The Crazy "R"
Do you remember learning to spell the names for the months of the year? As a grade school student, I remember being quite frustrated with that crazy “R” in the middle of February. Why was it there, right in the middle of the word? Sure, as a general rule, “R’s” are fine letters, but why complicate things? I remember asking my teacher, “Who decided to put an ‘R’ in the word?”
As an adult, I look back over the years and remember many times when I felt like an unneeded, unwanted “R.” I’ve always been kind of an odd critter, people often don’t know what to do with me.
There is one place, however, where I always felt I had a place. As a kid in VBS, a youth on Sunday evenings, or a nerd who loves technology, I have found a place in the church. The church has always welcomed me, and helped me to find my place in ministry.
There is room for everybody at PUMC. Like to knit or crochet? Join the prayer shawl ministry. Is cataloguing or organizing your cup of tea? Volunteer in the library. Play an instrument? Hyosang’s ready to put you to work. Enjoy technology like me? Boy do I have a great job for you with the technology or communications teams! Think about it, even if you feel like an out of place “R,” you’ve got a purpose in the ministries of PUMC.
If you would like help discerning your unique gifts and abilities - your spiritual gifts for ministry - speak to a PUMC staff member, we will be happy to point you in the right direction.
In the mean time: remember that God knit you together in your mother’s womb. You were made on purpose and for a purpose, whether you feel like a capital “F” or a crazy “R,” you are important!
Blessings, Trey
As we prepare to move into 2012, a new year and an election year the pastoral staff thought it would be helpful to offer a sermon series that would help us explore who we are as a people of religion, morality, and politics. We are using Adam Hamilton’s book "Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White" as a springboard for our sermon series.
In the introduction to the book Adam writes, “It was 1991 and I was getting ready for work while watching Good Morning America. Just before a commercial, host Charlie Gibson announced that when he returned he’d be joined by two clergy, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, and Bishop Shelby Spong, Episcopal bishop of Newark, NJ. Falwell had founded the Moral Majority and was known as America’s most outspoken fundamentalist. Spong had just written a book entitled "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism," and he was quickly gaining a reputation as America’s most outspoken liberal Christian.
Jerry Falwell believed that the Bible was to be taken literally, and that wherever the modern world conflicted with the Bible, the modern world was wrong. John Shelby Spong noted that neither he, nor many of the people he knew, could bend their minds into first-century pretzels any more, and thus he could not accept a literal reading of Scripture. Theologically, sociologically, and politically they were diametrically opposed. In listening to them, I found places where I sympathized with Song, and others where I sympathized with Falwell. But by the time their conversation was over I found myself thinking, “These two cannot be our only options for being Christian!”…
Christianity’s next reformation will strike a middle path between Jerry Falwell and John Shelby Spong. It will draw upon what is best in both fundamentalism and liberalism by holding together the evangelical and social gospels, by combining a love of Scripture with a willingness to see both its humanity as well as its divinity, and by coupling a passionate desire to follow Jesus Christ with a reclamation of his heart toward those whom religious people have often rejected. This reformation will be led by people who are able to see the gray in a world of black and white.”
In this sermon series we will explore those places where it might be helpful for us to see “gray,” rather than be stuck in either black or white. The sermon titles for this Series are:
We will have two guest preachers during this series, both are seminary professors. It is a joy to welcome them to the PUMC pulpit.
Donald Brash is Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Palmer Theology Seminary. The elective courses Don teaches point to his research interests and areas of specialization: “How Firm a Foundation? On God’s Word and The Bible”; “Persevering Hope: On Evil, Suffering and the Goodness of God”; “Case Studies in Christian Accountability”; and “Theology of Romantic Love.” Don is an ordained American Baptist pastor and has extensive experience in pastoral ministry.
Luke Powery is the Perry and Georgia Engle Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary. His teaching and research interests are located at the intersection of preaching, worship, pneumatology, performance studies, and culture, particularly expressions of the African diaspora. Luke was ordained by the Progressive National Baptist Convention, and has served in an ecumenical capacity in churches throughout Switzerland, Canada, and the United States.
I hope you will join us and invite friends as we ad-dress these issues that face us as disciples of Jesus Christ living in the 21st Century.
God Bless you as we begin this New Year, Jana