Presbytery of Yukon Blog

01 03 11 Between Diversity and Like-Mindedness

2012-01-03T09:11:00.005-09:00

There has been a lot of talk about whether or not the Presbyterian Church (USA) should reorganize its institutional structure according to theology. The issue can, perhaps, be described by asking two questions:

Which should be more valued in the church: diversity or like-mindedness?
How are these two values to be understood through the eyes of Christian faith?

Of course, in the wake of the civil rights movement, anti-war sentiment, and other issues of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, diversity became the more valued, and holding to “like-minded” thinking was seen as regressive. Since then technology has made sharing diverse thoughts so pervasive that it many people even resist being called “liberal” or “conservative.” Instead, such people, many of them of the younger generations, find that they have begun to fashion something of their own blend of thoughts, a blend that defies easy categorization.

In the church many believe this is the very reason for defining how groups of Christians are like-minded. There is great concern among some that the current age in tempts people to lose an integrated belief structure. That is, there is the worry that people believe a little of this and a little of that without understanding either how these various strands of understanding conflict, or even how these beliefs are changing the shape our churches and human societies.

We are therefore living in two movements. The first is the movement of increasing personal connections with diverse people and attitudes from across the world through social media, etc. Some in Christian circles recognize that this is the trend of the immediate future, which they believe means we need to help disciples to develop eyes that see how God is at work in a time of such fluid change to reshape human society for the future. Such eyes look for the Spirit’s movement to lift up the poor, the downtrodden and the outcast, and to connect peoples with different insights and giftedness. The point is to discern God’s new possibilities for today and tomorrow.

The second movement among Christian people looks for ways to assure that all this networking is not causing us to lose our moorings to Jesus Christ. Sometimes people talk about this concern in terms of the need to remain attached to proper authority for our faith, and the authority I have heard Christians name most often has been the authority of scripture. This group makes the point that the scriptures and the Holy Spirit are not at odds with each other.

Over the next weeks I want to reflect more on these movements, and especially on how they are affecting the Presbytery of Yukon. We have long been aware that Christianity must embrace diversity. The presbytery enjoys large participation from the St. Lawrence Island Yupik and the Iñupiaq Native Americans, from Koreans, and from the mostly-anglo cultures. We have long understood that variance of worship styles and cultural shapings of churches are essential to authentic faith life. Any development in the understanding and practice of ministry must continue to recognize that diversity really is a must for the Christian church.

Yet, a religious body needs to be able to describe the faith that the body holds in common, because that commonality is what will hold it together. Similarly, a religious body needs to be able to theologize together, which means the ability to prayerfully seek God’s guidance about changes that are underway in the world and how the church should engage those changes. Such theologizing needs to be characterized by mature Christian leadership. It is elder work, and must be characterized by prayerful openness to God and honest Christian love.

I look forward to sharing my thoughts through this blog. I am also hopeful that readers will take advantage of the blog venue, and will add their own thoughts and responses. By reflecting together, and by remaining in an attitude of prayer, this could be a very helpful next few weeks.

12 22 11 Christmas Blog

2011-12-23T09:00:00.005-09:00

I am actually writing this on the very day of the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year. Writers often depict winter as a symbol for life when it is bleak, cold and hopeless. And why not? Local food crops simply cannot grow in an Alaskan winter. At our house, down in one of the deep valleys created by the Chugach Mountains, the sun does not even make it above the mountain peaks for another month. It is cold, it is dark and, apparently, desolate.

Yet, winter really should be the season for hope, not hopelessness. People who live with the land have always known this. Winter is the season for making plans for the spring. Farmers are gathering seed. Builders are designing the homes they will build in the not-so-distant future. Hunters and gatherers are restoring their tools and getting ready. This is a season of waiting, but waiting in a way that prepares for a wonderful tomorrow.

It is easy to lose track of hope. We live in a moment of history where people seem to have three choices. They can see the magnitude of the problems facing

our existence and fall into a wintry despair. They can see the magnitude of the problems and either deny that they are real, maybe as claiming it all as a part of God’s plan and therefore deny that we need to take action, or they can join together in faithfully living into the change God is bringing, the future that is coming.

This, of course, is the heart of a Christian understanding of faithfulness. We build it into

our common life as a community of faith. Beginning four Sundays before Christmas, as the darkness and cold of winter descends, we celebrate the season of Advent. In this season, we recognize that the problems of the world are real, and we must face them with a mature (or at least maturing) faith.

The problems of the world are real. In fact, there are any number that deserve attention: overpopulation, economic bubbles, carbon emissions, addiction and strife—among others. If that is not enough to get our attention, what is? We are living in a time of either wintry despair, blind denial, or something else.

Christians are called to live out of that something else—something called hope. Christians have always insisted that hope is real. In the birth of Jesus Christ, a real human being, God got involved in history. Knowing that this is who God is—the One who is with us and is engaged with us in the face of it all—empowers a whole different life than that of denial or despair.

Because of Jesus, we know that real and effective hope is always available to us. Hope calls to us from the future to take hope and be active in the present. In fact, the Christian witness is that we nearly always go through all three of these realities.

We go astray, but insist for a while that we are OK: denial.
Our eyes are then opened, and we realize that we are not only off-track, but probably incapable of solving it.
We hear God’s call from the future, and realize that something bigger than ourselves is at work, and that we can be a part of it.

Winter is that season of recognizing that God is with us now, and then of hearing the possibilities of the future. It is a time of rethinking what we thought the plan was. It is a time of allowing God to capture us, and to reshape our imagination. It is a time of becoming ready to join-in on the new thin

g that will be born.

Yet, if this winter-hope is to be real hope, it requires that we become ready to move and take action when the time is right. God does make changes, but the biblical account describes the changes as taking place when God gets involved in history with real people and real events.

If Advent is about waiting with expectation for the birth of the Savior—and it is—then faithful living now, two millennia after that birth, is about joining-in

on what God has been doing since and will be doing into the future. Faithful living that has real hope means that we, the people who are alive now, will listen for God’s call from the future and join together in living for that future.

Yes, we are in winter right now. Good or bad, this is where we are. I hope that we will

choose to understand winter as a time of hope. I hope we will look at the problems listed above choose to live for a future that has seen these problems addressed. The problems are big, but God is bigger. There is a lot of inertia behind the status quo, but God can bring us all together to put our combined weight behind the call for change.

The question is where to start. We will all have to work together to bring change. On the other hand, starting is a very personal thing. As for me, I am starting with winter. This is a season for examining my own heart, recognizing that I am as much a part of the problem as the rest of my generation. This is a season for asking God to change my heart. All future action will have to come from there.

[Pictures: Flying over Nuiqsut Alaska, Dec. 6, 2011 at noon.

Presbyterian Chapel, Nuiqsut, Alaska

11 23 11 Discipleship

2011-11-24T12:55:00.003-09:00

How do church leaders guide their congregations into the changes that will open ministry in new ways? How do we raise up a new generation of disciples for future ministry that God has not yet shown us? What are some practical things we can do today that will lead to a better ministry tomorrow?

The latest training for the Acts 16:5 Initiative was held last weekend (Nov 18-19) at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Anchorage. The content and style of the presentation were very compelling and have opened discussions that we pray will bear fruit. We offer many thanks to the Rev. Stan Ott of the Vital Church Institute for traveling to Alaska and making this event possible.

Although not all the presbytery’s congregations have signed-on to The Acts 16:5 Initiative, enough are involved to bring the Missional Church perspective to the whole presbytery. We are now at a point of thinking about how to begin sharing the learning in appropriate ways beyond those congregations that originally signed-on.

This possibility is important because our whole society is in a time of such monumental change, that the church absolutely must move into an adaptive, responsive mode if it is to share the salvation and love of Jesus Christ effectively to an anxious world. If we are not adaptive and responsive, then the Good News will not be presented in ways that can be heard, and the people will suffer now and into the future.

With this in mind, this latest Acts 16:5 Training focused on a couple of key themes. Among these were the following:

Leading into change, and
Raising up disciples and a disciple faith community to bear God’s Good News into the world.

Part of this training included some practical guides for drawing people into intentional learning and growth as individuals and as a faith-community. Disciples need to be well grounded in three ways:

Doxological – a relationship with God that includes praise and worship,
Koinonial – a relationship with God through God’s people that stokes our spiritual fires, and
Missional – a relationship with God that sends us out to make a difference in the world that God loves.

One experimental new approach to this class was connecting Dave Moody from Fairbanks via the internet. Dave said it went fairly well, though there are some things we can do to improve the experience for distance learners. Also, some of the churches that would normally have participated in the training were unable to come to the Nov 18-19 training, and so plans are under way to hold a second training sometime soon. Because this training is paid for both by congregations and by the presbytery, those congregations that have not participated in the past are still welcome to be a part of this event. Pastors or elders wanting more information should contact the presbytery office.

November is Make a Missional Move Month for PbYukon

2011-11-17T10:16:00.001-09:00

At least this seems to be the case as I look at the activity this month across the presbytery. Two moves in particular need to be mentioned.

On Oct 22 the Rev. Tosu Sinkaman arrived in Anchorage from our partner, the Tayal Presbytery in Taiwan. His arrival was an answer to prayer. Originally scheduled to arrive in mid-August, Rev. Tosu was turned back at the border when he landed in Seattle! After a gueling 13-hour flight, he had to re-board the airplane immediately and go home. Although the customs service never admitted a mistake, Rev. Tosu arrived in October with the same credentials and the same stated mission as before. VERY FRUSTRATING.

What made the difference was some guidance from the PC(USA) office in Louisville, helping us explain our side of the story, and preparing the Seattle customs service in advance. Many thanks to Julia Thorne from the Immigrant Ministries office in Louisville!

Rev. Tosu has been a missionary in Japan and a previous presbytery moderator. We are honored to have a pastor of such stature among us. He will be traveling throughout our presbytery until Dec. 19, visiting many of our village churches and telling the story of God's work among the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Hearing of the struggles and the acts of God among other Native peoples may prove particularly helpful for us as we are thinking about vision and mission in the villages of our presbytery.

The second major movement is the next Acts 16:5 training, taking place this weekend, Nov. 18-19 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Anchorage. Once again, Stann Ott will be with us to lead the training. Those churches that chose to participate in the Acts 16:5 initiative are sending members of their leadership teams to Trinity to participate in the workshops. The participants are also discussing the possibility of meeting regularly by internet to share ideas and encouragement.

Because the presbytery is helping to fund the training, we will receive DVDs and extra training books to share with any other interested congregations in our presbytery. If the pastor or session from any church in the presbytery is interested in receiving any of these resources, or of learning more about the regular “internet Stan Ott

meetings,” they can contact the presbytery office.

11 10 11 Bearing Witness to The Wholeness of Ministry

2011-11-10T07:08:00.004-09:00

Each meeting of a presbytery has its own character. Some are celebratory and glad. Others are weighty and deliberative. Lately, our meetings have been rather more weighty than usual, mostly due to the rather dramatic changes underway in church and culture. It was therefore a great joy at our last meeting of the Presbytery of Yukon to spend an evening with the Rev. Cobbe Palm, one of our PC(USA) Mission Co-workers from The Philippines.

There were several things that made Rev. Palm’s presentation memorable. His winsome and joyous presence was just what was needed in an otherwise heavy meeting. The wonderful Power Point slides added color and visual images to his talk. But what struck me most was the fabulous history of consistent, ongoing ministry of the Presbyterian Church in the Philippines.

