March Newsletter

Cheery beginning to the season of Lent is it not?

Then again Lent is not known as a season of fun and frivolity. That is part of why the day before it begins some people celebrate Carnival and others Mardi Gras as a last blowout before the solemn season. Lent is a time of preparation and reflection as we walk with Jesus on the path that leads to a cross on a hill. Lent is traditionally called a “penitential season”, a time to reflect on how we have or have not lived as Christ calls us to live. As we prepare for the New Life and New Hope of Easter Sunday we reflect on who we are and how we might need to change.

We begin with Ash Wednesday, a day to be reminded of our mortality. But what about those ashes? Some see the ashes as a sign of repentance. Some clergy have services where they get people to write confessions down, put them in a bowl, and then burn them as a part of the service. Some have then used those ashes for the marking of the foreheads.

Or maybe the ashes serve to remind us of the words of committal “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. Maybe they remind us that we are not permanent parts of this world. Maybe they give us a sense of perspective on how important we are.

I think both of those things can be true. But I think there is one more thing.

Traditionally the ashes for Ash Wednesday come from the burning of the dried out palm branches of the previous spring. Palm Sunday’s story has within it great hope and potential. “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!” Maybe this year the cheering will lead to the coming of God’s Reign in full glory?!?

But it doesn’t. The hopes don’t come to full flower. And then we mark ourselves with the remains of those hopes. Possibly as a reminder to hope? Possibly as a reminder of failure?

The Reign of God is not here in full glory – yet. We are not living as God wants us to – yet. But we are (hopefully) moving in that direction. The cross of ashes: a sign of repentance, a sign of our own eventual death, a sign of dashed hopes; calls us to reaffirm our willingness to allow God to transform our lives.

This Lenten season I invite us all to reflect on how we have or have not lived as people of Love. How have we loved God, our neighbours, our selves? How could we have done it differently or better? When New Life comes again where will we let it take us?

In the end the ashes are not the last word. From ashes can come life. It is happening in the wildfires of Australia as I type. As I ponder the ashes I will wear later tonight I also ponder the ancient myth of the Phoenix. But maybe more about that come Easter, when the ashes give way to new life, new hope, new possibilities.

WE are mortal. We can’t forget that. But we are invited into eternal life too. The ashes wash off the face. Life and hope and love will win in the end. Thanks be to God.

Annual Report for 2019

As a fire is meant for burning with a bright and warming flame,
so the church is meant for mission, giving glory to God’s name.
(Hymn #578 In Voices United, lyrics by Ruth Duck)

An Annual Report gives us the chance to ask how our fire burnt this year. In the pages of this document you will hear about many things that happened within this congregation in 2019. I am not going to recap them. I am however going to say thank you. Thank you for all the ways you have supported the work and mission of St. Paul’s United over the last 12 months. Thank you for financial gifts, for hours spent sorting Garage Sale Items, for food brought to the Beef Dinner. Thank your for reading Scripture, or greeting on Sunday morning, or serving communion, or preparing post-worship coffee. Thank you for sharing your music,. Than you for leading Sunday School and Youth programming. Thank you for holding each other in prayer. Thank you for all the other ways you have helped us live out the mission we share. Our flame has been bright and warm as we live out our mission because of you. THANK YOU.

From a more personal level, thank you for the support offered to Patty, the girls and me last May with the death of my father. This is a very generous and supportive congregation and you continue to show that each and every month.

We are learners; we are teachers; we are pilgrims on the way.
We are seekers; we are givers; we are vessels made of clay.
(Hymn #578 In Voices United, lyrics by Ruth Duck)

An Annual report is also a chance to look ahead. In fact I think the main purpose of the Annual Report and Meeting should be to look ahead to the year(s) to some. As people who are constantly learning and teaching, as people sometimes walking boldly on a clear path and sometimes inching forward trying to find the path where will we end up this year? I firmly believe that everyone reading this (and everyone who is not reading this) has gifts to give, to share with us as we continue to live out our Mission and Vision. I invite us all to keep seeking for the best way to be who God has called us to be in the 21st Century. It will likely be different than who God called us to be in the years past, and that may be troubling. But we can seek for it together.

“We are vessels made of clay.” As we move forward we will not always get it right. I invite us to be ready to take risks, to allow each other to make mistakes as we seek the path that God has laid out for us. I think the church is meant to be an un-fired piece of pottery, so that when the need arises we can be reshaped without being shattered. In the year(s) to come are we willing to let our clay be put back on the potter’s wheel and spun into a new shape?

By our gentle, loving actions, we would show that Christ is light.

In a humble, listening Spirit, we would live to God’s delight.

(Hymn #578 In Voices United, lyrics by Ruth Duck)

In his book The Phoenix Affirmations Eric Elnes includes this Affirmation: “Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose, a vocation and ministry that serve to strengthen and extend God's realm of love.“ This, I think is our call. To me, this is what it means to say: Through Faith, we walk on the path that Jesus set for us. The people of St. Paul’s Belong…Believe…Love… Listen…Lead. In 2020 we will continue to share God’s love, we will continue to light God’s light shine through us. We will do this because it is part of our very identity, it is where we find meaning, it is our vocation.

God is at work in the world. The congregation of St. Paul’s United is part of how God is at work in the world. It has been true in the past, it will be true in the future. I hope we can listen for God’s voice to guide us along. I hope that we share God’s delight as we share God’s love with each other, with Grande Prairie, and with the world around us.

Gord.

January Newsletter

Belong!

Through Faith, we walk on the path that Jesus set for us.

The people of St. Paul’s Belong…Believe…Love… Listen…Lead.

How do you know if you really belong somewhere? Is there a way of measuring it? Or is it more of a feeling?

One way to measure belonging is by membership. If you are a member than you belong. I think that is only true to a point. Certainly that is how structures may define ‘belong’ but it is overly simplistic. I have been places where the organization may have said I was a member, that I belonged and did not always feel like I did. I have also been places where people certainly felt they belonged but had no interest in being members.

