Mile Marker #83: We are the PSWR

by Revs. Don and Susan Dewey, Co-Regional Ministers

“All of you are Christ’s body, and each one is a part of it.” ~ 1 Corinthians 12:27

As much as we hate to let it go, summer is fading and the fall season is unfolding. As fall begins, our beautifully warm days give way to cooler ones; vacations and summer fun around the beach or pool give way to family gatherings around festive tables and beautifully decorated trees.

For us in the PSWR, fall also marks the time for Regional Assembly and the wonderful opportunity to gather with our church family around the Region. This year’s theme, WE ARE THE PSWR, focuses on the beauty, the diversity and the blessing we share as part of this Regional family of Disciples of Christ.

We would like to highlight just a few of the exciting and fun things that will be a part of this year’s Regional Assembly. In the past we have been inspired and challenged by outstanding speakers/preachers who represent the wide diversity of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from National leaders and speakers, like our General Minister and President Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins, as well as renowned preachers like our own Rev. Jose Morales!

This year, given our theme WE ARE THE PSWR, we are going to be blessed with speakers/preachers right here in our own Region! Four powerful and inspiring worship experiences are being created for this years Assembly. A key part in each one will be the “message” portion that will be done with a different panel or what we are calling “curated testimonies” at each worship service by pastors and laity from our congregations representing the diversity of our great Region.

Our scripture focus is 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 reminding us that we all have been given gifts from the Holy Spirit, though different, we are still a part of the one body of Christ. Therefore, we will hear reflections/testimonies from our speakers on four different questions taken from this scriptural text:

·      What does one church one body mean to you?
·      How do we honor all the different parts of the body?
·      What does it mean that Jesus is the head of the body?
·      How do we care for the body when different parts have different needs?

Another wonderful highlight for our Assembly will be our Bible study scholar the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon. Dr. Kinnamon will be exploring each morning the deeper understandings of our 1 Corinthians 12 passage and what it means for us as members of the body of Christ.

We are also excited to announce that there will be 40 different workshop offerings to inspire and enhance the ministries of our churches for greater witness. There will be workshops on social media, going Green, Interfaith connections, justice concerns, healthy lifestyles, Elders, Mission First and many others. In addition there will be workshops for our Spanish and Korean speaking communities at each of the four offered times. New this year will be a 4-part Camp Track for strengthening our camping program.

We are also excited about this years Children’s Assembly program and our amazing Youth Assembly program – “Disciples Go!” so please get your children and youth registered for these wonderful opportunities.

All our pastors will gather together on Friday evening for dinner and fellowship and to share in a delightful time of fun as some of our fellow pastors share their “talents” in a light hearted program of “Clergy Got Talent”.

We hope you are planning to attend this year’s Regional Assembly as we gather together as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ and as members of the PSWR (Disciples of Christ). To register simply go to our Regional website at www.disciplespswr.org  and click on Events. Then scroll down to Regional Assembly, October 2016 and click on the page.  If you have any questions or need help, don’t hesitate to call the Regional Church office at 626-296-0385 and we’d be happy to assist you.

We are honored to serve this Region with all its beauty, diversity and blessing for WE ARE THE PSWR!

Together on the journey,

Don and Susan

Co-Regional Ministers, PSWR

10 PRACTICAL WAYS TO SAY "THANKS" TO YOUR PASTOR

by Matt Rosine, Director of Employer Services
Pension Fund of the Christian Church

Somewhere in history, some group decided October is Minister's Appreciation Month. It's also Hispanic Heritage Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I can see how it may get overlooked. But if you know a minister, I bet she or he could use a word of thanks, so read on:

Your minister doesn't have to just be your pastor, but also your squash partner, the bassist in your cover band, the retired fellow you see reading every Tuesday at Starbucks or the person who works at the church down the road. Whoever it is, it helps to say thanks. Here are 10 practical things you can do to say thanks to a minister:

