We Give Thanks

Last Sunday at CPC we renewed our Thanksgiving Banner, pinning leaves with our own prayers of Thanksgiving up on the large cloth banner reading "Thank you."

Here are some of the prayers of thanks that were offered. Add your own Prayer of Thanksgiving to the comments, or add it to the banner in church next time you are there.

• Family and church
• My family
• Guiding and protecting us through a difficult year
• A new addition to the family
• A loving, wonderful wife
• Every breath I take
• Family, good friends, good health
• Life, family, church
• Food, water, shelter
• Good health & Pastor Fritz's leadership
• For God keeping us strong in tough times and blessing us in good times
• Shepherds who take care of the sheep
• Love of children
• Wife, family & friends - for health & peace in their lives
• A loving family who is there when I need them
• Love, family, health
• The opportunities I have been luckily enough to be given
• Strength and good health to continue caring for my mother-in-law
• Mommy, Papa, Daddy
• That God puts up with me
• Family, friendship, patience, health, happiness
• My little boys & family
• The warm friendship found at CPC
• Amazing family & friends
• Wonderful family
• Health & family
• Church & family
• Wife, daughter, future son-in-law & church
• Wife who picks me up from the train station at 11:30 pm
• Healthy family
  

Sunday's Sermon - Homosexuality and the Church

Last Sunday we closed out our all request summer sermon series with a request to look at Romans 1, a complex passage that, among other things, condemns homosexuality as sinful. I've been struggling with this topic for years and attempted to condense some of my thinking (and my struggle) into the sermon. We will revisit this topic in a couple of weeks as we embark on another year of Pastor's Coffee House, which will begin with a study of Paul's letter to the Romans.

Read the sermon
Read other sermons in the All Request Summer Sermon Series

The many brief discussions I had on the way out the door suggest that we all live in this tension between discipline and grace. Is being a Christian primarily living a strict, disciplined life, following the rules and expecting others to do the same? Or is being a Christian primarily being gracious and inclusive toward others regardless of background and behavior? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Sunday's Sermon - The Prodigal Son

All summer we've been working down a list of congregational sermon requests. Last week's request was to revisit the Parable of the Prodigal Son.


Read the sermon
Read past sermons from this summer
View the schedule

PC(USA) and Health Care

As the debate around health care gets less and less civil it may be time to step back a bit and think about how our commitments as followers of Jesus Christ informs our thinking regarding this current health care reform debate. To help inform our thinking, I've posted a few links to what our church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), has said about health care. I've also included the full text of a resolution passed by the 2008 General Assembly of the PC(USA).

As Presbyterians we believe that the discernment of God's will comes through discussion and that there is plenty of room for debate. The following are only offered as guidance, not as a doctrinal dictation. Leave your thoughts in the comments. (Please stick to substantive reflections and refrain from name calling, etc. I will delete any comments not in the spirit of Christian dialogue and respect.)

• August 2009 Letter on Health Care by Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons
• Christian Principles for Health Care Reform as outlined by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program
• Resolution from the 2008 General Assembly supporting a publicly financed, privately provided single payer health care system
• PC(USA) Washington Office - Information on current legislation.

Expanded text of the 2008 General Assembly resolution from the August 2009 letter by Gradye Parsons.

Jesus Christ, who has reconciled us to God, healed all kinds of sickness (Mt. 4:23, par) as a sign of God’s rule. Isaiah speaks God’s word to say “No more shall there be… an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime” (Isa. 65:20a). We, as Reformed Christians, bear witness to Jesus Christ in word, but also in deed. As followers of our Great Physician Jesus, we have a moral imperative to work to assure that everyone has full access to health care.

Our nation is in a crisis in health care, which presents an unprecedented opportunity for our nation to provide health care affordable for all. In this country there is a baby born every fifty-one seconds to a family with no health insurance. In this, the wealthiest nation in the world, our infant mortality rate is second highest in the industrialized world. Forty-seven million Americans are uninsured (50 percent employed; 25 percent children; 20 percent out of labor force as students, disabled, et al.; 5 percent unemployed). The U.S. spends nearly twice as much per capita than any other country on health care, but we rank poorly in the thirty-seven categories of health status measured by the World Health Organization. The rise in childhood obesity, asthma, diabetes, and other chronic diseases indicates that the overall health status of people of this country is declining.