Looking at my life I think feeling that I belong somewhere has a number of sides. One is “do I agree with what this organization/group believes or is all about?”. We may be fully welcomed in but if we feel out of step with the values of the group, or the members of the group, we may not feel like we truly belong there. It is hard to be the minority voice in a place. And let us be honest: no place is the right place for everybody.

Another aspect of belonging, in my mind, is “am I actually allowed to be myself here?”. If I am different in some way is that allowed? If I am in a place where the answer is no I will never feel that I belong, even if I am inducted into membership, or given a job, or placed on the Board. I may stay but it will be in a state of tension. An associated point is “do they really want me here for me or just for the skills and energy and labour I bring to the table?”. There was a time when being asked to be on a committee or help with an event was the way a newcomer knew they had truly become welcome in a church community. These days I think there is a bit more skepticism on that account.

A third aspect I want to highlight is “are they really letting me in?”. Are people drawing their circles wider to make room or do I feel like I am crashing the party? Sometimes the circle is kept closed in a very intentional fashion. But I believe that more often than not the people in the circle think that it is wide open when to the outsider it looks very different. Many of us don’t want to be the party-crasher. We may not want effusive, over-the-top welcomes but we want to feel that we are not poking in somebody else’s private space.

What makes you feel like you do (or do not) belong in the St. Paul’s community? How has/does that change over time?

I think it interesting that we begin our list of words with Belong. To me it says that we are first and foremost a community. Starting with Believe might say something different. But Belong says to me that we want to be seen as welcoming, as a place where the circle can always be drawn wider, a place where people can find a home.

And yet I wonder. Does everyone feel that they belong here? Does everyone feel welcome here? And I know that we who are already here can not answer those questions with full accuracy. We would like to believe that the answer is yes but we can’t know for sure. We need to be intentional at connecting with the people who are not represented in our midst to know for sure. There are a couple of ways we can do that. One would be to use the materials and self-study that are prepared by Affirm United for ministries wanting to declare themselves as Affirming.

To be honest I think we are more welcoming than other churches, even other United Churches, I have known. But if we claim that Belonging is a key value, and I think we do, we need to have the courage to explore what that means. And we need the courage to adapt to become more welcoming if that is what our exploration tells us is needed. Having new people join our community will change our community. That may be a good thing.
--Gord

December Newsletter

I have been told many things over the course of my life. I have been told I am good at some things, less than good at others. But one of the comments I hold close to my heart is when I was told that I can be a very good storyteller.

Spin me a story in spinning you’ll find,

one strand is yours another is mine...

By weaving the fabric a richness we’ll see

Woven into God’s great tapestry...

Spin me a parable told by the sea

Values to live, examples to be...

(lines from Spin Me A Story by Nancy Chegus)

I like stories. Stories, in the end, are how we learn things (I half believe that is why we use word problems in math and sciences – to help lock in the concepts). Stories teach us who we are, give us an idea of how we are to live, and show us how the world works. To tell stories is an important role in the world. In fact in some cultures the role of storyteller was one of high status and special training so you could be trusted with the special stories.

Stories are how we pass on the faith as well. Stories and songs are the best ways we have to pass on what we believe – certainly they are much more effective than lists of rules or philosophical treatises. It is my belief that part of my role in life is to be one who tells and reflects on stories. After all, as people of faith we have a story, one that started well before we came around and one which will continue after our part has been played.

For we are a people of the Story,

of stars that sing and Love that cries.

And though these nights are getting longer,

the path is lit before our eyes.

(Refrain, Hope is a Candle by Linnea Good)

That story is coming close. That story of a star and angels and shepherds gets closer each day. And while it is just an episode in a much larger faith story it is a pretty key episode.. What will the story reveal to us this year?

For our Advent worship this year we will be reflecting on a variety of stories, as we prepare to tell the Big Story. When I was in Edmonton in September I heard how Hillhurst United in Calgary had a summer series where they reflected on a series of children’s books. I liked the idea, and I love good children’s books, so I suggested it to the Worship team for Advent. And so we are doing it.

Few of the storybooks Alison and I have chosen for the season are, strictly speaking, about the Christmas story of angels and shepherds and a baby in a manger. But they all reflect on themes around Christmas, things like hope and peace and joy and love. They all push us to think about how we open our hearts for Christmas, and how we carry Christ in our lives.

This year I invite you to enter the world of story. If we let it the world of story helps us see the world in a new way. It can renew wonder in us. It can transport us to places we have never seen and then bring us back with renewed hope and trust. The world of story is filled with magic. So, I believe, is the world of faith. We just may need to broaden our understanding of what magic might mean.

What magic is waiting to be revealed this Christmas season?

Gord

Crossing Generations -- October Newsletter

 On the first Sunday of September we had communion, as is our custom on first Sundays. As I came up in the line to be served I was struck by the sight of Gord Pearcy and Sarah Waldie paired up to serve together. The pairing was so meaningful to me that as I returned to the chancel I took a picture of it. When I posted that picture on the St. Paul’s Facebook page I described it this way: “One of our long time members serving communion alongside one of our most recent members “. To me that speaks to a big thing the church has to offer – one I have yet to see appear in Sharon’s “I go to church because...” slides.

I have long believed that we are healthier as individuals and as a society when we have relationships that cross generations. Since I was sure I had seen articles supporting that belief I put the phrase “benefits of intergenerational relationships” in Google and it returned about 5 690 000 results . Intergenerational relationship give chances to teach and to learn (flowing both ways). They help with understanding and breaking down stereotypes. They provide a chance to pass on corporate memory. They help people deal with the ups and downs of life.

