0
Christmas Eve: Scrooge Edition
A few wonderings re Christmas Eve…
- I read multiple advertisements in today’s newspaper for churches’ “Traditional Candlelight Service.” Strange use of “traditional,” I bet. I don’t have the books with me to prove it, but I’m pretty sure candlelight services are a relatively new American tradition, certainly not more than 50 years old. Then again, in a church, it only takes doing something twice to become a tradition.
- If Christmas is all about celebrating Christ’s birth, then it seems to me that evening services on Christmas Eve celebrate it too early. With all the waiting of Advent, why can’t we manage to wait one more day and celebrate on Christmas Day? I’d understand a watch-night service, maybe, that went deep into the night and ended in celebrating the incarnation, but Christmas eve services jump the gun, if you will. Why isn’t our big Christmas celebration on Christmas Day?
- Let’s all make an effort to keep the Christmas celebration going through Epiphany, post-Christmas sales not withstanding.
- As I explored in my eschatological Advent sermon, I think its a good idea to keep eschatology in our minds and in our liturgy even on Christmas day. I think Mark Koenig does so well, saying:
On this night
bellies spasm with hunger
winter seeps into the bones of people with no homes
thoughts turn to Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and places between and beyond
people plot violence
children watch parents die of AIDS, wondering when their turn will come
relationships fray and come apart
children and women and men endure abuse
economic uncertainty undoes nations and households
walls divide people from their homes
nuclear sabers rattle and handguns bark
drugs surge through veins to allow escape from reality’s pain
death comes calling — sometimes welcome, sometimes not
sorrow and suffering spread around the world
trouble and turmoil touch us all
evil stalks the earthYet
in the midst of all that
in the face of all that
in spite of all that
because of all that
on this night,we gather
to sing
and pray
and read ancient words
and light candles
and celebrate again
the birth of a child —
— nothing more and nothing less
than the every day miracle —
except that this child — this Jesus —
tells us
teaches us
shows us
life does not have to be the way it is
but that it can be filled
with
hope and
faith and
grace and
sharing and
commitment and
community and
justice and
righteousness and
well-being and
wholeness and
peace . . .
. . . on earth . . .
. . . for all!Glory to God, may it be so.
image by Steve9091
0
Tackiest Christmas sweaters…the world leader in news
I confess, I still have CNN.com as one of my homepage tabs. Though CNN, in my estimation, has declined precipitously in the web era and become enarmed with bells and whistles, and personalities, and pop “news,” and breaking stories rather than, say, news, I did get a laugh at the front page –front page! — link to, well, pop-culture holiday fun.
Click the picture to see the breaking news of today…
10
Would Jesus Twitter?
I’ve been in several conversations and meetings lately about technology, social-networking, blogs, and, well, PR. No, “PR” is probably not the best descriptor because these folks are interested not just in public perception, but in how they can best use existing technologies to connect people and ideas for the betterment of all — if that’s what PR is, my apologies. I love to think and talk about such things, but I’m also aware that my English and Religion degrees only go so far in equipping me for the conversation. Here’s what I’ve been thinking, though.
My generation is connected to each other in ways unseen twenty years ago. For example, Megan and I had coffee with some good friends a few weeks ago. It was a great hour and a half, and I look forward to getting together again soon. But I probably won’t see them for a few more weeks. Yesterday, though, I saw they uploaded pictures of a new dog and asked for name suggestions via a facebook status. I added my two cents and by doing so, checked in with them and shared in their fun news. Somehow, via a facebook interaction or two, our friendship is strengthened, or at least positively continued, through a few clicks on facebook. I could give plenty of other examples, or even list friends who I feel fairly close to and been conversing with for over a year, but who I met through the blog and have never met in person. After spending a year abroad and now returning to Decatur with some friends having moved away, I’m particularly aware of how technology has enhanced friendships in ways unavailable before.
Networks such as facebook, and facts like youth these days are spending more time online and less time watching TV, are changing our culture pretty darn quickly. Remember when PalmPilots were all the rage and tablet laptops were the next big thing? Remember when our children just hung out at friends’ houses rather than setting up “playdates?”
So I wonder how the church needs to change in such a world, and I wonder how Christians can best live into the web 2.0 world and beyond.
Sure there’s plenty of cautious questions to ask: are online encounters cutting down on in-person ones? How do we follow an incarnate savior in a virtual world? Are the tech gaps between generations alienating our most seasoned members? And many more.
I just signed up for Twitter (@ajc123) as I’m definitely of the “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it school of technology.” Day one is going fine after I figured out how to reply to people (they should put the shortcuts in the welcome email).
In seminary I’ll often hear stuff like, God’s great movements always begin on the margins of society or, be suspicious wherever there is empire for the resounding message of the Bible is against empire and for God’s subversive acts. So I wonder, is new technology the margins, the periphery, or just empire?
If it’s the margins, should we be starting up new church developments in Second Life? If it’s empire, should we even email?
I’m not sure, but I do know that the resistance I hear to much technological change sounds an awful lot like the resistance I hear to good and right changes in the church: but we’ve never done it that way before. The resistance sounds an awful lot like fear of change rather than excitement for new possibilities for living-out the gospel.
I’m not sure if I’ll like Twitter. I’m not sure how long I’ll blog. But I’ll end with a story I heard last week. A friend of mine was at a church service in Atlanta where she met a visitor. After welcoming the visitor, she asked how she heard about the congregation. The visitor said she was surfing the web angry about crappy old hymns and not wanting to have anything to do with the church. She googled and found my blog where she found the presbymergent.org link. She followed that and ended up visiting an emergent congregation in Atlanta.
