Extending Beyond Ourselves in the Body of Christ

There is a beyondness to life I have held in the hands of my soul. A place where the parallel lines come together (though I have not seen this place). Throughout human searching, we have posited this place in a far away realm, though there was one who taught that it encroaches upon us everywhere.

I have not seen this place, but the notion that we swim in it tastes of the kind of irony that calls to me (and that refuses to let me go). To say "beyondness" gives me a way to put my fingers on this relentless, undeniable itch of my consciousness - a maddening truth that eludes me just when I look for it, but that teases me like a cricket in the corner of my bedroom. I live in this place.

The Body of Christ and the Kingdom of God. The Way. These keys, these talismans create a framework for exploration, for exploring the beyondness. Yet for many they seem to stand for the end of the journey - they circumvent the journey altogether. We - all of us - can only attest to what we know. And some of us must guard the walls while others are driven to move out ahead in the darkness.

The Body of Christ holds together the grace of the incarnation, Immanuel; the sacrificial healing work of the crucifixion; and the miraculous hope of the resurrection, both in the person of Jesus (who becomes the Messiah) and in the lives of all who follow The Way. The last two cannot be teased apart - the resurrected body and the body of his followers and disciples - who have unfortunately come to be called (and who identify themselves as) merely believers.

Life in the Body of Christ goes far beyond belief. We who are members of this body do not accede to some principle or doctrinal concept. We give our lives entirely over to the will of Christ. I write in the general sense of this yielding, because not one of us can live each moment in the path of the Master. Yet his hold on us is fierce and unrelenting, perhaps especially when we attempt to thwart it and go our own way.

I offer this caveat when writing about anything (will, desire, identity) that could be construed as "mine": the Way of following Jesus the Messiah involves coming to know myself from God's perspective, reconstruing the way I understand who I am. This process leads to what Christians call "dying to self" and the miracle of "new life in Christ".

Jesus leads me to a larger comprehension of who I am - a relational understanding of myself as a member of the Body of Christ a body which encompasses all of creation, and not merely the church, or any subset of that creation). The themes of dying and rising again are typically thought of primarily in an ethical sense, but if the definition of "sin" includes this larger sense of life in God, then dying and rising "in Christ" contextualizes all ethical considerations (good and bad behavior) as manifestations of my understanding of "self".

Here is what I mean: if I understand my identity solely from my personal perspective, I also define "the good" from that perspective as well. Self-preservation and gratification become the highest aims and drive all my ethical considerations. In the epistles, this ethical behavior is called the way of "the flesh" and "captivity" to (false or distorted) desire. But if I understand myself as a member of the Body of Christ, the perspective of my desires enlarges beyond the narrow horizon of my "self" and I identify with the "other" (and by this I mean any "other") as part of my self.

Anyone who has experienced love for another person (or perhaps also for another animal, or even a special place) can attest to this enlargement of perspective and desire. As love grows, what begins as a largely selfish desire can expand imperceptibly but powerfully into life with and for another. The Prayer of St. Francis celebrates this love in the phrase "for it is in giving that we receive". When the desire of my partner (or friend, or child, or parent, or lover) conflicts with my own, we seek a mutual reconciliation, or offer each other the gift of subordinating our self-limited desire in order that the one we love might be fulfilled. Sacrifice is certainly one manifestation of this giving attitude, but so also is mutual fulfillment.

The Pauline correspondence includes a statement about a spouse whose desire is for her (or presumably his) partner. When my "self" becomes inextricably related to all "others" in the Body of Christ, my desire expands to consider the needs and concerns of others, in the spirit of a marriage partnership (a union where two are joined as one). As Paul writes, when one experiences joy or sadness, all experience joy or sadness in the Body of Christ.

This unity of identity, perspective and desire in the human community (and perhaps also in all creation - the community of the cosmos) relates us all to what humans have for ages called God. Jesus the Messiah lived in a constant state of awareness of his relatedness to God (a state he consistently called "The Kingdom of God") and invited his followers to experience the "drawing near" of this Way of being in community with others and, through them, with God.