There was a time, I believe, when most people had ready access to intergenerational relationships. Often these were within a family unit as fewer people moved far from home. That is no longer true. While there are certainly some families that can regularly have 3 or 4 generations (some can even do 5) gather together there are a lot of families where such a thing can only happen with a lot of travelling. And even within our communities we tend to divide naturally along generational lines. We tend to gather with people of common interests and activities, people in a similar phase of life.

Then there is the church.

One of the first songs I remember learning in Junior Choir 40+ years ago was We Are the Church. The last verse says “I count if am 90. Or 9 or just a baby.” Church events (be that worship or fall suppers or potlucks or camp-outs) are times where people from a variety of ages are in the same space together. Our daughters have never lived in the same community as any other family. They have visited family frequently but never lived where they could go a drop in on Grandma just because.

But there is the church.

Our girls have always had a surrogate family. When we were in Atikokan there were a number of people they referred to as Grandma or Uncle (here they just know people by name). Most of those were from the church community. They have benefited from having surrogate family who love and care for them. As infants and toddlers they would accompany me to services at seniors centres (and sometimes still do) where their mere presence brightened the eyes of some of those residents. They have heard stories told. And now as they get older they share learning with others – as I think of the many times Sarah has helped walk Linda through the setting up of the powerpoint.

It is important to have people of all ages who care about and love each other. We learn so much more about life that way. In Grande Prairie we have a lot of people who have left family behind. One of the things I think we can offer is surrogate family. Indeed that is one of the things I mention to most of the families who come to us for baptism. We need places where generations mix. It won’t always be easy, we will have conflicting priorities at times. But we can and should do it. Because we do count when we are 90, or 9 or just a baby.

Gord

World Religions Conference

This coming Saturday is the Annual World Religions Conference hosted by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.  Each year they have a theme for the even and this year's theme is Universal Compassion: The Core Human Value.

Each year the organizers ask people from a variety of faith traditions to speak. This year I have been asked to speak on the topic from a Christian perspective.

Many times when we read the healing stories in the Gospels we hear that Jesus is moved. Jesus has compassion for the people he meets and so he responds out of that compassion.

I would suggest that compassion is one of the basic building blocks for living in community, which is why it is described as a core human value. Compassion is what allows us to share each others lives, to support each other. It is a big part of how we live out the commandment that lies at the core of Christian Ethics and Morality -- Love Each Other/Love Your Neighbour.

I think we live in a world that tends to limit the power of compassion. To live out compassion in its full form would be to have compassion for all we meet, not just those who are close to us. That is far more radical than most of  us are ready for. More and more, in fact I see stories encouraging us NOT to have compassion for specific groups in our society (homeless, addicts, refugees...). I think that as people of faith we need to call for a far more radical understanding of what it means to be compassionate. After all, as Christians we follow the one who said:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Matthew 5:43-47)

Some years ago Karen Armstrong launched the Charter of Compassion. Initially it was a charter for people to sign and commit themselves to. Then it begot a book Twelve Steps To a Compassionate Life. And there is also a website affiliated with the project. I like what Anderson has started. Because, as I said; compassion, radical and far-reaching compassion, is a key building block for living together in community.

Hope to see you on Saturday.
--Gord

Reflections (A Newsletter Piece)

When you look in a mirror what do you see?

At some point(s) in our lives many of us have an uneasy relationship with the mirror. We try to avoid them whenever possible, because we are uncomfortable with what we see there. Others may go the other way and spend too much time at the mirror – either because they are very comfortable with what they see or because they are strenuously trying to change the picture.

But what do you see when you look in the mirror?

That is a question about how we understand ourselves. And there are two directions I think we can go from that question.

In the past whenever I have talked about a mirror in a sermon it has been with Michael Jackson’s song Man in the Mirror ringing in my ears. Which seems odd at first sine I am not a terribly big fan of Michael Jackson, and musically the song is not any where near my favourite. But the lyrics....

I'm starting with the man in the mirror

I'm asking him to change his ways

And no message could have been any clearer

If you want to make the world a better place

Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

In a world where we often see so many things that need to be changed (or that we think need to be changed) and yet at the same time feel powerless to do anything about it Jackson’s song reminds us that we have power. There are many theories about how change happens in a culture. Some change needs to happen at a systemic, government level. Some change starts with us. I tend to believe that any long lasting change starts with us as individuals. Either we change our own way of reacting to life or (maybe and?) we push for changes on a broader scale. Either way, Jackson reminds us that it is not enough to blame everybody else for the problems we see. As many a parent or teacher has reminded a young person “you can not control what Sally does, you can control what you do”. As people who live with privilege and power we need to be able to look in the mirror and admit that maybe we are part both of the problem and the solution.

I still believe all of that. But it is not the only helpful message we can get from a mirror.

One Sunday this summer I was worshiping at my childhood church and the place for the prayer of confession talked about a mirror. I was intrigued and wondered where the worship leader, Rev. Tyler Powell, was heading.

Tyler talked about looking in the mirror. He talked about how many people, when they look in the mirror, are prone to see their flaws. That may mean seeing the scars life has left on our face. Or it may be the anxious and acne-prone teenager seeing all the blemishes. Or it may be the person who carries inside themself some deep shame or guilt and they see a terrible person looking back out of that mirror. I think Tyler was right. Humans can be really good at being judgmental, particularly about themselves. But...

Tyler then reminded us that everyone sitting in that sanctuary that day was a beloved child of God. And he asked what it would mean to look in that mirror and say to yourself, “hey there is a beloved child of God looking back at me”. What do you think God sees when God looks at you? Does God only see the flaws? Or does God see the beloved, if imperfect, child?

If we are honest we know that the person staring back at us from the mirror could possibly do better. We know that there are things we could so but don’t. We know that there are things we probably shouldn’t do but do anyway. But do we remember who we are underneath all of that? We are, each and every one of us, a beloved child of God. Which part will we focus on?

