Second Church Steps

Be a Stable People The very best people                     Have the very best seats. The very best people                 Have the very best beds. The very best people                 Have the very best clothes. The very best people                 Have the very best, don’t you know? You see, they are the INN crowd                 Who were not sent away. They are the INN crowd,                 Who have somewhere to stay. They are the INN crowd,        ...

Ask a small child to arrange a nativity scene and you might get something like this… My daughter did something similar to this during her first “active” Christmas Holiday season.  That's the 1.5 year old Christmas where she was making meaning and learning faith stories as fast as her church family and I could tell them to her. She helped me set up our family nativity set minus Jesus; we did this  because we wait until Dec. 24 th after church to find Jesus in the manger.  She looked at each piece and named them.  Explaining the story as she went through the box of precious figures, she placed each one with care.  When she finished all I could see were the backs of the shepherds, sheep and camels.  I couldn’t see Mary AT ALL!  It was all wrong.  As a young mother is want to do, I explained gently that the set should be set up in a “V” so we could see each individual piece. As an almost two year old/who thinks she is an adult will invari...

Christmas decorations are up everywhere.  It is now “okay” to have trees, tinsel, and carols up front and center.  These are signs of the times, and a way that we prepare our homes and hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus.   Music is a BIG part of the holidays for me. When I was pregnant with my first child, one Christmas carol could reduce me to tears.  Every time!  I’ve sung it for over half a century.  It is part of my Christmas narrative, and owns me in some way.  It is “Away in a Manger.” Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. [i] The part that always got me is the “no crib for his bed.”  He didn’t even have a crib!  What kind of world is it that a baby has to sleep in the dirt? Yes, I was a bit dramatic.  Still…it is a lasting understanding that children should be held and...

“Oh there’s no place like home…” Christmas music could be heard in my house, growing up, the day after Thanksgiving.  This signaled the start of the Advent/Christmas season. You see, Christmas music was forbidden until after Thanksgiving; even today from Texas and Kansas City my children are the enforcers of my mother's rule!  More often than not that first song would have been Perry Como’s   rendition of   Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays…   As Second Presbyterian Church transitions from the theme of “home” into the holiday season—we decorate our Second Home early.  We do this because we are preparing to take the Good News of the Advent/Christmas season out into the world through the Christmas Benevolence church wide program. The  Deacon’s Christmas Benevolence , CB, works with social service agencies to select 140+ families, that's 700+ people, to serve.  The entire church works together to make it possible for...

The end of October is a bittersweet time; the candy is sweet and the wind can be bitter cold.  It also is a time of sweet memories that have a bit of a bite!  Growing up as a minister's daughter  my sisters and I LOVED All Saints' Day music...especially, "I sing a song of the saints of God." Perfect people who do no wrong are often called "saints."   I have learned that those are really called, "people I don't know well."  Everyone is imperfect, and that is what makes us the perfect instrument for God's love.  The flaw is ours; the perfection is divine. Saints are messengers; in a world without Snapchat(tm) they are a glimpse of the goodness of the kingdom of God.         And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green... Okay, since our last name was "Green" we really liked that verse-- it was a nice counterpoint to church decoration which was NEVER called "the hanging of the greens...

I was a Girl Scout in my early years, and yes a Brownie before that; there weren’t Daisy Scouts back then. Each meeting started with the Girl Scout Promise, “On my honor, I will try…”  That was probably my first introduction to promises and promising.  There were many to follow.  From family commitments to childhood secrets we learn how to hold promises and make them part of ourselves. Later, the college I attended had an honor code requiring us to “pledge” every test and paper saying that “on my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized assistance on this test/paper.” This pledge, or promise, was bound by a promise to live and to learn in a particular way according to a particular set of guidelines for the community.  Font, Word, and Table Second Presbyterian Church Indianapolis, IN  Our lives as Christians begin with hope and a promise.  Our parents hope for us, and pray for us. More than likely, our church family does, too! So...

Autumn is my favorite time of the year in Indiana.  The trees seem to be painted overnight with reds, yellows, rusts, and browns.  As instantaneous as it may seem, the colors have been there all along.  The daily work of growing, seeding, and shading generated the greens that made summer lush and bright.  However, the shorter days, the cooler weather, and those rainy summer days which we bemoaned have  fed the colors that lay just underneath the leaves’ skin.  The leaves turn, and colors emerge. It is a vibrant festival to the glory of creation where the tree’s true colors are revealed. These shorter days with brighter colors turn the church school calendar to stewardship.  In the Children’s Ministry Program area, the children wonder about how they can help, share, and care for the people and places around them.  Every day that they remember whose they are and the promise they have within them, they are being stewards of God’s creation—the...