The fourth Gospel includes Jesus' bold claim that he was constantly motivated and moved by the will of God: "The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (John 5:19 NRSV). This understanding of God's will involves not necessarily (or merely) knowledge we can know; those who inhabit the Kingdom of God experience life animated by God's desire - God's love for all creation and all humanity. Life in Christ cannot be reduced to a system of belief - it reorients my identity entirely in union with God and the whole of creation. And this radical reorientation makes possible a new life in Christ, inspired and empowered by God's love for all.

Dallas Willard, a contemporary Christian theologian, has defined the Kingdom of God as "that place where God's will is perfectly done". The opening petition of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 bears witness to the fact that "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" and connects the concepts of God's Kingdom and God's will. Later in the same prayer, Jesus reverses the formula, where God's forgiveness of "us" reflects our own forgiveness of "others".

Like the Body of Christ metaphor, the Kingdom of God encompasses all creation in a cosmic perspective that redefines our identity. New actions and behaviors that reflect a deep respect and regard for others flow from this identity "in Christ". Jesus radically defined this new identity for his disciples by inviting each one of us to become a "servant of all". Thomas Merton, in his introduction to The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the fourth Century writes: "Love takes one's neighbor as one's other self...It is hard to really love others if love is to be taken in the full sense of the word. Love demands a complete inner transformation - for without this we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother [or sister]. We have to become, in some sense, the person we love. And this involves a kind of death of our own being, our own self."

Choosing to serve others involves a mastery over the delusion of our selfish desires that frees us to love others. Laying down (aside) our lives for the sake of God's love for the Other leads us to share in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah in our lives. We become the Body of Christ dwelling in the Kingdom of God. Doing for others as we would have done to ourselves results from this expanded notion of Self - this behavior signifies that Jesus has accomplished the transformation of our individual, solitary life into the life of God. We are One, even as Jesus and the Father are One.

Kevin Roose Finds Friendship at Liberty

I recently read "The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University" which describes Kevin Roose's semester "abroad" at Liberty University in an attempt to bridge the gulf that separates evangelical culture from the mainstream. Liberty, the school that the Rev. Dr. Jerry Falwell built in the heyday of leading the Moral Majority movement, stands at Ground Zero of the culture war between Christian Fundamentalism and Secular America. Roose, a sometime Quaker at Brown University who assisted A.J. Jacobs writing "The Year of Living Biblically", spent a semester as a student at Liberty to search beyond the distorting stereotypes of evangelicals to find friendship and understanding.

Roose's ground rules (matriculate incognito and no cheap shots) dictated that this bridge crossed one way from his progressive point of view to the more conservative, dogmatic religious point of view. When Roose came clean and identified himself the following semester (during a return visit to Liberty from Brown) as an undercover writer, his friends at Liberty lamented the lost opportunity to reconsider the ways they might have cleaned up their act if they had related to him as an observer rather than an insider. That said, they trusted what they felt was a genuine friendship with "Rooster" enough to look forward to his book about his experience with them at Liberty.

That, and they grieve that he is not in fact a born again believer in Jesus.

The chief learning of this study involves the transcending power of friendship. If Roose fails to thoroughly explore the impact of some of the negative aspects of evangelical culture (e.g., tolerance for violent language toward homosexual persons and an educational model that stifles inquiry), he takes pains to describe Liberty students as a far more diverse, interesting and sympathetic group of people than their opinions reveal.

From the outset of his experiment, his family and friends fear that he will not be able to hide and will be singled out for ridicule. But their worst fears involve what might happen to him if he converts to evangelicalism - a fear Roose shares. In fact, he does convert to admiration for the power of profound support (love?) in this closed community. So while he refuses to cow to the young earth creationism taught at Liberty (one of only twelve post-secondary schools that teach it in America), he appreciates the depths of analysis involved in his Bible survey and religious and theological history courses. And though he cannot reconcile himself to the casual attitude about hostility directed against homosexual persons, Roose comes to crave the experience of love he feels when a Liberty student or professor prays over him.