It is my belief that if we start our reflections on that face in the mirror with the second of these two things, trying to see ourselves as the beloved child God sees we start working towards the first, challenging that person to make a change in the world. And even if it doesn’t, then at least we start by reminding ourselves of our true identity. We are flawed. We are imperfect. But first and foremost we are beloved children of God. That is who God sees. And who are we to argue with God?

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What does God want us to see? I believe God wants us to see the beloved child, able to go out and live in God’s Way and make a difference in the world.

--Gord

Summer Newsletter

Are we too afraid to take risks? Is the desire to be safe holding us back?

These questions have been floating through my mind since our last Council meeting. At that meeting Martha provided the devotional and that is what brought those questions to my brain

The devotional started with a reading of the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:13-30. To refresh your memory, this is the parable where three servants are given money to care for. One is given 5 talents and doubled the money. Another is given 2 talents and also doubled the money. The third is given 1 talent but is afraid of what might happen if the money is lost and so simply hides it away, making nothing – not even interest. The king rewards the first two servants richly but the third is punished. As individuals, and as a community, where are we in this parable? Is it better to play it safe or to take risks (hopefully educated, well-considered risks)?

Martha then shared an article by Dan Hotchkiss with us. In the article Hotchkiss suggests that churches are very risk-resistant. Most often, as Hotchkiss lays it out, this shows up when someone has an idea for a new program. While other non-profits often have a system where innovative ideas are weighed against the mission of the organization and a decision is made whether or not to allocate resources to them (because realistically all new ideas will need resources allocated to them if they are to happen) the church tends to freeze as soon as resources are needed.

Risk is a challenge. How do we know if a risk is acceptable? How do we know if it is worthwhile?

The third servant resonates with me. I tend to be very risk-resistant (and to be honest I think I am getting moreso as I age). Playing it safe, protecting what you have, make sure you don’t lose. These sound very sensible to me. But there is a problem.

Where do you grow when you play it safe, stay with the comfortable, protect the status quo? Simply put, you don’t. And in many cases you lose ground. The servant in the story buried the talent in the ground. It did not lose value but it also gained no interest. Which means that it did not keep up with inflation. When organizations play it safe we protect what we already have. We stay in a comfortable place. It keeps us with the familiar. But we lose ground.

What risks do we need to take if we are going to thrive as a community of faith?

This leads me to the question I asked in the “Words from Gord” section of the meeting. I asked “To keep us fresh and avoid falling into a maintenance mindset what should we do differently?”. One of the dangers I have seen n the church is that we fall into a rut, I know I do anyway. And that seems easy. But I don’t think it is being faithful to our calling.

We need to be able to try new things, or at least try doing old things in new ways, if we are to grow. I am sure we all want to grow. That may be in numbers or in finances. It may be to grow in our understanding of what it means to be people of Christian faith. But to grow we have to do things beyond maintaining what we already have.

The first two servants in the parable could have lost it all (which may have made for a very different parable). They were willing to take a chance. In many stories of churches that have grown I find there was a time when someone convinced them to risk losing something valuable. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But rather than worry about the risk they took another one. This, I think is the path forward for St. Paul’s, for the United Church of Canada, for the Church Universal.

I am not naturally adventurous. Far from it. But when I am realistic I know that continuing to be the church as we have been, to continue to maintain what we have, is a path to decline. For us to pass on this church to the next generations we need to be willing to take risks, to step out of the comfortable, to take the chance that something might fail miserably and then shake ourselves off and try again. And yes, to a degree that terrifies me.

I am not suggesting we become careless. The apostle Paul teaches that we have been passed a treasure in clay jars. We have to consider and research and discern what risks to take. But we have to be willing to take them. I need your help to step out and try different things.

What risks do we need to take? What risks are we afraid to take? What risks will we take?

Who’s in it with me?

Gord

{PS: the great irony is that doing nothing different, to keep maintaining they way we have been is a risk too. There is always a risk whatever choice we make.}

Have Some Pride

Hi, my name is Gord. I am a cis-gendered heterosexual male and my preferred pronouns are he/him/his. Admittedly that is an odd way of introducing oneself, and really not many of us would do that. However I can make that statement without worrying that any of that information will lead to me being treated differently or condemned or attacked. But what if instead of cis-gendered I said trans-gendered? What if I said gay male? Then I might be placing myself in a vulnerable position.

As we sit here in the middle of Pride month I think we need to look seriously at the questions raised above. How good are we as a community at letting people know that they are welcome and accepted and loved no matter their sexuality or gender identity?

Humans are really good at drawing lines to divide each other. And if we are honest the church is just as prone to doing that In fact some might argue that communities of faith are better at drawing lines to keep others ‘in their place’ than other parts of society are. The challenge is that God appears to be pushing us to go the other direction. As a song we sometimes sing in the United Church says: “My Lord colours outside the lines...and takes me into places where I’ve never been before and opens doors...”. The God I meet in Christ is a God who pushes me to ask why the dividing lines are there, and maybe even erase them.

In the first creation story in Genesis we are told that God says “let us make humankind in our own image”. And so we proclaim that all of humanity bears the image of God. If everyone we meet is made in God’s image who are we to denigrate them because of their identity? Moving to the Gospels, Jesus is clear that the most important thing to do is to love our neighbours either as we love ourselves or as we have been loved. Can we actually claim to love people if we do not accept key parts of who they are?

Last year at the Pride carnival a number of people expressed surprise that a church would have a booth there. Those comments did not surprise me. They did sadden me. Part of what I heard in those comments was a reflection that for many the church has been a place that is at best unfriendly, at worst openly hostile to LGBTQ+ folk. And it is an honest reflection. The church has to be honest enough to name that it has behaved hatefully toward LGBTQ+ people in the past and in the present. Usually based on a few pieces of Scripture paired with tradition and old biases.

The church has, in my opinion, been wrong. Just as the church has learned or is learning that traditional attitudes toward the role of women or racial differences were wrong the church needs to learn that God is calling us to a new understanding of the place of LGBTQ+ people in our faith communities. The church has done harm. The church needs to repent (which means more than name that we were wrong, to repent means we commit to going a new direction) of what has been done in the name of faith.