The thing from his talk that really stood out for me was the very
Rev. Cobbe Palm

wholistic nature of Presbyterian mission at its best. Rev. Palm pointed out that from the beginning the Presbyterians’ mission strategy was to care for the whole person in its ministry: mind, body and soul. In the 1800’s the Presbyterians built the mind, body and soul institutions of schools, hospitals and churches. Since then times have changed. Now, the church has added to that list by engaging in a very troublesome issue worldwide, and especially in the Philippines, the issue of sex trafficking.

Traffickers are lying to parents and young people, promising them good work in a far-away place that will help support their families. The truth is that these young people are spirited away to the sex trade. The Presbyterians and others have entered into this situation to provide intervention, healing and training to help get people out of these situations. Further, the Presbyterians have been very involved in advocating for societal changes so this can’t go on. The churches, themselves, are lifting up disciples of Jesus Christ as people who build ministries that continue to care for people—mind, body and soul.

This, of course, is a hallmark of the Reformed branch of Christianity. We have always believed that saving the soul is important, but have understood that God cares for the whole person, and that Christians and Christian ministry must also care for the whole person. It was a pleasure to be reminded of that and to witness some of the good work that God continues to do through the Presbyterian Church. It was a great gift to have the Rev. Cobbe Palm among us to share the story.

On Protestants, Right Relationships and Earthcare

2011-02-07T09:31:00.004-09:00

This is the text of a talk I was gave on January 30, 2011 as part of the Anchorage Interfaith Council’s Earthcare Forum. There were seven religious groups with speakers on the panel. Each chose passages from their sacred texts and had 8 minutes to for comments based on those texts, followed by an hour of questions from the audience.

The panel included speakers from a Muslim group, two different sects of Buddhism, a Jewish Rabbi, a Roman Catholic professor of religion, an independent Christian Pentecostal, and a Presbyterian (me).

Basically, we all agreed that the world’s situation is dire and that the religious communities have much to say on the subject. Our beginning points certainly differed, as one might expect from such varied traditions. One person even quoted a 1960s vintage book that criticized Western Culture's version of Protestant teaching for contributing to the lack of Earthcare through the ages. This blog begins with my initial comments which, coincidentally, call on Protestants to repent for not taking their own stance seriously enough, and end with one point from the Q & A period that I thought was particularly important.]

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I am Curt Karns, executive presbyter for the Presbytery of Yukon. I am also a member of an organization called Yukon Presbyterians for Earthcare, so I was especially glad to be invited to participate in an interfaith conference with that very title: Earthcare! I was also very happy to see that some of the other speakers are basing their talks on those passages of the Bible which make it clear that Earthcare is an imperative for those of us from the Judeo-Christian tradition. This sets me free as one of the Christian Protestant voices here today to speak specifically from the Protestant point of view.

In my opinion, one of the Scripture that sums up much of the Protestant stance on faith is found in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 8-10:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

This passage is about faith-life in general, but also has the potential to greatly add to any faith-based conversation on Earthcare, whether that be an interfaith conversation or an intra-Christian conversation. This passage asks us to wrestle with the question of what gives ultimate meaning to human existence. Ultimate meaning is one part of what salvation is about. This passage then goes further and challenges us regarding how we are to understand what we are to do—our works—in the world.

It is precisely our works that are at issue in the struggles for Earthcare. So much of what we human beings have collectively done in the world have not turned out to be good for our planet, or even for the long-range well-being of human beings. And part of the problem for Protestants has been that we have not taken the guidance that our own favorite Scripture passages, like this one from Ephesians, would give us.

According to this passage from Ephesians, we can stop fretting about whether we can achieve a good relationship with God—that part is given. We have no need to prove to the universe, or even to ourselves, that we are “good enough.” Instead we have been given an ongoing covenantal relationship with God.

For us, covenants signal relationships in which the parties involved agree to be in relationship with each other, and understand their own identities differently because of that relationship. Indeed, all covenantal relationships—marriage, parenthood, etc—call one to live differently in the world than if one were not a part of that relationship. According to Ephesians, once we know that we are persons-in-relationship with God, the way we live should reflect this new reality. We must now know ourselves as people whose way of life is the doing of good works.

Unfortunately too many people in America, including many Protestants, I’m sorry to say, live as if they had this Scripture backwards. They live as if they were still trying to earn proper praise for their existence, and do that through a strange definition of worthiness actions. Americans try to gain wealth to prove that we are successful; we seek prestige to prove our place in the human pecking order; we seek power to show the world our importance. And we seek subdue land and sea to prove that we are the masters and not the servants.

These are hardly the good works that the Scripture calls for. In the Christian tradition there are two parts to our ministry. Our ministry is to celebrate the gifts God has given each one to bring. And our ministry is to be a ministry of reconciliation.

Reconciliation is about being reconciled to God, but also to others. We are to work for reconciliation between one another in the faith community, between one another in our cultures and societies, and between ourselves and all creation. Our good works are about establishing right relationships such that everyone thrives. And because of who we are—members of this whole creation that God so loves—we absolutely must work for right reconciliation between human beings and the planet Earth.

These Scriptures, then, call people of faith to reframe our thinking of what a successful human being is from the secular cultural model to a biblical, faith-based model. Unfortunately, Scripture has often been interpreted through the lens of Western culture rather than the other way around. Genesis 1 through Genesis 2:4 tells about the seven days of creation. To hear Western culture interpret that passage, we are created in the image of God and God created everything in six days—which proves God’s lordship. Humans, too, need to be working to prove their worth. But a more consistent reading would note that the pinnacle of God’s creation was not the sixth day, in which humans (and animals, though we usually don’t mention the animals) were created. A more consistent reading shows that the seventh day, when God rested from work and just stopped to celebrate being in relationship with this whole of creation, was the pinnacle of creation and the proper model for us to emulate as the image of God.

Being made in God’s image, then, should be to celebrate the wonder of all creation, to enjoy being a part of creation and to love and tend it just as God does. This, of course, also includes celebrating families and friends and the fullness of human potential, as well.

Somehow we have turned this teaching on its head. Instead of knowing that we are already worthy of relationship with God, and turning our lives to standing for the restoration of damaged relationships, we seem bound to work hard to for our own prestige and make excuses for standing by and watching as the world suffers the consequences.

Reconciliation with creation means first recognizing how badly we have been in caring for our relationship with the ecosystem and repenting. Reconciliation means exploring how much damage has been done and knowing that we are responsible. Reconciliation means then reshaping our own lives in such a way as to participate in different ways of life that might lead to a better future for all.

My thesis, then is that we need to call people back to delve deeply into their faith traditions. There is old wisdom there, inspired by God. By letting culture define our faith and our very selves, rather than allowing the our faith-values to guide us as God’s ambassadors to our culture, we have been complicit in producing the consequences the world now faces. By going back to our roots in the face of this crisis, we can be essential in the needed movement for change.

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[An opportunity for another comment came up during the Q & A that seem particularly significant. Someone asked how we all understood our relationship to the environment as it relates to Earthcare. My response was that there is a changing view among some of us, which can be summarized by a minority view on how to understand Genesis 2:1. When translated literally, that verse uses the same terminology as the geneologies that show up later in Genesis--"These are the GENERATIONS of the creation of heaven and earth when they were made." Some of us are taking this as a true genealogy to say that we are related to the whole of creation, and the different members (species) have varied responsibilities to one another. Earthcare is something humans must take seriously as a part of the family of creation. It is about living in right relationships.]

Future of Ministry in Alaska

2011-01-31T09:10:00.006-09:00

This year (2011) I will primarily blog about important considerations for the Presbytery of Yukon as they are thinking about the future of ministry. Some of the topics will not be on customary ministry topics. For instance, in the previous post (January 31) I spoke of the potential effects of higher fuel prices.

Actually, I wanted to write about the confluence of a number of factors that will lead to the changes I wrote about, but decided that was too complicated for a blog post--I will blog about some of the other factors in later posts.

Strangely, today I cannot get any graphs to upload. So, tomorrow I will try to upload the graphs that went with the previous post.

Curt

The Future: Alaskan Ministry in an Expensive Energy World

2011-01-31T07:36:00.008-09:00

One of the big ministry questions facing the church of today is how to minister to a society that will be forced to deal with extremely rapid and sustained increases in energy costs.[1] See below for a brief analysis and some graphs.[2]

This is a huge consideration for us in Alaska. Over 98 percent of our food is flown to Alaska from the Lower 48 states, along with nearly all of our consumer goods. The projected scale of increase in transportation costs means that life will have to change dramatically very soon. I therefore want to offer a few initial thoughts on what this might mean for the church.

1. Future economics will make transportation so costly that locally self-sustaining economies will have to be developed (or redeveloped as in the past).

Families and small communities will have to be more self sufficient and self-sustaining. This means learning to do for ourselves will become a trend. Cooperative groups will be more self-sufficient than solo individuals or families, which means building communities and neighborhoods that can work together will be essential.
Christians have a long history of building community around various ministry causes. Yet, as a whole our society has lost much of that ability. Is this part of the gospel we have to offer the world? If so, how do we begin preparing to meet that ministry need, how do we recapture our ability to build community around specific needs? The awareness of this need is only beginning to rise up in the larger society just now but will expand rapidly in the near future. Can the church connect its ability to build cooperative community around Christian mission with the world’s emerging need to build cooperative community around sustainable skills?

2. Mission is most effective when it recognizes real needs and organizes to meet those needs. There are a number of needs that go along with the future economy. Here are a few that come to mind as I brainstorm about the future:

Food: Organizing neighborhoods to garden effectively. Note that by the end of WWII New York City was producing nearly 25% of its food from rooftop and balcony gardens within the city.
Helping neighborhoods organize to share gardening crops, or to share equipment or expertise (not just gardening, also maybe maintenance, etc) would help them reduce costs.
Forming community together is hard work, because of the personalities involved and the natural conflicts that appear. Processes of reconciliation are available through so many Christian resources and would be of service in building the new reality.
The level of transition needed from current lifestyle (expanding consumer economies and a consumer mentality) to the Post Peak Oil lifestyle will be huge. Helping people cope with that level of change will be an important ministry.
To deal with ongoing relationships over distance will require continued improvement of high tech communications. How can we use current high tech communication today, and how do we help shape future ministry through technological means?
Cross-cultural communication is always challenging, and cross-cultural partnering and visioning is even more challenging. How can we continue as a connected “body of Christ” faith community with much more expansive travel and less face-to-face time?
Connecting these ministries of necessity both with an awareness of the adventure of new life in the Holy Spirit, and with the basics of the Christian gospel and life will be essential for the spiritual grounding of the emerging new society.
In this cosmopolitan world, we need to ask God to guide us in our relationships with other peoples of faith who are not Presbyterian…and also how to shape relationships with peoples of faith who are not Christian.

3. Most young people are less interested in maintaining old religious structures than they are interested in living authentically for God and discovering the adventure of how the Spirit will lead them and form them for the future. They are therefore connecting through social media, and forming local small groups to explore these possibilities.

Can we help such groups to be more effective in raising up disciples of Jesus Christ?
Can we help such groups as they develop missionally, impacting their communities with the love of God?
How can these intentional faith communities fit in with the Post-Peak Oil emerging society?

Recommended Reading: Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, by Richard Heinberg, New Society Publishers, 2010.