During Roose's semester at Liberty, a student at neighboring Virginia Tech went on a killing rampage that prompted Liberty students to pray for healing for the victims (as well as interpreting the killing as a mysterious if troubling aspect of God's will). At the end of the semester, the legendary Dr. Jerry Falwell himself succumbed to a heart attack and died, days after Roose authored the last print interview Falwell granted. And as with the Liberty students themselves, Roose paints a complex picture of Falwell, ultimately praising him for his authenticity, even when that authentic style demonizes others in God's name.
Throughout the book, Roose wonders what will change in his life as a result of his semester "abroad" at Liberty. And though he is unwilling to acknowledge Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior by semester's end, he returns to Brown powerfully affected by his Liberty experience. A Liberty professor articulates for Roose the power he has experienced in prayer by telling him that whatever else prayer accomplishes, prayer changes the one who prays. This change and the experience of being cared for and loved when being prayed over, stand as the most powerful aspects of Roose's experience at Liberty.

The other major impact Liberty has on Roose involves the "liberty" inherent in the many restrictions of the "Liberty Way", a massive code of conduct restricting everything from movie watching to relationships between women and men. On the down side, Roose questions Liberty's hyper focus on sexual morality while ignoring social morality. Yet Roose acknowledges the freedom he experiences as he attempts to live within the confines of the highly restrictive moral code.

At Liberty, Roose enjoys waking up in great physical health on Sunday mornings, refreshed instead of dehydrated and hung over. And the Liberty dating experience, confined to chaste conversation and chivalry, opens up an opportunity to relate on a powerfully intimate level that sexual intimacy ironically circumvents, in his experience. Even the worship experiences, while not convincing Roose of the soundness of the ideology in the sermons, nevertheless draw him into an experience of being cared for by a community that surrounds him with support and calls him to join in their expressions of praise and joy.

When Roose reveals his ruse, his former friends at Liberty express their dismay only that he has refused to receive the gift of salvation in Jesus they have offered and with which they have surrounded him at Liberty. Even so, they encourage him to take the better parts of his experience as to season the "world" outside Liberty with salt and light. And though Roose will never again threaten passers-by with eternal damnation in order to evangelize them (as he did as part of a Spring Break evangelization team in Ft. Lauderdale), he does offer to pray for a friend who travels to a dangerous country.

Perhaps the saddest moment in the book involves a statement a Liberty student makes after a day of "cold call" evangelism. After negative encounters with nearly everyone she approached, the woman tells the group that she has resigned herself to a life isolated from the non-Christian community, whose members will shun and ridicule her for her beliefs.

Roose stakes his semester on the premise that evangelical followers of Christ can enjoy friendship with non-evangelicals and people of other faith traditions, or no faith traditions, setting aside their theological and ideological differences. The fact that he managed to do so only by posing as an evangelical student at Liberty fails to support his thesis. Yet Roose was certainly aware of the divide, and managed to enter into genuine friendships with most of the students at Liberty. And while he did not convert to evangelical Christianity, he returned to Brown having made peace that passes understanding.

Oil Spills, Prayers and Babies with Eyedroppers

The Louisiana legislature officially declared Sunday, June 20 a Day of Prayer in the wake of repeated failed efforts by BP and the US government to stanch the relentless flow of oil into the Gulf in what has become the worst environmental disaster in modern history. The lawmakers invited people to invoke the hand of Providence to heal this wounding of the earth and it's inhabitants because we have grown frustrated with humanity's efforts to handle this crisis.

This call to prayer prompts in myself and in our society an exploration into the nature of prayer and the God to whom we pray. We refer to disasters of this scale caused by storms as "Acts of God" regardless of our theology. Predictably, reaction from the New (read: "loud and proud") Atheists among us assumes the knee-jerk caustic tone of mockery and derision. God is a delusion, they say, and an infant sucking up an eyedropper of oil on the beaches accomplishes more than the prayers of any deluded multitude.