Earlier I said that the church, like the rest of humanity, is good at drawing lines to determine who is in or out. Online you can find cartoons by “NakedPastor” (https://nakedpastor.com) . The artist pushes us to ask where Jesus is leading us as people of faith. One of my favourites is one with a bunch of people drawing little boxes while Jesus is busy erasing them.

Humanity is created in God’s image. That is a holy statement. That is an affirmation that, unless you believe God makes mistakes, all of us carry the image of the divine. Jesus challenges, asks, commands us to love each other both as we love ourselves and as we have been loved by Jesus. Historically the church has gotten that wrong. The church has bee n a place where what we now call hate speech has been shared. Sometimes aimed at women, sometimes aimed at people of colour, sometimes aimed at our LGBTQ+ neighbours. We need to stop that. If our understanding of God leads us to act hatefully toward a neighbour based on gender, race, sexuality, or any other criteria then our understanding of God is flawed.

An old hymn reminds me that “the love of God is broader than the measures of the mind”. God is calling us to an expansive understanding of what it means to be a child of God. God is challenging to love each other. Happy Pride Month.

MAy Newsletter (Part the Second)

Every year in Dream House season I tend to indulge myself. Not in imagining what i would be like to win the house – I have never seen a dream house I would actually want to live in, in the off chance I did win one I would rather sell it and find uses for the money. My indulging comes more when I hear the amount of the 50/50 drawn and start to think what I might do with that sort of money (purely theoretical since it is pretty much impossible to win when you never buy a ticket).

My thinking along that line often starts with looking around the house and realizing all the things that should or could be done inside and outside. That gets a little overwhelming pretty quickly. So then I think about the church and what we might do if we won a large sum of money.

That list depends on the amounts I choose to dream about. With a few million I dream about finding a partner and embarking on a major redevelopment. With a few hundred thousand I dream of what we might do with our current building both in terms of changes to the building and programs we could co-sponsor (all my dreams eventually get to finding community partners to work with).

In both sets of dreaming I tend to set priorities. At home it might be a new roof, or a redone kitchen, or a driveway that is not terribly cracked and shifted. At the church it might include redoing the flooring in the basement, or upgrading to all LED lighting, or finding a solution to the water under the building that causes it to shift so much. But I know what I would want us to do first.

One of my dreams is to redo the audio-visual capacity of our sanctuary. The organ needs work (new speakers at the least). Having the projector hung from the ceiling would both allow us to get a brighter, larger unit which will show pictures better but also mean that those of us who walk along the chancel won’t blind ourselves every time we walk past. Currently only one of our speakers is working (that has been true for about 4 years now) and playing a video is always a roll of the dice as far as audio goes.

My dreams include new speakers (I see four in the sanctuary space to balance out the sound). And a new sound board so we can have more options for microphones or instruments. And a booth at the back where the sound could be controlled along with where the Power Point would be operated from. And new organ speakers in the short term – as the organ console is 40 years old a decision about whether to replace it will be needed within the next generation.

My dreams are expensive. I know of one congregation with a slightly larger space than ours who spent about $100 000 on audio-visual redevelopment. So we might do some picking and choosing. The first step would be to have someone who knows about these things give us a list of options. But I do think it is something we need to consider. Not only would it enhance our life as a worshipping congregation, it would also enhance our ability to host concerts or speakers or movies or other events in the sanctuary. Ten years ago this congregation wrote in a Joint Needs Assessment how the acoustics in the sanctuary made it a good site for concerts. It was and is true. We could make it better (which would be an offering to the community and a possible revenue source).

Gord

May Newsletter (Part the First)

Where Are We Looking?

It is a spring evening. A group of 15 and 16 year olds are gathered in a small upstairs classroom in Downtown St. Albert. We are there for our first classroom session in the Driver Training program. After ascertaining how many of us have already had at least one in-car session the instructor asks if any of us had been told to stop looking at the center line on the road. As I recall many or most of us had been given that instruction.

How could the instructors tell where we were looking?

Because when you look (especially if you look intently) at something for too long you tend to aim at it. When student drivers focus too much on the center line then the center of the car tends to end up going over that marking. Instead we were taught to aim for the center of the lane, not to stare at it, you still have to keep glancing around and be aware of your surroundings, but to aim for that, keep the car there, don’t stare at the line.

The irony of course is that we would have been carefully watching that line to make sure we stayed on the right side of it.

I think the same principle holds in much of our lives. The place we direct our focus, whether we do it because that is our goal or because that is the place we want to avoid, tends to be where we end up steering. Add in interpretive factors like optimism vs pessimism and if we aren’t careful we will end up in totally the wrong lane – or even the wrong place. So where are you looking?

As life comes along at you where are you looking? Are you spending too much time looking in the rearview or side mirrors? Are you shoulder checking so carefully that you don’t realize the wheel is turning as you turn your head? (Full disclosure, this was a mark of my early driving lessons) Or are you keeping an eye on what is behind or on either side but maintaining a primary focus in front of you. Not too far ahead, but farther than the tip of the bumper. How is that determining where you end up?

I think this idea of looking in the right direction, the idea that where we look is where we steer, applies to communities as well. If we as a community spend too much time looking back at some “Golden Age” we might find ourselves running off the road. If we spend too much time looking enviously at neighbours who appears to be doing ‘better’ (whatever we think better might mean) we might miss the place we need to turn. If we focus on those things that we think limit us we might steer directly towards them. If we stare at what is directly ahead of us we might miss what is farther out and fail to plan for what may come later.

Of course the challenge when having this discussion in community is that there are so many pairs of eyes. More pairs of eyes to have different ideas of where we should be looking and so we may bog down debating where we need to focus. At the same time the benefit of doing it in community is there are so many pairs of eyes. Some people can look to the sides and share what they see. Some can look behind and remind us from whence we came. Some can look right in front of the bumper to keep us in the moment. Some look farther down into the distance to see what is coming up. And some sit in their seat and scroll through Google Maps dreaming about where we might end up.