1. Leave an anonymous note (a kind one!) under the windshield wiper of their car. Minister's love anonymous Thank You notes - they'll probably even refer to it in their sermon the next week!
2. Give them a $5 gift card for iTunes or Amazon.com. Music and books are stress relievers for a lot of ministers.
3. Drop off a plant or a bouquet of flowers for the minister's office.
4. Make a casserole or pie (or pick up a bucket of chicken) and drop it off at his/her house after work. (Just drop it off - don't go in. Their house is just as messy as yours! They'll be grateful for the gesture.)
5. Plant a tree in the church yard as a symbol of the congregation's gratitude.
6. If you attend a church, take a handful of blank "thank you" notes to church with you this Sunday. Then hand them out to other worshipers before the service starts. Tell them it's "Minister's Appreciation Month" and invite them to write a brief note to the pastor and drop it in the offering plate.
7. Get the youth group together and play a (loving) prank on the pastor. A few years ago, my office was foiled by the youth group and I smiled about it for a month!
8. If you're a musical person, recruit some choir members or other singers and dedicate a worship song to your minister.
9. Take a video camera with you to a nursing home and invite homebound members to record their words of gratitude for the pastor. (You'll probably want to call ahead and let them know what you're planning to do!) You can then show the video during a luncheon or just slide it under the preacher's door for them to watch.
10. Perform a non-random act of kindness for your minister. Take a hose to the church parking lot and wash her car while she's in the office. Or stop by his house and rake leaves or mow the yard while he's at work.
11. (BONUS) - just say thanks. Take a moment to tell the minister one way that he or she has been helpful to you in the last year - no matter how small it is. Just say it - your minister needs to hear it!

Mile Marker #82: HOPE

By Revs. Don and Susan Dewey, Co-Regional Ministers

“The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” ~Psalm 147:11

Hope is subversive according to Old Testament Scholar and Theologian Walter Brueggemann. He writes, “Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality, which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.”

In the face of our current political divisiveness and growing proliferation of hateful rhetoric and violence, hope that envisions a more grace-filled and compassionate future can be both inspiring and empowering.

One could not help but be inspired by the incredible success of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, or “The Final Five,” at the Olympics in Rio last month. Those five amazing women showed us the power of camaraderie and community across racial, cultural, economic, and religious lines. They showed us that when marginalized people lift each other up with love and laughter, even in the face of hate, everyone benefits. For us at least, “The Final Five” were a sign of hope in our turbulent world today.

In the midst of the shifting sands of our religious climate, how do we as the church offer relevance and hope to our communities affected by brokenness and fear? How do we demonstrate an alternative reality based on restorative justice and love?

Again Dr. Brueggemann invites us to consider the ancient practice of lament.  “The surprise of Israel’s prayer is that the extravagance of praise does not silence or censor Israel’s need, but seems to legitimate and authorize a second extravagance, the extravagance of complaint, lament, accusation, petition, indignation, assault, and insistence.” To genuinely lament the shifts in our current reality from what has been frees us to be ready to embrace the new and more hopeful future God is inviting us into.

We often listen to voices that tell us the church is dying or no longer relevant. The truth is that the church is alive and well and even growing in many parts of the world. What appears to be dying is our western Anglo-Saxon style of church. Our traditional models of church are giving way to new models and expressions of church that are reaching younger generations.

We must be willing to give one another permission to genuinely lament practices and styles of our corporate worship and ministry that have sustained us and that have been the primary source of our security and strength as faith communities as new forms and ministries emerge. It is not that these former ways are no longer valid or important, rather we must be open to new expressions and practices that are reconnecting us to the communities we are entrusted to serve.

The medium is changing, but the message is still the same – love, grace, compassion, justice and peace lead to life.

Fear arises when the current arrangements are being called into question and are no longer working. With fear there is always a push to hold onto the way things have always been even when those ways run counter to our call to love and justice. Hope on the other hand inspires us to imagine an alternative future where God’s shalom is restored for all.

Brueggemann writes, “It is there within and among us, for we are ordained of God to be people of hope. It is there by virtue of our being in the image of the promissory God. It is sealed there in the sacrament of baptism. It is dramatized in the Eucharist—‘until he come.’ It is the structure of every creed that ends by trusting in God’s promises. Hope is the decision to which God invites Israel, a decision against despair, against permanent consignment to chaos (Isa 45:18), oppression, barrenness, and exile.”

