PSWR's Church in Society Committee: "Where's Your Church?"

“Where’s your church?” It’s an innocent question, usually prompting a geographical answer such as “At the corner of Moorpark Street and Colfax Avenue.” While that’s a standard answer, we in the PSWR’s Church in Society Committee take the prepositional phrase “in society” very seriously: we recognize we are called to be the church, the living Body of Christ, beyond the walls of any building. 

Our 2021 MLK Scholarship Awardee Jaimyon Parker, a Graphic Design major, created our CIS logo with input from our Committee: 

The benevolent blue wings of the Holy Spirit support a Green urban environment framed subtly with a cursive “CIS” (like eyeglasses to watch over us) while lifting up the DOC Chalice, all demonstrating our active, Spirit-led involvement in the world outside the church walls. 

We achieve our mission by overseeing the annual PSWR Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration (set for 21 January 2024), the MLK Jr. Scholarship, and the Disciple of the Year award. Additionally, CIS receives and reviews applications, then awards the PSWR Reconciliation and Camile Christian Church grants every year. CIS also promotes the Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, DC, every April. (See below for links.) 

This past year, our MLK Scholarship recipient Keshun Elijah Valentine of Abundant Life CC and a freshman member of a suburban college football team, faced some direct racial discrimination on campus from older folks in the area. In his scholarship application, he wrote: "I believe that this scholarship award can push me to further my education at this school and show the [suburban] community . . . that black men could succeed and perform at a high degree at a University such as [this]." We in CIS very well know the maxim of American poet Walt Whitman from “Song of the Open Road”: 

(I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, 
We convince by our presence.) 

Keshun’s integrating presence beyond his church’s geographical home helps the campus transform and overcome racism, and we are proud to support him. 

One of our Reconciliation grants went to BeLOVED CC, pastored by Rev. Dale Suggs, and helped support this important 3-part series: 

In addition, after receiving a CIS Camile CC grant, Rev. Dr. Linda Barkman wrote: 

“Thanks to God’s grace and to the Camile Christian Church Grant, the Christmas gift bag project for the women incarcerated at the California Institution for Women (CIW) prison in Chino, California, was a total success. Nine hundred sixty bags were delivered to the prison on Tuesday, December 20th. It has now been confirmed by correspondence from current CIW prisoners that the bags were actually distributed prior to Christmas, and that there were a sufficient number for each and every woman who was incarcerated at CIW on that date. 

“Approximately fifty volunteers participated in the December 17, 2022, bag stuffing event. . . . [T]his year each bag also contained a Christmas postcard on which a handwritten message of care, hope, and respect had been individually written by a volunteer.” For many of the incarcerated women, this was the ONLY Christmas greeting they received, and CIS helped make it possible. 

As you can see, the Church in Society Committee takes our outreach mission with delight as we spread the Gospel guided by the Holy Spirit, upon Whose wings we find support. So, where’s your church? We answer, “Wherever the Holy Spirit is present.” 

For full information, applications, and submission dates, use these links: docpswr.org/grants-scholarships 
https://advocacydays.org/ and cis@docpswr.org 

Breaking Bread, June 2023

“Responding to our need/s, building, and finding time for retreat along the way.”

In this short article, I wanted to share with you a few pictures of my presence in a variety of places on behalf of our region. You might enjoy these smiling faces of students, much like in your congregations preparing for graduation.  I was glad to attend the Disciples Seminary Foundation’s Certificate of Ministry Studies Program graduation held at Iglesia de Sun Valley.

Grateful for the many invitations to visit and preach in our congregations. I’m pictured here with Pastors Isay Alvarez and Tania Vargas, Primera Iglesia Discipulos de Cristo de Vista.

There are more capital improvements happening at Loch Leven Camp & Retreat Center, Mentone, CA. We continue in a spirit of gratitude for the many donors who continue to support our legacy.  We’re excited and looking forward to another great summer camp program, this year!

There is so much to share and capture for you. We’ll write more robustly, next month. Here is one more photo, a time for retreat.  Hope you too, can find time for a retreat and rest.  More to come.