So where are we, the congregation of St. Paul’s United Church, looking?

As a part of the visioning discussions of the last year we were asked where we saw this congregation in 5 or 10 years. That, I think, was the most important question we asked. Where is the road taking us? Do we want to change the path? That, I think, is why when Karen and Paula first presented the results to council they had us look at the answers to that question first.

Where are we looking? Are we looking at where we once were? At where we are worried we might be headed? Or at where we dream to go? As a community of faith there is another big question. Are we looking at where we want to go or are we looking for signposts of where God wants us to go? What do we see in all those various directions?

We tend to go where we are looking. It was true for that group of teenagers starting driver training. It is true for individuals planning their lives. It is true for communities. Together, let us try to look in the right direction, so we head that way.

Gord

Life Wins -- A Newspaper Piece.

It was a crisp spring morning. Some of us gathered in the parking lot of the Roman Catholic church, another group gathered at the United Church across the river. Both groups walked down the hill to meet at the bridge and greet each other by shouting: “Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!” before all going to the community hall for coffee. So it was that people from a variety of churches celebrated the victory of life over death together. 

Every year, on the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, the Christian story invites us to consider the primal battle between life and death. Which will win? On Friday we gather and tell a story of betrayal trial, conviction and torturous execution. We watch as the body of the one we call Messiah is taken from the cross and laid in a stone tomb. Can this be the end?

SPOILER ALERT! There is more to come. Life wins. Just when it looks like the powers of death have had the victory Life Wins!! And in that victory lies our hope and our promise. Life will always win. As Right Rev Dr. Richard Bott, Moderator of the United Church, says in his Easter video message: “the resurrection of Christ says, “No. Death has no dominion”. Life wins, in the end life will win.

This, to me, is the heart of the Gospel. The heart of the work of Jesus is not done on the cross with his death but in his life. The heart of Jesus’ ministry is in the teaching and healing he does before the cross and in God’s powerful word of life after the cross. In Jesus God invites us to share in the life of the Reign of God, life that confronts and conquers the forces of death in the world.

It can be hard to believe that life could possibly win. After all death-dealing seems so prevalent in the world. We live in a time when racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia are used to divide us, to declare some as less worthy than others – and death wins again. We live in a world where everyday somebody on this planet lives with the threat of bomb blast or gunfire or violent unrest – and death wins again. We live in a world where we as a species most often choose the easy familiar way of comfort even when we know that our current patterns of life risk making the planet unlivable for our children and our neighbours – and death threatens to have the last laugh. But we believe that life will yet win. Easter tells us that life will win. How will we react?

What difference does it make to be invited into God’s Reign where life wins, where death has no dominion? Well in Scripture we meet a variety of people who experience the presence of the Risen Christ and they are no longer the same. I think particularly of Peter, the rough fisherman who, once having experienced Easter, becomes the leader of a movement that would take him to Rome, heart of the Empire, to proclaim the Good News he found in Jesus Christ. Or I think of Saul of Damascus, full of zeal for the persecution of the followers of Jesus, who had his own Easter moment and became the foremost apostle to the Gentiles, spreading the Word of Life around the eastern Mediterranean. When God’s word of life that shatters the dominion of death enters our lives we are called to be agents of life.

When the Word of Life pronounced at that first Easter enters our hearts we are called to be changed. The Word of Life pushes us to help make changes in the wider world, to push for that world where life, and that in abundance, is made available to all. As people who have met the Risen Christ we have a calling to fight against all those things I listed earlier that help death win. As people who have heard the Good News of Easter we have to have hope that this fight will be victorious, because we know that life wins, that death no longer has dominion.

Jesus was all about the Reign or Kingdom of God. That Kingdom is a kingdom of life. The powers of the world often work against the kingdom of life. Sometimes we might lose hope. But the story of Jesus ends not with an agonizing death on the cross but with the words “he is not here, he has been raised”. Life wins. Resurrection happens and life wins. The world will never be the same because life wins. We can never be the same because we have met the Risen Christ.

Christ is Risen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.

Are You Good Enough? -- A Newspaper Submission

If you are like me there are days when the answer to that question is a half-hearted “maybe” followed by a large question mark. Then there are the really bad days when the answer is a definite NO. Those are the days I need to remind myself to follow these instructions: “(Breathe in) I am a child of God (breathe out) and that is enough”.

Why do we sometimes doubt that we are “good enough”? I can think of a few reasons. I have come to believe that sometimes are good at telling each other, and ourselves, that we fall short. We can be really good at tearing each other down when we should build each other up. In the beginning of the Scripture that is shared by Judaism and Christianity we are told that God looks at what has been created and says it is very good. Someone, I think it was Matthew Fox, has suggested that despite everything that comes after that first chapter of Genesis this original blessing has never been withdrawn. So we are good enough. Why is that sometimes hard to believe?

One reason we may doubt we are good enough is something called ‘Imposter Syndrome’. This shows up in that little voice which tells you that you are not qualified for or capable of the task in front of you. Maybe you think you are a ‘post turtle’ as a joke I often see online says about politicians. In full blown effect it makes you convinced that people will find out and you will be ruined upon exposure as an imposter. Imposter Syndrome denies that word of God telling you that you are enough. Imposter Syndrome speaks against the truth that maybe God has led you to that place and is speaking through those who gave you the job. A cure for Imposter Syndrome is to remember the practice: “(Breathe in) I am a child of God (breathe out) and that is enough”. More training and practice help too, but we need to tend to the spiritual injury it causes as well.

