Spirit of Christ Community and eating and drinking into mission and community!

Jonny Baker speaking on ways into small missional communities talked about eating and drinking together as one way into community among other ways:

“Interesting things can happen when people eat and drink together.”

Each week we gather  to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ as spiritual nourishment to strengthen us for the week ahead.  When I named this blog “Let us break bread together” I  had no idea how much food would play in  my ministry. At Sojourner Truth Ministries we called it Truth Café. Now at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community we gather once a month for a potluck after worship. if someone is not able to bring a dish to share at our potluck, we welcome them to help prepare and we all participate in this setup ,eating, conversation and cleaning up of the area.

Last  Sunday we gathered at Corrina Bakery to talk about what our church means to us and how do we share that message with others.  We discussed the roles that each of us will take on to build our missional community here in Tacoma. We learn about the diverse gifts that our members have to share in the life of our church. We believe that we live a community where there is openness to “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” in Tacoma

I know that some of our people are not only spiritually hungry, but sometimes physically hungry, we have members for whom the food bank is a necessary safety net. Despite this our community gathers food to donate to My Sister’s Pantry a local food bank.  We take seriously that all can serve and give to worship, learn and serve Christ!
Eating together helps builds community and a strong sense of church as the Body of Christ. We gather to break bread together over laughter, discussions on church and community and our mission. We are exploring the idea of  having a monthly Café on a week night with art, music, prayer and  community as a extension of our communion table.  The greatest blessing is that after a liturgy focused on the presence of Christ in bread and wine, we don’t rush away from worship back to our isolated lives,  but spend time basking in the presence of Christ among us.

 

We know that our community is called to be a multi-racial, spirit-filled, radically inclusive, sacramental church here in Tacoma and that we seek to that in a ecumenical manner influence by the World Council of Churches document on Baptism,Eucharist and Ministry. Discerning how our presence might sustain people with spiritual and physical nourishment in a time when so many people live in social isolation.  We are creating a missional community, in which we invite people  who have been been made to feel out of places in other churches to find room at the Table for them at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community.

As you read Jonny’s ways into missional community,know it does not require lots of money  or people to break bread together ,but it does take willingness to get out of the building and be Church in the community.!

Behold I'm Doing A New Thing!

We know that something happens every week when we celebrate the Holy Eucharist(Mass) that the Holy Spirit descends on the elements to make Christ present in the Eucharist and in us and that whole prayer consecrates. Those who are descendants of  catholic tradition hold this as a core teaching of our faith. It is also important that a community of priest and people are present to celebrate this communal spiritual practice.
I'm  one who loves Eucharistic worship with the core of my being, this love was instill by some amazing priests , nuns, and lay people. It was also taught to me in a particular way by Father Dean Braun,(RIP) who love to bring the solemnity of the Eucharist to bear in the community with incense, proper gestures and posture, traditional elements  of the liturgy and as many boys who showed up on Sunday morning could march in the procession. He wore biretta and cassock, he was thoroughly committed to II Vatican Council worship and principles. He also taught me that charismatic expression and African-American culture could be incorporated into the liturgy. He also taught me that the mass is the school for ministry and that what we do in worship needs to be carried to the community. From visiting the sick, helping the needy, and speaking up against injustice.
For this I will forever be grateful and have seen God move in a powerful way in the many liturgies that I have celebrated since being ordained to priesthood in 1992. I bring all of this as I seek to engage people  with the eucharist, community and justice.
One my greatest frustration with the Independent Catholic Movement that cause me to leave it, was that many people seem satisfied with just being able to say Mass and wear the vestments. There is no effort to build community and ministry and certainly not a lot of effort to reach beyond comfort zones.  I think everyone should have a home chapel for private devotion and common prayer, but ministry must be outside where people are waiting for a word, relationship or  opportunity to began a new journey in Christ.
 While I may not agree with every conclusion that he writes, Robert Caruso offers a good grounding in Theology of the Church in his book, The Old Catholic Church, understanding the Orgin, Essence  Theology of a church that is misunderstood. if we applied the Eucharistic Ecclessiology it would change most of our churches and ministries.  It has been on this journey that I sought ministry outside of the IC/OC movement. I joined a denomination the International Christian Community Churches and founded another denomination the Christian United Church that observed weekly communion and sought to plant congregations.
In this journey I embraced a emphasis on good liturgy, powerful, passionate preaching and having the best music, we could provide without a choir and often with  recorded music. I spent the last five years studying small church ministry, evangelism and congregational development from some great Protestant resources in mainline churches and some non-denominational churches. I sought to apply these principles to a Eucharistic-centered church.
I believe passionately that the first mission of the Church is making disciples of Christ, and all the other things grow out of that mission, justice, community. That mission is accomplished by seeking spiritual practices that will transform the lives of those encountering Christ in the Church. I have experience this in the small but fruitful communities that I have pastored since 2003.
In this journey with the CUC, even though we have this Wesleyan emphasis, it has been interesting that the majority of people who have joined us are Ex-Roman Catholics and people who want to move on from fighting for acceptance in their prior churches, to just wanting to be in relationship with Christ in the eucharist and community.  There has been a new found liberation in the new community.  In the last year, I have experience first hand the renewal of the Independent/Old Catholic movement and have been blowed away how the Holy Spirit moved to build groups that are service about mission and ministry. The Ecumenical Catholic Communion, Apostolic Catholic Church and Old Catholic Church, Province of the United States just to name a few.
In the end, Archbishop Joris Vercammen of the historical Old Catholic Church of Utrecht says that our unity comes from our baptism in Christ. I think that it is more important that we engage in ministry and mission and planting new  communities. Our movement has not grown because we don't plant churches, we don't invite people to become a part of Christ's body.  We engage in internal arguments over jurisdiction, validity and vestments.
 We promote people to the office of bishop,  who have not been called by people  to serve, but often to make our small jurisdiction seem larger. Since I  founded the CUC, many of those who approach me about ministry, first comment is you need more bishops to share the work. Well that is why we have laypeople and priests and many of those duties can be shared. I'm sure that should I take or die, the clergy and people can come together to elect one of the priests to be bishop.
 I know that many of our clergy want to do the right thing and are personally frustrated by their inability to do ministry.  Formation and training whether in seminary or a strong formation program is necessary.  Once you are ordained you still need to continue formation.  We need to learn from our evangelical friends how to plant churches and grow communities, many have more in common with us, bivocational, and some seminary trained and others are not. They have to build congregations from the ground up with no financial support for outside of the community. Many of those principles apply to our movement.
 The most important thing to remember that Scripture says: "Behold I am doing a new thing"  Understanding Catholic Christianity tradition, what new thing can we do in God to serve people in this tradition?  Bishop Stephen Cottrell of the Church of England has written about in Abundance of the Heart: Catholic Evangelism for All Christians and many others.
 