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). What was new was not the command to love – the Hebrew Scriptures were full of such commands – but the command to love as Jesus did – expansively, unconditionally, and inclusively.

In his ministry and teachings, Jesus broke down the barriers he encountered and refused to limit God’s favor to a chosen few. Jesus demonstrated in his life and in his death that love cannot be stopped. If God is love, then it is a love that cannot be fully measured, cannot be fully known, cannot be fully comprehended; and it is a love that includes every person. Thinking back to the opening of the recent Olympics in Rio, and watching the parade of participants from countries all over the world as they made their way into the stadium, I imagined this to be a hopeful image of what God would desire for us as human beings; coming together to demonstrate our best in love and justice.

May we be bearers of God’s hope for our world that is in desperate need of this Good News!

Together on the journey,

Don and Susan
Your Co-Regional Ministers

Getting Comfortable at the Table

By Jessika Perez, Hatchery Innovator

I was sitting at an otherwise empty table waiting for a group of DOC ministers to arrive so I could talk to them about my experience with Hatchery LA. Saying I was nervous would be an understatement. It would probably be more accurate to say that I was seconds away from hyperventilating. For some reason, my anxiety does not schedule appointments to meet with me at convenient times. Thankfully, another Hatchery person noticed and asked if I wanted to go over a few things. He started going through some general networking tips before I interrupted him.

“Thanks, I appreciate that. But, what I’m worried about right now is that I don’t know what to do with all this.” I pointed to my place setting. There was more silverware in front of me than I had ever seen in my life. I’ve had the standard knife, spoon and fork. But nothing like the hoard of silverware mocking me smugly just then. Obviously, that wasn’t really the issue. It was really how I interpreted and related to it, influenced by my own experiences. The silverware became a symbol of how I felt that I probably didn’t belong in that room. That was clearly not the silverware’s fault. It was what I brought and projected onto the silverware.

The guy seemed a little taken aback for a second but then replied, “Oh… well… I wouldn’t really worry about that.” I was relieved that no one else seemed to focus on silverware technique when they arrived. It ended up being a wonderful evening and I really appreciated the opportunity to have some meaningful conversations. For me the takeaway was not, “just try new things and all obstacles are really in your head.” No and no. But it was helpful to realize what was influencing me in that moment. Also, I’m not saying that if we just sit around a table together, all problems will be solved. That wasn’t even true for this friendly, low-stakes situation. Here’s another story from the very same dinner.

One of the people at the table began talking about a “unique call to ministry” that someone had received to a particular church. Some context, I grew up in the Assemblies of God, a pentecostal denomination. I was interested and asked not only about that person’s call to ministry, but several people around the table. The expressions I received seemed a little confused. But they kindly listed for me the different churches in which they had served. I’m sure that I also had a confused look on my face. I felt like we were misunderstanding something, but didn’t know exactly what. Later, I asked about the situation and was told that the “call” being talked about in this specific case was a phone call. A phone call from a committee letting the pastor know they had the job. Sure. That seems obvious and makes complete sense. But my automatic and unconsciously made assumption was that the phrase, “call to ministry” is talking about a personal, spiritual experience where a person senses God's direction. Now, I've heard some DOC folks talk about a calling from God... and growing up pentecostal, I still distinctly remember having a phone. It was a classic case of misunderstanding.

In the dinner stories I shared, the worst thing that happened on my end was that I felt awkward. Twice. At least for me, that's a good dinner though! Hopefully it sets a quirky and still relatable scene. Being a human with other humans means being with the various relationships and events, past and present, that influence how we experience and understand the world. Not the world abstractly. But like getting a little freaked out by large amounts of formal silverware. Or like understanding a seemingly simple phrase or word in very different ways. It gets messy. I think that's what is hopeful about sharing our meals and stories. There's the possibility to be welcome, known and loved. It's essential and beautiful. Whenever I'm asked about the Disciples, I always talk about an open Communion Table. It'sa challenge to work toward “our daily bread” rather than settling for “my daily bread.” It's making sure I'm showing up at tables where I may be uncomfortable and making space for others as well. I've loved the opportunity to be able to sit down at different tables in the South Bay and LA region. I'm looking forward to this next year as I'll be creating a platform to share these stories and working alongside neighbors in addressing food system issues locally. If you'd like to know more... and especially if you'd like to share your story and and a meal or coffee with me, I'd love to connect. My e-mail is jessika@hatcheryla.com.

