Member Mission Newsletter #32 – Advent and our Missions     

 

This month:  

RESOURCES – FOR ADVENT
• For the Peace of the World
• God’s Politics
• Mennonites avoid polarizing
• Spirituality at Work: Ten Ways to Balance Your Life on the Job

STORIES
• A bishop finds a quote's source -- and more happens
• Singing for spiritual health – their own and others’
• A church-based counseling center for all
• Workbook pages work on their own
• God’s Politics – an Advent study, perhaps
• Member mission supports response to Katrina’s damage
• Mennonites avoid polarizing as they learn to talk politics and faith

FOR MEDITATION
• . . . on ordinary folks from William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony
• . . . on real progress from F. D. Roosevelt’s Second Inaugural Address
• . . . on from being loved to being on mission

 

RESOURCES – FOR ADVENT

 

For the Peace of the World, a publication of the National Council of Churches of Christ.  Dr. Janice Love, Deputy General Secretary of the United Methodist Women's Division for Mission and Evangelism, in this new six-session study course challenges American Christians to ask how the U.S. should use its undisputed world dominance: as a loner state or as an interdependent member of the world community.  Increase your insights for mission in the wider world.  To order: Friendship Press, 7870 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH 45237; 800-889-5733; $7.95 + $4.50 s & h.

 

God’s Politics: see “God’s Politics – an Advent study, perhaps” below.

 

Mennonites avoid polarizing: see “Mennonites avoid polarizing as they learn to talk politics and faith” below.

 

Spirituality at Work: Ten Ways to Balance Your Life on the Job, by Gregory F. A. Pierce, (Loyola Press, 2005, $14.95) – ten disciplines for a manager to build up the quality of life at work.  While Pierce writes in “secular” language for the most part, there is no mistaking the authentic spirituality his ten disciplines will build. 
   
 
STORIES

 

A bishop finds a quote's source -- and more happens
 
Bishop Chilton Knudsen of Maine sends out an annual Summer Lemonade Letter.  The idea is that the readers can get a glass of lemonade and be in a hammock as they read her summary of what's been going on in Maine.   At the conclusion of the last one, she wrote, “I am praying over this quote I recently heard.  I'm sorry I cannot tell you who said it , but perhaps that doesn't matter: ‘God's Church does not have a mission. Rather, God's mission has a church.’”
 
Jim Gill, of our member mission team, emailed her to say that it came from When the Members are the Missionaries.  She replied: “Dear Jim, THANK YOU.  That's where I heard that quote!  Of course . . . Let us all be about mission in these fractious days . . . +CHILTON.”
 
This gave Jim an idea and he asked Bishop Knudsen whether or not he might be able to have copies of the book along with a new study guide at a table at the Ministry Fair at Bangor Seminary on October 1st.  He called it a “right-on resource for the emphasis of the Ministry Fair and one that can be accomplished at the local parish level.”  She agreed and Jim followed through for the Ministry Fair and, also, negotiated for it to be displayed at the Diocesan Convention, October 21-22 at the Bangor Civic Center.
    Contact:  James Gill, 37 Brunswick Ave., Gardiner, ME 04345; 207-582-8802;    MeAMFT2@aol.com
     

 

Singing for spiritual health – their own and others’

Katharine Preston and John Bingham choose their music.

How do you see God at work in your singing?  What happens for you when you sing?
Katharine: “I’ve been given a gift that needs to be shared.  When I sing, the Holy Spirit seems to take over and, through the music, God reaches others.”
John: “When I remember to let go, I sense the presence of God's spirit, the Holy Spirit, coloring the composer's song through me.  I am not alone but one with the listeners, and with the Spirit.  I hope others are more encouraged to join in song.”

A church-based counseling center for all

 

All seekers are welcome to use the counseling service housed in a large urban congregation.  The counselor offers both general counseling and specific addiction counseling.  Where those counseled can afford to pay, they do.  Those without sufficient resources for payment are just as welcome.  The counselor, an ordained person, draws on religious imagery when he senses it has meaning for and will help the counselee.  He had two years of seminary in the early 1950s, continued to be active in church life in a variety of ways, and was ordained in 1985.  Emerging from alcohol abuse over twenty-six years ago, he became a volunteer counselor for a rehabilitation center.  His colleagues found him so skilled at it, that they suggested he make it his full time work.  His own recovery gives him special skill for helping people who bring problems with addiction.  While counseling is his usual daily work, he serves as an associate member of the church’s staff for corporate worship and other congregational activities.
     Contact: Anonymous

Workbook pages work on their own

Buzz Butler picked up a draft copy of “A Workbook for When the Members are the Missionaries” at a workshop at the Province One conference on Stewardship, Evangelism and Congregational Development last April.  He gave copies of the pages on discerning your daily missions to several fellow members of his small congregation of St. Andrew’s in Readfield, ME.  He found that those using them stepped up to take on some tasks in the congregation that, in various ways, support all the members in their daily living.  He also liked a handout with pictures from past newsletters of people in each of the daily mission fields.  He plans to do the same with the members of St. Andrew’s.  Incidentally, in the past, they have brought instruments of their daily work to church for a blessing.  One brought a keyboard.  Buzz brought a hard hat representing his work to maintain the natural gas pipeline in Maine.  It represented his mission to help the people he supervises to work together.
     Contact: Clarence (Buzz) Butler, Route 17, Readfield, ME; 207-685-8103; cebutler@duke-energy.com

