Metropolitan United Church blogs

A Good Question

Malcolm Sinclair — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:09:43 -0500

While interviewing an inquirer concerning life as a professional minister our committee posed a good question.

"What would you say to the General Council about the one thing needful in the life of the church?

For a brief moment I wished I were an inquirer again because I wanted to respond. It is a good question, but it contains a questionable presuppostion. It seems to suggest that the power to change the church comes from the top down, as if it could be commanded or legislated. I believe it rises from the ground up. When a person catches fire, or a community finds its joy, then the church leaps into life. Commissions and Boards and Jurisadictions can order all they like but until there are sparks of courage and commitment on the ground there will be no flame.

Cherry Picking

Malcolm Sinclair — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:47:02 -0500

We children of western Christendom are the heirs of a cherry-picked emphasis. Early on, our forebears took one piece of news out of the Gospels and made it their central theme. That was the part about the Resurrection of the Messiah. As the church hardened into an intractable empire, control of the resurrection story brought it power. The church became the "keeper of the keys", the wizard who mixed the potion that could take people from death to life. To this day we trot out the resurrection story as if it were the whole thing, and each year fewer and fewer people know what we're talking about.

HISTORY IS MADE A TIME FOR OBAMA

John Joseph Mastandrea — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:55:05 -0500

from the Desk of John Joseph Mastandrea

History is made

Built to Last

Malcolm Sinclair — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:37:14 -0400

The Isle of Harris and Lewis in the Hebrides still bears the claw marks of conservative Calvinist Christianity. The culture is tight. The rule of religious law pervades. Sunday is closed, and even the swings and slides in the parks are chained to prevent their use on the "sabbath". It seems a watchful place, where each one is ready to mark and comment on the behaviour of others. In the middle of all this stands the stone circle of Callanish.

It Is Necessary

Malcolm Sinclair — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:16:52 -0400

Remembance Day is upon us. Grey skies and falling temperatures mark this sombre time. As I walked to the church from last year's public ceremony I was again overcome by my emotions. It gets worse for me every year. Applause for the weary veterans brought tears to my eyes. The piper's rendition of "The Flowers of the Forest" stopped me cold. Even our national anthem stuck in my throat. One young lad stopped me and thanked me for my bravery in battle. I hadn't the heart to tell him that his thankfulness was misplaced, and that I had not yet been born. Yet I was touched and began to consider what bravery might be necessary for me.

The Unknown Decision

Malcolm Sinclair — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:15:51 -0400

Church congregations are made up of layers of different communities. We gather as unconnected groups of friends, or around a variety of interests, or for some personal reason at a critical time of our lives. Some people are new. Some have been there forever. Some come from established church families and others because their soul has been radically awakened. Some come for the rules and others for the fellowship. Some love the music. Others love the loyalty and the pride of membership. Some cling to Jesus, and some to the past, or to the opportunties to volunteer, or to the teasing promise of smoother sailing now and Heaven waiting at the end. With all this heavy traffic in a small space, it's a wonder we don't all crash and burn in hopeless confusion.

Elephants in the Room

Malcolm Sinclair — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:18:06 -0400

The way I focus on things limits my peripheral vision. It is just the way I am built. I fall over things, miss side glances, get caught by surprise, and suspect nothing. It is easy for congregations to be wired like that too. We so concentrate on the models we use, and the visions of church in our heads, that we miss the obvious, the elephants in the room. One of America's great churches, East Liberty Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, found that ignoring the elephants hastened its downward spiral. The church did its fine things well, and interest and vital signs continued to drop. Finely it dared to name the elephants.

It's Not About Jesus.

Malcolm Sinclair — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:06:48 -0400

The Bible is not about Jesus. That thought hit me as clear as a bell and made perfect sense. None of the writers ever met Jesus, and most of the communities for whom the material was written had never heard of him. The Bible is about something else, and Jesus is one of the many tools given to help us dig for it. Christians have twisted the texts and made false connections to try to make Jesus central, but it just doesn't wash.

Consequences

Malcolm Sinclair — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:15:34 -0400

Our youngest son has become a police officer. Every time he sees me he shows me his badge. He tells me that I'm the first family member he is going to arrest. I hope this is just the novelty of the situation speaking. I'm trying to remember how I might have offended him over the years. We did forget him at daycare once when he was five. That should be good for a few years of hard time.

Gary Redcliffes Blog

John Joseph Mastandrea — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:37:20 -0400

Sabbatical Reconsidered

In an earlier reflection about ‘sabbatical’ I made the point that the most likely method for a congregation’s sabbatical would be renewal in place. I imagined that it would be possible for a congregation such as Metropolitan to continue with its life as usual, but with a crucial difference. During the sabbatical period the congregation would assess whether and in what ways it might need to re-think, re-orient, refocus, re-energize or re-commit itself. I had in mind that the congregation would ask itself two basic questions: In light of our claims to live out of faith in God, Who are we? What are we to do? A sabbatical period spent reflecting upon these questions would be, I imagined, fruitful for deepening and broadening Metropolitan’s mission.