And then there is the big one. We often feel we are not good enough because lots of voices tell us we aren’t. Sadly we often find it easier to point out those times we each have failed, or done something wrong than congratulate each other on our successes. This leads to guilt. And in excessive amounts guilt leads to shame, and shame is about how we see ourselves. Guilt can help us see a person who does some things wrong, who sometimes fails. Shame, especially in excess, can lead us to see a person who will never be good enough, who can not do anything right. It can cause a paralyzing injury. The way to cure this spiritual injury is grace. Grace is what reminds us that we are beloved children of a loving God. Grace reminds us that what we are, while not perfect, while still growing and maturing, is enough.

To be honest, this second spiritual injury is one of the places I take issue with the historical church. Historically I think the church, or more specifically some people in the church, has often been more interested in reminding people that they are imperfect,’sinful’, beings who can not measure up to some idealized saintly concept of good enough. There is a story I once read of a broken woman who was asked if she had tried the church. Her response: “why would I go there, I already feel terrible about myself?”. The church she described was forgetting the cure. As people of faith we sometimes need to remind each other where we fall short. As people of faith we ALWAYS have to remind each other of grace. We always need to remind each other that simply because we are part of God’s creation we are good, we are enough.

To some this may be a question of theological priorities. To me it is life and death. Those times when suicidal or self-destructive thoughts seep into my soul they ride the carriage driven by the voice saying “you are not good enough”, the voice which tells George Bailey the world would be better off if he had never been born. To remind each other that we are ‘good enough’ may well save lives. Good enough does not mean perfect. It means enough. That is what Christ says. Jesus never asks people what they did wrong. Jesus says “you are forgiven, stand up and walk”. Jesus says we are good enough. So when the days get too hard, when you wonder if you are good enough, remember to: “(Breathe in) I am a child of God (breathe out) and that is enough”.

Annual Report for 2018

As I sat down to write this year’s Annual Report my mind drifted to one of the United Church’s faith statements, A Song of Faith, and in re-reading it I found these lines:

We sing of a church
seeking to continue the story of Jesus
by embodying Christ’s presence in the world.
We are called together by Christ
as a community of broken but hopeful believers,
loving what he loved,
living what he taught,
striving to be faithful servants of God
in our time and place.

They struck me as a good, if not complete, summary of what it means to be the church. And as I look back at 2018 I think we have given a good shot at living up to that summary.

As a congregation we have, I believe, made an impact on the life of Grande Prairie. In part we have done that through the use of our building, through making it available to the community. There are times when it would be nice if we could make more money off of that availability, but to be honest I would rather offer space for free to meet a community need than see our space as a money source (and in reality it can sometimes be both). But we have also made a difference by our presence. In December St. Paul’s received a grant through the Community Foundation. On a picture posted by the Community Foundation from that presentation someone commented “St Paul's church is full of wonderful people who have a wonderful spirit. They are champions of our community and I am very glad to see that they will be able to continue to extend that love through this grant.” I think it is safe to say our presence is noticed.

See here for the comment

For a more detailed list of what we have done in 2018 I encourage you to read the other submissions in this Report.

Yet, even as I want to celebrate the good things that have happened this year I also need to raise up a concern. As I look back at the year I see signs of a growing issue around stewardship, both in terms of people power and money. I have not yet seen the final financial reports but at the January Council meeting the draft statement showed a deficit of about $9900, and that is after we had a one-time gift of having our 2018 Presbytery Assessment (about $7300) refunded. At the same time we did raise about $10 000 for the roof fund so we think that may be where some of the operating funds got redirected. Still this is a worry as we can not continue to operate at that significant a loss. How do we redo our finances? To be honest there is no possibility of finding $16 000 in expense cuts, and when the youngest part of the building is starting to show its 32 years some expenses will go up ($1300 dollars of our deficit can be accounted for in one plumbing bill for a plugged drain in November). So where might we find new money?

At the same more and more often when an idea (often a fundraising idea) comes up the first question is “who will do it?”. And that is certainly a valid and important question. But I am hearing more and more signals of how tired people are, how they are unsure if we can take up new things. This goes along with the multiple vacancies we have on our nominations slate. Just as we can not operate with a financial deficit, we can not operate without people power.

But still there is hope. As you may remember, we did some visioning work in the Spring. And as we move forward with discussing and implementing the results of that work we will have a chance to discuss what is important, and how we will make the important stuff happen. That may possibly mean we will let some other things go to make room for something new, or just to focus our energy on something of a higher priority. It may mean we rededicate ourselves to a prized project or task. And it will certainly mean we each get a chance to take ownership of the ministry that we all share together.

One of the questions I have continually tried to hold in my mind, and periodically raise up for the rest of you to hear, is “what is God calling us to do in this place and time?”. I live in hope, faith, and trust that when we seek the answer to that question we may also find new way to deal with the accompanying stewardship question “and how will we do that?”.

I opened this with a quote from A Song of Faith. I think I will close the same way.

We sing of God’s good news lived out,
a church with purpose:
faith nurtured and hearts comforted,
gifts shared for the good of all,
resistance to the forces that exploit and marginalize,
fierce love in the face of violence,
human dignity defended,
members of a community held and inspired by God,
corrected and comforted,
instrument of the loving Spirit of Christ,
creation’s mending.
We sing of God’s mission.

St. Paul’s United does not have a mission, God has a mission and invites us to take part. How will we sing the song in 2019 and beyond? What part will be ours in the dance of faith?

Gord

Contagion! Contamination! -- A Newspaper Column

What are you catching? What are you spreading? I have found that much of the important stuff in life (like our beliefs and attitudes about each other, about ourselves, about the world) is caught. We pick it up by osmosis, by contact, sort of like the flu. So what are you catching?

First a story, I like stories. One of the few vegetables we can grow successfully in our house is potatoes. The manse where we lived in Ontario had a cold room under the front steps, so we had a place to store our potato crop, which some years would last us most of the winter. One day I went downstairs and there was a foul odour coming from the cold room. Maybe I had not knocked all the dirt off, maybe it was still wet when I put it in the box, maybe it was just bad luck, but one potato had started to rot. Which in and of itself would be smelly and off-putting but easy to deal with. But of course it was not limited to that one. Each potato that was touching that first on had started to rot. Had I left it long enough the whole box would have turned – imagine the smell in that case.

