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Why Musings?
- The Musings Page will be a place to consider thought-provoking, evocative, sometimes polemical but not overtly political, writings, quotes, ideas, and poetry on the Christian life in all its facets: spiritual, religious, ethical, and practical.
Lagniappe
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Pentecost
posted on May 17, 2012 by Musings
An except from Companion to the Book of Common Worship (Geneva Press, 2003, 117-119).
…on the Day of Pentecost, we celebrate God’s gift of Holy Spirit which draws us together as one people, helps us to comprehend what God is doing in the world, and empowers us to proclaim, in word and in deed, God’s plan of reconciling all people in the name of Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
Without the gift of the Spirit, Christ’s church dries up and withers away, and we are left with only our broken selves. With the gift of the Spirit, all things are possible. A spirit-filled community of faith opens eyes to needs in the world and sees its missing as God’s new people. The Day of Pentecost is the climax of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, celebrating as it does the gift of the Spirit to the body of Christ — the church.
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Filed under: Bible, Community
Taking Christ’s gift of grace out into the world and sharing it
posted on April 27, 2012 by Musings
The Thinking Outside the Pews amateur video series celebrates the vitality with which our congregation lives out its core values and invites all to join us in that celebration. The video link below features Rev. Bryan McDowell sharing how worship extends beyond the pews at 900 Jordan St, including sharing the sacrament of communion with folks who can’t join us physically on Sunday mornings.Bryan reminds us that:
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Thinking Outside the Pews: Communion
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The ‘ands’
posted on April 16, 2012 by Musings
In a recent post for the On Faith Guest Voices Blog on The Washington Post website, the author Diana Butler Bass reframes the discussion about spirituality and religion. The article is entitled ”Is Religion Dying –or Reinventing?”. An excerpt of the post is below and the full post can be found here: http://wapo.st/y0lba3
For decades, Americans have been turning toward spirituality as a protest vote against conventional religion… The bored and wounded have fled religion seeking new spiritual connections. Some 30 percent of Americans now identify as “spiritual but not religious,” around 9 percent are atheists and post-theists. But the growth of these two groups is not news. Their numbers have been rising for thirty years.
What is new? In my research, it’s the “ands.” Those who say they are “spiritual and religious.” In 1999, 54 percent of Americans said they were “religious but not spiritual,” while six percent said “spiritual and religious.” By 2009, the percentages had reversed: “religious but not spiritual” fell from 54 percent to nine percent as the “spiritual and religious” rose from a mere six percent of the population to nearly half, an astonishing 42 point change.
“Ands” want religion revolutionized by spirituality; they want spirituality grounded upon (but not guarded by) ancient wisdom, theologies, and practices. They demand more authenticity, meaning, justice, and community from religious institutions, not less. In these longings, the “ands” voice an older way of understanding religion, where faith should and must be an experience of God that transforms one’s life for the sake of the world. If the “ands” are the vanguard of change, then the great religious recession is about to give way to a great spiritual awakening. Is this the end of religion or only the beginning of a new, and better, form of faith?
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Filed under: Community, Emerging Church, Faith
Stuck With Each Other
posted on April 15, 2012 by Musings
MUSINGS for April will be looking at issues facing the church today and how we might understand and respond to them. The humbling of the church in our times reminds us that we worship and follow a humble Lord, and we will approach these questions with a certain amount of humility. To get the conversation started, below is an excerpt from the article “Stuck with Each Other” by Thomas W. Currie in the Spring 2012 issue of Insights, the faculty journal of Austin Seminary. This quote appears on p19 of the article.
The issue before us today is whether we can love the church. It gets so little love, and perhaps deserves less than it receives. It is so easily despised, especially for its manifold shortcomings, its weak and timid witness, its halting and vacillating call to discipleship, its own failure to live out what it professes. The church is a clunky thing, not nearly as sexy as a protest movement or as effective as a political campaign or as successful as a product placement. The church has baggage. And in truth, it is not and never will be an end in itself. There is no temple, according to St. John the Divine, in the heavenly city, “for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22). But the mystery of the church is that the Lamb is never without his people, never without his bride. The great mystery of the church is that Jesus Christ loves the church.