God’s Politics – an Advent study, perhaps
 
With the heating up of religion in politics, it might be time for help from Jim Wallis’ popular book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Harper Collins, 2005).  Janet Martin of St. Mark’s, Milwaukee, WI called together six experienced leaders to join her and her husband in leading an eight-session course on the book.  Each chose the chapter he or she wanted to work with and selected their own approach. [The flyer announcing the sessions is available on request from membermission@aol.com.]  In addition, each leader was asked to invite participants as well.   Sessions were Wednesday nights for one hour.  Participants were told they could choose the sessions they wanted to attend and did not have to commit themselves to come to all eight.  Accordingly, with two more sessions to go, 26 have participated with 18 as the average size of the group.  Both “conservative” and “liberal” viewpoints are present among the leaders as well as the participants.  Use it to develop a sharper sense of faith’s role in the issues of mission in the wider world.  [For another approach, see MMNews #30 on the website under Newsletters.]
     Contact: Janet Martin, 2727 E. Belleview Place, Milwaukee, WI 53211; 414-961-2465; crablake@sbcglobal.net

 

Member mission supports response to Katrina’s damage

 

[Bob Runkle, Outreach Ministry Leader at St. Luke’s, Coeur d’Alene, ID emailed on 10/8 as follows.]
Dear Wayne:
Just wanted to alert you to our new mission objective with Trinity Advocates, a cooperative of sixteen churches assigned by the Diocese of Mississippi to work with Trinity Episcopal Church, Pass Christian, Mississippi. The web site www.stlukescares.com says it all.  [Do take a look]  We've been at this since the Sunday after Hurricane Katrina hit, and have completed our first trip to MS, purchased and constructed a storage shed, gave a handmade baby blanket to a newly baby who's family home was destroyed, worshiped together on the site of the former church, and returned home, changed. We're now spearheading the second Work Trip for October 31st through November 14th that will be a coalition trip with volunteers from several of the churches, cash donations, etc., etc., etc. Very powerful ministry, will be 18 months or more. We anticipate having to spend around $10,000 over this period, and are now in the startup phase of fund raising. We've spent over $3K on the first trip and will spend another $2.5K for the second. Hope to have a DVD in the next two weeks that will have the “Story” on it, ideas for people to join with us in this outreach -- we'll be giving the DVD away in the Diocese for a cash donation, in the hopes that it will generate more donations! Will send one to you as soon as available. Keep up your constant good works! The energy and ideas keep flowing and challenge us to our own continued growth.
God's Peace, Bob
     Contact: Robert S. Runkle, 5348 West Broken Tee Road, Rathdrum, ID 83858; h208-687-5968, c208-691-2499; rsrunk@aol.com

 

Mennonites avoid polarizing as they learn to talk politics and faith

 

[Here’s a way to move beyond the polarizations that seem to be on the increase and inhibit our coping with the issues of the wider world – from The Christian Century, August 23, 2005, p. 5.]
After last November's election, a frustrated member of a Mennonite congregation near South Bend, Indiana, wrote an article for his congregation's newsletter.  In it, he articulated his own political convictions.  Then, even as he acknowledged that others would disagree with his perspectives, he wondered whether members of his congregation could meet and begin a conversation about their political differences.

 

And so they did.  Starting in Lent, the congregation held two series of sessions on "Faith and Politics."  They set some ground rules: listen actively to each other, seek differing points of view, look for common ground, and engage in dialogue without debating the issues.  Their goal was to better understand each other, not to change minds or insist on unanimity.

 

They began by exploring their fear's, including the fear of talking about politics within the faith community.  They gave each person the opportunity to share his or her convictions and how he or she arrived at them.  Hearing each other's stories helped them to understand each other even when the political positions reached were quite different.  Some people admitted that they had changed their political persuasions at some point, but not all had changed in the same direction.  After sharing their stories, they discussed two general questions, "What issues were most important to you in the last election?" and "How can biblical faith inform public policy?" and then three specific issues – abortion, international relations and economic justice.

 

Those who participated agreed that they had become more aware of the range of opinions among members.  They had learned to articulate their own opinions in such a way as to respect those who differed with them, and to listen to people representing other points on the political spectrum.  They realized that the faith convictions that unite them are deeper than their differences in translating principles into public policy.
   

 

 

• William Bradford, second governor of the Plymouth Colony, 1621-1657, was thankful for the community of  lower and middle class people he led.  He wrote that he believed that “God works through ordinary people in ordinary life for ordinary purposes.” 
                        (Paraphrased from a History Channel program)

 

• “The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
                       (Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second Inaugural Address)

 

• We all need to be loved.  Once we know we are loved, we need to know we are on mission.