October 2008
Informed, responsible voting is part of loving your neighbor as yourself.
[And, last call!]
Member Mission Leadership Institute
To: help all of your members to be on mission in every area of daily life 24/7/365;
and reshape your church’s life around supporting their daily living as missionaries.
Teams of rector and lay leader suggested.
Agree to 3-year follow up with mentoring provided.
Dinner, Oct. 6 – Breakfast, Oct. 11, 2008; Spiritual Life Center, Greenwich, NY;
(45 min. from Albany Airport); Cost: $100 plus ½ economy air fare
For more information click on Training.
Space limited – apply by 9/15/08
This month
SPECIAL!
• Help to advance God’s mission
STORIES
• Member mission inspires a thrift shop
• Questions for the candidates
• What member mission has meant to Sue
• Godparents
• Broadcasting Sunday worship
RESOURCES
• Green Tips for your Sunday bulletin
• “The Missing Class”
• “Proclaim The Good News”
FOR MEDITATION
• A right to health care
SPECIAL!
Help to advance God’s mission
It’s time to make member mission available across the country. Be part of the first Member Mission Leadership Institute, October 6-10, 2008 at the Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich, NY. Here is what your tax-deductible contribution will do.
• Train sixteen seminarians, clergy, and lay leaders to start member mission in their churches by:
– helping church members to connect what they do Monday to Saturday with Jesus’ mission;
– using tools commended by the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori; and
– coaching them for three years as they build member mission into the whole of church life.
• Advance member mission’s use among Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans as well as Episcopalians.
The first Institute is budgeted for $20,000. Every dollar you send – whether $25, $50, $75, or $100 will help. Contribute by sending a check to Member Mission Network, Inc., 10 Jubert Lane, Plattsburgh, NY 12901. If you are using your PayPal account, log on; click on Send Money; use membermissionnet@aol.com as the email address; enter the amount; click on Services/Other; and follow the prompts to complete your donation. If you do not have a PayPal account, go to www.membermission.org; click on To Donate; click on the Donate button. All contributions are tax deductible since MMN, Inc. was granted 501(c)(3) status by the IRS in July.
STORIES
Member mission inspires a thrift shop
Essex, New York has a mixed population of moderate income, long time residents and newly arrived retirees in premium, lakeside homes. Mary Ann has started a thrift shop, “Renew”, that brings the two groups together as both shoppers and clerks. She takes all kinds of goods which means that antique dealers also come. The first seven weeks have netted an income of $21,000. Mary Ann’s inspiration for the work has been Member Mission’s focus on mission. Bringing two diverse group together is her mission in the local community. She furthers the mission by giving items away; helping people financially; referring people for spiritual counseling, and encouraging people to go to church. Indeed, she has a mission for the whole of the town of Essex. A strong promoter, Mary Ann still knows when to be tactful and ease up on her enthusiasm for “Renew.” She works about 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. Her well furnished home is filled with thrift shop items – so much so that it looks like the store room for the thrift shop!
Mary Ann has the gifts she needs for the work. Her skill set includes: working as an antique dealer who knows the value of old things that come to “Renew;” assessing works of art based on five years as a trustee for an arts college; serving as a social worker; studying as an accounting major in college; and even liking to do the laundering and ironing of thrift shop items that need it. Still, she takes time for family visits, dinner out with her husband, and the like. She looks ahead to buying a building and to employing a full time manager with health benefits.
[For more information call Mary Ann Schultz at 518-963-7217.]
Questions for the candidates
The Interfaith Alliance offers 5 questions to ask every political candidate. As religion plays an increasingly prominent role in American politics, preserving the boundaries between religion and politics is more important than ever.
• What role will your faith or values play in creating public policy or making appointments?
• What are your views on the boundaries between religion and government?
• What steps will you take to protect the rights of your constituents regardless of faith or belief?
• How will you speak about your beliefs without making them just another political tool?
• How will you balance the principles of your faith and your obligation to defend the Constitution, particularly, if the two come into conflict?
What member mission has meant to Sue
"I have to say that learning and studying and implementing the Member Mission credo into my life has actually saved me, strengthened me, healed me and hopefully has been passed on to others. From my point of view, Member Mission is a very real way to achieve a closeness to God. As a Member Mission participant I became closer to God: I learned to trust Him wholeheartedly, and hence my faith was strengthened many fold. Because of that strengthening of my faith, I can see, hear and feel what God wants me to do on a daily basis. I am on a journey, a rather difficult one at times, but a journey none the less that has been enriched through Member Mission. God isn't through with me yet, but I am getting there, slow but sure. I have much healing to do, but what I learn, hear and experience during Member Mission sessions, any and all, is all a blessing to me. Honestly, I don't think I would be where I am today, on my journey, if it hadn't been for Member Mission. Thank you."
Godparents
During his childhood years, every time Jimmy’s Godfather saw him, he asked: “Jimmy, are you saying your prayers?” Today, Jimmy may not be in church every Sunday but he is saying his prayers!
Broadcasting Sunday worship
[Rod Saunders flew KC97 prop tankers for the Air Force out of Mountain Home, Idaho in the 1960s. A local radio station offered a half hour to the Episcopal church in Mountain Home to share in broadcasting Sunday worship. As a licensed Lay Reader, Rod was the obvious choice to do it. He used the Lay Readers Sermons published by his denomination for his meditation. He selected music he thought appropriate to set the right tone to the receive the message. ]
How did you see God using the broadcast?
“We reached people who were not usually part of a formal Sunday service. I saw it as a way to spread the Gospel. For me, the Gospel comes from a higher power with a way to conduct one’s life. The Lord guides us and we build our lives on his guidance. That means to respect the other person and to believe that all have hope that they can meet the challenges set before them.”
How did you see God helping you to do it?
“When it came time to develop a program, I would get in the right frame of mind to choose music to relax the listeners so that they were able to receive the message. The message led people to reflect on their lives and to lead them, perhaps, in a new way. ”
RESOURCES
Green Tips for your Sunday bulletin – here’s a sample:
Turn down your water heater thermostat (130 degrees if you use a dishwasher; otherwise, 120 degrees is hot enough). For every 10 degree decrease, you will reduce carbon dioxide by 500 pounds a year.
Cost: Free
Where: (Include this when there is a local place to go for the green tip)
[Compiled by St. Philip’s-in-the-Hills, Tucson, AZ.]
For a starter list of 34 green tips, writeMembermission@aol.com.
“The Missing Class”– On the week of February 23, 2008, professor Katherine Newman discussed the “missing class” – millions of Americans who are technically above the poverty line but still far from a middle-class standard of living. Go to http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/11/the_missing_class.html
“Proclaim The Good News” – The familiar lighthouse parable leads to the story of a man who cannot read finding a tutor. The Rev. Louis Tonsmiere, 6/15/2008, a sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8(especially 10:7); St. Timothy’s Church, Calhoun, GA. [Go to www.membermission.org > Sermons and Talks]
FOR MEDITATION – A right to health care
“There are a variety of proposals [for health care reform] that might work, but a new principle of health care as a human right must guide us. Jesus made healing a principal sign of his ministry and of the presence of the kingdom of God. From a biblical point of view, it is simply wrong when health becomes a commodity and accessibility depends upon wealth.”
[Jim Wallis, Sojourners, August 2008, p.6. Go to http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0808&article=a-visit-to-the-er]
* * *
God is most interested in how we live from Monday to Saturday.
Sunday – all of church life – helps us to do it better.
All content on this website is copyright protected.
© Member Mission
www.membermission.org
10 Jubert Lane
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
PH/FAX 518-561-1184