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Filed under: Community, Presbyterian Church
What’s NEXT?
posted on March 19, 2012 by Musings
Musings from Pen Peery about the NEXT Church:
In late February, 11 people from FPC Shreveport traveled to Dallas to join a conversation about what God is doing with the church. The conversation is based in two convictions. First: things are changing, and the church needs to respond to that change. Second: God is faithful, and whatever the future of the church will be is securely in God’s hands. We are continuing the conversation this Tuesday March 20 at 6:00 p.m. at Giusseppi’s on Line Avenue. Come join us!
NEXT Church is a congregationally led movement intended to embrace what God is calling the Presbyterian Church to become. Our mission statement reads: The mission of NEXT Church is to foster relationships among God’s people: “Sparking imaginations, connecting congregations, offering a distinctively Presbyterian witness to Jesus Christ.” There was a time when the Presbyterian Church knew how work together in mission to effect change. We built hospitals. We chartered schools. We coordinated efforts to eradicate hunger. We responded out of our faith by coming together in action. These connections brought our churches together in one purpose. Yet, over time, the bureaucracy of the way we “do church” has made it hard to keep these types of mission initiatives at the forefront of our connectional identity.
Three years ago, I gathered with a group of pastors who shared similar frustrations and similar trust and hope that God could still use the Presbyterian Church to participate in Christ’s mission. Last March we hosted our first conference in Indianapolis with about 350 people. In February, we gathered in Dallas with about twice as many people. The purpose of these conferences is to focus on where innovative mission is happening and to equip churches to join in those missions. NEXT Church recently moved to a higher level of organization. I serve on an eight person strategic team whose goal is to advance our mission statement by generating 15 new mission initiatives within the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the next year.
Three years ago, I gathered with a group of pastors who shared similar frustrations and similar trust and hope that God could still use the Presbyterian Church to participate in Christ’s mission. Last March we hosted our first conference in Indianapolis with about 350 people. In February, we gathered in Dallas with about twice as many people. The purpose of these conferences is to focus on where innovative mission is happening and to equip churches to join in those missions. NEXT Church recently moved to a higher level of organization. I serve on an eight person strategic team whose goal is to advance our mission statement by generating 15 new mission initiatives within the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the next year.
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Filed under: Community, Faith, Presbyterian Church
Is the world getting better?
posted on March 10, 2012 by Musings
The 2012 Spencer and Flora Murray Lecture Series features the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Rigby, the W. C. Brown Professor of Theology at Austin Seminary.
Professor Rigby is a contributer to the Dallas Morning News Texas Faith blog. Last week’s topic was “Is the world getting better?”
The scenario posed was the following:
Centre College professor Beau Weston operates an interesting blog, the Gruntled Center. He put up a post last week that draws from a lecture he recently gave at his Kentucky college. In the post and lecture, Weston, a Presbyterian, makes the argument that the world has gotten better.
He notes how violence is down in most “competent” nations, authoritarianism is in retreat worldwide, various forms of discrimination have diminished, food production is growing exponentially, air quality has improved, the population bomb has been a dud and transportation costs are cheaper. He lists a number of other indices, which you can read about on this link.
So, here is the question for the week: Is the world getting better?
We certainly read a lot in, yes, newspapers about things going awry. Republican candidates making the case against Barack Obama offer ample examples of the world being a mess. And many a book has been sold about the next coming crisis.
But are we looking at all this the wrong way. Is it indeed the case that the world is getting better?
Below is a thoughtful and faithful reply from Cynthia Rigby.
