Monthly Archives: August 2009

A Journey through Ramadan

Posted on
Reply

My favorite public radio program/podcast about religion, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett is currently running an amazing series on Ramadan titled “Revealing Ramadan.” Throughout the Muslim holy month the series is  featuring Muslims from around the world giving brief (five-minute) accounts of their experience of Ramadan.

Revealing Ramadan is a daily, limited-run audio series featuring the voices of Muslims from Madrid to Dallas sharing their stories and encounters about the meaning of Ramadan and how they incorporate those experiences into their personal faith journeys. Each day of Ramadan we at Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett will release a new story, beginning on August 21st, 2009, which will later be broadcast on public radio.

Pick up Revealing Ramadan through iTunes or RSS here.

The first ten days have been a wonderful look into another faith for me as well as a look into a spiritual practice that is not regularly, if ever, part of my religious life: fasting.  I was especially struck by the narrative of the man who finds other ways to celebrate the month because abstaining from food is not healthy for him due to diabetes.

I’m Back, I Think

Posted on
Reply

OK, I think I’m back. I’ve deleted all suspect code from my posts and comments, thus I believe I’ve purged the hack attack. I exported, imported and in a sense restarted the blog from scratch.  I’ve also moved it. I’m thinking your bookmarks should still work, but I don’t know. I hope you are still finding me.

Hacked!

Posted on
Reply

Yes, my WordPress blog, Sunflower Chalice has been hacked.  It was a silent hack, probably achieved through my rather open comment policy, which I now, unfortunately, have to alter.  I noticed the hack when I recently had once of my posts import to facebook and instead of the post text, I had a link and ad for viagra pop up.  Right…..  So, If you’re running WordPress, let me point you to this and this.

Sorry to say, but from now on, in order to post comments here, you will have to register as a user of the blog.  As I clean up the mess, I may be away for a few days and restart the blog from scratch with exported entries.

Happy blogging and editing.

The Affiliation of Church and State in North Texas

Posted on
4

My son will be a seventh grader this year. Next week he starts school.  two weeks ago there was a Transition Seminar for parents and students.  The Seminar would be for parents and students from four local ISD’s or Independent School Districts.  Great Idea.  The move from grade school to junior high can be rough on parents as well as their children.  One problem.  The seminar was held at the Richland Hills Church of Christ.  There was no explanation about why.  Would any part of the seminar be about Jesus?  Would the seminar by theologically neutral?  It was possible, but here’s the statement of faith of the Richland Hills Church of Christ.  That’s a very conservative Christian, Biblically literalist church.  Would that attitude be included or assumed in the Transition Seminar? Does my son’s school district even recognize the separation of church and state? I don’t know. The seminar was held on the heels of our family returning from our own church event in Oklahoma. But we didn’t require anyone else to be there if they weren’t Unitarian Universalists.

This past week my wife’s school had a convocation for a faculty, not an unusual event for school, although neither of us are quite familiar with these events being held or being called that for elementary school faculty.  The event was not held in her school building, nor was it held in any building in the school district, but in a local church and the faculty was addressed by the minister of the church who made it clear the church building was available to the school at any time.  He did not pray, but a church being open to any public school in such a way is promoting that church and its religion over others.

I’m a minister. It’s Texas.  Church is part of the culture of life here, but not everyone’s culture. What about Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Atheist kids? It’s possible the church was just a location with both of these events, a site with easy access to four school districts for the Transition Seminar and that religion was not part of the program, or an easy off campus location for my wife’s faculty with adult size seats, but in this geographic location, you can’t be sure.

The Richland Hills Church of Christ is not my religious cup of tea, but they do run one of the largest food banks in the area and my UU congregation has made sizeable donations to this good work.  Yet, it’s just plain wrong to hold a public school transition seminar, even in partnership with other schools or districts in a church.  Our ISD owns buildings big enough to hold the event, I am assuming the other three ISDs involved must also. It’s also wrong for my wife to be forced to attend the religious meeting place of another religion at work. We can’t teach our children separation of church and state if we don’t model it and if we don’t model it, it means we really don’t believe in it.  My son and our family didn’t feel welcome at the event due to the location.  My wife was certainly unable in our climate to voice her discomfort at work.  I’m debating whether or not it’s worth contacting the Superintendent? The ACLU?  Let it slide?

The United States as Anxious Congregation

Posted on
1

I firmly believe that the only real health care reform worth our time, money, and investment is a national, single payer system – medicare for everyone.  No more private insurance companies. Doctors making decisions with you about your health on the basis of your health needs, not on the basis of what your for-profit health insurance company will pay for – OR NOT.  One payer, you and your doctor deciding what you need, different payment system, basically the same delivery system.  The philosophy is that the poorest, least employed among us have the right to be as healthy as the richest, most employed among us. It’s called taking care of each other.  Getting to this place is causing massive amounts of anxiety in our country.  I am a minister.  The national situation surrounding health care – I won’t call it a debate as I hold out still that real debates are civil, intelligent affairs – reminds me of the anxiety produced in congregations whenever changes are introduced.

