Archives:

ascension

The Art of the Goodbye

Everyone was welcomed to Fantasy Island, but everyone had to say “goodbye”

No one likes to say goodbye, but we all have to do it. The act of saying goodbye, say to a friend, family member, or loved one after a visit is difficult.  You want to stay, but you have to go. It’s hard to say goodbye, but some of us are better at it then others. You could say that to master the perfect “goodbye” is an art form.  Being able to say “bye” without leaving people feeling sad is a skill.

In some cultures, kissing, hugging, crying, or embracing is all normal in the course of the goodbye.  The least favorite type of goodbye is the long one.  You know, the drawn out, emotional, and chatty goodbye where it takes an hour to get five feet out the door.

Believe it or not, there is a guide for everything.  The website “EHow.com” lets people post practical and technical information on how to do things. One person has added a very funny step by step post on “How to say goodbye Southern Style.”  In the final step, the follow advice is offered in order to seal the deal:

Continue Reading…

worship

Taizé: What you are missing

For the past 10 years, I have been interested in Taizé. If you have never heard of Taizé you are missing out.  What is Taizé?  Well, that is a long story.  The short story is that Taizé is a small village in France where Brother Roger founded an ecumenical Christian community of prayer, song, study, service, reflection, worship, and solitude for young people over 70 years ago.  The community was founded as a protestant community and not a Catholic organization. Taizé music and worship is simplistic but deeply spiritual.  You most likely have heard a song or sung a Taizé song in church and never realized it.

For the past few weeks, I have enjoyed reading A Community Called Taizé by Jason Brian Santos.  Santos covers his experience with Taizé and pens about the greater spiritual community of Taizé, France.  The book begins with the grim death of the community’s founder, Brother Roger, but quickly moves into describing the whole experience of visiting Taizé.  As the reader walks with Santos, you immediately get the feeling that you would have similar reactions coming the Taizé community.  Having visited France in 1998, I can tell you that the feeling of culture shock is real and alarming: new food, new places, new language, new surroundings, new culture, new customs, and new… well, just about everything. Santos continues into the who, what, where, why, and how of the community.

As I am learning more about the community of Taizé, I am also listening to the music. The music and worship of Taizé is powerful.  Why?  Here are the 5 most powerful aspects of Taizé that you are missing out on:

  1. Continue Reading…
blog, Tony Campolo

Tony Campolo Coming to Albany

Tony looks pretty “hip” here.

2010 Come Alive and Thrive PDF

Session 1, 2: May 21, 2010 Session 3: May 22, 2010.  First Church Albany, NY

Click here to register.

Tony Campolo was a professor at Eastern University (it was a college when I matriculated) when I was a student and I attended many of lectures and talks.  He taught in my sociology class the final year of full time service to the college.  That year, he retired from teaching full time and became a professor emeritus at Eastern.  From time to time, I would bump into him walking on campus, in the gym playing basketball (with his grandson), at the seminary, or in the hallways and he would always entertain a little conversation with me.

Tony was the reason why I went to Eastern.  I heard him speak at a District of Columbia Baptist Convention meeting in November of 1995 and said to myself, “I want to be at the school he teaches!”  After talking with him after the meeting, he encouraged me to come to Eastern. (James Dunn made a similar proposal that night for Wake Forest University, but I turned him down. Sorry James.)

You can anticipate hearing his unique perspective on what the church may look like in the coming decade and how it can address issues of the modern world while remaining faithful to core values and beliefs. How can the church remain relevant, energized, pro-active and connected? How can the church thrive and be significant in an ecumenical and diverse world?

Continue Reading…

prayer

Mother’s Day Prayer

Prayer for Mothers

Leader: Mothers come in diverse portraits, and today we celebrate the gifts of the spirit we readily observe in these portraits.

All: Thank God for mothers!

Leader: Each of us is a son or a daughter.

All: Thank God for my mother!

Leader: For women who have gone before us and left us legacies of love, endurance, and inspiration.

All: Thank God for the women we commemorate in our hearts and lives.

Leader: For every woman currently working to nurture, teach, and love her children.

All: Thank God for the mothers of today.

Leader: For women who have made children their own through adoption or foster care.

All: Thank God for women who know motherhood is unbounded.

Leader: For women who mourn the death of a child.

All: Thank God for grieving mothers who depend on God’s love.

Leader: For all women, with or without children, who have extended their gifts of nurture and affirmation to members of their communities.

All: Thank God for women who are mothers by heart! We thank you, Lord, for women who have influenced our lives in so many ways.

Mother’s Day Prayer

faith

Rivers of Faith

Continuing my theme of music on Fridays, I couldn’t get a song out of my head when I was thinking about this blog post. “Rivers of Babylon” is a song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of The Melodians in 1972, and popularized mainly by Boney M.’s cover version in 1978.  Boney M.’s version is the most popular because of its Caribbean sound.  Check out the totally 70’s music video complete with 1970’s camera work.  The Boney M. version is even sung in churches.

The group, Barefoot Truth has a great version of it as well:

The lyrics are important. The lyrics are:

Continue Reading…

christians

Is Western Christianity Suffering From Spiritual Amnesia?

This is part of a post by Diana Butler Bass, “Is Western Christianity Suffering From Spiritual Amnesia?”

In the 1990s, I taught history and theology at an evangelical college, a place where the students were serious young Christians. One day, lecturing on the medieval church and the Crusades, I explained how in 1095 Pope Urban II launched a holy war against Muslims. Most of the students took notes. One young woman, looking very worried by the idea of Christians starting a war, shot up her hand. “Professor,” she began, clearly wanting to blame Roman Catholics for the affair, “what did the Protestants say about this?”