My reason for writing this is to offer a word of hope for those in the  Independent/Old Catholic community and a challenge for us to not be limited by the history of the past, but to move forward not recreating the Roman Catholic Church or letting the focus of our efforts to getting recognition by  Utrecht, Canterbury or Rome, but to gather recognition from the mission and ministry offer to our local communities  which include laity and clergy. It is say that I'm Catholic, not Roman, not Old, not Anglican, but one who believes in the Catholic faith and worship  as practiced by those who left their church of orgin and seeking a new identity in what it means to be a Catholic Christian outside of the traditional churches.
 
I believe that we can build real communities that makes disciples of Christ who change the world.  It  has taken me a journey outside of the Independent Catholic Community to realize the we can and must have the same mission and ministry  as other denominations.
Bishops should be resource people on a diocesan level who empower and offer resources to local communities  to engage in their baptismal ministry and clergy should be equippers of the ministry of all. Laity should know that they are called to active participation in the mission and ministry of the Church.
I'm forever grateful to Father Dean Braun, who started me on this journey of mission and ministry, to the people who have served me and allowed me to serve them to best of my ability. I look forward to meeting and sharing ministry with the Renewed, Refreshed vision of the Independent/Old Catholic Community.
This past Sunday as I gathered my small community in Tacoma, around the altar, my 81 year member raise his hands at the Sursum Corda and throughout the eucharistic prayer, it was beautiful and moving and  a reminder  that as a I serve as the sacramental leader of this community as Presider, I share  a common ministry in which we lift up the Lord. I love my community, my ministry and the priesthood. Now let us renew and refresh to do this new thing in Christ.

Equality is about more than marriage!

I'm strongly committed to marriage equality, but this is not the culimination of our fight for full equality. It is one of the steps toward it. First of all, I think of LGBT people of Southern Illinois where I grew up and most of America outside of major cities. We need non-discrimination in housing, employment in the entire United States. We beed to insist that those who serve in the military,rec...ieve the full rights of any family that is currently serving including burial rights and death benefits. We need to include our trans brothers and sisters in any non-discrimination legislation without exception. We need to work on eliminating the racism and sexism that is often covert, but sometimes overt in the LGBT Community. We need to insure that as our LGBT elders grow older that the systems of retirement, health care in nursing homes does not force them back into the closet. We need to know that violence against LGBT people will result in the swift but even hand of our criminal justice system. So whatever the outcome of the Supreme Court, there is still much work for equality yet to be achieve.
Justice Scalia asks just at what point did the question before the court become unconstitutional? The founding fathers didn't forsee a lot of things, the full personhood of black people ,freedom from slavery, right to vote for black people and women to vote. The consitution should not be used as fundamentlists often use scripture. It is a document that will find new questions that might be asked when face with a new reality. So as long as our Pledge of Alliance states "liberty and justice for all" and we mean as more than words, until that is true for everyone, we have more work to due for equality.