[1] So many of our world oil fields are in decline that we are facing a rather dramatic decrease in world oil supply for the foreseeable future, at the same time we are facing a rather dramatic increase in world demand for oil (especially from India and China). This is because there have been no large new oil discoveries since the late 1970s, and older sources (like Prudhoe Bay) eventually decline. The world appears to have peaked in production in 2006-2008. Further projections (Heinberg, Richard: Peak Everything; See the Preface) show that we are too late in developing alternative energy sources fast enough to be able to avoid a very large impact on our economy and lifestyle.

[2] Note: There have been no large discoveries worldwide since this graph was made.

Happy New Year

2010-12-30T14:30:00.003-09:00

This is the greeting I sent to the Yukon Presbyterians for Earth Care. Although it was crafted with them in mind, I find it wonderfully fitting for all, so I include it below.

May God bless you all in this new year!

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Happy New Year Everyone!

This is a traditional time of the year for Christians to greet one another with great warmth. The new year marks a moment to embrace new beginnings--and we have learned that new beginnings are very real, but only become real because of God's gift of grace-in-action. Indeed, for many cultures, the New Year's "Watch Night Service" at New Year's is a much bigger religious celebration than Christmas. So Happy New Year!!! Greeting each other at this time is another way of verbally celebrating God's grace-filled new beginnings!

We know there is much trouble in this world. We also know that the inability of our society to live in proper relationship with this planet is downright depressing. But in this New Year's season, we should claim the reality of God's new possibilities, and dedicate ourselves to live out of this good news.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday week.

Happy New Year!

Curt

My View of the 219th General Assembly, PC(USA)

2010-07-14T17:23:00.004-08:00

(Photo: Curt Karns, Exec; Antonia Panaya, Youth Advisory Delegate from Gambell Presbyterian; Rev. Tom Letts, Minister Commissioner from Trinity Presbyterian. Not in photo: Beulah Nowpokahok, Elder Commissioner from Gambell Presbyterian)

I was interested in the difference in tone between this General Assembly and the 218th General Assembly (2008) and the 219th (2010). There was a definite sense that this General Assembly did not come to do battle with one another, but seriously sought to find ways to discern God’s will as clearly as possible.
There were certainly enough weighty and important issues for this General Assembly to vote on, and to differ with one another on. They voted…
• on the wording of the paragraph describing ordination standards, including the famed “fidelity and chastity” wording (voted to make the change eliminating that wording—see my earlier blog entry).
• on whether or not to make an authoritative interpretation of the constitution with regard to civil unions (voted not to make the authoritative interpretation).
• on whether to change the definition of marriage from between a man and woman to between two people (voted not to make the change).
• on whether or not to move forward toward adding the Belhar Confession, developed in South Africa as a response to Apartheid) to our Book of Confessions (voted to keep the process moving toward accepting the new confession).
• on whether or not to recommend a replacement of the entire Form of Government section for the Book of Order—claiming to be shorter, less regulatory, and more empowering of diverse ways to respond to local needs (voted for the replacement, it now goes to presbyteries for their vote).
• on whether to denounce Caterpillar company for knowingly profiting on unjust uses of its products to harm Palestinians (yes) and whether to advocate divestment from Caterpillar (voted no) or to continue dialog with the company (voted yes).
• On a report on the Middle East that was modified in committee through a process that many (USA Presbyterians, Jewish and Palestinian participants) called miraculous, finding ways to move back from strident, relationship-damaging language to more respectful, yet pointed language on Israel and Palestine.

With all these weighty topics, it was interesting that the General Assembly was less interested in rocking the boat and more interested in moving into the future together. Again and again participants pointed to their awareness of the spiritual nature of what they were doing, and of the need to find common ground to move forward together. This was a different GA.
Not that this GA was always consistent in its peacemaking. Those who wanted sea-change language largely did not get it and went home unhappy. And certainly, the change in the ordination standards paragraph ruffled a lot of feather. However, in general the body did work to find middle ground, and embodied a group that valued mutual respect and wanted that for the whole church. I found the meeting refreshing.
Personally, I thought the debate on ordination standards surfaced the major theme of the GA. More than one person spoke of the need to focus on the Form of Government change rather than same-sex relationships. They pointed out that issues concerning same-sex relationships tend to “suck all other air out of the room” for presbyteries and congregations so that they cannot give adequate consideration to other important topics. Right now, the argument went, we are at a time for asking how we understand our purpose and calling as Christians, as congregations, as middle-governing bodies and as a denomination. We are at a different time in history and we must open ourselves to new discernment of our identity and our purpose. The New Form of Government asks us to take this question seriously, and so we must give our greatest attention to it for a while.
No one was saying that same-sex relationships are unimportant. However, we all know that a legislative vote does not eliminate the division on the topic within our churches. Voting 53% to 46% to change the ordination standards may result in changed wording, but it won’t decide the issue. No matter what happens when the presbyteries vote on the change, we can be sure that the question will come back again in some form at the next General Assembly.
The 219th General Assembly seemed to be asking us to take seriously how to do more than just battle with one another within the church. We need to recognize that we disagree and will disagree on some things. But we also need to recognize that we were saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8) for the good works God prepared beforehand for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). In my opinion, we are in a time right now to stop focusing on distrust and attacks within the church, and to focus on discerning next steps in our common mission together.

PC(USA) July 8 at General Assembly

2010-07-09T10:36:00.002-08:00

Hi, everyone,

Below you will see my list of significant decisions made by General Assembly on July 8. This is a very brief list, using my words and not the official (and often long) wording actually passed by the general assembly. For more detailed information, go to the pcusa.org web site and look for GA news.

This has been a GA characterized by significant decisions. The debates have been very civil, and commissioners have visibly embodied a great sense of mutual respect, and eve agape love though they have divided strongly on many of the votes.

For today and tomorrow, I will leave most of my personal reflections out of this blog, and instead simply list what I believe are the actions of most interest to the people in the Presbytery of Yukon. However, I have to admit that watching this process and listening to people reflecting on our changing society, I am moved by the stirrings of the Spirit among us, Who I believe is drawing us into a new way of being the church. Also, in the light of the amazing worship services held as a part of this event, I am considering again the role and power of worship in our lives together. I would like to write a few reflections on such things later (maybe starting Monday) in the hopes of hearing back from others of you on your own thoughts regarding how God is forming and reforming the church today.

One other side note: I very much enjoyed dinner with many of the Presbytery of Yukon folks last night (what a great group) and the fellowship of the Synod of Alaska Northwest lunch. Last month’s redefinition of synod mission and practice seems to be at the cutting edge of what so many are calling for across our denomination! I look forward to sharing more with you at a later date.

Peace,
Curt

07 08 10 Thursday GA Notes

2. Voted to give certified Christian Editors who are also elders voice and vote at presbytery, both during their years of service and in retirement.

3. Voted (53% for, 46% against, 1% abstaining) to ask presbyteries to vote on a change in the Book of Order replacing the wording of ordination standards in G-06.0106b from the following:

Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

to the following:

Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.”

4. Voted not to take action on changes in guidance to pastors or sessions on civil unions, but instead voted to send presbyteries and congregations two reports from the committee assigned to study this, one from the majority of the committee and on from the minority. The two sides split on their recommendations, and the assembly decided studying the thinking of both sides would be helpful. To assist in this, GA also voted to encourage all sessions to engage in study of issues of biblical interpretation using the General Assembly papers, “Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Holy Scripture” and “Biblical Authority and Interpretation.”

5. In this era of reviewing financial justice in America’s corporations, the GA voted to study justice in GAMC salaries, seeking criteria to assure there would not be an unjust disparity between the salaries of the lowest and highest paid church employees.

6. Voted to lift up the Creation Care policy of 1993 and strengthen it with the additions listed below (to see the full document, go to the resources section of our presbytery’s Earthcare web site: www.yukonpresbyteriansforearthcare.ning.com).

Additions:
"[4. Affirm that concern for God's creation is, for every Christian, an essential way of living faithfully in Christ's world that will necessitate personal study of, attention to and engagement with emerging and new environmental concerns that are persistent, acute, and pressing.
"[5. Affirm that the best available science should inform our care for God's creation, shaping the direction of responsible programming and policy, especially with respect to public witness concerning emergent environmental issues such as global climate change, desertification and access to potable water, and wetlands/coastal erosion.
"[6. Affirm that all living creatures require potable water to live; that water, being essential to life, is a human right that must be accessible to all people.]"

7. Voted that the study paper, Living a Human Life Before God, be distributed electronically to ministers and congregations of the PC(USA) for the purpose of helping congregations explore and teach Christian ethics as they face today’s issues.

8. Voted to stand in solidarity with immigrant people in Arizona and call for just immigration reform, and to refrain from scheduling Presbyterian meetings in Arizona until their immigration law is improved.

9. Established an administrative commission empowered for the next to years to allow presbyteries and synods, the middle governing bodies of the church, to redraw their boundaries, when the affected middle governing bodies request it, and with a 2/3 majority vote of the administrative commission

Wednesday, July 7 at General Assembly

2010-07-08T11:18:00.002-08:00

To: pastors of PbYukon congregations

Hi, everyone,

I just want to give a brief update on GA activities. For my notes on decisions, you or your parishioners and friends can go to my blog online at http://pbyukon.blogspot.com/

For now, though, I want to say that The Presbytery of Yukon has been well represented in the work of the General Assembly Committees. Commissioners served as follows:
• Youth Advisory Commissioner Antonia Penaya from Gambell Presbyterian
Served on Committee

• Elder Commissioner Beulah Nowpokahok from Gambell Presbyterian

• Minister Commissioner Rev. Tom Letts from Trinity Presbyterian
Served as co-moderator on the Committee on Church Growth, Christian Ed and PILP

Wednesday: July 7, 2010 Plenary Business

1. Report of the Committee on Evangelism and Church Growth, and PILP

a. Renewed Grow the Church Deep and Wide
i. Four-fold emphasis: Evangelism, discipleship, witness and service

b. Renewed our commitment to fulfilling the Decade of the Child as an emphasis for churches across the nation.

c. Approved conducting a study on Racial-ethnic and Immigrant Church Growth

d. Approved convening conversations on Hispanic/Latino/Latina church growth at all levels of the church.

e. Established a new nation-wide mission statement on Youth Ministry:
The Youth Task Force recommends that the 219th General Assembly (2010) approve the following as the new vision statement for the church and youth in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.):
“In the midst of a beautiful and broken world, we have a vision for ministry with young people that unites youth in Christ with all other generations and proclaims the love of God that is without end. This vision gives us hope for a church that
“• is authentic, comprised of communities of faith that live what they proclaim;
“• participates in, and pays witness to, the lively, joyous reality of the grace of God for the whole world;
“• helps young people to understand what it means to be saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that they will, as God does, view all people with love and possibility;
“• expresses God’s boundless love by embracing young people as they are and where they could be, inspiring them to share their ideas, dreams, and unique gifts with the world and the church;
“• acknowledges and celebrates youth as the keepers of God’s world, capable of serving as agents of healing, friends to the friendless, and leaders along the path of Jesus;
“• encourages young people to live and lead with humility, but also with confidence and joy;
“• accepts that it may be changed, even re-made, through the power of the Spirit by youth’s energy, freshness, and vitality.”

3. Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions
a. Clarified that the Book of Order section on communion being for baptized members is pastoral advice, and not a regulatory requirement. Theologically, people would normally be baptized as a sign of entry into the faith community before coming to communion. However, pastorally this is not always a gracious rule, and should not be considered absolutely required.

b. Voted to authorize a new translation of the Heidelberg Confession from German to English. They reported dozens of errors in translation, affecting a full and clear interpretation of the confession. As an example, they noted that the current English translation is more sexist in language than the original German.

c. Voted to approve recommending the Belhar Confession from South Africa for a vote of the presbyteries as to whether it should become a new confession in the PC(USA). The Belhar confession
i. Notes that unity is and justice are not only a gift of God to the church, but also goals for the church to pursue.
ii. Speaks more clearly on the issue of race and power than the Confession of 1967, and provides theological guidance on dealing with differences in Christian community.
Points for the first time to our need and ability to learn from the whole church, including the Christians located South of the equator.

4. Committee on New Form of Government
a. Voted to recommend the New Form of Government to the presbyteries as a replacement of the Form of Government section of the Book of Order. This now comes to the presbyteries for a vote for or against the change.

5. General Assembly Mission Council Report
a. Voted to affirm the continuation of Linda Valentine’s contract as executive director of the GAMC.

So What?...In Worship there is always an answer!

2010-05-26T06:52:00.000-08:00

Worship services should point to God. But if worship is to speak gospel (good news) in the face of the needs and hopes of the world,they should point to God and also answer the question: So what?

Let me develop this just a bit more.

The Scriptures, the Holy Spirit and the actions of Jesus Christ while here on earth all bear witness to the fact that Jesus is at the same time fully God and fully human. In Jesus Christ there is full communion between God and God’s creation. When we look at Jesus, we witness the awe and the wonder and the power of God. And when we look at Jesus we witness God’s deep concern and involvement for you and for me and for all creation, and God's empowerment of creation to respond as part of God's activity in addressing these needs. Every Christian worship service should therefore point both to the wonder and power of God, Who inspires such awe and worship in us AND to the actual involvement of God in the nitty gritty, earthy things that we are involved in.

To put it in other words, a worship service should tell us something about who God is, and should tell us in such a way as to inspire or reinforce our devotion to God. But a worship service should also point to what response this awareness of God requires of me and my generation of faithful people. A worship service that speaks of God but does not connect that awareness to the hurt and hopes of the worshiper and therefore engage them in either proper attitude and/or work in the real world is not enough.

Worship services should point to God. But if worship is to speak gospel (good news) in the face of the needs and hopes of the world,they should point to God and also answer the question: So what?

A Pentecost Sermon

2010-05-25T12:40:00.003-08:00

Scripture:
Psalm 104:24-35 Romans 8:14-17 John 14:8-17, 25-27

Introduction: Worship Should Always Point to Two Essentials
The Scriptures, the Holy Spirit and the actions of Jesus Christ while here on earth all bear witness to the fact that Jesus is at the same time fully God and fully human. In Jesus Christ there is full communion between God and God’s creation. When we look at Jesus, we witness the awe and the wonder and the power of God. And when we look at Jesus we witness God’s deep concern and involvement for you and for me and for all creation.

Every Christian worship service should therefore point both to the wonder and power of God, Who inspires such awe and worship in us AND to the actual involvement of God in the nitty gritty, earthy things that we are involved in. That is also true on Pentecost Sunday, today, when we celebrate God in the Holy Spirit. Today, I want to do that through two stories, one about the Holy Spirit inspiring awe, and one about Holy Spirit inspired action.

Reviewing the Scriptures
However, before I do that, let’s review the Scriptures recommended by the Lectionary for today’s worship service. In all three Scripture passages there is a movement from fear to confidence, and that confidence becomes very important when we consider the work of the Holy Spirit through the church of today. Let’s take a look at the Scriptures together, watching for the movement from fear to confidence.

That movement from fear to confidence is not obvious in today’s Psalm, but it is there. Did you notice the reference to Leviathan in the Psalm? Leviathan was what they called the sea monster. Now, Israel was an inland, desert people. They feared the sea, because they just didn’t understand the sea. It was foreign and wild, and they didn’t know how to guard against it. But even scarier was the sea monsters—the whales and the giant squids and, probably even worse, the unknown. And that dreaded unknown was embodied in the mythical monster, Leviathan.

But in the Psalm, God isn’t a bit scared. God delights in all creatures—even Leviathan. And it is God’s spirit that gives Leviathan life or death. The Spirit is a spirit of delight, not fear. And there you have it, the movement from fear to confidence.

That movement from fear to confidence is much more obvious in the Romans Passage. Here, Paul tells us that we need to recognize that in receiving the Holy Spirit we have received we have not received a spirit of fear, but of security. We are not like slaves, afraid that we might be cast off at any time. Rather, we have received a Spirit of adoption, whereby God actually chooses us to become children of God. Our place is secure and nothing can take that away from us. We should therefore be confident of the ministry to which each of us has been called and join with Christ as Christ joins with all people and all creation’s broken-ness and suffering in this world.

And, indeed, Jesus himself told us that this is our work. Remember in the Bible, in the last half of Matthew 25 Jesus tells us that when judgment comes we will be judged by the way that we treated him when he was homeless, or hungry or in prison. And if we ask when we ever saw him like that, he will tell us that whenever we saw the least of these, his brothers and sisters, we were seeing him. He absolutely joins with the brokenness of creation.

And I do mean creation. Humans? Assuredly. But also all creation. Because Jesus came for the love of all creation, because God so loved the world (by the way, in John 3:16 ,the word in Greek is kosmos. “For God so loved the kosmos that God sent the only son…”). But Jesus enters into ministry on behalf of all the broken and downtrodden of all creation, and asks us to join him in this as fellow children of God, with Christ as the firstborn. We join with Christ in this because we are not afraid of such ministry, we are moved to security and confidence.

Finally, today’s passage from John’s gospel, begins with the disciples absolutely bathed in fear. Jesus had just told them that he was about to be arrested and would die.

I have to believe that this was a shock to the disciples. They believed when they signed on with Jesus that he was going to lead them from victory to victory, right into glory. They didn’t believe that they had signed on with a Messiah who would be put to death, and leave them abandoned. And especially not abandoned at such a frightening moment. The religious leaders were gunning for Jesus, and they had managed to get the Roman governmental leaders to join them. If the religious and government leaders were after Jesus, then surely they would be after his followers, too. This had to have been a very scary message to receive, even from Jesus.

So Philip replied for them all: “Show us the Father, and that will be enough.”

I suspect Jesus was really frustrated by this. As he told Philip, he had already been showing them the Father. Didn’t they get it? The Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father. Whatever he had done, it was the Father doing it in him. He had already been showing them the Father. Showing the Father was not the answer to their fear right then.

Jesus was leaving them, it was not the Father they needed, but the Holy Spirit, Immanuel (which means God with you) who they needed. They needed the Spirit, who would be with them always, who would be the one to advocate for the Father, telling them everything they needed to know and reminding them of everything they already had been given. Yes, the Spirit would advocate for God to them, but also would advocate for them to God, making sure that God understood them, and even praying for them in ways they could not pray for themselves.

Further, the Spirit would empower them to continue Jesus’ ministry on earth, inspiring them and empowering them. If they listened to the Spirit for what Jesus wanted, then anything they asked in Jesus’ name would be done for them. Indeed, they would do the works Jesus was doing, and even greater works than Jesus had already done. For the Spirit would abide within them individually, among them all collectively, and would be at work through them.

When the Spirit comes we are moved from fear to confidence, and are sent out in confidence in the ministry of the Lord. Each of us are ministers. And nothing is more important than God’s love for this broken creation, and God’s ministry to save and reconcile that creation.

Powerful stuff. So now, let us look at this message both in terms of the awe and wonder of God, but also in terms of God’s involvement with us in ministry. Let me tell you two true stories.

First story: The Lord of Heaven
Not so long ago, I went goose hunting with an elder from the Atqasuk Chapel on the North Slope. The wind was really blowing, and we were standing in the show waiting for geese—which sounds like a cold, unhappy morning, I suppose—but it wasn’t. As I stood there, I began to think about passages from the Bible carrying a similar message to the one in today’s Psalm, Psalm 104:30—when God sends forth God’s spirit, creaturely thing, including living things, are created. And when God withholds God’s spirit, they cease to be.

It is this kind of teaching that causes Christians to teach the Holy Spirit in a couple of ways, and one of them is that the Holy Spirit is the sustainer. The Holy Spirit is the sustainer of the universe—the Holy Spirit holds the universe together; the Holy Spirit gives life to all living things and sustains them. But according to Jesus, the Holy Spirit also comes to us personally, drawing us into faith and guiding us to grow in learning and understanding.

And I suppose all of this might sound a bit confusing as it comes out of my mouth. But it wasn’t confusing while I was goose hunting!

Suddenly, I began to see God everywhere in a bunch of ways. I began to recognize that God’s fingerprints were in the air that I was breathing, the snow that was blowing, the bush that was shaken by the wind in front of my face, and the geese that I was hunting. Further, I realized that because of Pentecost, the saving Spirit of God dwells within me, and within my hunting partner, and within all people of faith worldwide. And suddenly, everywhere I looked I was seeing God. God around me in nature, God in me, God through me in my actions, and God at work among us, God moving in ways mysterious, through all creation and all time.

WOW!

As I said, there are two things that should be pointed to in every worship service. One is the absolute awe and wonder and power of God. And if you start to think of God’s spirit, holding the universe together, dwelling in your heart and drawing you into a life of faith, and at work connecting you to all people of faith and all creation that serves the Lord in all time and space…well if that doesn’t stir wonder in your heart, then just wait. Maybe you will be goose hunting one day, or fishing, or holding a baby, or something else. One of these days, the wonder of God present in every moment and place will reach out and grab you.

These moments of wonder are a gift from God and we need to hold onto them. Most times we don't feel such wonder. In fact, when times are tough, my emotions can get in the way so that I absolutely cannot feel the wonder and the awe. At such times, I have found two things that are essential to my spiritual well being. The first is remembrance--I need to remember these moments that show me what is always true whether I feel it or not. Indeed faith and life is not about feelings but about doing what is needed, no matter how we feel.

Second, I need to recognize that God always gives enough strength to do what is needed to the church, but rarely to one person alone. It is in the sharing that we find that there is strength enough and wisdom enough to face the most difficult moments. Person ally, I have established a relationship with two Soul-Friends, who I can call at any time, and who I can trust with the most sacred of things. If you haven't found a soul friend, I recommend that you do. And I also recommend that you remember those sacred moments of awareness that God gives to you. Remembrance is important and powerful.

Second story: The Lord of Earth
Did you know that the North Slope Borough was started because of the Presbyterians? We knew from our connection to churches in the arctic that the oil was going to be pumped South and the taxes from the oil was going to Juneau and not to the local people. No bank would finance the political and legal effort it would take to start the North Slope Borough. They feared that the oil companies would take their business away if they helped start another taxing agency.

But an Iñupiaq Eskimo woman named Martha Aiken was attending a Presbyterian meeting in New York and learned of a new thing in those days; The Self Development of People Fund. She and Eben Hopson filled out an application, the presbytery approved it and sent it on, and the national church gave a grant of $800,000 to bring justice to the arctic. Within two years another Iñupiaq man, Rex Okakok, returned to the General Assembly with a check in his hand. ‘No one would stand with us,’ he said. When it was not popular to empower native-based government, when public opinion was against us, and when we were left alone, our brothers and sisters in the church were the only ones, who stood with us. Only the church, because they knew God would not leave us here in poverty when there was something else that could be don.’