Members of congress and President Obama face increasingly hostile responses to ANY proposed change to what is obviously a broken health care system.  Every single industrialized, western democracy has some form government sponsored health which provides more care to more people for less money than our for-profit, private health insurance system.  Yet even mentioning that the system is broken to certain people is like being the boy shouting that the emperor is naked. GASP!  Well, the emperor is in fact naked and has been walking around in his birthday suit for a long time.  Yet, introducing change to a broken system is guaranteed to be met with resistance.  People who understand the need for immediate change are agonizing over the snail’s pace of moving the United States toward the solution and so President Obama and his supporters within the administration and within the congress get it from both sides – from the people who react with anxiety to ANY change and from people who don’t understand the system dynamics of introducing change.  It is a formidable task that confronts the President and his administration.

As I read through some diaries posted on dailyKos last night, I was particularly struck by ministryoftruth’s post reporting on the town hall meeting of Congressman Scott Murphy (D-NY).  This post has a number photos and even a video of the town hall meeting. Most fascinating to me was this:

Within minutes of arriving at the town hall a person who had shouted “They haven’t even read the whole bill!” was kind enough to hand me a helpful flyer explaining HR 3200. The flyer, which I am holding in my hand right now, is a 10 page explanation of why we are all going to die if this bill passes. You can read the whole piece here and at the link at FreeRepublic.com

The top 10 dumbest of these, in my opinion, are listed below.

#10    The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

#9.     Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.

#8.     The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians. Will animals have health care, too?

#7     School Based Health Clinics will be intergrated into the school environment. More Government brainwashing in school.

#6     Government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic funds transfers

#5     HC will be provided to ALL NON-US citizens

#4     This Home Visitation Program includes the government coming into your home and teaching/telling you how to parent!

#3     Doctors in Residency  government will tell you where your residency is, thus where you’ll live.

#2     YOUR HEALTH CARE WILL BE RATIONED

and finally, the Number #1 dumbest reason anyone might belive that health care reform is the devil himself.

#1      Government will establish school based “health” clinics. your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted!

The blogosphere, Rachel Maddow, and talk radio all filled with reports of these town hall meetings.  Very, very disturbing.  Following the “birther” movement, where people even in the face of the evidence of a birth certificate and announcement in two newspapers still believe, erroneously, that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen, there is now what is termed a “deather” movement after Sarah Palin, admittedly not the brightest bulb in the ceiling light fixture, is afraid health care reform will lead to “death panels” with people with Down Syndrome, such as her son actually being put to death! Although also not good for congregational or national relationship building, it’s easy to see why after attending a town hall meeting populated by such attitudes that Ministryoftruth was frustrated enough himself to subtitle his diary entry “I have met the wingnuts, they are very scared and dumb as hell.”

Yes, change is very scary, and even scarier when there is a lot of misinformation floating about.  Think about how difficult it can be to keep everyone correctly informed about what’s going on in a congregation.  The task of getting correct information out to hundreds of millions of people is daunting, but it must be done – and it is not being done.  This is too important not to have the largest information blitz of our time.

I’m not sure what the solution is but treating the national situation around health care more like an anxious community and less like people who are just plain stupid might help everyone.

Thomas F. Fischer, M.Div. says “What so often occurs in anxious congregations is a toxic, self-perpetuating pattern. The pattern, simply, is this:

1. Anxious congregational elements identify non-differentiated leaders.
2. Next, they make these leaders anxious. They especially target those leaders who, otherwise, would be most able to bring about a non-anxious ministry of growth.
3. As anxious elements succeed, anxious and non-differentiated leaders become emotionally reactive.
4. Engulfed in anxiety, non-differentiated leaders begin question, undermine, attack and/or leave the ministry team. Often they leave the church.
5. The anxious elements receive positive reinforcement from their efforts. This encourages them to continue to perpetuate the cycle…from generation to generation.

Some of the tragic consequences of this dynamic are…

1. the anxious elements in the congregation remain…and are strengthened;
2. the congregation’s ministry continues to be influenced by anxious elements;
3. undifferentiated, anxious leaders will so often avoid going through the process of self-differentiation;
4. the vision and ministry  continue to decline and evaporate–virtually unstoppably–right before your very eyes.

And isn’t this the situation we face with national health care reform? Hasn’t this been the history going back to the Clinton administration first attempt to address this very real need? I don’t live in fantasy land. I understand the monied interests involved the health care struggle are far stronger than the financial interests in congregations, but there are analogies. Congregations, too, have their lobbyists for the status quo, for power interests that want to hold onto power, so I think my example holds water.

