Sermon Reflection | August 11, 2013

Read: Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Listen: By Faith
Dig a Little Deeper: 

•      The Author refers to the Book of Hebrews as a "word of exhortation" in Hebrews 13:22, which is the same phrase used in Acts 13:15 to describe a synagogue sermon of Paul.  So while it's often called a letter, it's really, in the author's own words, a sermon.  Interesting fact to share at your next cocktail party. 
•      A note about authorship.  I like the way it's described in my New Oxford Annotated Bible:
• "When the New Testament was being formed, this anonymous sermon was attributed to Paul, presumably because of the growing authority of Paul's reputation as a letter writer.  The early church leaders Clement, Tertullian, and Origen, however, acknowledged differences in style and theology between Hebrews and Paul's own letters.  Clement argued that Luke translated Pual's Hebrew original into Greek, while Origen suggested that a disciple of Paul wrote the letter based on Paul's notes.  Modern interpreters have suggested other authors, including Apollos and Priscilla (see Acts 18.24-26).  There is no sufficient historical evidence, however, to identify any person named in the New Testament as the author" (New Oxford Annotated Bible intro to Hebrews, New Testament pg 369).
• Many if not all churches struggle with finding the commitment necessary to get dreams and ideas off the ground.  We see so much potential, so much hope, and have so much faith in our community but each thing we want to do takes action, organization, planning, brainstorming, conversation, etc. etc etc...  I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and that's why in this sermon I hoped to really prod people to consider bringing their ideas to the surface and not just handing them off but helping to execute them and make them happen.  
• I wonder, what ideas might you have for our church?  When was the last time you said, "We should..." about our church, whether it was "we should change that lightbulb" or "we should bring about the Kingdom of God," and what can you do to make it happen?  I'd love to hear your ideas.  I'd love to cheer you on and help you where I can.  

Introducing Our New Christian Education Director!

Hi Church! 

After being so blessed by a wonderful interim Christian Education Director, we have hired Olivia Wetzel to fill the permanent position.  Olivia was the obvious choice for us, as she has been such a great nursery attendant, working with our other nursery attendant Nalani for the last several months.  Our little ones think she and Nalani are just awesome, and we're really glad that Olivia can step up and work with them more often throughout the week.  Olivia will be delivering children's messages, teaching Sunday School, continuing her work in the nursery, and coordinating family/church family activities.  She will also be posting monthly on this blog. This position is in constant re-definition right now as we work to understand what Christian Education means in our community, and Olivia and I are excited to work together with the Christian Education Committee to make that happen.  

Please come meet her and get to know her during coffee hour on Sunday, August 25th.  

Here is the introduction that Olivia contributed to the August edition of The Spire, our church newsletter. 

"Hello UCC Community!

            My name is Olivia Wetzel and I will be serving as the Director of Youth Christian Education! I just finished my undergraduate career at Ripon College and I am currently a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the field of professional school counseling. During the school year, I provided nursery care to the church community, but I am extremely excited to take on this new position as a Christian educator. One of my favorite things about the UCC church is the open and caring environment. In this environment, I feel that I have the unconditional support to help inspire the youth of the church community to engage in their own faith journeys.

            I am greatly looking forward to working with not only the youth of the church, but also its adult members in discussing different topics in faith and also organizing events for the church community as a whole. To kick off the start of Sunday School, I would love to meet you at coffee hour after the service on August 25^th! Hope to see you there! Continue to have a safe and fun summer!" -- Olivia

Peace to you all!
Pastor Joanna

            

Sermon Reflection | August 4, 2013

Read: Psalm 49 and Luke 12:13-21
Listen: The Good Life
Dig a Little Deeper: 

     It is perhaps no coincidence that I talked about letting go of material goods just after receiving an accepted offer on a house.  If I remember correctly, I preached on a similar thing shortly after moving here ( Click Here: Do I Own Too Much?). 