Yet religious adherents of any flavor would be hard-pressed to deliver incontrovertible evidence of the kind that skeptics demand that prayer actually "works". And it would be hard to imagine anyone, regardless of their religious fervor, who in their heart of hearts expects that the combined prayers of the faithful will in some demonstrably miraculous way turn the tide of this monstrous environmental disaster. More on that thought later. For starters, if prayers somehow moved God to intervene in a way wholly inconsistent from the way of the world in which this disaster occurred, we would be forced to contend with an incomprehensibly capricious God.

The skeptics compare the apparent passivity of prayer to action and agency (the ability to affect action) in the world. Entering this debate, I am intrigued and frustrated by the false dichotomy of action/inaction or cause and effect presumed by the principal antagonists. My love for God-in-others informs and in enriched by my search for Truth. I spend much of my time listening to stories of ways in which the practice of hope creates fertile ground for new life - in a symbiosis that transcends the boundary between the spheres of the physical and metaphysical. The Scriptural invitation to "pray without ceasing" recognizes the ubiquitous nature of prayer, not only in this boundary zone, but extending deeply into all realms of existence.

My daughter senses this symbiosis in prayer. We talked about the false dichotomy implied by the debate between skeptics and believers over the "usefulness" of prayer in response to the current environmental disaster in the Gulf. She suggested that the most powerful promise of prayer in this situation would be the creation of a sense of culpability and repentance in the experience of prayer. This experience of repentance, she believes, would lead to a communal response to this crisis and to the cultural practices that fostered it.

Prayer, in this perspective, serves as an analog to the efforts of BP to drill relief wells that will render the frantic, ineffectual efforts to cap the damaged wellhead moot. Like the relief wells, prayer holds out the possibility of reaching the foundation of a cultural pattern that has inevitably led to this current disaster. I join the skeptics in using the word "possibility" above because the practice of prayer cannot guarantee this broadening of perspective, nor can it determine the actions or effectiveness that might follow such spiritual and communal consciousness. Yet without this awakening, ignorance and chance must necessarily govern all "action", like leaving the cleanup to an army of infants with eyedroppers - the blind leading the blind.

We who follow Jesus the Messiah grope in this kind of darkness as well. Yet moments of clarity and vision dot the landscape of uncertainty, creating enough of a pattern and perspective - even a Presence - we are boldly hopeful enough to name God. Our prayers enfold us in God as they bind us to all humanity and all creation. The prayers of the faithful (and hopeful) create a vision that makes possible a life free from the prison of systemic evil. We hesitate because we know that the power of prayer lies precisely in it's relentless call to die to the blindness we confuse for sight in order to raise us to new lives in a realm where God's will is perfectly done.

In America we have learned to hedge our prayers by passing the ammunition (and in this case, the eyedroppers). Yet if this present crisis could catalyze something truly transformative, we (believers and skeptics alike) would do well to put away our childish notions of effectiveness and open ourselves to the possibility of new life in a vast communion that extends far beyond our garages and climate-controlled SUV cabins. What a tragedy it would be to simply clean up our mess while hurtling toward the brink of greater disaster in the blindness that causes this and many other disastrous collisions of unconsciousness.

So I will continue to live in a state of prayerful awareness and anticipation. I join others, skeptical and faithful, who have ceased a fruitless search for a bigger eyedropper. Though I am still captive in a world encompassed by myself and those I love deeply, surrounded by strangers and darkness, I have yet seen intimations of a larger, more comprehensive creation that refuse to leave me alone in my delusions. And with each moment in prayer, the realm of God draws nearer - and with it a new birth into a communion far, far beyond the confines of this womb of myself.