We are warned by the prophets not to heal the wounds of God’s people lightly; yet in 2006 the aggregate profits of the health insurance companies in the United States were $68 billion. During that same year more than 15,000 families were forced into bankruptcy because of medical expenses. Our business employers operate at a competitive disadvantage internationally because health care costs are assumed by the governments of other industrialized nations. The General Assemblies of the PC(USA) and its predecessors since 1971 have called for reform of health delivery systems in the United States to make them accessible to the entire population. Our federal government already operates efficiently and with low overhead the health delivery programs of Medicare and Medicaid; and yet at the same time insurance companies spend nearly one-third of every premium dollar on marketing and other administrative costs and in fact, several such companies spend less than 60 percent of premium dollars they receive on health care services.

The American College of Physicians, the nation’s second largest physician group, has endorsed a single-payer healthcare system. Only a single-payer system of national health care coverage (privately provided; publicly financed; not socialized medicine) can save what is estimated to be $350 billion wasted annually on medical bureaucracy and redirect those funds to expanded coverage.

Sunday's Sermon - Celebrating the End

All summer we've been working down a list of congregational sermon requests. Last week's request was one of those things that all preachers should talk about but never do - how to approach the end of life as faithfully as we seek to live our lives.

Last week's request: Celebrating the End: funerals, cremation, body burial & other end of life concerns

Read the sermon
Read past sermons from this summer
View the schedule

Sunday's Sermon - Creation, Evolution & Scripture

All summer we've been working down a list of congregational sermon requests.

Last week's request: Creation, Evolution & Scripture

Read the sermon
Read past sermons from this summer
View the schedule

Scriptures for Encouragement

A list of scriptures to read when you're needing encouragement.

Psalm 46
Psalm 121
Psalm 139
Isaiah 35:3-4
Isaiah 40:6-11
Matthew 6:33
Matthew 11:28-30
Matthew 18:28-31
Luke 8:22-25
John 6:35-37
John 10:11-18
Romans 8:38-39
2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Ephesians 3:14-20
Philippians 4:11-13
Hebrews 12:1-12
Revelation 21:1-8

Sunday's Sermon - Discerning God's Plan

Last week's request: How do I discern God's plan for my life?

Read the sermon
Read past sermons from this summer
View the schedule

Sunday's Sermon - Apostles' Creed II

For our second installment of the All Request Summer Sermon Series we discussed the theology of the Apostles' Creed using another historic document, the Heidelberg Catechism, as a guide.

Read the sermon.
Read the Heidelberg Catechism
Download the Presbyterian Study Catechism (which also discusses the Apostles' Creed extensively.)

Thoughts on Swap Day

The idea for Swap Day originated during discussions last year by the Stewardship Team regarding our materialistic tendencies. Our goal was redistribution - taking things that we no longer needed and making them available to others who needed them. It sounded simple, but after spending six hours mingling with people on the front lawn of the church, I realized it was anything but. Some observations:

• We have a lot of stuff. Many people mentioned that if they had known about the swap sooner they would have cleaned out their attic, basement, etc. to contribute. Some seemed eager for a guilt free way of getting rid of their stuff.


• Stuff is addictive. Some people had trouble distinguishing between need and want, and when faced with the prospect of being able to acquire more for no money, they went crazy.



• People were surprised by free. Many people could not believe that we would simply give stuff away. It didn't fit into their world view. Some, when they did comprehend it, liked the vision of a world that we provided. They left hoping for more - not more free stuff - but more of a world governed by mutuality, sharing and relationships as opposed to commerce. See earlier blog posting: Why we gave stuff away for free.


• People struggled with free. More than one guest, as they were leaving, made sure that I knew that they had both brought a bag of stuff and made a donation. Other guests struggled when we refused to accept payments or suggest a donation level. One woman I talked with never managed to wrap her head around the reality that we were not holding a fundraiser.



• Our enterprise was profoundly spiritual. Our God is a god who gives freely who calls us to give with no expectation of return. The grace of God shown through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is off the market. We cannot buy it. If it was for sale, we could not afford it. We can only accept it. Our god of commerce attaches a price to everything and bases an individual's value on whether or not they can afford the price. Many of our guests needed to donate, either stuff or money, because it showed they had worth - that they were neither charity cases nor thieves. If it is hard to accept a free toaster oven, children's toy or picture frame, how much hard it is to truly accept the free gift of love, self worth and hope available through Jesus Christ. And, if we go to such effort to prove that we are neither charity cases nor thieves when people are freely giving stuff away, what does it say about our attitude toward those who rely on charity for survival?