I think as people of faith we are supposed to be like that potato. Or maybe we should be like the first patient in a flu epidemic. Or maybe that first drop of food colouring in a glass of clear water. We need to be that contagion or contaminant that seems small but can, over time, change the surroundings.

There is a time when Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven that gets mixed into three measures of flour until all is leavened. In the end many traditional leavening agents are contaminants. What is yeast but a fungus with dreams of grandeur? What is sourdough but partly rotting dough? But centuries ago people discovered that some contaminants can be very helpful. Contamination can, sometimes be a very good thing.

Of course the reverse is equally true. Contamination and contagion are words which do not bring up the best of images. They are generally seen as negative things. The Kingdom of God can spread like a flu bug, but so can hatred and violence. Like my rotting potato, the promise and power of love can infect each person it touches but so can fear and distrust. Which are you catching? Which are you spreading?

It strikes me that some things are easier to catch than others. Some forms of contamination spread really quickly and some forms of contamination are kept walled up pretty easily. At the same time a lot more energy goes into spreading some things than others. So if there is something we want people to catch, if there is some thing we want to spread out that will change the world in a positive direction, we need to be find a way to make sure people get in contact with that instead of something less helpful. Unfortunately it appears to me that the beliefs and attitudes and understandings that spread easiest these days are contaminants and contagions in the worst sense of the words.

To be a person of Christian faith means we are called to ensure people are contaminated with love. We are called to ensure people catch hope. We are called to help change the world to align more with our vision of God’s Kingdom. What do I see spreading most easily in the world today? Not those things.

I see fear spreading like an ebola outbreak. I see the politics of division, of wall-building, of “us or them” discolouring the waters of public discourse. I see distrust and possessiveness and prejudice against “the other”. I see things like these all over: in our politics, in our economics, in our approach to immigration, even in our churches. Our world is full of negative contamination and contagion and I think the only way to counter it is by offering an alternative. Love is caught not taught.

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened...”. As people who follow The Way of Christ we are called to be infectious, to contaminate the world with Good News. As people who live in this world there are a lot of other things that try to infect and contaminate us. What are you catching? What are you spreading?

Let’s all go out and try to infect the world with the Love of the God who has created and is creating. Maybe the infection we carry will kill off the bugs of fear and distrust and division.

Newsletter & Newspaper piece

[I was needing to write for both the local paper and the December Newsletter in the same week. So I wrote this and sent it both places]

Let the Transformation Begin!

The lights are up on the streetlight poles. The decorations are in the malls. As I write these words there are ads out for Black Friday sales. It’s beginning to look more like Christmas.

Many of us have some things, without which Christmas is not complete. Maybe it is a favoured bit of baking, or a particular song, or a party or get together, or a visit with a close friend. Maybe it is a special church service. Whatever it is, you just need those things for the season to feel right.

Two of those things for me are reading Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and watching the How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the original half hour narrated by Boris Karloff, not the Jim Carrey movie) on TV. In fact if I had to choose I would rather watch the Grinch over that other perpetual favourite A Charlie Brown Christmas. (Luckily we own both on DVD so I don’t have to choose anymore)

Why do those two things hold such a place in my vision of ‘making Christmas’? Certainly a lot has to do with history. The first time I was on stage was playing Scrooge in a school play when I was in Grade 5 and I grew up reading and watching the Grinch every year. But there is something more. Something thematic, something in the meaning of those stories.

Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch have something in common. They hate Christmas. At the beginning of their stories they are thoroughly unlikeable characters. They seem to have no redeeming values. At the end of their stories they are totally different. They are, to use churchy language, redeemed. The Grinch carves the roast beast. And Scrooge, well we are told that in his life after that magical night “It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge”. If Scrooge and the Grinch can be transformed and redeemed than surely there is hope for all of us.

Christmas is about many things. But at its heart it is about God choosing to reveal Godself in a new way to accomplish something. To me one of the biggest things God accomplishing in the story of Christ is transforming and redeeming us and the world around us. That transformation starts at Christmas. It starts at the beginning when a young girl hears she is going to have a baby when that shouldn’t be happening. Afraid at first, she ends up singing a song that really has the markers of a revolutionary manifesto: “he has filled the hungry...and sent the rich away empty”. This child will not only change Mary’s life but the world as a whole.

When the baby whose birth we are getting ready for grows up he will stand in his home synagogue and proclaim “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ... [God] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives”. I hear echoes of his mother’s song in those words. In Christ God is working to transform the world, to turn it upside down and shake it up. In Christ God is showing us (as individuals and as a community) that we can be redeemed, set free from those things that bind us up. In Christ God is inviting us to be changed, to have our beliefs and priorities challenged, to turn and follow a different path.

I firmly believe that each of us has a bit of Scrooge, a bit of the Grinch, in our being. Sometimes we tuck it away, sometimes it comes out boldly. Sometimes our hearts are hardened or 2 sizes too small and we fail to care about each other as fully as God asks us to. I see this when we worry more about the bags of bottles someone grabs from our backyard than the fact that people need to steal bottles to get money for food. I see this when we worry about property values being lowered because “those people” are in the neighbourhood rather than asking how best to help people get their lives back in control. And yes, both of those examples grow directly out of comments I have seen from Grande Prairie people in various Facebook discussions.

When the Scrooge in us rears up its head we are reminded that we too need to be redeemed and transformed. When the Grinch speaks in our voice we know we need to find a different path (though hopefully our hearts won’t grow three sizes because that sounds medically dangerous). But here is the hope.

Christmas is coming! God is once again breaking into our world and our lives. Transformation and redemption are possible. Are we willing to let it happen?

Blessed Christmas.