I have no idea who this visitor was. Never met her. Probably never will. It goes to show, though, that Holy Spirit has no qualms about moving online. Maybe we shouldn’t either.
0
New blog network search feature
So my blog network, CCblogs (that’d be short for The Christian Century) has a new search feature that’s pretty slick. It’s doubly handy because 1) the wordpress search feature isn’t real great and 2) this way you can now search the CCblog network quickly and easily.
I’ve put a new widget over on the right — it says, ingeniously “search my blog or network” — just click on it to search A Wee Blether, or better yet, all the CCblog network. You can also do this over at CCblogs. It’s run by Lijit.
It’s a pretty powerful tool for the network….so come on, you know you wanna. Go search away! (but y’all come back now, you hear)
0
Sermon: Wait on the Lord, 2 Peter 3:8-15
Sermon preached at a Lutheran congregation last week. I was guest preaching, so I had to make more general context assumptions than usual. I enjoyed exploring advent waiting in regards to Christ’s second coming, but continue to wonder how such ideas are best put into practice.
Wait on the Lord
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Advent means “coming.” I don’t need to tell good Lutherans that. This is a season of waiting, of expectation, for Christ’s coming on Christmas Day. So with the whole church, we wait: lighting candles, singing services, counting down each Sunday until, with Christmas joy, we celebrate God’s incarnation. Waiting, faithfully, for Christ’s coming at Christmas.
But there’s another side to Christ’s coming, one that, generally speaking, us mainline Christians get a bit nervous to discuss. It’s the reason, after Charles sent me today’s lections, that I had some second thoughts about preaching at tonight’s service. This reason gives some of us hope to get out of bed each morning, and for others, it’s the farthest thing from our minds, a scary and strange idea that we just rather not consider.
Advent means “coming” in another way: Christ’s “second coming.” Christ’s return. –and it’s not all elves and reindeers, and would you believe this: my Bible doesn’t have one mention of snow flakes falling while chestnuts roast over an open fire?!
Tonight’s lection from 2 Peter is all about Christ’s coming again, “The day of the Lord” Peter calls it, but that day isn’t December 25th at all. … Continue Reading
0
Seminary Reflections, Presbyterian Bloggers Style
Posted this over at Presbyterian Bloggers…..
As the semester draws to a close, final exams are written, and papers turned-in (or clicked-in, as is the case when one submits a paper online), I’m aware of the inherent beauty of the academic calendar.
Work twelve weeks, HARD. Big push at the end for finals. Then, rest. Sabbath. It’s almost Biblical, even, since from time to time we all need take a break to reconnect with God, with others, with ourselves, (and yes, with those non-academic to-do lists).
One of the differences between my full-time church internship last year, and my full-time student life at seminary this year, is that last year I actually had time to read for fun, to come home from a day at work and not have to worry about homework or studying. I enjoyed an almost nightly sabbath from work, a feeling very difficult to achieve during the school year. It helped me break and connect with Megan, with friends online, with God.
Advent, to some extent at least, is about sabbath, a sabbath from our normal secular-driven holiday thoughts to another a focus on something else entirely. A sabbath to ponder Christ having come, a sabbath to hope for Christ’s coming again. A time to wait, to be allowed to rest, to reconnect with God, with others, with ourselves.
Maybe these feelings are more intense for one who has just finished a semester’s work, but I hope that we all might use our sabbath time whenever it’s each night after work, or a Sunday afternoon, or early in the morning to rest, to wait with God, to hope for the time when all will be well, for Christ is surely coming.
image by yunior
0
Help for the Journey
A few months ago now, I attended a conference put on by The Fund for Theological Education. If you’re connected to the church in any way, you need to know about FTE. They have a rather significant budget, and they’re all about supporting young people explore vocation — too all forms of ministry — but, especially, to church leadership.
FTE offers some great scholarships for undergraduates, seminary students, and racial-ethnic PhD students, and more broadly, seeks to cultivate a culture of call that permeates all congregational life.
I attended the Calling Congregations Conference in October, held here in Atlanta. I definitely recommend future conferences to pastors and church leaders interested in exploring how God is calling a new generation of church leaders.
I write this post, however, with last week’s post on “The Huge Problem of the PC(USA) Call Shortage That Doesn’t Exist” in the back of my mind. I suppose it could be argued that because the PC(USA) has plenty of leaders, statistically speaking at least, that FTE’s mission is already complete. But to make that argument, one would have to be pretty out of touch with the denominations I know and love.
Sure, we need to address the PC(USA)’s dwindling numbers, empty rural pulpits, and swelling urban presbyteries, but isn’t the problem, more broadly speaking, one of quality? The church doesn’t need more pastors, it needs quality pastors who, with God’s help, help the church increase in faith, hope, and love.
Also (and this point came up multiple times in the comments of my previous post), we need folks leaving seminary without tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt so that first-call pastors can take a rural call and still pay their student loans.
Finally, I’m very supportive of cross-denominational conversations, especially ones hosted by organizations like FTE who not only have the know-how and grit to ask tough questions about the church’s future, but who have the resources to really do something about it.
Below is a video FTE recently put out. Watch it, and check out their website for great sources of funding for your congregation or ordained ministry-considering young person you know: http://www.thefund.org (you may even see my picture!)
Pages ... 1 2
Connect Online