Thanks again to everyone who helped and to everyone who came! A special thanks to the women of the Thrift Shop for their logistical assistance and their support.

And by the way: At the end of the day we counted just over $200 in the donation cans. Our food pantry volunteers mentioned that the Food Pantry's freezer broke. The $200 will help pay for repairs.

Why give stuff away

Community Presbyterian's decision to hold a swap day as opposed to a yard sale came out of discussions about our relationship with material possessions. Here are our two motivating factors:

1. A rich man came to Jesus and asked him: “What must I do to have a rich, full and amazing life?” And Jesus said to him: “Go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor.” We live in a community where some people build additions onto their houses or rent garages to store all their stuff and where others lack the bare necessities for comfort. We spend millions of dollars and destroy the environment getting rid of stuff we’ve deemed useless and then spend millions of dollars more and further destroy the environment to acquire new stuff. So we give away stuff to achieve some of the balance our God desires for our lives, our communities and our natural world.

2. Our lives are encumbered. “Cumber” is an ancient word for all the things that weigh us down and drag us out. We can be encumbered by stuff, encumbered by financial debt, encumbered by worries or fears, encumbered by hurtful relationships, etc. Jesus Christ promises a life without cumber where, instead of weighing ourselves down, we trust in God to provide what we need, year by year, month by month, week by week, day by day, hour by hour. Most of us are not at a place of faith where we can fully let ourselves, our lives, our possessions go and trust totally on God, but this swap is one small step towards realizing God’s promise.

Sprung from the Trap - Lent Series III

During Lent this year, Pastor Fritz is preaching a sermon series entitled "God's Bail out Plan." Below are excerpts from the third sermon in the series, which draws lessons from the Israelites' enslavement in Egypt and God's rescue.

Read about how the Israelites became enslaved
Read about God's decision to rescue them

In Egypt the Israelites became victims of a paranoid, xenophobic ruler who needed slaves to complete his numerous building projects. By working them to death, the king – possibly Ramses II – would prevent them from siding with Egypt’s enemies during times of conflict.

When I think of this world, I often think of a giant pinball machine with billions of tiny balls representing all of us humans. Ideally the balls should dance in intricately beautiful choreographed patterns. But inevitably somebody misses a step or drops out of line. Chaos ensues.

Sins big and little pervade our lives and pervade our world. We live among corrupt and broken systems operated by corrupt and broken people. We, our neighbors, our world suffer as a result. The Apostle Paul talks about the entire world, all of creation, groaning under the weight of sins large and small, innocent and diabolical. It is this sin that causes a cashier at Target or an engineer on the Long Island Rail Road to loose her job because a person who wanted a little more house than they could afford was seduced by a broker seeking a larger commission from a mortgage company seeking bigger profits, who was invested in by a bank trying to get in on the action which in turn was insured by AIG. Pinballs out of step, out of line. Broken choreography bringing pain, suffering and hurt into our lives and into our world.

Over and over again Scripture affirms that God hears our groaning, the groaning of the world and responds. God responds to the Israelites by sending Moses. God responds to our groaning by sending Jesus Christ. God responds to the groaning of the world through his church, whom he has charged to continue Jesus’ legacy of love, justice and healing in a broken world.

New Ways of Being Church

Just got back from spending three days in Louisville, KY at a conference focused on New Ways of Being Church. Featured speakers were: Diana Butler Bass, Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren. Earlier posts contain some soundbites from their presentations.

All the speakers seem to agree upon two points which have major repercussions for faith communities. Personally, I find both exciting. But others find them quite disturbing and even frightening. If Butler Bass, Borg & McLaren are correct, it means that to be effective (or even survive) congregations have to do church a whole new way.

Point 1:
Our "Christian culture" has shifted to a "secular" or "pluralistic" culture, meaning that many people attend church out of an intentional desire to follow Christ rather than because church attendance is expected.

Conventional Christians want church to be an unchallenging environment that mirrors the conventions of the surrounding culture. Conventional Christians have no desire to change themselves or society.

Intentional Christians want to be lead closer to God and in doing so to be challenged to lead genuinely Christ like lives. Intentional Christians yearn for personal change and societal change.

Intentional Christians find conventional churches to be shallow, unspiritual and even hypocritical. Conventional Christians find intentional churches threatening to their entire belief systems.