Mile Marker #81: Seek Higher Ground

By Revs. Don and Susan Dewey, Co-Regional Ministers

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

~ Matthew 5:43-48

This perhaps is the wildest, craziest and certainly the scariest election year in our memory. Just when you think you’ve heard or seen it all, something else pops out to totally stun you and make you wonder what is going to happen to this country? Why are so many people filled with anger, hatred, and vitriol toward one another?

At the same time we are again witnessing another historic event happening in our lifetime. The first was in 2008, when we elected the first African-American President and now a major political party has named the first woman as their Nominee for President! Whatever your political persuasion, this is historic.

We are also seeing significant fractures in both major parties as we move further down this election road. Both parties are asking for unity, but as yet it seems elusive within these two battling parties and certainly far out of reach for our country as a whole. One wonders if we are seeing the beginning of our country’s implosion? Will we ever be able to see ourselves as “one nation under God” again?

As Disciples of Christ, we have boldly claimed that “unity is our polar star” and yet we too have experienced fractures throughout our history as a movement. Even now, under the leadership of our General Minister and President Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, we proclaim, “We are a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.” We have to admit that sometimes as wonderful as that sounds, it too seems very elusive.

Twenty some years ago, at a gathering of city leaders in San Diego, Jim Wallis, President of Sojourners, speaking then about the polarization occurring in our political arena, was trying to offer a Christian perspective for bringing unity to our political divisiveness. He said the problem was that both parties, in trying to find common ground, refused to compromise and find ways to work together for the greater good. He then said, as Christians, our call is not just to support one side or the other in hopes of finding common ground, but rather to rise above and challenge both sides to seek higher ground. He went on then to name important values that are found in all major religions, and challenged us to hold one another to these values if we truly sought unity and wholeness for our country.

We will never forget the sermon years ago that the Rev. Dick Friedline shared as an Interim during an election year. He told his congregation that the next Sunday he was going to tell them how to vote! You can imagine the controversy that stirred up and the conversations that occurred all that week. There were some who threatened to have him fired if he told them how to vote and others who were hoping he would be supporting their perspective.

When that Sunday came, the sanctuary was full and everyone was anxious to hear what he would say. He began by acknowledging everyone’s concerns and then said he was not going to be endorsing a particular candidate. He did however say, I do want to tell you how to vote, or more importantly, how to decide how to vote. First pray, then study the issues, read your scriptures and pray again.

He said, as Christians, we are first and foremost to be guided by love. He went on to name other Christian values like caring for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable in our society, welcoming the stranger and praying for our enemies. Dick shared that these are the values to look for in any candidate that you might consider voting for.

We think Dick had good advice then, and for us now. This is a crucial time in the life of our nation. How do we select the next President who will guide and lead our country? What do we look for in this person who can help heal our division, our brokenness and our distrust of the other? We believe, like Jim Wallis, that we are being invited to seek higher ground, to call upon our better natures as we enter this election to build one another up, not tear each other down.

Our nation seems to be in the grip of fear, which leads to distrust, suspicion, hatred and violence. Unfortunately, there are those in our political and religious arenas that are flaming the fire of fear. Yet our scriptures tell us “perfect love casts out all fear.” We must not let fear control or paralyze us into inaction but rather let love embolden us to choose what is good, to speak with kindness, to act with graciousness, and to seek justice.

Last week at the Democratic convention, Disciples of Christ Pastor, Rev. William Barber II called for moral values to prevail over partisan politics. He expressed concern for the “heart” of America, and called us to become the “moral defibrillators” that must “shock” the nation’s sick heart to its best moral values of love, mercy, and justice. It was a call to seek higher ground.

Jesus too calls us to seek higher ground. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Friends, as you contemplate your vote this November, you are invited to first pray, then study the issues, listen carefully to each candidate, see where they hold up our Christian values, read your scriptures, and again pray for God’s guidance. Let us strive to seek higher ground.

Together on the journey,

Don and Susan

Your Co-Regional Ministers