And with that, he handed the check to the stated clerk, repaying the full amount, plus interest. ‘Go out and do that again,’ he said. Find others facing injustice and join with them, too. Be like Jesus and with others that no one else will stand with.

This is the kind of church I want to be a part of. I want to be a part of a church that understands how it matters that Jesus is both fully God and fully human—that in Jesus we see divinity and the awesome power of God, who inspires us to worship and calls us, on the Lord’s Day, to set that day apart and come together to join our worship and offer it to him. And, in Jesus, who went to the cross for us, we also see a very human side, empowered to enter into as earthy and messy of a creaturely situation as you can imagine, and transform it from crucifixion to resurrection. And in the Holy Spirit, God touches us, brings us into the security of God’s salvation, and then inspires and empowers us to go forth in the name of Jesus. Because of the Holy Spirit, we are called and empowered to continue the Great Work of our Lord.

The Challenge
So what about us? How does this apply to us, specifically? Let me ask you a few questions about how this applies to you.

First, when did you have one of those moments of awe and wonder, when God seemed so amazingly present that you were drawn into worship and awe? Probably it wasn’t when you were goose hunting, though it might have been, I suppose. When was it for you?

Second, remember that you have met God so that you can know who you really are, a child of God, not a child of fear. And yet, humans that we are, we do know fear. When has fear, or anxiety got in your way when you knew God wanted you to do something?

How did you respond? (if you are like me, sometimes you responded well and sometimes not well at all)
Please recognize that we are called to learn, both from those times when we responded well and when we did not. You are still a child of God, no matter your past. What does God want you to learn?

And now a question for this church. The First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage is made up of this group of people, in this town at this time. What ministry does God want this church to do? How does God want this church to make a difference here at this time.

Now, each of you are in this church. Each of you are to make a difference in it. Are you giving your self to this ministry with all your energy, intelligence, imagination and love? Are you doing what you can to make the ministry of this church effective?

Hear the words of your Savior:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

The Voice of the Lord: Part III

2010-04-20T17:14:00.003-08:00

I have heard it said that Celtic Christians speak of “thin places.” Thin places are places in this world where contact with the holy seems easy. Some of these thin places become pilgrimage goals for the faithful, others are known just by only a few, and others seem to be special places for one time only.

The gospel passages describing the Transfiguration of Christ (Mark 9, Matthew 17, Luke 9) depict what is perhaps the ultimate in “thin place” experiences. Peter, James and John accompany Jesus up a mountain to pray. In that lonely place they suddenly see Jesus with new eyes. Instead of the Jesus as just one more man with dirty feet, they see the divine Jesus positively glowing with the glory of God. What’s more, they also experience Jesus as in visible communion with the sources behind the Law and the Prophets.

I believe that this is one small piece of what worship is about. Worship is about declaring that this finite world in which we live is also a place in which the full glory of God is present among us. Worship uses liturgy, art, Word, sacrament and fellowship to proclaim this truth of communion-with-God-in-this-world, and also to orchestrate opportunities for worship to sometimes turn into an actual experience of the thin places of this world.

In my personal experience, corporate worship does sometimes (though rarely) succeed in becoming such a thin place experience. Yet, even when worship seems boring and repetitive, I believe the to be tremendously important. Participating in worship proclaims a truth that is always present, but that some only rarely experience—that though we live in a creation that hurts and struggle and must pass away, we also live in the presence of, and in relationship with, the Holy One, and are surrounded by God’s grace and glory; even if we don’t know it. There is great wonder to be found in this creation, and we need to recognize and celebrate that truth. Worship is an intentional effort at recognizing and celebrating the Holy.

Besides understanding worship, there is another aspect of this passage that I love. I find it fascinating that in the very moment when the disciples experienced the power and glory of God in Jesus, the words that the Voice of the Lord spoke were the same words that were s[plem when Jesus was baptized. The same voice spoke the same words at Jesus’ all-too-human baptism and at his all-so-divine transfiguration: “This is my (God’s) Son, whom I Love.”

On the other hand, at Jesus’ transfiguration the Voice added, “Listen to him.”

I suppose I am a Christian and a minister to some degree because of those moments in which I have experienced great awe and wonder in glimpses of the divine. I truth, those moments are precious. They somehow manage to transcend the routines and drudgery that are make up so much of life. Yet, I must admit that only a very small part of my life has been filled with such wonder.

Even so, because I have glimpsed God’s glory, and just as important, because liturgy and true Christian community keep proclaiming that reality even in the dry times and even in the painful times of my life, I have found that I am fed by this holiness and glory—and the potential that this glory holds for all—both in good times and in bad. In my life, and I believe in the lives of most people of faith, I/we continue living the way I/we do out of faith, not sight.

However, having said that, I also believe that this awareness of the divine power and glory of God creates certain challenges for people living out of hope. First, we need to be continually striving to proclaim what is true, namely the truth of this reality of God’s grace and glory all the time by what we do and say. Consistency is important.

Second, we need to be careful in how we proclaim such things. I sometimes find it tempting to “force” the message by pretending to have wonderful experiences in moments that are not “thin place” moments. It is tempting to buy into the idea that I ought to “look holy” or others will lose the message, or to believe that if I act holy enough I will experience these special moments. These temptations have nothing to do with reality, or with what honors God.

But most importantly, I find that this passage encourages me to stay the course and work for healing, justice and reconciliation in this broken world even when I am feeling overwhelmed by this world’s troubles. I believe this is the deepest teaching of the passage. After all, Jesus does not let the disciples stay at the “thin place” on top of the mountain. Instead, he insists that they accompany him back down the mountain, where they immediately find people suffering physically, spiritually, and socially. And so they wade into the struggles of life once more.

This is the essence of hope. Not that we always (or even normally) feel holy ecstasy, or even great emotional confidence. The essence of hope is based on glimpsing what is true beyond the immediate troubles and, living out of that reality, to participate in God’s work of addressing the bad news of this world with the good news of God.

The Voice of the Lord: Part II

2010-04-19T17:43:00.003-08:00

The season before Lent normally begins and ends with two Scripture accounts that serve as bookends around important portions of the gospel. Specifically, these portions of Scripture show Jesus, the man, as the Savior in whom the fullness of God dwells. Interestingly, both of these bookend passages (the Baptism of Jesus, and the Transfiguration) include an audible hearing of the Voice of the Lord. Today’s blog is about the first of these, the baptism of Jesus.
The thing that strikes me about Jesus’ baptism (look in Matthew 3, Mark 1, or Luke 3) is that it was a sinners’ baptism. People who needed a fresh start were coming to John the Baptist to be washed in the Jordan River as a sign of their need (and desire) to make a clean, new beginning. John called them to repentance of their sin--a turning of their lives away from whatever in their life had left them lost or broken and onto God’s path of right relationship and right actions.

Yet, according to the Scriptures (2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15) Jesus was a sinless man. Even so, as Jesus watched the people going to John for a fresh start he made the decision to join specifically with those people.

Surely this act of joining with sinners in their baptism was a powerful way of showing Christ’s intention as Savior. In Jesus’ baptism, we see that Jesus insisted on identifying himself with us, the sinners, and with all creatures that suffer from the brokenness of this fallen universe. In his baptism Jesus was declaring himself a full human being—a true part of the created order of the universe. For us humans, who were created with a need to understand, this was as if God were telling us that God was taking action by sending us salvation through a human Savior—that God was identifying us completely, even with our human DNA. I am hoping that we will truly get what this means: God will not let us be lost forever but will reach out with real salvation that will make a difference. Indeed, it was at this very moment, when Jesus came up out of the waters of a sinner’s baptism that the Voice of God spoke, letting us know: This (this creature, this man that absolutely insists on being related to all of you) is my son, with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17).

For Christians this should have two powerful messages which we need to grasp with all our might. The first is that we are beloved by God. Not only did God somehow become fully a creature in the birth of Jesus, but God joins with us even in our sin, and calls us to repentance and new life. For people who don’t know hope, this is a powerful message. If we don’t know how to save ourselves, somehow God is coming for us and we need to watch and be ready. But in the meantime, we need to hear the message—God joined with us in the coming of Jesus, in the baptism of Jesus, and God will find a way of joining with you (us) today, wherever you are. Don’t listen to those who say you are beyond hope. Don’t listen to those who say you are not worthy of help. Listen to the Voice of the Lord: this Savior comes to bring real, life-changing salvation. Be ready and don’t lose hope.

Second, if we are followers of our Savior, we need to see that Jesus demonstrated what faithful human life looks like. This means that we Jesus followers need to ask how we can embody that hope that Jesus showed us. Specifically, if Jesus was willing to join with us and with the brokenness of creation, who are we called to join with? Where do we see creation broken and failing? Where do we see people burdened with their guilt or shame, or with their hurt from sin that has been committed against them? Where do we see people cut off from the hope that they had and in need of new hope? Where, in our own lives, are we in contact with those who truly need allies of hope? How can we join with them, as Jesus joined with us? How can we help people not to be alone, without hope, in their brokenness?

The Voice of the Lord: Part I

2010-01-22T12:33:00.002-09:00

In the Old Testament, the whole point of putting hope in the Messiah was that Israel knew that they (and we) needed a Messiah. Without a Messiah all would be lost.

Today there are probably many who won't admit their need for a Savior. Some either believe they are already healthy and doing well, thank you very much. Others simply cannot admit how lost they are, because they see no other hope than their own ability. If we see no hope, then how could we dare to admit how lost we are. It is this kind of situation that leaves so many people in denial of their great need. There are many who are stuck in addiction, or in depression, or in abusive relationships, or in some other impossible situation. Such people often live in denial of how bad things are because they simply have no hope.

But when the people of Israel knew they were lost, God revealed that a Messiah would come. They could, and should, put their hope in the Messiah. Jesus is that Messiah, and God took action to assure us that Jesus is the one. God did it in one of those rare moments when people could actually hear a voice speaking audible words--though some still doubted.

There are two times when God's spoke audibly during Jesus' ministry. In the interest of keeping this somewhat brief, will write about them in my next two blogs. They will clarify not only that Jesus is the Messiah, but how that makes a difference. For now, I just want to point out that the biblical writers really wanted people to pay attention to the voice of God. Jeremiah complained that Israel just wasn't listening to the voice of God. They treated the word of God as if it were ancient literature cast in stone, as if God couldn't say anything new to them. Jeremiah complained that they weren't listening to what God was saying today. In short, they were cutting people off from the hope, which God had right then for the people with urgent needs. Jeremiah called them to listen to what God was saying right now.

The Psalms picked that theme up, too. In the Psalms when God speaks, the hearing of God's voice changes everything, shakes everything up, and brings about good things. A great example is Psalm 29! I will list it, below to help show my point. But for now, let me end the first of three blogs on the voice of the Lord by asking these questions:

1. How aware are you of the need for God to act as Savior for the world?

2. How aware are you of the need for God to act as Savior in your world (for your family or your life)?

3. How ready are you to pay attention if God actually speaks to your need?

Psalm 29
(I'm using the "Message" paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, because I think it brings the poetry alive in our own cultural language, as Psalms are meant to be heard.)