Point 2:
Spiritual focus needs to shift from the suffering and death of Jesus for an individual's sins to Jesus' declaration of the coming of the Kingdom of God.

All the speakers agreed on this, and this is their most controversal claim. For the last 1500 years, Christianity's focus has primarily been other worldly: We follow Christ to avoid hell and get into heaven. The primary goal of the church is to get more people into heaven and help everyone avoid hell. Believing in the right things became more important than doing the right things.

The speakers called for a new reformation based on practice not belief, focused on following Jesus in this world as opposed to following him to the next world. They envisioned a Christian community steeped in prayer and worship, committed to social justice and peace, defined by hospitality and who take as their foundational commandment to love God and love neighbor.

Brian McLaren

This is the third installment in my series of notes from the recent conference I attended at Louisville Seminary on New Ways of Being Church. These are from the lecture and discussion given by Brian McLaren, and really consists mostly of sound bites that jumped out at me. This is the longest entry, in part because I consider Rev. McLaren one of the most innovative and far sighted thinkers in the church today. For a fuller idea of what he thinks, read his books, especially Everything Must Change and A Generous Orthodoxy .

Humanity is in the midst of a change as big as any in history. A whole new society is emerging, that we do not yet know what is. Reacting to this change is about more than changing music or adding programs.

The big shift:

• Conquest & control -> conservation
• Mechanics & sound bites -> holistic systems
• Secular science -> spiritual science
• Objective -> intersubjective
• Organizational -> alliances & networks
• Individual -> communal & traditional
• Denominational -> post denominational
• Consumer -> sustainer

The new vision of what church is comes from those new to the faith and the young.

Pivot points
How do we relate to Jesus?

• Taking what Jesus says seriously
• Jesus as more than forgiver of sin
• Focus on Kingdom of God
• Jesus not a religion maker but a kingdom proclaimer

How do we relate to the world

• Move from: the gospel being an institutionally controlled message which provides an enhancement of the soul (self) so that it can get to heaven
• To: In following the gospel, the church serves as God’s agent in recruiting people to engage in the healing of the world.

An old interpretation of how the Gospel helps us relate to the world:


A new interpretation of how the Gospel helps us relate to the world:


How do churches relate to each other?

• We celebrate a range of ministry and mission by a range of congregations with different styles and different gifts.

Three new ways of being church:

1. A movement that seeks to join God in the healing of the world
2. A disciple forming community that seeks to practice the way of Jesus. Product of the church is “Christ like people”
3. A liturgical/mystical network that practices receptivity to the Holy Spirit

Marcus Borg

This is the second set of notes from the recent conference I attended at Louisville Seminary on New Ways of Being Church. These are from the lecture and discussion given by Marcus Borg, and really consists mostly of sound bites that jumped out at me. You will note that this is a very short entry. Frankly, I was not very impressed with Dr. Borg's thinking. For a fuller idea of what he thinks you can read any one of his kajillion books, although almost all discuss his pursuit of an "authentic uncorrupted gospel" and not his ideas on new ways of being church - of which he apparently has very few. The below ideas were mostly borrowed from others, but seemed to have some use and possibly some merit.

The church is moving from communities of convention, where participants attend because that is what society expects of them, to communities of intention, where participants yearn for something and seek to accomplish something.

Intentional Christian Communities:

• Engage in theological education to allow participants to articulate the gospel
• Engage in a new way of living distinct from the surrounding culture
• Educate about prayer and worship (Worship is a subversive practice that declares that God and only God is Lord of our lives.)
• Encourage active participation in God’s intense love (passion) for humanity.

Diana Butler Bass

This is the beginning of my notes from the recent conference I attended at Louisville Seminary on New Ways of Being Church. These are from the lecture and discussion given by Diana Butler Bass, and really consists mostly of sound bites that jumped out at me. For a fuller idea of what she thinks, read her books, especially Christianity for the Rest of Us.

Church needs to shift from defining what we’re not to defining what we are.
A new definition of church for the 21st century:

Christian communities who practice a generative, birthing faith that seeks primarily to create new opportunities for the transformation and healing of individuals and society.

