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I love the church! But I struggle with what we’ve done to the church. The church has to be more than a social club. Yes, church is community, but it is also so much more. The church has to be more than the place in which we learn about good behavior. Of course, we want to be obedient, but what’s the point of the obedience? The church has to be more than “getting people into heaven.” Again, we want people to experience lasting life, but we also must be concerned about what it means to live and serve now.

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I am back in the Cape Town area in a town called Paarl, where I am visiting my sister Emily and her family; I also spent five years of my life (grades 8 through 12) here at Paarl Boys High. I am fortunate that my Sabbatical coincided with my 20^th high school reunion and homecoming for my alma mater against Paarl Gymnasium. On Thursday and Friday we will watch my nephews play rugby on their various teams and then Saturday we will be watching rugby the whole day with the epical final game in the afternoon between the first teams of the two schools. Hopefully Boys High can turn the tide around as Gymnasium has been winning for the past five years.

A great and life-changing experience I had these past weeks was spending a night and the following day in Soweto. Soweto is an urban area in the City of Johannesburg and its name an English syllabic abbreviation, short for South Western Township. What makes Soweto unique is that it is infused with the history of the struggle against apartheid and was home to people like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Very memorable were my visits with Antoinette, the sister of Hector Pieterson, a 12-year-old boy who died during the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. Hector was killed when the police opened fire on students protesting against the apartheid state’s policy of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools, regardless of the student’s first language. He became the iconic image of the 1976 Soweto uprising after a news photograph by Sam Nzima of the dying Hector being carried by an 18-year-old school boy, Mbuyisa Makhubo with Antoinette (then 17 years old) running next to them was published around the world.

Although I was too young to remember the events of June 16^th, it was  truly amazing to visit with Antoinette, who now is a tour guide at the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum. During my visit with her I once again realized how apartheid dehumanized people to the effect that we could forget that Hector was really a child, and not just an image in the newspaper. Antoinette helped me recognize that he was a normal 12-year-old boy who was very close to his mother, loved to play in the garden collecting bugs of all sorts, and that he dreamed dreams. As I was listening to her I became aware that he could have been one of my own two children who now are at the same stage in their lives. It was then that Hector came alive to me and I envisioned the cost of the ultimate price he and his family paid for a free and just South Africa. Most amazing to me is that Antoinette does not hold any grudges or bad feelings against the people or system who took her brother’s life. She has made a choice not to allow hate to hold her life captive. For her to be truly free and to do justice to her brother’s sacrifice is to forgive and to let go.

For me personally I broke a barrier spending the night in Soweto. Growing up white in apartheid South Africa we lived with a tremendous fear of the black majority, a fear that still separates many people today. For me it was unbelievable to be there, walking down the streets of Soweto, watching the Bafana Bafana’s (South Africa’s national soccer team) semi-final FIFA Confederation Cup match against Brazil, hearing the sounds of the vuvuzelas, and drinking a beer with my gracious host.

I left Soweto with a sense of wholeness, realizing that our biggest fears sometimes keep us from living our lives as people who are set free, which in turn minimizes the sacrifice of those who paid the ultimate prize.

The Presbyterian News Service published a story today about Rev. Robert Hattle, a tentmaker in Topeka, Kansas.  You can read the story about Rev Hattle at
http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09400.htm.

During the past few months, I have met tentmakers in Northern California, South Dakota, Iowa, South Carolina and other places across the United States.   In addition to doing a great job in ministering with their congregations, these tentmakers also serve as farmers, accountants, doctors, and ranchers. As the Rev. Marcia Clark Myers, director of the PC(USA)’s Office of Vocation says in the above article, tentmaking is not only a viable model of pastoral ministry, it is also becoming a model of choice for more clergy serving smaller membership churches.