^1-2 Bravo, God, bravo! Gods and all angels shout, "Encore!"
In awe before the glory,
in awe before God's visible power.
Stand at attention!
Dress your best to honor him!

³ God thunders across the waters,
Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness—
God, across the flood waters.

⁴ God's thunder tympanic,
God's thunder symphonic.

⁵ God's thunder smashes cedars,
God topples the northern cedars.

⁶ The mountain ranges skip like spring colts,
The high ridges jump like wild kid goats.

^7-8 God's thunder spits fire.
God thunders, the wilderness quakes;
He makes the desert of Kadesh shake.

⁹ God's thunder sets the oak trees dancing
A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches.
We fall to our knees—we call out, "Glory!"

¹⁰ Above the floodwaters is God's throne
from which his power flows,
from which he rules the world.

¹¹ God makes his people strong.
God gives his people peace.

Finding Christ in an Age of Suffering

2010-01-21T19:27:00.009-09:00

Epiphany is about hope. Why then, two millennia after the Messiah's birth, is there still so much suffering in the world. Think about it:

The Dominican Republic is on the same island as Haiti, but has enjoyed better government. As a result, building codes were better, infrastructure was better, economic policy was better, and the people were not set up for near as much suffering as Haiti, even in the face of a huge earthquake. Why must Haiti suffer so much today?
Humans have both overpopulated and mismanaged our relationship with the planet to the extent that we have set up a huge die-off of life, unless we can repent and make meaningful change. Yet, after decades of growing evidence, denial is still largely the preferred method of human leadership on this issue.
Although the genius of American government was founded on free speech, our inability to differentiate between voters and corporations (they are both considered equal citizens under today's law) has created the ability for corporate capital to outshout mere voters in any debate. In Alaska, where we have witnessed multiple prosecutions of big corporations buying the votes of legislators, we know that such speech will be abused. The Supreme Court's decision today in favor of big business was simply an immoral, betrayal of government of, by and for the people to government of, by and for big business. And the rights of the little person will suffer.

These are only three examples, which I chose straight out of today's news. 'Where is God?', one might ask. If the Messiah came, how do we live now in the hope of that Messiah? If hope is about truly living today for God's future, then where is God in this?

In truth, as much as we pray for God in our lives it seems to me that when God appears in our midst in ways we can recognize, we often don't really want it. In fact we rebel against it. Witness this familiar Epiphany season passage from Scripture:

^{Matthew 2:1-2 and 2:16}¹After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ²and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him...When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Herod didn't want this Messiah and tried to prevent him from coming into his ministry. This is the Messiah story for today. If we are serious about trying to see the Messiah, we must begin by recognizing that there are still people like Herod today--we recognize these Herod-types by the injustice. And if we are to see the Messiah in God's Holy-Spirit-Work today, then we must look for the movement of God to address today's injustice. For instance:

In Haiti, it is the greed and prejudice that so mismanaged that island nation that it was not prepared for an earthquake that had to come. The Messiah, now, is found right in the suffering people. Remember Jesus on the cross? That is the first place to see the Messiah--in the Holy Spirit's presence in the suffering. The second is in those who not only bring aid, but in others who will stick with the rebuilding of that nation so that relationships might become different from now on, so that the Haitian society will insist on, and government will operate with the kind of justice that is for all the people.
On planet earth, the Messiah must first be found suffering in the desecrated water and airways, and in all those creatures that are imperiled today. Second, the Messiah must also be found in all human beings who speak the truth about this issue and who take action to change their lives and to change the prevailing wisdom of our society.

For advocates of free speech, the Messiah can be found in the frustration of voters who know that big corporations have ability to out-spend (meaning out-shout) normal citizens, and in the fire that will inspire the work to bring about the legal changes aimed at real free speech.

The age we live in is the age of the Messiah, the age of Jesus. When this age finally comes to an end, God will initiate a new age, bringing all things together in proper communion. But in the meantime, in this age, we know that God entered history in Jesus, and that God is at work in history now through the Holy Spirit. Indeed, there are two messages to take away from the arrival of the Messiah:

God is present in every experience of suffering (remember the cross), and
God is at work through God's creatures (remember God was in the man, Jesus, and is now doing Holy-Spirit work through all who will accept it) to redeem all that is broken in the world today.

In this age, we participate in Christ both when we are witnesses to today's suffering, and when we participate in redemptive life.

So what suffering are you passionate about? Do you recognize the Spirit, Who inspires such passion? It is the Holy Spirit.

And what can you do to address the cause of that suffering? Do you recognize that it is the Messiah's Spirit, Who inspires each of us in this service of our Lord?

What is Christian Hope?

2010-01-13T05:16:00.000-09:00

Isaiah 9:2:
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

This season between Christmas and Ash Wednesday is called Epiphany. It is the season when we celebrate the hope we have in Jesus Christ. The symbol for this season has traditionally been light in the darkness. To me this seems like such a great symbol right now, when the arctic coast of Alaska is just about ready to see the first appearance of the sun in the year. Just as the sun can be counted on to appear at the right time, we can also expect Jesus to be with us always as our hope, and to act at just the right time.

Hope is about living today for the kind of future God wills for all creatures. That being said, I wonder sometimes about the difference between hopeless living, living with false hope and living out of real hope. Here are a few of my beginning thoughts:

Some people seem to live as if they have no options at all, with no real expectation that God will bring about a future worth living for. Such people, it seems to me, live without hope—without any sense that Christ is already with them or faithfully at work for the future.

Some people seem to live as if Christ were a fairy godmother who would wave a magic wand and fix everything. By this I mean, some people seem to live as if they, themselves had no responsibility to live in such a way as to help facilitate the tomorrow (or next year, or next decade, or next century) that God is bringing about. They live as if they didn’t have a care in the world, because God will fix everything. Such people offer nothing today for people lost in the darkness. Their sugar-coated words fall empty on people suffering today.

But there are some people who seem to really know about hope. They look at the world as it really is, neither giving up on it nor sugar-coating it. They know that sin and brokenness are real, and they join with those suffering today. They look for what God is doing today to make a difference, because they know that God is in the world today and that there really is light leading toward a better future. And they know that God calls them to be a part of all God is doing to bring that future to life. Such people take action in their own lives—often costly action. And because they take action, they both build up the whole people and become part of what God is doing to help the whole world become move toward a better future.

I hope you will want to be one of these hope-full people, one of those looking for the Light of the World in each day, and whose life helps point the world toward that light.

Hope is to hear God's melody for the future;
Prayer is to listen for it;
Faith is to dance it. --adapted from a quote by Ruben Alves

A Lot Like Noah

2009-12-13T13:44:00.000-09:00

12 11 09 Like Noah

As a Christian watching the Copenhagen Talks unfold, the irony of the times we live in are inescapable. I remember hearing the story of Noah as a child and marveling at the kind of person he was. Noah heard the Voice of God instructing him to save all land-bound life by building an ark. Further, he was to build the ark where he lived, far from the sea, and he had to do it despite the taunts of the entire surrounding community. I remember marveling at the kind of times Noah lived in, and the amazing faith exhibited in his life.

Ironically, we now we live in a time when we must hear the Voice of God calling us, once again, to save life on the planet. How ironic that I, and all people who claim faith, are called to put our faith-money where our mouth is and display the same kind of faithfulness as did Noah. It is not enough simply hear the Voice of God, but we are called to stand out in the world and make a difference. We are called to be ark-builders once again.

Only it turns out that if we are to be successful this time we have to save both the planet and human civilization. That is, it will take the combined effort of all the worlds peoples working together to pull it off. Nothing on this scale has ever been successful before. I am not even aware of something on this scale ever being attempted.

Yet, God is in it. We have the scientific knowledge and technical ability to pull this off. We have the communications networks to spread the word and build public support. We have all that it takes to pull this off. And what is more, if we pull this off, it will transform human society as we know it. .....Erosion Caused by Melting Permafrost.....
We will know
forevermore that we are capable of uniting in the face of real need, in spite of all the anxieties that go along with the trying to live with so many ‘others' on the planet. This knowledge of what we are capable of will be with us forever. WOW!

But it does require belief—belief that
God has empowered and is empowering something majestic and monumental in human history, and belief that our faithfulness can make a difference. It does require more than just hearing God’s Voice, though. It requires faith in action. It requires responding to what we hear with all our heart, with all our minds and with all our strength.

A Glimpse At a Theology Of Earth Care

2009-10-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Servant Leadership

Christians have always proclaimed that they have good news to tell. The good news addresses whatever bad news is in the world, and is about new life because of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Since the bad news I have been addressing this month has to do with the need for better stewardship of the environment, I must raise the question about what Jesus’ life and teaching can offer in the way of good news. Here is one perspective.

One of Jesus’ key teachings is about each of us taking responsibility for our place in leadership. Paying attention to this part of Jesus’ ministry is hugely important if we are to address environmental stewardship. On Saturday NPR reported on national polls indicating that environmental concern ranks as last among the top 20 concerns among Americans, despite the fact that the great preponderance of scientists agree that current warming trends pose a great threat to civilization as we know it. Without real leadership, we have no hope to turn this around.

Like theologian Douglas John Hall I believe that that true confession of faith must include stance, word and deed. We see this demonstrated through Jesus’ life.

1. Jesus took a stand
for humanity and for all creation, both now and into the future, by joining with us in the flesh in history;
2. Jesus took action
conferring the essence of his right-ness upon all of us, despite whatever wrongness is in us, first by joining us in the flesh and then through dying and rising—opening new possibilities for all who will receive it, and
3. Jesus took pains to teach
what transformed life is like—teaching both through words and through personal demonstration—so that we might begin to understand and participate in it.

I therefore wish to look at how Jesus took a stand, took action, and took pains to teach about leadership. I then challenge myself, and any who read this, to apply it.

To keep this to some reasonable length, I am summarizing Jesus teaching on leadership as finding proper understanding of human dominion over creation, and a proper understanding of being “the salt of the earth.”

In Genesis 1:23 of the creation story, God told the human creatures that they had dominion over creation. This makes a lot of sense today. No species on the planet is affecting the whole of creation, and throwing the delicate balances out of kilter, on the same order as human beings. We have dominion, which means responsibility, whether we want it or not.

As the one good human Jesus must be our model of what that dominion looks like in practice. Jesus is described in Colossians 1 as the Lord of creation. Yet, Jesus rejected the glory-based lordship and its potential for tyranny as proper understandings. Indeed, Jesus
• rejected James’ and Johns’ bid to aspire to become his top lieutenants. Instead, Jesus told them that whoever would be first must become the servant of all—the least.
• Jesus also employed a demonstration method to teach this at the Last Supper, when he did slave duty by washing his disciples’ feet. This kind of pointed teaching brought the true nature of Jesus’ leadership into focus when he paid the ultimate price on the cross. Dominion, as Jesus demonstrated it, is a humbling responsibility calling on us to take action, even at great personal risk or great personal cost.

Jesus also took a stand against “losing our saltiness.” If we disciples of Christ are the salt of the earth, called to preserve the earth as salt preserves food or hides, then we cannot hide behind the idea that God has everything in control and we have no responsibility. We have been given responsibility (dominion) by virtue of being human. As followers of Jesus, we must not lose our saltiness; we have been given this message to proclaim and to put into action.

