might be discerning citizens.
Fill us with your love and your compassion,
…that we might love our neighbors in how we vote,
…that your church might be leaven in the political life of our country,
…that the light of justice might shine in the darkness of our political life,
…that the mind of Christ might replace vain conceit and contempt.

What kind of words do you use as you pray during this election season in the US? How do you draw close to God? How do you find ways to love neighbors who might disagree with you politically?

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September 6, 2012

Politicking

By Nathan

Facebook & politics maybe don't mix?

If you haven’t noticed, there is this Presidential election going on here in the US.

For a lot of people, it’s an exciting time to view political conventions, watch the polls, volunteer for your candidates, and get riled up over minor platform differences.

And for others, it’s a time when the stress and anxiety of our nation spills out in annoying ways.

My cousin’s husband posted the above graphic on Facebook last night. No doubt, numerous friends and acquaintances of his flooded their thoughts into the wonderful world of the internet, for all to see. I love social media, and it does give us some great new ways to connect and communicate with family and friends. But there is often no sense of boundaries like you might find in a personal conversation.

Just because you have this awesome opinion, it doesn’t mean anyone cares to hear it.

Churches can especially fall prey to this in the US. A big reason many young people have turned away from organized religion is the the way politics is used like a club by politicians, pastors, and church leaders. There is rarely room for conversation and disagreement around important issues. It can feel like we are supposed to fall in line – that if we don’t vote a certain way, we cannot serve Christ.

Churches can avoid politics completely or even cast it as evil, like pacifist and theologian David Lipscomb, famous Stone-Campbell leader in the South. Or we can challenge one another to engage in our system with prayer, open ears, and compassion. Such a course will lead us to have different opinions and support different ideas, platforms, and politicians. But if we do that process in deep reflection and conversation with a diversity of people around us, we may be humbled and reminded that people across the aisle or down the block are doing their best to make sense of an often chaotic world too.

My preferred image of church is a table, a safe space where we are guests, sometimes bumping elbows, always striving to listen to new voices and pass the food from one to another until all are nourished.

Maybe that’s an image of community that could be a balm in what feels like a divisive time.

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September 5, 2012

It’s so Hard to Say Goodbye

By Nathan

Me & Joseph atop Mt. Scott in Oklahoma

Sunday was an emotional day for me – preaching about Jesus as servant and making a huge announcement -

I have accepted a call to serve as Senior Pastor at University Christian Church in Hyattsville, MD.

It’s not easy to leave a people and place that you love. I am still very passionate about the Table and about East Dallas Christian Church. It really is an amazing bunch of folks who are working hard to make a difference in our community. The mission of this congregation will continue on without me, possibly in new directions as God continues to shape and lead them.

The good news is that Rev. Douglass Anne Cartwright will be stepping up to continue to lead our worship as a community. She is also going to lend her presence, along with Bob Hearne, at our Faith in the City pub ministry. The radical invitation to join Christ at the welcome table will be shared each and every week at 629 N. Peak and around the neighborhood.

My last Sunday will be September 30. In addition to a reception on that day, there will be other opportunities throughout the week to celebrate what God has done and continues to do through our community. God is still good – God is still sending us to share the good news and bring others to join the celebration. I am grateful to have shared in this awesome work.

I’ll be sharing more reflections and hopes in the weeks to come. See you soon!

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