We continue to invite us all, more earnestly, to prayer for each other.  Here is our prayer calendar: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53279756e4b07a87f2c725f8/t/6398b98e4478a078ef24ab88/1670953358264/2023PrayerCalendar.pdf

Let us prayerfully, “Arise, Anew.” 

Blessings,
Richie

DSF Update, May 2023

Disciples Seminary Foundation (DSF) has undergone a number of significant changes in the past few years but continues to fulfill its mission “to support the formation of emerging theological leaders” seeking to be theologically informed and spiritually grounded for the church and a variety of communities they serve.

DSF awards tuition-based scholarships to Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ students who attend one of the DSF’s partner schools. As we look to a new academic year, 2023-2024, DSF partner schools will include Claremont School of Theology, soon to be located in a portion of the historic Westwood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles; Iliff School of Theology located in Denver; and Pacific School of Religion located in Berkeley. 

In this graduation season, DSF has eight seminary and doctoral graduates, 28 Certificate of Ministry Studies (CMS) graduates, and eight Diploma of Ministry Studies (DMS) graduates. You may see photos from these celebrations on our social media pages, and you can also read about all our graduates in our upcoming Graduate Newsletter, which will be published later this summer.

In the months ahead, we will continue to get things in order as we prepare for new executive leadership. With new leadership comes the possibility for new vision. Because I know how significant DSF has been in the lives of many since its formation 62 years ago, I am excited and ready to see what the future holds for us. As I prepare to finish my call as Interim Executive Director of DSF, I say thank you. Thank you for this call and the confidence that the gifts and skills needed to move DSF forward were embedded in this call. 

Much heart,

Rev. Belva Brown Jordan
Interim Executive Director

Global Ministries Southern California News

The Covid pandemic altered worship and meetings for most everyone.  Recently, our Global Ministries Southern California Team met to discuss updates with our identified mission partners and set some future goals. 

We hope some regional churches enjoyed a visit from Jeffrey Mensendiak reporting about his life in Japan and the ongoing recovery of more than ten years since the Sendai earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster.  We welcome your posts from those who met with Jeffrey!

In the coming year, we hope to visit at least one of our mission partners in Tijuana.  All are welcome.  One partner, Albergue Las Memorias, a shelter for people living with addictions and HIV, protected their residents quite well during the Covid pandemic.  Tuberculosis is a problem in Tijuana and especially for high-risk populations.  The newly built tuberculosis clinic at Las Memorias is now in active use.  There are additional migrant mission projects in Tijuana that some of our regional churches have been involved with.  "Room for All" has inspired practical member support for the past few years, providing beds and basics to those in need.

Our Team supported DOC Missionary Paul Turner in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for several years.  Projects in the Congo included more than 200 pairs of eyeglasses being distributed; election monitoring; and advocating for regional pygmy populations to receive healthcare, as well as projects to help increase economic livelihoods for citizens.

Prior to the Covid pandemic, our Team arranged an annual work trip, generally to Central America.  Plans are being made for this annual trip to proceed in early 2024, either to Cuba, Central America, or Ecuador.

Plans are also underway for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the Fall of 2024.  With recent political changes, Palestinian and Israeli tensions are higher than in the past 20 years, with violent conflicts occurring.  We partner with Churches for Peace in the Middle East, as well as other Israeli and Palestinian organizations working for peace.  Our hope is to share educational sources with regional churches as we prepare for a trip of witness and advocacy.  Watch for more to come!

Our next virtual meeting will be on Wed, April 26th at 10 am.  Join us by writing to revnbacon@gmail.com for access to the meeting link.

Breaking Bread, Spring 2023

“Invitation to Prayer.” 

I wonder if you’re feeling some of the same, a rebound (sports term).  As I have returned to in-person meetings, visits, and speaking engagements, across the region and beyond, I’m being asked more and more about how are congregations fairing in this “post-pandemic” period. This is a difficult question, because, it should be couched with, where was the community pre-pandemic?  What was its response amid the pandemic? Were the needed changes addressed for the health, and future of the congregation?  Many of our congregations adapted, and others implemented hybrid approaches. A variety of mixed strategies and efforts have had measures of growth in attendance and ministry reach (online and in-person).  But this has not been every congregation’s experience. We are responding prayerfully and faithfully to an increase in calls for assistance. 