Further, Jesus’ followers understood that Jesus’ salvation is for all creation. Paul wrote that “all creation groans” (Romans 8:22), awaiting the salvation of God. As Presbyterians, we proclaim that the church is the provisional demonstration of the salvation of God until He comes. We cannot escape the call for standing with creation, teaching about stewardship of creation, and putting our teaching into action. We are called to be like Jesus, and to lead in stance, word and deed.

Jesus took a stand against a false doctrine of dominion—i.e., believing either that we have tyrannical, glory-hoarding say about what happens in creation. God is King and we are not. But Jesus also took a stand against claiming that God’s sovereignty absolves us from responsibility. We are called the same kind of leadership as that demonstrated by Jesus: leadership that responds to the needs of the world around it. Or, to put it in other words, leadership that operates out of the same responsive love we saw in Jesus’ life as proclaimed in the Bible, and as we find it at work today through the action of the Holy Spirit. A proper doctrine of sovereignty calls us to be responsible stewards of creation, caring for the Earth on God’s behalf.

Today, the Earth needs people who see and feel its distress. Humanity is over-consuming, and over-polluting. We are called to be stewards and find that we are stewards of God’s creation, whether we want to be or not. So, since we do have that much impact on the world, how can we take effective leadership, today?

There is a great contrast in this between the understandings of dominion and of saltiness that are often proclaimed. Some teach dominion as hierarchical control. Such teaching stands in great contrast to Jesus, who emptied himself of glory (Philippians 2:5), and who never controlled other human beings (though Jesus did show control over nature and demons). As theologian Douglas John Hall points out, Jesus demonstrated human leadership by always honoring God as King. If God is King, we don’t have to be…and shouldn’t be.

A teaching of dominion strictly as hierarchical control always has negative spiritual. Observe these examples:

1. Domestic violence is a huge issue in Alaska largely because we don’t know how to share leadership in our relationships, and because we have not been taught how to hold onto our own sense of personal integrity unless we have personal control of others in important relationships.
2. Recovery from addictive behavior (drugs/alcohol, gambling, and relationship addictions) only begins when we come to terms with right leadership in our own lives—which includes the fact that we can’t control our own addictive behavior on our own, that God and God’s people can help, and that we must take responsibility for a program of recovery that includes that help.
3. The environmental changes are affecting the whole world but are showing the first signs of drastic change near the polar regions like Alaska. In the short run Alaskans might smile at an October without the inconvenience of snow and ice—not to mention smaller heating bills—but down deep we all know that this is not how it is to be. Scientific models indicate that the entire world will suffer greatly if this trend, strongly enhanced (if not caused) by human behavior, is not turned around.

Nor does teaching that God is King absolve us from all human responsibility. Jesus cried out to God to “take this cup from my lips.” Yet, as a human being, Christ knew that ultimately God’s will might call for him to take up this cause and its consequences for him, even though he did not want them.

Leadership, then, is for everyone. All of us are called to make a difference whenever we are present. All are called to seek an understanding of what kind of difference we are called to make. All of us are to stand out as called, to come to know and be able to explain why we stand out, and to put our explanations into practice. None of us are called to be on this earth without making a difference.

The question I am seeking just now is: how to make a difference as stewards of God’s creation?

Signs of the Times

2009-10-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

Faithful people need to relate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the times in which they live. This means paying attention to the signs of the times, and joining in on how God is responding to these times in holy love. Indeed, the Scriptures tell us that paying attention to the signs of the times is important.

The 24th Chapter of Matthew relates how Jesus told his disciples that we would not know the time for the end of the world. Even so, there would be signs that show the beginnings of the end (wars, rumors of wars, etc.), and we should pay attention to them. Earlier (Matthew 16:1-4) Jesus berated the Pharisees for wanting miraculous signs from Jesus, when they were not paying attention to the signs of the times that God had provided in the world around them. Clearly, faithful people are to pay attention to the signs of the times they live in and shape their ministry to relate the gospel to those times.

We now live in a time where there are 6.8 billion humans on the world. Our cumulative impact on the rest of the planet is huge. Indeed, one of the big issues right now is climate change. The warming trend of the globe is happening faster than the most dire warnings scientists gave ten years ago. Updated science has resulted in updated estimates, and we now know with a high level of certainty that the planet will warm by at least 2 degrees Fahrenheit no matter what we do. However, by repenting of our current fossile-fuel dependent life, we can arrest the warming trend to only two degrees and, over time, turn the warming trend around. Two degrees will already mean huge, life damaging changes in the planet. More than that would threaten the very future of our grandchildren.

The problem, of course, is that we must respond to the signs of the times now, and not after the worst of these predictions (flooding of low-lying countries, spread of deserts across Africa and even parts of the United States, etc.) begin to come true. There is momentum behind climate change trends, and letting that much momentum build would make any reversal come too late. We must respond now to God’s signs provided in nature.

Of course, Scripture depicts another moment like that. Noah was considered crazy for building an ark in the desert (Genesis 6:1 - 9:17). The coming flood was years away, and no one would believe him. In such times, the faithful are called to pay attention to God’s voice, however God speaks to them, and respond faithfully. This is just such a time. We need to be the ark builders for future generations.

Not all members of the Presbytery of Yukon interpret the signs of the times the same. As a result, not all believe that the looming crisis is that drastic. Obviously, I do [For more on why I think this is so important, see the following book: Orr, David W. Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford University Press, USA, 2009).]

Yet, all who read their Bible know that humans are to be good stewards of God’s beloved creation. On Monday, I’ll add some thoughts from that perspective, sharing thoughts that I believe all Christians must support strictly due to the biblical witness—even without the signs of the times.

Yukon Presbyterians For Earth Care

2009-10-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

Yukon Presbyterians For Earth Care

Curt and Cindee Karns' Bioshelter

For my wife, Cindee and me the stewardship of the earth is a real passion. We are so passionate aboutit that we bought a special “green-built-house,” both to live easier with the planet ourselves, and as a teaching platform for sharing various ideas on how we all can make a difference. We were therefore thrilled to learn that the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Presbyterians for Earth Care had decided to join the world-wide 350 Day effort.

350 Day is part of a world-wide effort to bring down greenhouse gas emissions to the
point where people and the planet can continue to coexist. Current estimates indicate that the maximum concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that would allow something similar to our current civilization would be somewhere between 295 and 350 parts per million. Recent measurements indicated the planet was passing 384 ppm. Grassroots efforts like 350 Day are aimed at raising awareness and encouraging human response to the problem—including bringing our CO2 emissions down to at least 350 ppm.

Much of the current efforts are aimed at forging a political solution to the problem, and I agree that politics must be a part of the solution. But I also believe that Christians are essential in making the theological and moral case for the effort. Reducing greenhouse emissions will not be easy, and without strong moral arguments it won’t happen. Happily, we have very strong biblical and theological support for making this case.

I will add a few thoughts on this biblical and theological material in the next few days. In the meantime. W O O H O O ! for Presbyterians for Earth Care and for 350 Day.

AKP 50th Anniversary Jubilee

2009-09-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

My thanks to CLP LeeAnn Crumbley for allowing me to use this report. She wrote it to send to people, who serve as prayer intercessors for the Chapel in the Mountains. I am under pressure to do other things this week, and was behind on this blog. Thank you, LeeAnn, for permission to use this for this week's blog.

For Facebook friends of Presbytery Yukon, check out our newest photo album for more pix.
Curt

The 50th Jubilee celebration in Anaktuvuk Pass, Aug. 27 -30, was a wonderful, encouraging event. There were folks from Anchorage, Atqasuk, Nuiqsut, Barrow, Fairbanks, California, and Washington in attendance. We enjoyed traditional singspirations, Eskimo dances, a traditional village potluck, a KFC dinner sponsored by the corporation, with chicken flown in from Fairbanks. There was lots of visiting. A number of folks went berry picking or toured the village, including a visit to the Arctic Research experimental house.

Worship services were held Friday and Saturday afternoons, including a rededication of the Chapel, and on Sunday morning. The weather was typical, some rainy and cool, some pretty cold breezes (winds?), and some lovely sunny times.

Caven Keith, son of Bill and Terry Keith, was there continuing work on a documentary DVD, telling the story of the Chapel, the village and the people as they look back at the last 50 years and ahead to what God may do in their midst. Caven will continue working on the project into the winter, hoping to complete it in about November. Anyone interested in purchasing a copy when it is finished can let me know and I'll make a list. The interviews with village elders, church elders, and others are so well-done,it's easy to see the heart of the church and village. Caven is so committed Chapel in Mts. Choir to the project, he will finish it even though the funds raised do not cover the expenses.

Our group from Trinity, was Jeff and Sandi Bentz, JoAnn Bantz, Jack and LeeAnn Crumbley, Bob and Joan White (Joan is daughter of the late Rev. Ralph Weeks, itinerant NorthSlope pastor in the early 1970s) and Bill and Terry Keith, joined by sons, David and Caven Keith.George Gilchrist (AKP acting moderator during the 1990s), now in CA,
and son Cameron, Anchorage, joined us, as did Kendall Lancaster, Michigan, who pastored in AKP 1993-95. Mary Tener Sanders, Homer, was an itinerant S.S. teacher and teacher trainer in the early 1970s. Rev. John Chambers, missionary pilot, served the church, flying in from Barrow, in the 1950s. He came from his home in California.

Rev. Bill Wartes was the missionary pilot/itinerant pastor who designed the church. Seven members of his family, including widow Bonnie, attended, along with Doreen Simmonds, the granddaughter of Rev. Samuel Simmonds. From Palmer, Rev. Leisa Carrick, moderator-elect of Yukon Presbytery, and Martha Guinotte, wife of Rev. Henry Guinotte, joined us. Rev. Curt Karns, Yukon Presbytery executive, and Heather Smith, Trinity, serving Nuiqsut as CLP, were there. And many of our native brothers and sisters in Christ.

From Thursday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, the focus was on the hope and joy we have in God's promises and in his faithfulness to his children. Our prayer is that people will bedrawn to support and encourage each other through the Chapel In the Mountains. Please pray for Rev. Keith and Sally Johnston as they pour themselves into the Lord's service tothe people of AKP.

They expended a huge amount of energy and prayer in preparation for this event, and encouraged many villagers to take an active part in the planning and executing of the plans. Pray they now have some well-deserved rest and that they can see the fruit of their labor.
Pray that God will bring revival to Anaktuvuk Pass and that our dear friends there will respond to his invitation.

Thanks for your prayers,
LeeAnn

Jubilee: It's About Restoring Right Relationships Being (Lv. 25)

Captions:
Top Picture: The Original Chapel
Middle PIcture: Drummers Warming Up
Bottom Picture: The Mountains!!!

Uniting AAMP's Younger Leaders

2009-09-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

Young Leaders Participants-AKP

Today I want to reflect on a new effort in support of leaders in the arctic. The Ahmaogak-Akootchook Memorial Parish (AAMP) recently invited a number of younger leaders to meet in Anaktuvuk Pass. Anaktuvuk’s Chapel in the Mountains was celebrating a Jubilee year (more on this next week!), and people had gathered from across the arctic to participate. The parish leadership invited younger leaders (people in their 40s and younger) to gather and talk about the future of leaders in the arctic churches.

The gathering began with a Bible Study of 1 Kings 19, and this passage of Scripture provided guidance that led to some wonderful new beginnings. You will remember that 1 Kings 19 speaks of Elijah (usually remembered as the greatest of the Old Testament prophets) falling prey to fear and depression. Finally Elijah cried out to God, saying:

"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

God responded to Elijah, telling him that he was NOT the only one left. Indeed, there was a sizable remnant of faithful people left, so he should stop acting like a solo artist and join with them. Further, he should anoint the next generation of leaders.