While President Obama gets hit from the left for not holding out for universal, single payer now and from the right for attempting any change at all, I continue to grow in my respect for him because I am a minister who sees the change and anxiety dynamic up close on a daily basis.  I would like to see universal, single payer next week, too, but as long as our leaders do not give in to the anxiety wave and keep moving forward, I’ll be satisfied. My biggest concern is that a publically funded option will be off the table, a victim of the anxiety wave and the power interests.  I want the President and the congress to practice good ministry and good ministry means holding your ground against anxiety (from http://www.healthychurch.org/title_article_popup.asp?id=34):

Be good listeners to worried members of the congregation.

Prevent the most anxious voices from dominating the discussion. The congregation needs to hear thoughtful reflection and genuine faith in what God is doing in the church.

Name the successes and strengths of the church along with its unfulfilled expectations.

Give the congregation a word of strong faith and optimism based on God’s faithfulness in the past.

Make decisions that reflect an honest appraisal of the situation rather than fearful projections.

Maintain open, accurate and frequent communication with the congregation.

A new addition to Sunflower Chalice

Posted on
Reply

I’ve added a new page to this website.  I’m in the process of updating my professional website, revtonylorenzen.com, where I haven’t added sermons to the sermon page in over a year, so in the meantime and as an ongoing feature, I am adding a sermons page to Sunflower Chalice. I will post sermons here in both video (our congregation currently posts to vimeo) and MS Word text.

Planting and Growing Organic Faith Communities

Posted on
4

Here I am at the Southwest Unitarian Univervsalist Summer Institute.  I’m spending mornings with Rev. Ron Robinson of The Living Room Church in Turley, OK in his workshop on Organic Church and the New Monasticism.  Right up my alley – Emergent Church communities with a liberal, even Unitarian/Universalist theology, mission focussed, walking the talk. Let’s get to some highlights to give y’all some food for thought as well upset the apple cart of UU culture and the usual approach to “church growth.”

Many UU congregations interested in growing (a presumption I’ll get to in a minute) assume they must be invitational and do many and varied things to attract people to their congregations (and on a larger scale to the association – the ridiculous Time magazine ad comes to my mind).  Thus, marketing strategies are discussed and pursued and getting new members and new money in the church door literally becomes an end in itself.  This is cart before the horse backwards, especially if a congregation hasn’t defined its values, vision and mission.

The shift is one of being invitational to being incarnational from asking people to join you to getting out in the world to be with people.  What is it that draws you and your faith community out into the world?   UU congregations are made up of many people who left other churches to find their faith, but it is also often the case that people leave UU congregations to find their faith or feed their spirit.  I don’t think we like to admit this.

UU’s have many and obvious differences with Evangelical Christians – although less so with the Emergent Church movement – but we can learn much from their methodology and much from some of their folks who study how to start and grow healthy, vibrant church communities.

Reggie McNeal is one such Evangelical writer and Ron Robinson cites him for recommending the church (and it applies to any church or denomination) make three shifts from:

1. Internal to External – Even have your board meet off site at a restaurant. The dynamic shift of going to the world instead of having the world come to you.

2. Program to People – Ron noted that the faith community helps people “debrief their lives.”  The Living Room church even stopped sermons and instead have Holy Conversations.  The more opportunities people have for fellowship and connection the better, this doesn’t always require what we think of as traditional church “programming”.

3.  Church to Beloved Community – think in large terms, not A church but THE church and not just your group, but as a part of the entire larger whole working to create the beloved community.

Ron told us about Leonard Sweet’s book Post-Modern Pilgrim and I agree that doing ministry and being church in the post modern world requires a different world view and approach than the modern model that came before it.

Sweet says Postmodern church and ministry is EPICC -

Eperiential

Participatory – sermon sandwiches don’t cut it.

Image – driven by images – don’t fill a worship service or a web site with text!

Connecting and Community – post modern church needs to be open source and socially networked.

Ron shared with us that the natural organic church recipe focuses on values, vision and mission.  It lets the DNA do the work of creating.  If conditions are right, growth will happen with food and water and sunlight, but you have to grow what’s right for your climate, and you can’t force a certain type of community in one place the way you can’t or shouldn’t force or introduce plants that are invasive into a foreign ecosystem.

Ron’s Natural Church Recipe:

1. Build relationships

2. Serve the Community

3. Celebrate those relationships and that service in worship

I think Rev. Ron is on to something.  Too often I think we start churches because a number of UU’s live in the same area and want to get together each Sunday. But why? Just to get together each Sunday? It’s not there isn’t inherent value in that, but that’s the relationship building.  When the service to the world comes in, not just the escaping the world together, then a mission can be found for the group’s existence because then there is an internal-external combination. Then there’s the both / and of the spiritual life.  Then people will want to celebrate their relationships and service in worship and in lifting up what is valuable in who they are and in what they do.  However, we usually do this backwards. We gather for Sunday services and wonder why our communities have no center and have trouble staying together and have certain dysfunctions – well, relationships weren’t build and service hasn’t been done and there’s no mission, no real reason for being there except we like Sunday morning.

So many UU’s like organic food, clothes made from organic materials, organic this and that, so why not organic church?