     Kate Huey wrote a beautiful reflection this week (she always does, and I always send you to her.  I just love her words.)  In it she includes this great, simple little side note: 

"My brother John was telling me about his recent efforts at "simplifying" - that is, getting rid of too much stuff. He said that he and his wife decided to ask themselves two questions to help them decide whether to keep something: 1. "Do we really need this?" and 2. "Really?"Good questions for the man in Jesus' story, and for us as well."

Keeping the entry short this week.  Come worship with us this coming Sunday!  Or any Sunday!  Have a blessed week this week, everybody.

Sermon Reflection | July 28, 2013

Hello Church! 

Let me tell you some things that are exciting me:

• Our youth had a brat fry fundraiser on Saturday and they raised $637.35!!  Along with a Matching Grant from the Webster Foundation, which matches up to $500, we were able to just barely break our goal of $1100!  How cool is that?  I'm really proud of them.  
• With this money, they will be going to Chicago to participate in a weekend of mission experiences including serving at soup kitchens and food distribution centers, witnessing the wealth disparity in the city of Chicago as they drive through both wealthy neighborhoods and neighborhoods in poverty, and on Sunday morning attending worship at Lawndale Community Church, a church much different in worship style and size from our own.  The program that is leading this trip is called Center for Student Missions.  You can learn more about it here.
• The community-wide VBS is coming up! I'm anxious to see how this goes, as it will be my first year seeing it in action.  The goal is to host 200 of the communities children in this way, and so far there are already 133 registered!  If you're interested, go here to register: http://www.riponvbs.org/
• We have officially hired our new, permanent Christian Education director, Olivia Wetzel!  Her job at the church is to work with the Sunday School kids and help develop opportunities for fellowship for everyone, but especially for young families, in the church (ie: ice skating, trivia nights, movie nights, retreats, etc.).  Olivia is a recent graduate of Ripon College and is going on to get her Master's Degree at the University of Oshkosh in professional school counseling.  She'll be posting here on the blog once a month, so look out for her posts!

Okay, what's really cool is that this is a lot of stuff about youth and children!  I like that kinda stuff because it's an area where I see our church evolving in the next few years, and I'm feeling confident that we have the right people-- from volunteers to paid staff like Olivia-- to lead the way.  

Now, sermon reflection. 

Read: Psalm 85 and Luke 11:1-13

Listen: Help me and Thank you

Dig a Little Deeper:  

     The book that I referred to during my sermon, "Help Thanks Wow" by Anne Lamott can be found here on Amazon.  I might suggest checking your local bookstore first (I see nothing wrong with Amazon, but I always try local first!) but if you don't find it there or don't have a chance to get out anytime soon, now you have the link.  Also, Amazon has a Kindle Edition. 

     There are about 10 million ways to talk about this passage from Luke.  I do have an appreciation for the preachers who dissect the Lord's prayer and help us remember why we say it every single Sunday.  I even appreciate the preachers who do a sermon series on it, using one line from the Lord's prayer each Sunday for several weeks.  But it didn't seem like quite the right time for that here, this week.  Instead I wanted to talk about asking God to help us in times when we feel completely overwhelmed.  I've met a lot of overwhelmed people since coming to Ripon.  This is a town full of people who DO THINGS.  Lots and lots of things.  And while I know they are often fulfilled and glad to serve, I also see people get overwhelmed more often than not. 

     So I wanted to share my image of God the Organizer.  My new favorite image, at least for this point in my life.  This is the God who sorts and stacks and arranges and helps to make our lives make more sense.  I hope you like this image of God too.  

Images of God

I am not in the writing mood today but I decided to share with you through images 4 ways I've seen God working in my life this past week.

Sunday: Admittedly, I've been out of town a number of weekends this summer and haven't spent as much time as I would like at church on Sunday. But, I had the privilege of attending worship this past Sunday and certainly felt God's presence. I enjoyed Pastor Joanna's sermon about Mary and Martha and appreciated talking about our "Mary and Martha tendencies" with my own Mary (mom) and sister Laura. The worship service outdoors gave me some "Mary" time, because I could finally focus on God.

