Second Church Steps

Parental confession:   my children did not grow up on Mr. Rogers.   They just didn’t fall into that group. They were more Barney and Sesame Street.   This bothered me for a VERY long time.   It bothered me like, how “we ought to be going to church, but we aren’t” bothers some other parents. Is watching Mr. Rogers the same as going to church?   No.   Words matter and Fred Rogers was carefully and fully inclusive; he never spoke of “God” or “sacraments,” but his neighborhood was a study in formation, children’s radical formation where all are welcome, feelings are named, and children are respected. I think it is Kingdom work to facilitate those same things being found at church.   No, not just at Sunday School – which is usually story telling focused and appropriation tasked.   I mean, at church: At coffee hour where there are tables for their size among the adult-sized tables.   At worship where there are “movement breaks” and we...

Our heroes always, almost always, turn out to have feet of clay.   They are not impervious titans of moral, ethical, and philosophical perfection.   Our heroes are always, almost always, men and women who are human and flawed and frail.   The Genesis story tells us that God formed the first man and the first woman out of the “dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7, NRSV). We are dust, and the Ash Wednesday liturgy reminds us that we shall return to dust (based on Genesis 3:19). What stands between dust and dust?   There is the breath of God, breathed into molded ground to give it life.   There is the water of baptism, poured onto this molded ground to form it into a life of service.   This watered ground becomes moldable mud; a clay for the Potter’s hand to fit us to our ministry and mission in the world. At no point, do we become other than what we are made of and made by.   We are clay footed servants of the living God. Lent is a time when the ...

Advent is about journey and anticipation and preparation. Christmas is about a gift and joy and the presence of the Living God breaking into darkness. Lent is about reflection and atonement and forgiveness. Easter is about life and victory and new life in Christ. Pentecost is about the birthday of the body of Christ, the Way, the whole church of believers. That is the church year in a nutshell.  What if they happen within the span of three weeks, or a week, or one night? This year Christmas and Easter collided. Twenty days is not long to go from confirmed diagnosis to  eternal life, but that was my father’s Advent, Lent and Christmas/Easter journey. He invited in friends, family and loved ones to witness his journey. He worked very hard to prepare my sisters and his twin brother’s daughters for a garden moment when he would die.  I have never wished for Advent nor Lent to be longer, but I wished for one more day--one more night--one more morning.  However, ...

Almost two years ago, Second Church asked me, “What’s next for Sunday School?” I've been considering it ever since. Then yesterday, in the middle of Presbytery Meeting, I was transported to the mountains of North Carolina.  Actually, I was transported to a specific instance in the mountains of North Carolina.   Christian Educators, recreation leaders, pastors, and prophets  gathered at the Arts, Recreation and Worship Conference at Montreat Camp and Conference Center, May 2016.  We  played, pondered and prayed over how the future of the church will reflect the past and then move beyond it.  Every participant wrote down an aspect of church life that needed re-imagining. The words were written onto strands of material; then we put these silk wish-bands into a hat. Later in the worship service, every participant was given or drew out one. We were charged to envision “what’s next” for the concern we received.  I got “Sunday School;” the cloth ...

Sunday School Lessons can really stick! They inform; they empower! In the hands of a three year old they can create a  precocious theologian who announces on Holy Week that she doesn't understand what all of the fuss is about!  You see I, um...she, understood Easter; Easter is easy for a three year old.  “Jesus got dead.  They put him in a hole, and he got away.”  Out of the mouths of babes…  Perhaps this is an example of why Jesus said we should have the faith of a child (Matthew 18:2-4).  Yes, there are subtleties about HOW Jesus “got dead.” Was he not really dead? There have been crusades over who “they” might be and how did they put him into “a hole.” Where was the hole?  Then there is the argument/discussion about how “he got away.”     What did Jesus look like after “he got away?”  There is childlike humility in hearing the "what" of a story and living into it.   Don't get me wrong! Those ar...

We made it! Christmas is over!  Well, not quite yet, it isn’t.  There are those pesky twelve days of Christmas.  The celebrating could go on and on, if we let it! Goodness, the tree is looking dry and empty without a load of boxes and bags underneath it. The ornaments that were hung with surprise, joy, and fondest memories now look somehow out of place.  Can we for one moment stop, and think about this?  Think about that first rush of joy when a new child is born, when you first really felt the presence of the living God in your life?  What about the first time a young Sunday School class looked at you in awe of the wonderful stories you were telling them?  That moment sparkled with hope that was bursting with possibility!  Here and now in the “ bleak mid-winter ” of post-New Years, to borrow from  Christina Rossetti and hymn 144 in the Presbyterian Hymnal Glory to God , we find ourselves in the sleep deprived, post-adrenaline rush, vi...

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...

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...

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...