Holy Week 2010 - A Resurrection of the Body of Christ

During this season of Lent, I've been consistently invited into sacred spaces of waiting - with people who are dying to this life (and wondering without knowing what happens next), within silence together with other pilgrims not searching for answers but content with stillness together, experiencing worship itself as a pilgrimage (and enjoying the journey together), and waiting in the confusing timelessness of the hope of healing from an injury.

So much of this waiting is new to me - though it shouldn't be - that it feels in many ways like a new birth. This season of Lent, I have with the earth shaken off my slumber - even as my (limping) pace has slowed to allow time for silent waiting in the presence of God (?) that defies any attempt to contain or explain it (or even to claim it). As the earth leans again into the warming rays of the Springtime sunlight, I have been reminded everywhere I turn that while I can participate in Spring, I cannot hasten its arrival. So, too, with God.

Lent this year has been a journey of waiting - but as I have slowed my spiritual pace, I have begun to notice many things that escaped my attention before. As I have settled into places of tension in my life, and in the life of my family and church community,  I have found that submitting to the death of my attempts to flee or to relieve this tension in destructive ways has given rise to the realization that this tension will not kill me - it becomes a catalyst for creativity and abundant life.

I have begun to see the community of people gathered at Skyline for the treasure we are - by no means perfect but holding onto a vision of God's love for all people with passionate intensity and faith. Seeds that have been nurtured in the warmth of the tension we have experienced for several years now are beginning to sprout and to give some indication of the potential explosive growth in grace and love through our life together: in reaching out in love in many tangible ways to people in our surrounding community (people searching for sanctuaries of wellness, healing and recreation for the body and the soul).

Jesus, who invites us to this place of tension and creativity, paid with his life for his refusal to bow to the pretend gods of convention and compromise in his day. Yet he continues to invite us all to follow him into a realm of God's presence and power breaking in on all who are willing to wake from our contented sleep into a vision of a world where peace, love and merciful justice prevail. And because that vision conflicts constantly with our world and with our lives, to walk into this vision is to walk into unbearable tension. Jesus reminds us with his life and with his death that this tension cannot kill or silence us - only our fear of it.

Love binds us - binds the poles of tension to relate them if not to reconcile (or to remove) them. In this love we live and move and have our being. Jesus reveals this Love to us and calls us to life in Love - Love that birthed us into existence, and that now calls us into Life in all its Abundance. Follow me, he calls relentlessly and patiently. To the cross, where you will surely die to a false notion of your self-hood that hopelessly traps you in a prison of your own making.  Follow me through the cross and beyond, to a place of existence beyond yourself - to a place of being for others, of communion in that Body that transcends all dividing walls and participates in an ongoing ministry of reconciliation for all people - for all creation.

So don't let's rush too quickly into Sunday. How can we ever hope to interpret the emptiness we will find there unless we have watched and waited with Jesus, who knows and shows us to be the Way where he is going? It's Wednesday, time for silence. And tomorrow the time of our betrayal will come. Yet he will not refuse us a place at his Table, knowing what it means to dip bread together with us in a common bowl. Then the howling crowd, and the terrible silence of Friday afternoon, when he will have to die alone because we will have deserted him (not wanting to walk into that pain). And a Sabbath that forces us to rest in (an uneasy) peace. And then (we know) another week will begin. A dawning of a new creation as the Spirit hovers fitfully yet purposefully over the face of the deep darkness.

Let there be Light. And he will shine in us.

Skate Park Revisited - Meeting Tonight 3-23-10

We've got a lot to talk about tonight! Here's some of the things I'd like to share with you.

1. I was unable to attend the public planning meeting about the Newark, DE skate park on Paper Mill (at the Curtis Mill site), but you can sign a petition here in support of the park and see the plans options (Option 2 does not include a skate park) here.

