First Reformed United Church of Christ

I am delighted to share with you the great results of our first TT meeting last Tuesday evening in the Willing Workers classroom.  All but two members were able to be present, and, as we have indicated elsewhere, this is the nature of such groups.  Anne Fletcher has agreed to take the notes of our proceedings on her laptop system that will enable us to produce a comprehensive set of minutes for Team review at the subsequent meeting, helping us all to stay current.  These minutes, along with a number of informational and “homework” items that I am providing, will be placed in the personalized notebooks we are giving to each Team member, equipped with appropriate calendar-tab slots for easy access and review.  Since the Team is a resource for the congregation and the congregation is a resource for the Team, we are going to be using our newsletter to share some of our work and these important documents with you, facilitating the vital dialogue, both formal and informal, which will be ongoing between the two groups. 

To that end, please find in this issue of First News (pp. 3-4) a two-page devotional article, entitled “Known,” written by a former Divinity School professor and friend of mine, now deceased, Charles K. Robinson.  I am asking you to become familiar with this document, for the TT will be using this resource for spiritual direction and personal/community growth, as we move through our five developmental tasks and as we engage you, the congregation, in our specially called meetings or “assemblies.”  Your engagement with this text, which is thoroughly grounded Biblically and theologically, will be brought to bear upon the various subjects that the Team asks you to consider.  If I may be so bold, you as a congregation may consider this to be your first “homework” assignment, though I trust that you will find it to be a personally worthwhile, spiritually challenging, intellectually provocative and emotionally evocative exercise.

Wow, this feels really good!  I haven’t given homework exercises in a while, but this is quite exhilarating.  Hmmm…let’s see, after you have read, carefully and slowly and prayerfully “Known,” why not apply yourself to the exercise of reading, carefully and slowly and prayerfully, Philippians 2: 1-13?  That’s what your TT did at our meeting, hearing three different English translations of the same text and then reacting to how each reading touched us.  Actually, we used the “African Bible Study” format, first popularized at a series of conferences for Anglican bishops at Lambeth Palace in London, the first one being conducted in September of 1867.  In this format, one person reads the scriptural passage slowly, and then, moving around the room, each person “identifies a word or phrase that catches their attention.”  There is no discussion during this process, just sharing personal reactions.  Then, another person reads a different translation of the same text, only this time, “each person identifies where this passage touches their life today.”  Again, there is no discussion. Finally, the passage is read a third time, with yet another reader and translation, if possible.  Each person either states or writes:  “From what I’ve heard and shared, what do I believe God wants me to do or be?  Is God inviting me to change in any way?”   Again, there is no discussion.  In conclusion, each person prays for the person on their right, or left, or however the moderator suggests in advance, naming and elaborating upon what that person shared in other steps of the process.  Obviously, note taking and listening with discernment are important in this spiritually directed process. 

I can share honestly with you that it is a very powerful experience to hear a focused prayer spoken for you in a public setting such as that, made all the more powerful by the randomness of who is sitting next to whom.  We departed from our meeting more spiritually grounded and connected than we were when our meeting began, and we had that then as well.  Only, we left strengthened as a community, more prepared than we were before to listen to each other with discernment and care, and without judgment or criticism.  All persons who engage this process with sincerity and openness to the movements of the Spirit are humbled, “leveled” one before the other, equal in all essential ways blessed by the grace of God.

I am asking you to try this at home, by yourself if there is no one else.  This exercise in guided reading, here Philippians 2: 1-13, becomes more powerful as more people are brought into your group, whether it might be family members or co-workers or friends.  The Opening and/or Closing Prayer for this study is:  “O Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learning:  Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.”

After concluding our African Bible Study, I gave our Team the homework assignment of filling out the worksheet I have included for you below in this issue of First News, namely, the worksheet that reads “Possible Approach # 1, “Coming to Terms with History.”  It is a deceptively simple exercise, but it is also a great way of allowing the Team to identify the key issues of “history” that figure so prominently at the beginning of an Intentional Interim Ministry.  Since you will be hearing about this exercise in our earliest assemblies, you may as well get acquainted with it now, enabling your more focused responses when they are needed.  (Please use larger sheets of paper to elaborate upon your answers.)  And you thought that school was about to get out!

Thank you for your prayerful support of your Team and of me.  I do feel providentially placed here and do believe that great work and great harvest lay before us.  Blessings and Shalom.  Pastor Walt   (cell 336-420-2728)

P.S. Team members note that our next meeting at the church is 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, 2008.  We will meet all subsequent Wednesdays in June, June 11, 18, and 25