“Well,” I answered slowly, “there were no Protestants in 1095.” I did not have the heart to tell her that Protestantism would not exist until more than four hundred years later.

Puzzled, she blurted out, “But where were they?”

The best quote of the article:

At the present juncture of history, Western Christianity is suffering from a bad case of spiritual amnesia. Even those who claim to be devout or conservative often know little about the history of their faith traditions.

So true.  Especially for Baptists.  We think we are the only church to exist since the time of Christ. I bet you 20% of Baptists think John the Baptist was the first Baptist!

Bass continues:

Our loss of memory began more than two centuries ago, at the high tide of the Enlightenment. As modern society developed, the condition of broken memory — being disconnected from the past — became more widespread. Indeed, in the words of one French Catholic thinker, the primary spiritual dilemma of contemporary religion is the “loss and reconstruction” of memory.

via Is Western Christianity Suffering From Spiritual Amnesia? – Diana Butler Bass – God’s Politics Blog.

faith

Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

For some reason recently, while typing my Friday posts, I have a song in my head.  Two weeks ago, I blogged about Bruce Springsteen.  Today, I thinking about Jimmy Buffett and a great song he wrote in 1977 that still gets radio play and is a popular song at his concerts: “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”

Over the years, I have learned a lot from Buffett’s music concerning life, success, disappointment, happiness, and hard times. During the moments where I am too serious or too uptight, I often return to Buffett’s music when I need a change of perspective.  “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is the perfect song during those moments of change or difficulty in life.  When changes pop up in our lives it is often at unexpected times.

The chorus from “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is particularly helpful: Continue Reading…

spirituality

So you want to be spiritual? Try this:

With so many Americans calling themselves “spiritual” rather than religious, many in the Christian community have asked, “How can we make Christianity more spiritual?”  That is a laughable question because Christianity is inherently spiritual.  Prayer, baptism, worship, singing, communion, fellowship, reading scripture, and the list can go on.  Sure, Christianity does not have rocks, stones, and other “new age” objects or artifacts, but there is a steady diet of spiritual things in Christianity.

For hundreds of years mystic, monastic, and ascetic Christians have sought to have a deeper connection with God. St. John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, and Thomas Merton are a few names that Christians may have heard before.  Sometimes their stories are bizarre, but often many mystics simply wanted a prayerful spiritual life.

Some Christians may run the other way when they hear the word “mystical”, but believe it or not every time we pray we are being mystical.  When we pray, we are praying to a transcendent God to ask or praise him for supernatural works.  When we Christians use the word “mystical” we are talking about the  spiritual life and we do not have to speak in tongues to be spiritual either.

One the most transformational components of the spiritual life is reading scripture.  However, many find the Bible boring and need a guide when reading.  One the most spiritual things we can do when we read scripture is to participate in lectio divina.  What the heck is that?

Continue Reading…

Jesus

Americans Feel Connected to Jesus

With the “fall of Christianity” threatening to end the faith as we know it (yeah right), The Barna Group conducted a study of 1,002 U.S. adults, discovered:

  • Two out of every three adults (67%) claimed to have a “personal relationship” with Jesus that is currently active and that influences their life.
  • While a majority of most demographic segments said they had such an active and personal relationship with Jesus, some segments were more likely than others to claim such a connection.
  • Women (72%) were more likely than men (62%) to do so.
  • Protestants were more likely than Catholics to cite such a relationship (82% versus 72%).
  • People who describe themselves as mostly conservative on social and political matters were far more likely than those who see themselves as liberal on such issues to connect with Jesus (79% compared to 48%).
  • And one of the most instructive findings was that the younger a person was, the less likely they were to claim to have an active and influential bond with Jesus. Specifically, while 72% of adults 65 or older and 70% of Boomers (i.e., ages 46 to 64) had such a relationship in place, 65% of Busters (i.e., ages 27 to 45) and only 52% of Mosaics (ages 18 to 26) did, as well.
  • A large majority of Americans (59%) also believes that Jesus gets personal in their lives, going so far as to feel their pain and share in their suffering.

via The Barna Group – Americans Feel Connected to Jesus.

missionaries

Missionary Skype Call Sunday

Sunday, April 25 we will have an online video web conference with Wayne and Katherine Niles.

The Niles are missionaries with International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches U.S.A.

Katherine and Wayne serve as seconded missionaries to Interchurch Medical Assistance in Democratic Republic of Congo. They are involved in full-time service with IMA/ECC affiliated health and development activities in Congo. They both serve as liaison officers for IMA in matters related to HIV/AIDS and Maternal Health projects throughout the Africa continent.

Wayne serves as the in-country liaison officer with IMA for financial and accounting matters. Additionally, Wayne has been helping Congolese people through a development project to grow more food. Among other activities, the project distributes new seeds, disease resistant varieties of crops, and offers women’s groups small loans to purchase machines for hulling, milling, and producing oil.

Katherine is working with a group of Congolese Christian professionals in training community leaders, urban and rural, to be promoters of health in their communities. The staff of a church-related health center in Kinshasa is also using her expertise to make their medical ministry more holistic as they care for urban poor people.

See you this Sunday @ 10:15 a.m. for worship and for our web chat with the Niles!

blog

On the Bema has a New Look

On the Bema just received a new look!   The new look is geared towards making tags, categories, and posts more accessible with a sleeker look. What do you think?

On Facebook