I believe there is a rebound, but I would characterize it as a sense of urgency to the recovering of what has seemed to have been missed in our past effort/s.  Those of us who are familiar with the sports term might be able to visualize, lots of people in the paint (court) rushing for the ball to put it back in the play or in the hoop.  The rush or sense of urgency does not always provide the best results.  Although, someone out there (a basketball enthusiast) may have a percentile to contest this notion.

Since I was installed as your Regional Minister, I have not stopped “working hard to ably break open this new season and chapter, which promises to continue strengthening our region’s ministry for many years to come.”  We are seeing the fruits of this labor, and hope these will reap a harvest for us all. I appreciate many of our clergy, and leaders, who remind us to “Arise, Anew.” As we look to learn, develop, and respond to our congregation’s new/er needs. We also seek as well to live more faithfully our regional life, together.  More to come.  I invite us all, more earnestly, to this season of prayer for each other.  Here is our prayer calendar.

On Saturday, April 1, 2023, Clergy, leaders, and churches joined together, at the invitation of Abundant Life Christian Church in an annual Community Prayer Breakfast. Several of our pastors (Rev. Dr. Darrell Haley, Pastor Ronnie Taylor, and Rev. Eddie Anderson) offered prayers for:

-       the healing and wholeness of the world and international relationships,

-       the healing and wholeness of the minds, bodies, and spirits, and

-       the healing and wholeness of our communities and church.

Rev. Dr. Lisa Tunstall was the invited speaker, and charged the clergy and congregations present, as well as the African American Convocation (she presides), and our Pacific Southwest Region to “a consistent faith and persistent prayers.”

I would like to share with you the following beautiful invocation, prayed at this event, written, and offered by Rev. Sadie Cullumber.  May it be our open opening, and continuing of this season of prayers:  

God of the ancestors,

We come before you this morning with seeking and searching hearts. We come to you as we stand at the edge of newness, the edge of change, the edge of a new way, a new possibility in this world. Our hearts are tired, worn, beaten, broken, and yet, they are open. Our hearts are open, God. And we can feel you, your spirit moving in us, weaving us together as your people, your body. We can feel it, like a whisper, a soft breath.

We call your spirit into this space, we ask you to rise in each one of us today and every day, as we do your will. God we are still recovering as a whole world from so much trauma, so much isolation, so much abuse and harm. And God you know that this trauma is ancient. It is trauma born of violence, abuse, neglect and on and on and on, God.

But as your people, in the face of all this evil, we choose to gather in prayer and communion. We choose to join our hearts that are broken but wide open; we choose to lift up our voices in song and in prayer; we choose to place our vision on hope; we choose to reach out and reach in to find ourselves and one another. We choose to jump right into the living waters that surround us, that are offered to us in love and peace by your precious son, Jesus the Christ.

God we invite your Holy Spirit into this sacred space, this sacred moment. We feel our strong and aching hearts soften as you envelop us with your living waters. And we lay down our weapons, our pain, our anger, and our rage for a few moments as we are held in the lap of your generous spirit. In the peace of these moments, we remember to breathe and to connect to our bodies and to our spirits in the sacredness of breath. In these moments of peace, we are restored and renewed for the work.

We give thanks to you for all of it—for a moment to stand in the sun, faces upturned and hearts open; we give thanks for the lessons we are learning so that we can be your people, even when those lessons are hard; we give thanks for our own bodies that carry us through; we give thanks for the beautiful bodies that surround us and for the spirits too. We give thanks for the ancestors who came before and who are here now, an assembly of the Saints, encouraging us and believing in us, moving in us. We give thanks, we give thanks, we give thanks!!!  Amen and amen.”[1] 

Let us prayerfully, “Arise, Anew.” 

Blessings,
Richie

[1] Cullumber, Rev. Sadie. Invocation Prayer, Abundant Life Christian Church Community Prayer Breakfast, Carson, CA, April 1, 2023.