In some ways, the world is certainly getting better. Not a day goes by that I don’t marvel at what I can do with my i Pad. Seriously, it’s hard to overstate how much our capacity to communicate and to access information has improved. And this improvement has benefited all but the poorest of the global poor, as I understand it.
In the most basic ways, however, our world is either getting worse, or failing to improve significantly. By “most basic” I’m thinking in terms of everyone having food, shelter, and enough money to buy some important things (like clothes, medicine, and maybe some school supplies).
In the year 2000, the United Nations made a “Millenium Goal” of eradicating extreme global poverty by the year 2015. This goal will not be reached, nor will any significant strides have been made toward reaching it.
Food production may be growing, but there are more undernourished people living on the planet than there were fifteen years ago (the Food and Agricultural Association of the United Nations reports that there were 824 million undernourished people in 1996 and 925 million in 2010). This is the case even though (according to statistics provided by the Word Bank), the number of people in the world making less than $1.25 a day decreased from 1.94 billion to 1.29 billion from 2005-2008. The large number of natural disasters, in recent years, is one reason why there are more undernourished people even though there are fewer people who make less than $1.25 a day. There are roughly 100 million people, worldwide, who do not have homes (think: 12 times the population of New York City).
How should people of faith interpret these statistics?
A starting point might be not to buy into unhelpfully general and grandiose statements about how the world is getting better. Until every stomach is full, until every family is housed, until every child can go to school healthy, clothed, and with a pencil and notebook in hand, the world has not improved enough to throw around such generalities.
I’m not advocating negativity, nor am I diminishing the specific advances that have been made. But I believe that – as people who hope and work for the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven – we should walk around in this broken world ever cognizant that the Kingdom has not come, yet. To truly hope is not to “look at the bright side” in the face of suffering, but to be disappointed – even aggrieved – whenever we encounter it. It is constantly to repent, be changed, and recommit ourselves to the vision and promise of God’s whole world, made whole
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Filed under: Community, Global
ExtraOrdinary Time
posted on February 4, 2012 by Musings
We are in one of two periods of the church liturgical year known as Ordinary Time. The first Ordinary Time falls between Epiphany and Lent. Ordinary Time is when we live our lives together as a church, with Christ walking amongst us. The lectionary features stories of Jesus teaching and healing and feeding and tending his flock.
In the spirit of Ordinary Time, we are providing links to some collective blogs, individual blogs, on-line magazines, and other resources that challenge, inspire, make us think and sustain us. We will post some more links in a few days and we have other blogs listed on Our Blogs We Follow panel on the left hand side of the page. Check those out as well. And please share the places that you have come across that provide food for your journey.
• Gathering Voices from The Thoughtful Christian
A place you come to learn more about spirituality, ministry, popular culture, engaging news stories, and find out how these everyday stories can become a part of your religious life.
• Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice
An online journal and community that examines, expresses, and provokes social justice as inspired by the prophetic gospel of Jesus Christ. As both a journal and a forum for conversation, action and community building, Unbound is at once the inheritor of the print journal Church & Society (98 years running) and the innovator of an interactive approach to supporting social ministry.
Patheos.com is the premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality and to explore and experience the world’s beliefs. Patheos brings together faith communities, academics, and the broader public into a single environment, and is the place where many people turn on a regular basis for insight, inspiration, and stimulating discussion.
Progressive Christian and Evangelical are two great portals full of diverse blogs on where our Christian faith and life intersect.
There are a rich diversity of voices in other portals featuring blogs from the Atheist, Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, and Pagan communities.
A blog of the Environmental Ministries Office of the PC(USA). It includes a wide array of environmental topics: upcoming environmental events, links to interesting articles and studies, information on environmental advocacy, eco-theology topics, and success stories from churches that are going “green.”