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I know for myself I tend to worry a lot about the church – that is my particular congregation I serve. I think the saying is true that the church is a “jealous mistress.” Hardly a day goes by that I am not thinking about the hopes, failures, and dreams for this congregation. I worry about a lot of things – older congregants that statistically don’t have much longer to live; how to introduce others to Christ and bring them in to our community of faith, analyzing long-standing barriers to growth in ministry, etc. Always something to think about. However when it comes to the larger catholic church, I really believe that we have some real things to worry about, especially through the eyes of those who are newly trained and ordained into ministry. 
As mentioned before, I was at a Lilly-funded Pastoral Resident consultation which you can read here with pastoral residents from a variety of denominations. As one of thier assignments before the consultation each of them had the opportunity to answer three questions on reflections of ministry. The one question that was asked was “Name one thing that worries you about the church.” I took the liberty to quote directly from some participants that will give you some insight as to where their worries are:

“I worrry that the church can easily become self-absorbed and curved in on itself.”

“The church has to nurture its malleability and its ability to accomodate (instead of assimilate) new members . . . I do not mean that the church should reject its traditional practices (as those are also desired and needed) but be more willing to be a “both/and” instead of an “either/or” church.”

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The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of the 218th General Assembly, is one of the conference leaders. Information and registration materials are available at www.montreat.org/current/2009-alt7-conference.

 On the first day of each month, in order to build awareness, strengthen community and spark action Presbyterian Church (USA) bloggers will post their thoughts and musings addressing the following questions:
- how would you define describe POVERTY and its impact in your community?
- how has or has not your community of faith addressed issues of POVERTY?
- what are the greatest hopes and challenges that you think face your community, larger church and the greater society in dealing with issues of POVERTY?

This month [05.01.09] it is POVERTY. 

  If you are interested in taking part, please go here to sign up. If you don’t have a blog, but would like to take part, please send an email containing your thoughts to communications@ptcaweb.org by April 28 and we will post them on EMerge the Blog.  Please include your contact information if we need to contact you.

• Minutes of the March 14 Stated Meeting
• Board of Trustees Report to the Presbytery
• Committee on Representation Report to Presbytery

Please check back for updates.

Here is how the People’s Press described how these African sisters and brothers in Christ worshipped:

The day of worship, which opened its doors at 11 a.m., was slated to run until 8 p.m., finishing off with a traditional dinner of lamb and African spices. But the focus of the congregation, on this Easter weekend, was on one sole concept – worship.

As more Sudanese congregants began to arrive in the afternoon, casually enjoying fellowship and sharing stories in their native tongue, musicians were practicing in the sanctuary. And when the crowd of 75 to 100 people finally gathered for the beginning of the program, the sanctuary was filled with vibrant sound. The choir lined up into one single file line and marched down the center aisle, singing and clapping their hands. They sang familiar songs in foreign languages, like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that were perhaps altered for the upbeat sound made by African drums.

“It’s an expression of who they are as an African,” said Wilson. He said instead of following so closely the formats seen in other churches, the Sudanese are more focused on the emotion found in worship, moving through the motions at their own pace.

To read the whole story, please go here. Another story can be found here. You can also read an editorial honoring the church for its welcoming attitude:

In the days, weeks, months and years following the first Easter, nearly 2,000 years ago, the leaders of the early church were looking for some sign of what shape their mission to world would take. Would they remain a small faction within Judaism, as some of the early church fathers believed and likely hoped they would? Or would their mission take them to the gentiles as well? In the end, Christians came to believe that they were being called to take their message of love and forgiveness across ethnic lines and to the ends of the earth.
A vision of that universal brotherhood came to Owatonna on Saturday, on the eve of Easter, the day that Christians throughout the world celebrate as the center of their liturgical year. A group of Christians gathered in the Associated Church Saturday afternoon to celebrate their faith in a special worship service. What made the event unusual was that the vast majority of those who came together that afternoon were African immigrants who had come to the United States as refugees from war-torn African nations. They came here to Owatonna to share not the things that separated them, but to celebrate the faith that united them.

What made Saturday’s celebration so inspiring was the fact that few of those who gathered at the church for that day’s worship were actual members of the Associated Church. They came to the church from across southern Minnesota, Iowa and as far away as Kansas City, Mo.

Since time immemorial, humans have had the tendency to concentrate on the things that separate them from others – tribe, clan, race, religion, culture, you name it. As the world has grown smaller through the explosion of technology, the concentration on our differences has been amplified. The end result has been that the world has become an even more dangerous place.

We appreciate the example of the Associated Church, for seeing beyond differences of culture, race and language to reach out to others and make them welcome. Let us hope we can all follow that example.