2. I'm hoping that we can sponsor a Skate Jam (Day) on or near June 21, 2010, Go Skateboarding Day. The good folks at Switch Skate Shop in Newark, DE are interested in helping us by contributing some elements for use that day. Epworth UMC in Rehoboth  Beach, DE has sponsored several of these events, and one of their pastors, the Rev. Pat Laughlin, has passed along some good advice about how to run such an event that I will pass along to you this evening. Pat also put me onto a YouTube video called "Nowhere to Go" advocating a public skate park in Rehoboth Beach - like the one in Smyrna, DE.

3. If you don't already know about it, Family Life Church has been running a Skate and BMX Park under 141 in Newport, DE for over 12 years. For the past few years, a group in Wilmington has been raising money for a public skate plaza in Wilmington near the Blue Rocks stadium. The guys at Switch told me that some skateboarders in our area like to go to a privately run skate bowl constructed by a Christian in PA (20 miles from here) who runs a ministry called threesixteen skateboarding.

4. Even putting together a day-long event requires some careful planning to avoid what skatepark planners call the "Crashup Derby Factor" (poor arrangement of elements that contributes to skater collisions is what our underwriter is most concerned about). I ran across a site called Skaters for Public Skateparks that has lots of info about planning a park and ordered a Public Skatepark Development Guide for us to take a look at. Last summer, we saw some skateboarding elements in a campground in Wisconsin made by a company called SunRamp. Switch skate shop can also help us with plans for elements.

5. If all of this seems a little overwhelming, consider this: there are scads of kids in our area who like to skate - and very few places for them to do so legally and safely (think of the many "No Skateboarding" signs the litter our public spaces). Sakteboarders already use our parking lot to gather and skate. I have driven through Deacon's Walk streets so crowded with kids on skateboards and their friends that I had to stop the car and wait for them to part. Churches that want to offer skateboard facilities typically do so with a price tag attached (attend Bible study in order to skate). I'd like to think that at Skyline, we offer people Christ by living his love in such a way that people won't have to be coerced into falling in love with God.

In short - the time is right! Thank you for being a part of this dream.
Bo

The Inside Scoop for "Let it Snow" Sunday

Sermon Notes for Luke 6:43-45

Key verse: Luke 6:45 “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.”

Watch the sermon online!

Our passage today comes from the section in Luke called the Sermon on the Plain and is parallel to the more familiar Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Here, Jesus talks about the nature of discipleship as more than just words. He invites us into a relationship with God which will change our hearts and in turn change our behavior. Recent studies on religion show that Christian leaders used to believe that the change pattern began with belief: believe, behave, belong. In other words, people believe in Jesus first, which changes the way that they behave which in turn gives them a feeling of belonging. However, postmodern people prefer to belong first; they long to be in authentic relationships which then impact how they live. The pattern now looks more like this: belong, behave, believe. As people relate to others and get a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, they begin to live differently which then leads to seeing life differently, through the eyes of belief. Jesus seems to imply this relational-based pattern here: a relationship with God changes our hearts which changes our behavior and then leads us to see Jesus for who he really is. Faith involves more than just saying the right words or believing the right things or even keeping the right laws. Instead, the relationship with God changes the very essence of who we are.

What does this have to do with our topic on measuring success? Many times we become tempted to succeed at all costs because it makes us look good and we think we can do good things. But, if we lose our integrity in the process, we accomplish nothing. We may all nod our heads in agreement with this, but living it is harder than it seems. The world does not reward doing what is right; it rewards doing what is profitable and what looks good. So, we find bankers facing lawsuits because they stretched or withheld the truth in order to make profits. What about ourselves? Do we cheat on our taxes because it gives us more money? Do we step on people in order to promote ourselves? What is the cost of all of this? Jesus also asks: “What good does it do for a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul?”

So, how can we keep our soul intact? Jesus says its about bearing good fruit, which comes from a good and healthy heart. In reflecting on this passage, several others come to mind. Read the verses below and reflect on how Jesus may be calling you to cultivate the love in your heart in order to be successful in heaven’s eyes.

Jeremiah 17:10 (The Message) “I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be."

Matthew 7:16-20 (New Living Translation) “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.”