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A New Definition of Greatness
posted on January 17, 2012 by Musings
No one can deny the power of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. At least part of that power finds its roots in the majesty, cadences, language, stories, and images of the King James Bible. As a minister and son of a minister, King knew his King James Bible, and that knowledge permeated King’s speech patterns and thought throughout his too-short life. Our upcoming topic for Musings next week will be the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. To jump start that discussion and in celebration of Dr. King’s birthday, here are two links to Dr. King reading portions of Mark 10: 35-45 from the King James Bible and part of his sermon (the “Drum Major Instinct” sermon) on that text.
Mark 10: 35-45 and excerpt from The Drum Major Instinct
Excerpt from The Drum Major Instinct
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Filed under: Community, History
“Our God is Marching On!”
posted on January 16, 2012 by Musings
Yesterday we posted a portion of the address given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on March 25, 1965 on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery AL. This speech came to be known as the “How Long?” address. Today as we recognize and celebrate his birth, we are posting further excerpts from the speech. The full address can be read at: “Our God is Marching On!”
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, And the walls come tumbling down. Up to the walls of Jericho they marched, spear in hand. “Go blow them ramhorns,” Joshua cried, “‘Cause the battle am in my hand.”There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense. The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down. I like that old Negro spiritual, “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” In its simple, yet colorful, depiction of that great moment in biblical history, it tells us that:
The battle is in our hands. And we can answer with creative nonviolence the call to higher ground to which the new directions of our struggle summons us. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. But we must keep going.
These words I have given you just as they were given us by the unknown, long-dead, dark-skinned originator. Some now long-gone black bard bequeathed to posterity these words in ungrammatical form, yet with emphatic pertinence for all of us today.
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I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?” Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?”
How long? Not long, because “you shall reap what you sow.”Somebody’s asking, “When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?”
I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because “no lie can live forever.”
How long? Not long:
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
How long? Not long, because:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.
O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!
Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
© The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Filed under: Community, History
“How Long?”
posted on January 15, 2012 by Musings
March 1965 witnessed one of the emotional and political peaks of the civil rights movement. Months of voter registration efforts, marches and protests in Selma, Alabama, had culminated in the shooting death of a marcher by an Alabama state trooper in February 1965.
In response, leaders of the voter registration efforts decided to stage a march from Selma to Montgomery to confront George Wallace with the death of the marcher and his complicity in that act. Three efforts to make the march from Selma to Montgomery took place in March 1965. The first on March 7 is remembered as Bloody Sunday when marchers were gassed and beaten as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The second effort on March 9 was turned back by state troopers and a court injunction. On March 11, a Unitarian minister who had come to Selma in support of the marchers died as a result of a beating he had received in Selma.
On March 16, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to present legislation that would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Finally, on March 21 after the injunction had been lifted, the marchers to Montgomery crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the first day of their journey to Montgomery. They arrived four days later where on March 25, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave what has become known as the “How Long?” speech on the steps of the state capitol. Below are some excerpts from that speech. We will post some additional excerpts tomorrow, the day we celebrate his birth. A complete copy of the text can be found here “Our God is Marching On!”
Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. We have walked through desolate valleys and across the trying hills. We have walked on meandering highways and rested our bodies on rocky byways. Some of our faces are burned from the outpourings of the sweltering sun. Some have literally slept in the mud. We have been drenched by the rains.
Our bodies are tired and our feet are somewhat sore. But today as I stand before you and think back over that great march, I can say, as Sister Pollard said-a seventy-year-old Negro woman who lived in this community during the bus boycott-and one day, she was asked while walking if she didn’t want to ride. And when she answered, “No,” the person said, “Well, aren’t you tired?” And with her ungrammatical profundity, she said, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.” And in a real sense this afternoon, we can say that our feet are tired, but our souls are rested.
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Today I want to tell the city of Selma, today I want to say to the state of Alabama, today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world, that we are not about to turn around.
We are on the move now.
Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. We are on the move now.
The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now. The wanton release of their known murderers would not discourage us. We are on the move now.
Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us.
We are moving to the land of freedom.
Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization of the American dream.
© The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.
