From the Pastor -
October 6, 2008
Where do we go from here?
So many things are changing at CrossWalk. We're becoming comfortable sharing space at Faith Lutheran. Now we're getting ready to add regular services on Sundays. We'll worship at 5:00 pm. Then move into dinner.
We're also excited about our budding youth group: CrossYouth. We hope to start meeting soon (like on October 14). Watch this space for more details.
There's so much excitement at CUC. We're ready to move forward into the future where God awaits us. Thanks be to God!!!!!
September 13, 2008
"We do not need another new church in Enid, Oklahoma!"
I hear this a lot. And it's true, we don't need another church in Enid. What we do need is a community of faith where all people can gather to worship, study, and eat.
CrossWalk United Church is intentionally forming as a Open and Affirming Congregation of the United Church of Christ. As such, CUC is a place where transgendered people can gather to worship without fear of recrimination (that finger pointing!). We are a fellowship of believers who celebrate the gifts of our lesbian, gay, and bisexual members as well. lgbt folk are celebrated at every level of ministry. It should be noted that, as of this posting, the UCC is the one of the very few Christian denominations that ordains out lgbt folk.
We are intentionally forming as a Multi-Racial/Multi-Cultural Congregation. At present we are conducting a Sacred Conversation amongst ourselves. We are completing the Sojourner's curriculum entitled Christians and Racial Justice. We've had some time for introspection as we have studied and confronted some of our basic assumptions. Next, we'll read America, Amerikka by Rosemary Radford Ruther. Our intention is to further confront the foundational myths that shape the American psyche. By engaging in an honest Sacred Conversation, we will be ready to welcome all people.
These are two reasons that Enid needs a fellowship like CrossWalk. We are serious people who are engaging in the hard work of changing ourselves. We are doing this so that we don't merely tolerate one another, but accept and celebrate one another as full participants in God's mission in the word. This is how we are trying to live up the to UCC motto, "That They All May Be One." Or, as we in the UCC have said more recently, "No matter who you are, no matter where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here."
September 11, 2008
How do we live together? That's always an important question for a community. It's an even more important question for a community that's forming as an intentionally diverse community. The love and grace seen in the early church seems unique in history. The church described in Galatians where there is no longer slave or free, male and female, Jew or Greek needs reinterpretation for the 21st century. A congregation where many different people gather, despite sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, gender, or gender identification is one interpretation of the Galatian church in the first century. There are clues to this church in both Romans and I Corinthians, as well.
In Romans, Paul writes, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39. Paul reminds us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Absolutely nothing.
In I Corinthians 13 talks about a different way of relating.
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
The way of love, which binds us so closely to God, can also bind us to one another. It seems simplistic. As a child, when asked about her pastor's sermon, once said, "blah, blah, blah, blah, ... love." It's remembering to love. When things are difficult, we need to remember to love.