If my sisters ever were to hear me say, “well…” they might race to respond, “Deep subject for such a shallow mind.”   Stewardship season for Second Church’s Children's Sunday School is “well” begun.     A Second Truth I have learned is that “a little child shall lead them” is practiced and preached here. Just as Home arrived early, stewardship season has already landed in Children’s Sunday School.  October is Stewardship Season, but you will find our well already overflowing with generosity from children, parents, pre-school families, and other church members.   Every week the Children’s Second Church Sunday School digs deep to fund shallow wells in Malawi.So far we have $100+ to help provide safe and clean drinking water to our “kin” in Malawi We are wishing for more funds to help our friends stay well in their home town. Thinking of “well wishes” brings this familiar hymn by Horatio Spafford to mind:      ...

Always Have you seen the silverware? Home has been many places for me since coming "home" to Indiana.  “Home” has been my sister’s house where Homer, who is my dog,  and I found comfort, shelter, food, kittens, and hospitality.  “Home” has been my storage facility and its staff where the precious touchstones of the years, pictures of my children, three decades of creativity and work, and book Books BOOKS  have found air conditioned safety. “Home” has also been the Children’s Ministry Office where I found space, history, colleagues, helpers, and hospitality. “Home” now is a condominium near work where I find quiet, calm, safety…until Monday.  Now “home” is a mixture of calm and chaos, creativity and contemplation, here and there.  You see, the common denominator is not “home,” nor “hospitality,” nor even safety, not even Homer; "Home" is finding and being found.  That is and was and will be the gracious love of God finding us where we are and t...

I really like orange safety cones. The color is awesome; they provide a safe zone for workers on streets and highways; they mean that Children’s Circle Preschool is BACK.  The quiet halls of planning and projects become vibrant with teacher greetings and children’s voices. Parents fill the building with prayers, hopes, worries and a few tears. The children sleep, play, sing, and sometimes cry. Earlier this summer I was told, “We can get kind of loud.”   Also, I was warned “You might want to shut your door.”  Finally, I was cautioned “Do not play heavy metal loud music during nap time!” However, I could not know the void the children would fill. I am reminded of the adage “You don’t know what you don’t know.” How could I know that the church was missing all of this exuberance? After day one of preschool, I pulled into the parking lot. I walked up to the majestic building that is a testament to the glorious worship and service we do in the name o...

St. Julien the poor A month before I arrived in Indianapolis I found myself sitting in a dark old church. St. Julian the Poor Church is in Paris. It rests in the shadows of the great Notre Dame Cathedral, but it stands with a quiet calm garden of persistent presence. In that church I prayed for a word with which to focus my coming months of transition. The word I got was “thank you.” I explained to my inner voice that this was not one word but two words. A still small nudge reminded me that in the church in which I sat it is one word, “merci.” July is a “thank you” month. We thank the VBS helpers, attendees, and parents. We thank the Sunday School teachers, shepherds and volunteers who stand with the children of our church to walk through important faith moments in the Bible. Some of us are thankful for no school and abbreviated/expanded schedules, depending on the situation. Saying “thank you” is an important part of being a Christian. It is how we stand before God and walk th...

I have moved a lot in my life.  I have moved from Western Tennessee to Eastern Tennesee then back to the Mississippi River banks.  I have moved to Indiana, to Tennessee, to Texas, to Houston (not really Texas--ask a Texan or a Houstonian), to Kentucky, and to Missouri.  Now I find myself between houses in Indiana again. Although it may seem like an aimless life, I prefer to think of it as being in the wilderness.  It's a site longer than 40 days and 40 nights, but I am as ever looking for "Home." "Home is where the heart is." "Home is where you lay your head." "Home is..." All of the above moves have been to a particular church--even the college move. There has been a movement towards being at home in a church community.  After enough moves and enough times explaining where I am from--where is "home"-- I have come up with a great answer.  Borrowing from a children's book by Carol Wehrheim, "God is my home." It is...