In This Month's Issue:
DAILY MISSIONS
Two missionaries to recall with thanksgiving
Generations converse about daily life
RESOURCES
More doctoral degree research on member mission’s breakthrough needed
FOR MEDITATION
MM SHORTS
Repairing men
“It is easier to build
strong children than
to repair broken men.”
– Frederick Douglas
"Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show
kindness and mercy each to his
brother, do not oppress the
widow, the fatherless, the
sojourner, or the poor; and
let none of you devise evil
against his brother in your
heart."
– Zechariah 7:9-10
For some fun from The Far Side, go to
http://www.wernerf.
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Watch Member Mission Presents on YouTube!
See:
Howdy Russell serves 3's and under and their parents
Keep Member Mission Around!
For Member Mission to last beyond 2013, it needs to be in the wills of its advocates. Click here for three ways to put a bequest in your will.
January 2012
Member Mission Newsletter #100
More Light
(Click here for a printable version)
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A member mission hint
In preaching and teaching, talk mission, mission, mission. In Baptism, we joined God’s mission in Jesus Christ to be part of God’s work to make the world more loving and more just wherever we are, all the time.
STORIES OF MISSIONS
Two missionaries to recall with thanksgiving:
Donna Bernice Cosulich – in her professional life, she discovered methotrexate, a drug used to treat certain cancers; in her community life, she visited shut-ins with a rabbit; in her church life, she was a chorister, a church warden, a trainer of church leaders, a co-leader for a community mission, a member mission group leader, and an advocate for the environment who led the “greening” of a large church culminating in a member’s gift of a solar energy system to reduce the church’s carbon footprint by 70%. Entered life eternal December 26, 2011.
Elliott Lorenz Sorge – a constant champion of the daily ministries and missions of church members; bishop of Southern Brazil; Executive for Education for Mission and Ministry of the national Episcopal Church; bishop of Easton; and, in retirement, a leader of member mission in the diocese of Colorado. Entered life eternal December 6, 2011. Survived by his wife, Margaret, and a son and two daughters.
Generations converse about daily life
With a sophomore
I like real conversations with real people about real issues of life. Recently, I talked with my granddaughter about her decision to change her college major.
Wayne: Can I ask a personal question?
Elizabeth: Sure.
Wayne: Catch me up. We all differ. Is God very real for you?
Elizabeth: [Nods, yes.]
Wayne: I heard you just changed your college major from Geology to Exercise Science this year. I changed my major during college too. Did you see God connected with your change in any way?
Elizabeth (without hesitation): I wanted to get closer to helping people.
She makes the right connections – God is, indeed, about helping other people!
With another sophomore
Josh is in his second year of college. We met when he was doing some painting for us this past summer. I reached him by phone.
Wayne: I don’t have a project but a request to help me with another kind of project – a monthly newsletter. We like to include how people see what they are doing. Can I take a few minutes of your time?
Josh: Sure - and it is good to hear from you.
Wayne: I am interested in what people choose for their major. What are you working on?
Josh: Secondary Education with an emphasis on Mathematics.
Wayne: Great choice and interesting! Can I ask you two personal questions as we talk?
Josh: Go ahead.
Wayne: First, how real is God for you?
Josh: I don’t have much to do with religion. I do have a faith even though I don’t go to church very much.
Wayne: A lot of us are like that. I do have another question. Did what you believe have any connection with your choice of Secondary Education?
Josh: I wanted to give back to the community. It was a way to give back to the community.
Wayne: It sure is and I like the sense of caring and fairness in the way you put it. Caring and fairness – loving and being just – are big in most of the world’s religions too. And what about the emphasis on mathematics?
Josh: I’m good at it and it’s fun and, so, a way for me to be most effective.
Reader, I hope you cheer Josh for wanting to give back to the community. And I was glad to have a chance to connect his reasons with the love and justice that are so much a part of religions.
“Bridging the Bible Gap” by Jewel Gingerich Longenecker will open up discussion about getting seminary methods of Bible interpretation available to members of congregations. She gives clues and resources for both conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning churches. Click on http://sojo.org/print/magazine/2011/11/bridging-bible-gap and register yourself for free.
daveramsey.com offers a variety of resources to help individuals and households to mange their money. For example, click on “Take a class” to find where the basic course of thirteen sessions is held in your area. One happy attendee found help with down-to-earth questions such as what size deductible to choose for her auto insurance. Churches offering the class find it reaches people beyond their current church list of names.
More doctoral degree research on member mission’s breakthrough needed: one subscriber has already chosen for his DMin how resources like the workbook, rather than a sermon or a presentation, enables members to live more faithfully in every area of daily life. Take the same topic for your Dmin or ThD or choose: (1) baptism as joining Jesus’ mission to make the world more loving and more just; or (2) there are at least seven unique areas of daily life where we have specific missions; or (3) how a basic purpose of helping the members in their daily living both simplifies and enriches church life.
Christian “occupiers”
The Dutch theologian, journalist, and statesman Abraham Kuyper gave voice to the impetus for [a] Christian diaspora into the varied vocations of life with his articulation of the consequences of God's sovereignty. "Christ's church on earth and God's child cannot simply retreat from this life," he wrote. "If the believer's God is at work in this world, then in this world the believer's hand must take hold of the plow, and the name of the Lord must be glorified in that activity as well." What this means is that there are Christians who already occupy Wall Street every day in their occupations as businessmen and women, bankers and investors, traders and executives, secretaries and receptionists, janitors and security guards. The church's responsibility to these "occupiers" is to provide them with the moral and spiritual formation necessary to be faithful followers of Christ every day in their productive service to others.
– Jordan J. Ballor
YouTube Brings You Members on Mission
Howdy Russell serves 3's and under and their parents
Click the link or image above to watch this story and learn more about the personal impact of Member Mission.
Watch Member Mission Presents on YouTube!
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For your church:
Try a New Year’s resolution to use the wider world worksheet
to discern your role in the coming elections.
http://www.membermission.org/New-Website-Files/wider-world-worksheet.html
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Tell us about your work with member mission at info@membermission.org or phone 802-482-7743. You continue on this list because of past interest and / or work together with the Member Mission vision. If you missed or lost any past newsletters, you will find them on the website under Newsletter > Archive.
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New address for the MM Press and Network and A. Wayne Schwab:
PO Box 628
Hinesburg, VT 05461
Phone
802-482-7743
and add this email
membermission@aol.com