In our tradition only a few elements are reserved to actions that only ordained clergy

can conduct: officiating at the Lord’s Supper, baptizing, and marring couples.  Each of these acts is mysterious and wonderful. Today I would like to focus on baptism.

Over the last five year’s of my ministry, performing baptisms has been a privilege.  I have been able to baptize infants and teens, participate as my children were baptized, and participate as teens confirm their baptism vows.  All of these different views of baptism have lead to deep personal and professional exploration.  How do you explain to a two year old what is happening when their little brother is baptized?  How do you explain baptism to a teen that is participating in confirmation?  How do you help parents to see baptism as more than a ritual, but an induction into a way of life, a relationship, a covenant?  These questions, and so many more, have led me to read the thoughts of others on this mysterious sacrament, to dialogue with colleagues and church members about their views of its significance, and wrestle on my own with how to articulate the mysterious and ineffable. Read more…

“The miracle is not to walk on water but on the earth.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I am still thinking about bodies.

Earlier this week I lead a discussion with several women about the Ashley Judd article that I had blogged about last month. My hope had been that in opening up a conversation on faith and bodies, or faith and our physical selves (yes, the two things are congruent), that we might talk openly about our culture’s obsession with women’s bodies that are accompanied by false standards of perfection, and in turn redirect the conversation toward something more authentic and hopeful grounded in the very God who created each of us in God’s own image, and whose most decisive revelation is not a theory but a physical person.
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Apparently I wasn’t paying attention in my high school lit class, because on Sunday night at Junior High Youth Group I was taught about a genre of literature called dystopia. The genre is extremely popular presently due to the poster-child book/movie of the genre Hunger Games.

So here is the back story… We began our lesson with the teens sharing their favorite book or movie and then we briefly chatted about their genres and what makes certain books/movies fit within a given genre (i.e., action-adventure typically keeps you at the edge of your seat and results in your heart rate raising a bit). From there we broke into small groups to explore how God’s story fits into different genres: romance, horror, comedy, action-adventure, and our final group chose dystopia. They were given sidewalk chalk and a nice space of patio real estate to visual show how God’s story can be seen as the genre they were assigned.
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Earlier this week actress Ashley Judd wrote a scathing rebuttal for The Daily Beast after several news and media sources went to town speculating that her “puffy face” was a result of plastic surgery or other cosmetic “work,” that she had let herself go “losing the familiar beauty that audiences loved her for,” and that she was lazy and fat and she had, “better watch out because her husband was looking for a second wife.”

In response to these accusations, Judd writes powerfully about our culture’s normalized obsession with women’s faces, bodies and overall body image that privileges the interests of boys and men over the integrity, autonomy, and dignity of women and girls, as well as “heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny men the full and dynamic range of their personhood.” She writes:
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Once a year at Pinnacle our Fellowship Hall receives a makeover. Not a fresh coat of paint, or a good cleaning, but instead the entire congregation is invited to empty their closets, to clean their garages, and to bring their unwanted items to the hall to be sold in order to raise money for the summer high school mission trip.

It is that time of year again, we are in over our heads in rummage that will be sold to the public this weekend. It is easy to recognize the blessing of the sale. We raise a lot of money and that money enables us to get the high school teens involved in making a difference in the world.

But the blessings just begin with the funds that are raised. In addition congregation members spend time together preparing for the sale: high school students hanging and pricing clothes along side retired members of our congregation, moms helping post items online and dads visiting the homes of members to pick up donations. And when the sale is over, everything that remains gets to bless the ministries of local charities.

I still think there is more, I think there is something theologically sound to purging our unwanted, unneeded, unused possessions. I have spent the last few days greeting people as they drop off goods and working along others as we prepare.

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Two weeks ago I traveled to Dallas for the 2012 Next Church Conference at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Dallas.

NEXT is an ongoing conversation among (mostly progressive) Presbyterians about the future of the Presbyterian Church. The organization (now a 501(C) 3) began a few years ago when several tall steeple pastors got together to ask what is next for the PC(USA) beyond the debates about sexuality. The denomination has been posturing itself around these debates for quite some time. Sooner or later the debate will end and we will need to figure out how to be church in the 21^st century. Read more…