And so Elijah followed God’s leading. He anointed a new king and a new prophet to come after him. And this younger prophet, Elisha, became his attendant, honoring and learning from the older prophet.

This passage pointed out two tasks.
• First, leaders of today sometimes reach the point where they, too, feel fearful, angry, and used up. Knowing this, how might we join younger leaders to the wider body of Christ in such a way that they do not feel that they are alone in their ministry, and that they would be less likely to fall into despair and burnout like Elijah did?

• Second, how might we provide training and connection to older leaders, so that they, like the younger Elisha, might be nurtured and strengthened as leaders into the future?

After some discussion, the group decided to form an ongoing electronic meeting, allowing the younger leaders to share devotions and fellowship by electronic means. They also agreed that others, who wish to join this meeting would be welcome. Together, they hope to avoid the frustration that sometimes plagues lone leaders, and also to hear from their elders.

Anyone interested in learning more about this ongoing meeting should contact the Presbytery of Yukon office by email: office@pbyukon.org. All arctic area leaders are welcome.

Free Speech Theology

2009-08-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

The recent demonstrations staged at town hall meetings on health care reform have received a lot of press, lately. I hope that one result will be a review of the nature and importance of free speech as a moral value. The time has come when we need to speak freely about the ethics of free speech. There are simply too many abuses happening just now, and the consequences for our society, and for our understanding of ourselves as human beings, are huge.

Free speech, as it turns out, is not only about civics but also theology. The Bible is full of accounts describing the importance of all voices being heard. A few examples include:

1. the Exodus account depicting God’s response to the cries of the Israelites in bondage to Egypt,
2. the Wisdom Literature and Prophets accounts depicting the response of God through prophets and (eventually) foreign kings to the cries of a defeated Israel in exile,
3. the Gospel description of Christ extending God’s grace to the outcast and foreigner, including the blessing of Bartimaeus, of a Canaanite woman and of others, who refused to be silenced.

We are in a time, however, where people are misappropriating the concepts behind free speech to actually silence other voices. Contrast, for instance, the difference between the Christian-led civil disobedience of America’s civil rights movement with last week’s civil disobedience at town hall meetings on health care reform. The 1960s civil rights effort invoked the rights of free speech to insist that long-silenced voices (the voices of African Americans) be heard. Last week’s civil disobedience at public gatherings was invoked to silence open and frank discussion on a burning issue of our day: health care reform. For Christians, this represents a serious ethical abuse of free speech, because it turns the theological basis of free speech (i.e., hearing all voices that we might respond with justice) on its head.

Of course, free speech is not just about civil disobedience. Talk radio and a number of other venues could use this discussion, too. The point is for us to value the ability to listen to all voices with respect, with the goal of then discerning ways of living into justice and right relationships.

With this in mind, Christians must insist that respectful free speech is an important Christian value. After all, we Presbyterians understand the church to be the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all humanity (PCUSA Book of Order G-3.0200). As with all values, we must acknowledge that we are sinful and fail to achieve perfection in pursuing it even within the church. But we don’t give up, and neither should our civic society. The pursuit of respectful listening and respectful talking is important, because God’s justice is important.

Judged by Health Care

2009-08-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

In August our legislators will be holding town meetings across the country regarding the upcoming Health Care Reform vote. It seems that the debate is boiling down to three major issues: 1) making sure that the vast majority of Americans are covered, 2) controlling costs, and 3) assuring that medical innovation continues. The prevailing political wisdom is that these issues compete against one another. Doing a good job in one area will weaken our ability in one or more of the others.

The Bible consistently shows God's preferential concern for the poor and outcast. As an American Christian, I find it embarrassing that our nation ranks 37th in the world in providing health care. I find myself meditating on the voices of various Christian ethicists, telling us that in the end we will be judged by how well we care for the least and the lost in our society.

As a result, I find myself echoing the same concern repeatedly voiced by The Presbyterian Church (USA) that we enact reform that focuses more on concerns 1) and 2) than 3) . Besides, given the nature of the American spirit, I can't help but believe that ways to encourage innovation will be found, even if it means finding a future moment to reform whatever initial reform might pass this fall.

Right now it is my main hope that the competing political interests don't succeed in totally blocking any possibility of reform now. It seems to me that such resolute inaction would indicate an ongoing disdain of the poor, rather than a preferential concern for them.

I want to encourage your prayers on this issue, and I want to invite your comments.

The Purpose of a Synod (or Presbytery)

2009-07-23T17:22:00.000-08:00

Curt Karns' Notes for The Council

Synod of Alaska-Northwest, PC(USA)
June 19, 2009

Last year the synod assembly approved A Working Vision as the document to guide the synod more effectively into mission. As I have worked with it over the past year, there are two key elements in A Working Vision that have given focus to all the rest, and one I would like to offer as a possible way of describing the whole.

First Element:
The Title of the Adopted Synod Vision—A Working Vision

The title indicates that the vision itself is still in motion. This seems most appropriate, given the literature indicating that we are living in a time requiring adaptive change. That is, we do not have solutions to today’s problems, and cannot simply improve the techniques of old solutions in addressing these problems. Instead, we must begin to adapt, trusting that God will provide the solution. Any vision we have, then, must be a working vision that will be in a state of change as we continue to develop new understandings of what God is doing now. As Robert Quinn put it, “we must build the bridge while walking on it (Deep Change, Josse-Bates, 1996, p. 83.).”
This corresponds well with the biblical passage about the first human, Adam, grappling with the need for adaptive change for the first time. God presents Adam to the world and then gives this first human the task naming God’s creatures. God, of course, created the universe by SPEAKING it into being in progressive stages. Now, the human is called to see what God has created and to give a name, or speak in creaturely terms of what is found.
This, it seems, has been the human task ever since. We describe everything we find. To the degree that our descriptions are better descriptions, we humans live better in the world. To the degree that our descriptions are worse, we live worse. For instance, if we describe illness well enough, we become able to find effective ways of treating the illness.
However, despite Adam’s best efforts, no adequate partner appears for him. When Adam finally has done all that was possible (and only after this long period of exploring and naming), God causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep. When Adam awakes, he discovers there has been a huge change. Now, there is not just one type of human, but two—male and female. Indeed, it is only at this point that the text uses the terms male and female. God has caused the human to change, and Adam names the new way of being female and male.
It is important to note several elements in this foundational story.

Being human is about naming what we encounter. Historically, this has meant naming and renaming. Just as the cause of some diseases was once described as evil vapors, and later were as germs, so it is with much of our life. The ability to understand and describe better is key to being human. It is very appropriate that our synod is operating under A Working Vision. We can expect change to continue, both in how we describe our mission, and in the strategies we employ to fulfill that mission.
Just as Adam’s ability to name things did not solve his adaptive challenge (no creature could be named an adequate partner), we also do not currently have the ability to name final answers for our adaptive challenges. Yet, God tasked Adam with the job anyway. Evidently, the process of seeking and naming is important, even if it is not an adequate answer by itself.
Just when Adam finally came to the end of his efforts, and had to let go of the illusion that he would find his own fulfillment, we also must finally trust God to do what we cannot do on our own. There comes a point, perhaps at the very end of our abilities, when we must be willing to let God change us. Getting to that point is the adventure that stands before people facing adaptive change.
God is faithful, both in directing us to the point where adaptive change can happen, and in bringing about change that is only possible because of God’s gracious redemptive activity. We can trust God through all the discomfort of adaptive change.

Second Element:
|Understanding Synod as an Arena For Mission Partnerships

According to A Working Vision the mission of the synod is to “empower and support presbytery missions [recognizing that] More is accomplished for the Kingdom of God when two or more presbyteries are working together.” This vision can be helped by using Phil Butler’s vocabulary of the difference between networking and of partnerships (Well Connected; Authentic Publishing, 2006). Networking inspires ministry by the cross-fertilization of ideas and the more-than-the-sum-of-the parts inspiration of the Holy Spirit that comes when diverse parts of the Christian body connect. Partnerships form when different parts of the synod recognize both the opportunity and the call of God to form a commitment to form a covenant relationship in the pursuit of a goal that neither could accomplish alone. Both networking and partnerships are of great value.
A Working Vision goes further and identifies synod commissioners as key participants in this partnership work. Synod commissioners are to operate under and apostolic ministry model of leadership. Just as the apostles shared the gospel message first in Jerusalem, and then to the uttermost ends of the earth, so the commissioners are to be in touch with ministries across the presbytery, gathering the stories of God’s work in those places, and sharing those stories as they travel throughout the presbytery, and on to the synod assembly. Through the sharing of stories through mission fairs and other contacts, the commissioners become brokers of information (networking) and possible new relationships (partnering).
However, we are building the bridge as we walk on it. There might be other means for networking and partnering beyond the synod commissioners that would be worth exploring.
One of the questions worth pursuing is whether this approach to synod assemblies will be effective or not. I am suggesting that we should be asking whether the money spent on travel for synod assemblies would be better spent in gathering gather people with a specific area of interest from across the synod for networking and the formation of possible partnerships.
For instance, the current assembly has targeted five areas to explore for synod mission. Task forces of synod commissioners are being formed to pursue ministry in these five areas. I am wondering if synod commissioners are the right people to have on these task forces. What if, instead, the commissioners were to gather for assembly meetings electronically, rather than face-to-face, to vote on policy, budgets and to elect council members. If so the travel money would be available to gather Presbyterians engaged in at least one of these five areas from across the synod for some kind of synod convention. Then the people actually engaged in the ministry would have the opportunity to network and partner, eliminating the middle-man role required of the synod commissioners.
Of course this brief account leaves a lot of loose ends and questions unanswered. For instance, would it then be left to the staff and the council to determine which areas of concern God is lifting up from across the synod for future conventions? Even with so many questions, though, I believe this line of inquiry to be worth pursuing. I am not sure that synod commissioners are really the people the synod should gather together if the goal is networking and partnership building.
One thing is certain, though. With A Working Vision to guide us, we have begun building the new bridge needed for more effective synod ministry. We will be designing and redesigning as long as we continue on this adaptive journey.

Third Element:
On Dance as Metaphor Describing this Ministry

This metaphor lifts up the very interesting point that God chooses to work out the details of the history of salvation in partnership with human beings in general, and with God’s faithful in particular. It is like a dance, where God leads and we follow. This metaphor makes the most sense when we think of it from different cultural perspectives.

In some European dance, both the leader (God) and the follower (the disciple) give their best to the dance partnerships and produce something uniquely beautiful to those two in partnership in that place and time.
In Greek circle dances, all join together to produce the dance. It is not just between God and one partner, but it involves the whole community.
In Iñuit dance, the drummer and singer calls the dance setting both the theme and the tempo; and the individual dancers respond, coming forward to add body and interpretation to the tempo and theme set before them.

Welcome to the Pbyukon Blog

2007-09-22T18:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome!

This is the new site for the Presbytery of Yukon conversations using a blog format. The members of the churches in the Presbytery of Yukon can use this site to share their concerns, and also share their developing thinking on topics that matter to them.

I hope all who come here will contribute ideas from the heart, treat other contributors and their ideas with respect, and watch for how God works through a caring, learning community.

Grace and peace,
Curt Karns
Executive Presbytery