 

Monday: This is a picture of the Green Lake County Government Building. This is a new home for me this summer. No, not the jail, but the health department! As much fun as I've had doing interny things at the Health Department, I've learned from this job that being healthy is far more than not weighing too much or exercising enough. Being healthy means having a well body, mind and soul. Not only should we, as Christians, work hard to strengthen our own souls, but we should be helping others. According to a 2012 Green Lake County Community Needs Health Assessment, 20% of County adults reported inadequate social support. As a faith community we are fortunate to have a strong network of relationships at First Congo, but I've learned that there are many more people in our area that lack loving support from others.

Monday: One Tuesday I finished one of my official favorite books of all time, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man who would Cure the World. Dr. Farmer is the man in the photo on the left. I've talked my family's ears off about how inspirational this biography is. Dr. Farmer is a physician at the Brigham in Cambridge and a rural clinic in Haiti, infectious disease specialist, founder of "Partners in Health," and Harvard Med MD/PhD Medical Anthropologist. He's lived a life of devotion to helping poor Haitians and Peruvians and prisoners in Russia with diseases such as TB, HIV, and MDR. At some point in the book, I began to feel like I will never come close to Dr. Farmer's accomplishments; and I likely never will. But Farmer addresses this worry. The author writes that Farmer made it clear he doesn't want others to strive to fit the Farmer mold. But he wants them to do something. In fact, we need  to do something.

Tuesday: On my way to Fond du Lac today, I saw lanes of clouds like these from the road. I have never seen clouds so organized before. The angels must surely be doing some housekeeping!

God is everywhere. I am blessed. Amen.

What's in a Name, Take Two.

Once upon a time we wrote this entry (well, Stephanie wrote it, but with a common understanding) about why we chose the name "The Thinking Church."

At the time, we all thought that the name really spoke about who we were, a group of church members who want to ask questions and seek deeper answers.  As time moved on, I received critiques from several people-- church members and non-church members-- saying that we sound like we think we're better than everyone else by having that name.  At first I thought well that's not true at all; we don't think that and I shrugged the critiques off.  After a while, especially when I saw the wide variety of people who were bringing the same feedback to me, I began to realize that with this title we were projecting an image of ourselves that wasn't representative of who we are, or at least who we're striving to be. 

We are A Thinking Church, but we're not THE Thinking Church.  I know a lot of thinking churches.  I know Thinking Churches that are fundamental and Thinking Churches that are progressive and everything in between.  We're a lot of other things too.  We're a questioning church.  We're a searching church. We're a worshiping church.  We're a visioning church.  We're a welcoming church.  We're a laughing church.  We're a crying church.  We're a creating church.  We're a challenging church.  And oh dear...when I really stop and think about it...isn't just about every church all of those things?  So how can we possibly say that we have the monopoly on any of them?  

So, here's what else we are: we're a church of Grace, and in that we should be a church willing to admit that sometimes we make mistakes.  So I'm going to admit it-- calling ourselves "The Thinking Church" is a mistake.  And I hope you'll all be full of Grace and let us change the name to something we are and nobody else is:  First Congo of Ripon-- short, of course, for The First Congregational Church of Ripon.  We, among other churches, are a church who is "using heads, lifting hearts."  We're still thinking people, but we're not THE ONLY thinking people, and I hope you'll see that in the words written in this little corner of the internet world.  

Peace and Grace to all of you, from A Thinker, but not The Thinker, 

-- Pastor Joanna 

P.S.  We are not changing the URL (Riponthinkingchurch.blogspot.com) at this point because that address has been published in several places and we don't want to lose people who might still type it in as they originally knew it.  That change may happen in the future, and when/if it does we will make sure to make an announcement.

A Response to General Synod 29 | Sunday July 7, 2013

Read: Psalm 30 and Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Listen: Why I Love Church (There was a sound glitch in the beginning, but it picks up after a few seconds)

Watch: Here is a slightly longer version of the video I was planning on showing instead of summarizing it myself.  You can see the meditation in its entirety, along with Rita Nakashima Brock, here at 1:09:00.