Matthew 12:33-35 (New Living Translation) “A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.”

Psalm 1:1-3 (New Living Translation) “Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.”

Ephesians 3:16-19 (New Living Translation) “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

Ultimately, then, we do not make our tree good; a relationship with Jesus does. It changes our hearts and our lives, our actions and our beliefs. Then, we find true success in the eyes of our Creator. How might Jesus be calling you to cultivate this heart of love? How can you spend time basking in that unlimited resource? How can you let that love overflow into your words and actions and relationships daily? How can our outer lives reflect our inner hearts?

This is Skyline. Where the light of God's hope dawns.

This first week of Advent at Skyline, my days were filled with a mixed bag of prayers, a hospital visit, scripture study, several meetings and calls to members and friends of the church and another pastor, as well as a negotiation with a contractor for tree removal and some slight assistance for the repair of our boiler. After Sunday's miraculous worship filled with baptism, music and celebration, the days of the rest of the week have been a decided mix of the mundane and routine by comparison.

A pastor and member of St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Wilmington have invited me to participate in their series of Lenten reflections next Spring, entitled "God's Inclusive Love: No Limits" primarily because they had heard of our decision to welcome LGBT persons with open arms at Skyline. Our conversation has become a time of reflection for me of the cost and the blessing of following One who calls us to bear a cross for love of the world. I have especially been drawn to the many stories of refugees from the war of hatred and exclusion who have been drawn to our community of faith, and who have transformed both our community and our experience of God's love and grace.

My favorite statements include one who celebrated the community "saving his life", another who shared that our community had revived her nearly extinguished hope that she could love Jesus among a community of people who loved Jesus - and who loved her. When I am troubled by the thoughts of the cost of our discipleship, I remember those who had given up on the church and who came to experience God again among us. Several Sundays ago, a friend put his arm around me, looked back into the sanctuary full of followers of Jesus and said: "They won't let God die, will they?!"

This is Skyline. Where the light of God's hope dawns.

We met with a truncated Staff Parish Relations Committee Tuesday evening to draft a Profile of our church for the Bishop and Cabinet to review as they consider whom to appoint as pastor of Skyline in July 2010 (for the past 13 years, the Bishop has appointed Vicki and me to serve for another year here). We prepare the Profile every year, and this year we celebrated some miraculous ministries, hopes, and descriptions of the people God has gathered into a church called Skyline.

What are the ministries we celebrate here and hope to expand?

Contemporary, experiential worship services; diverse music ministry; outreach to unchurched people in a postmodern context; children’s ministry that celebrates the presence and participation of children in worship and in the life of the church
We hope to expand our outreach to all persons seeking a deeper relationship with God, especially those who are marginalized in society and in the church; youth ministry in and beyond the church; and serving as the “town center” for the community of Pike Creek.

what are the short-term ministry goals at Skyline: (1) Youth Skate Park; (2) Outreach and Advocacy Ministry for Justice Issues in our Community; (3) Volunteer Center for Missions; (4) Mentoring ministry for at-risk youth; (5) Wellness Center for spiritual and physical health; (6) Alternative Worship in an emergent/post-modern style and setting.

What are the pastoral characteristics most helpful in Skyline's ministry?

Flexibility, delegation, and empowerment of lay partners in creating experiential, contemporary worship; openness to receive Christians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered as full members of the church; ability to nurture all members toward expressing God’s calling in their lives in and beyond the church; embracing shared ministry with laity, in a church that celebrates the dispersion of power and initiative.

On Wednesday evening, I gathered with the the choir to rehearse a song they will sing during our Festival of Light concert next Saturday, Dec. 12 at Skyline. After sharing and celebrating our joys and concerns in prayer, we sang a celebration not only of the birth of the Christ child at Christmas, but in every heart and in every moment of our lives. We sing in the hope that our song will bring God glory and draw especially those people who have given up on hope.

This is Skyline. Where the light of God's hope dawns.