Pastor's Message

My roots go back 2000 years, but I am very much now and today. I embrace modern intelligent thinking: Acceptance. Inclusiveness. Justice. I can even be light-hearted. My open-armed approach is appealing to people of all races and lifestyles. This might explain why my congregations are diverse and unique.

Another funny thing happens when you're less judgmental. You allow people to search, discover and flourish. My friends come to me to seek their own answers, look inside themselves and explore their relationship with God.

In the end, my personality is reflective of Christ's. Open. Embracing. Nurturing. And eternally relevant.

Come join us on Sunday mornings. We have an Alternative (contemporary) service at 8:30 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall and a Classic Serivce at 10:30 a.m. in the Sanctuary, with Christian Education for all ages at 9:15 a.m.

Rev. Dr. Kevan S. Franklin, Sr. Minister

Peace and Justice Notes

The following article is roughly based on a chapter in Marcus Borg's book The Heart of Christianity and particularly chapter "Practice".

Vida Scudder listed three ways that Christians can respond to a growing awareness of human suffering: direct philanthropy, social reform, and social transformation. Direct philanthropy means giving directly to those who are suffering, social reform means creating and supporting organizations for their care, and social transformation is about justice, changing society so that the structures do not privilege some and cause suffering for others.

Taking the political vision of the Bible seriously means the practice of social transformation. Christians in our time are called to be political. This does not mean that we are called to be political activists. We are called to be political in the broad sense of being aware of the impact of systems on people's lives and of God's passion for those who are disadvantaged and victimized by systems. The practice of justice involves consciousness-raising within the church about the effects of social systems (economic, political, and conventional) on people's lives, and then acting on that awareness in ways appropriate to who we are.

In particular, we need to develop an imaginative sympathy for the poor. Most of us do not have that. It's not that we are "bad people", but we have difficulty imagining what life is like for those with little money. The most effective consciousness-raising activity is direct contact with the poor and disadvantaged. This can happen through volunteering to work in church programs or other agencies directly serving the poor, through work projects with poor people locally or overseas, or through serious, respectful intimate partnering with a congregation of lower-income membership. Through such experience we learn that the difference between us and them is not about how hard people work, but something both more random and more systemic. Consciousness-raising is learning about people and the way systems affect their (and our) lives.

Some of those systemic issues are; funding for public schools, health care, the need for living wages, tax policies, and International policy, both economic and military. According to Vida Scudder, some organizations seek to care for people who are suffering, and others seek to transform the conditions that produce suffering.