FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH Morehead (Disciples of Christ)
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Brackets and Palms

3/25/2015

 
(As I write this we are between the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight games in the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament.  This is not a reflection on any team, or coach, or the Dribble Drive or Zone Defense.)  

Currently there are 14 young men, a bevy of trainers and coaches and support staff, and a few others who are pursuing a 40-0 record in the NCAA Tourney.  But what I hear, consistently, are many others who apparently are pursuing it with them.  Their words do not indicate a pride or a delight or a sort of larger team spirit.  Their words seems to say that they themselves are actually playing these games:

"Arkansas was pushing us into the paint"


" I don't see why Harrison is playing so listlessly.  We need him to buck up!"


"We need to start Ulis."


"Our free throws will kill us!  We've got to make better shots!"


"We're almost there!  We've got 36 games behind us, with 4 to go!"


So, a couple of things:

~ the sense of community and connectivity is wonderful.  But only 14 guys are playing.  No one who is calling into the radio shows is.  And trust me, I'd wager 95% of those who do couldn't hit a free throw in front of 25,000 people if their life depended on it.

~And all too often - if for some reason the record is not a 40-0 - it will become about 'Them" and what 'They' did wrong.

And maybe it's only in Kentucky that such an analogy works, but all this reminds me of Palm Sunday.  

"We need to make sure there are plenty of palms available"


"What is up with Peter? Why isn't he with the rest of us, standing firm and strong?"


"We need a better looking donkey than that!  What will they think of us?"


"We can do this!! Look at the crowd!! They love us!!"


Until the Garden, and the Arrest, and the trumped up Trial, and the trip to Golgotha.  Then it would be "Them" and "They".

And then comes Easter.  We can love and  follow and witness and spread the word and serve others and sacrifice and die to self.  But, again, it's nothing WE did.  We can take no credit for it.

Scripture tells us Jesus WAS RAISED.  It was done unto him.  By God.  Imagine.  Just imagine.  Jesus going from darkness to light, from pain to wholeness, from partial to complete, from everlasting to everlasting world without end amen.  For the world.  For all of time.  And it's not about what we do, but what God did.  And does.  And will continue to do. Pause for a moment, and be very very thankful that it's not up to us.  Pause and be thankful to God.  

Words for a Rough Day

3/18/2015

 


It's Lent, and I'm traveling it with some of my favorite companions: Eugene Peterson, Thomas Merton, Anne LaMott, Frederick Buechner, Fred Craddock, and Katherine Norris.  This morning I was reading Peterson's A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society. In it he says this about the quality of Hope:
Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.
And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God. 

"I pray to GOD-my life a prayer-and wait for what he'll say and do. My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.”


Fred Craddock

3/10/2015

 
Fred B Craddock, a Disciples of Christ minister unlike any other, passed away last week at the age of 86. Dr. Craddock, who taught preaching at the Candler School of Theology until his retirement, was selected as one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world in a poll of 341 seminary professors and editors of religious periodicals in 1996. (Oddly enough, the current president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY felt the need to go public with his distain of Dr. Craddock upon the announcement of his death. I just don't get some people.  I really don't.)




I participated in a worship service with him many years ago.  He was sweet and Southern and courtly.  Then he got in the pulpit and proceeded to hold the congregation in a sway of Gospel, intellect, heart, and passion about bringing God's love and God's peace to a hurting world.  The Holy Spirit was there and palpable.  No cheers when he was through, no applause, no nothing.  When he sat down, folks were quiet.  Because they were thinking.  Because they were wrestling.  Because they were being transformed.


At the time, I was a newly installed senior minister at a good sized church.  Dr. Craddock ("call me Fred, my dear", but of course I couldn't) asked me some questions about being a female in the role; we talked just a short time.  I asked him for advice, and he gave it to me.  Now, I harbor no illusion that he said this, uniquely, to me only; I know it was advice given to many other ministers over many other occasions.  But it is still advice I heed every day:

Preach like you know they almost didn't come.


Your work is more important than what you are, or what you are feeling about the church or its people on any given day.


I like to think about Dr. Craddock in Heaven.  I like to think that when he showed up, Jesus was there to give him a hug and say 'thank you' to him.  Heaven knows the rest of us say 'thank you' for him.



Worth Remembering..............

3/4/2015

 
Robert Fulghum was fond of saying:


There are two kinds of people in the world: those who walk into a room and say "Here I am", and those who walk into a room and say "There you are". 


We need to be the kind of people, the kind of Christians, the kind of church that knows what to say.  And mean it.

    Picture

    Reverend Donald Chase, Minister

          We welcome back to First Christian Church the Rev. Don   Chase, who was installed as FCC Minister on November 4, 2018. Reverend Chase is the director of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and Clinical Chaplain at the Lexington VA Medical Center, where he has served   for the past 12 years.  He is an ACPE Certified Educator with the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE), Board Certified Chaplain (BCC) with the National Association of VA Chaplains (NAVAC), and an ordained minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  

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