Diana’s study of successful congregations revealed that by intentionally engaging Christian practice congregations:

1. Grow in spiritual vitality
2. Grow in numbers if demographics warrant, experiencing evangelistic success because those living the gospel cannot keep silent
3. Are vital congregations that challenge their participants to deeper spiritual life and practice
4. Are profound
5. Motivate participants to action
6. Give participants meaning to life
7. Practice hospitality to each other, children and strangers

Rick Warren: “We are in the midst of a new reformation – a reformation about deeds, not creeds.”

Translating Babel - Lent Series II

During Lent this year, Pastor Fritz is preaching a sermon series entitled God's Bailout Plan. Below are excerpts from the second sermon in the series.

Read the story of the Tower of Babel
View what the Tower of Babel might have looked like
Check out the archeology from the British Museum

We still build great towers as a testimony to human ingenuity, power, wealth and might. Al Qaeda targeted the World Trade Center on multiple occasions because the twin towers were, in many ways, a temple to the capitalist west and the wealth of the United States. When they fell, we felt emasculated. And the politicians rushed to promise that we would rebuild, bigger, better, higher, more secure. We would demonstrate our power and the supremacy of our economic belief system.

As bad as 9-11 was, imagine how bad it would have been if we had lost perspective on who our God really is. What if we had given superiority to the human made systems and philosophies, governments and multi-national corporations represented by those towers? Many years ago, our ancient ancestors made that mistake. They saw earthly power and confused it with divine power. They saw earthly wealth and confused it with divine blessing. They too built a tower to move the human into the realm of the divine. Luckily, in Abraham, God had a bail out plan.

Paradise's Promise - Lent Series I

During Lent this year, Pastor Fritz is preaching a sermon series entitled God's Bailout Plan. Below are excerpts from the first sermon in the series.

God had reached out from heaven in love and crafted the earth, filling it with beauty and goodness. Everything about the world gave life. Nothing gave death. Everything about the world gave joy. Nothing gave pain. God’s love infused everything. There was no hate. The second of two creation stories calls this world the Garden of Eden. Dante called it Paradise. When we glimpse this world in the course of our very ordinary, non paradise filled lives, we call it God sightings.

Our sin blocks our participation in paradise as effectively as a painted window blocks the sun. As God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden, our sin expels us from intimate relationship with the divine.

Their fall is a metaphor of our personal falls. Instead of bearing the fruit God desires of us, from the first moment from the womb we are like the pear tree, wanting to grow quickly and bask in the sun. God built these yearnings, doubts and desires into us. Not so that we can experience suffering, but so that we can freely and wholly commit ourselves to him.

Most people spend most of their lives in the litter and bombed out factories along the tracks. That’s not what God wants – it has never been what God wants – and time and time again God seeks to rescue his people from the mess of a world filled with sin.

A rare and exceptional thing

Last Sunday, Community Presbyterian paused toward the end of the service to remember long time member Bill Vath. There are many times when as a church we do not live up to our calling to live out the kingdom of God with each other and to illustrate Christ's kingdom to the world. Last Sunday the forgiveness, compassion and blessings of Christ's kingdom were fully visible.

The web is too public a place to go into why this was the case, and those who know, know. But as Pastor I am incredibly proud of Community Presbyterian for the love, caregiving and reconciliation that was shown. We lived out what we preach, and that, even in the church, is a rare and exceptional thing.

Black Monday

As I got off the train today in Manhattan the mood was grim. Bear Sterns seemed manageable. Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac seemed like a Washington problem that Washington solved. But somehow Lehman Brothers was different. It seemed closer to home, another domino that fell, with AIG waiting in the wings.

While the news cameras showed Lehman Brothers staff cleaning out their offices, my friends were calculating which of their friends would be affected and my organization, The Bowery Mission, were calculating how many of our donors were now broke. It seemed a bad day for the financial sector and a bad day for fundraisers.

And it was a good day to remember that we worship the God who created heaven and earth and not the bronze bull that is firmly anchored on Wall Street. We're taught and acculturated to measure our worth and our security by the size of our pay check, the diversity of our portfolio, the assets invested in our houses and how our cars stack up against our neighbors. Now our lust for that worth, our desire to leverage everything in an attempt to find wealth where there is none, has created a house of cards which is causing much pain and fear as it falls.

"In life and in death we belong to God," begins the PC(USA)'s Brief Statement of Faith. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," scripture tells us, "and everything else will be granted to you." These are not mere words. Times like these remind us that these are the fundamental truths of life.

Be sure to pray for those whose jobs are gone, whose houses are slipping away, for whom security has been replaced by fear and uncertainty.