A different way of being church and catholic following Christ in a sacramental life!

There is a tension between tradition which says the bishop is called to teach, to govern and to sanctify in the Roman model and in the free catholic movement where all the bishop really is a function just to ordain.

There is a tension between innovation which would give the bishop no more authority then anyone else in the church to having a bishop who rules with absolute authority and no decision is accountable to anyone.

As one who has been in Independent movement for the last twenty two years, I have seen it all and this movement tends to embrace the worse elements of a roman clerical class.  The bishops are not to be blame for this reality alone.  Laity and potential clergy give into by limiting their understanding of what a bishop can and should do from the very denominations that they have left behind for reasons beyond just theology. 

The process leads to a focus on ordination and not mission and ministry.  No one should be ordained who does not have or really begun the process of an authorized, active and accountable ministry in which laity are a key part of the ministry.

So how does a bishop have authority. One they should be elected by clergy and people who are committed to mission and ministry in deed and word.  Secondly, they lead from the altar. The Eucharistic Community is where they take leadership embracing the ministry of presbyters, deacons and laity in the liturgy. This model then moves to expression in the life of the church governing and ministering.  If Christ is the head of the church, the Bishop is sacramental expression of ministry that forms for all in the waters of baptism.  It is chiefly the eucharist that shows the catholicity of the church and prepares clergy and laity to be leaders in the body of Christ.

So it really isn’t about Bishops, it’s baptized people who are called to ordained and non-ordained ministry and community in Christ that is our focus.

 

So as we think about being a church where all the baptized are welcome to the table, how do we do church differently? The Synodal model embrace with a right understanding that it not simply democratic, but that it’s authority comes as a result of our sacramental ministry. We make decisions on how we enable people to do ministry, not on how do leave people out of ministry. A call to ministry involves more than academics, but that we form people to live out their baptismal calling for ordained and non-ordained ministry.  For clergy and laity formation is the key to training for mission.   The World Council of Churches’ document on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry offers a theological rationale for embracing a sacramental lifestyle. We also understand that if a community is not present, there is no ministry. While one’s ministry is formed on the altar, you must leave the altar to engage with God’s people in the community. I’m not sure that just focusing on ex-catholics should be a priority as much as seeking those who are unchurched and dechurched to introduce or reintroduced them to life in Christian Community. Too often in this movement we want to use a build and watch them come church, when it might be a get your vision in prayer and the sacraments and then go out and invite people to be in community. The reason, I love John Wesley so much, he was not content with the established way of church, but going to people where they were and organizing them into societies who sought spiritual and social holiness through the means of grace.

 

We are free to let each local community function in their local context, while embracing a common mission and ministry through the sacraments, creeds and ministry in the community. These communities are called to an authorized, active and accountable ministry, not just the prebyster or deacon.

For us local congregations are where the mission and ministry of the wider church is activated.  At the beginning of a new movement, fellowship or denomination this where our primary focus must engage and we must form leadership from our congregations or communities.

To be ecumenical means that we must not expect all Christians to accept our catholicity, but we must welcome the gifts they bring to us from outside of tradition that affirms tradition and invite new ways of looking at serving the community. We have gained an ecumenical consensus that Sunday worship is one that embraces the word and the table. Go take a look at the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, United Methodist Book of Worship and the Lutheran Book of Worship, we are all on the same path that starts at the font of baptism and finds that at the Table of the Lord, nourished by the Word, we all have a ministry to fufill in this “present age”

One last topic, is has been said to me on more than one occasion, we don’t want to be a “gay church” I understand the sentiment, but if that is who God has called to be in mission with us , because they have been on the margins of church and society than let it be. What I know is that not only will LGBT people be drawn to our work, but our straight allies, women and people of color.  No one complains that most churches are Euro-centric and expects everyone to embrace that model.

I remain committed to having a Christ-centered, radicially inclusive, racially, diverse, spirit-filled fellowship that honors our tradition and ancient, but is not afraid to engage innovation and the future.

I remain committed to created an truly ecumenical Catholicism while embracing the lessons learned from our reformed Protestant friends. I remain committed to a message that embrace liberation from oppression while saying that we believe liberation from sin, both social and individual sin.

I believe that we are first to “seek the kingdom of God and allow the other things to be added.”

 

 

We are called to be a different church, have catholicity that is different from what we have inherited. We are an ancient-future church, we do not fear tradition and innovation and we are not ruled by it alone. We are not a bishop-centered movement, but a sacramental movement  inviting people to follow Jesus Christ.

The Doors of the Church are open!

The doors of the church are open to all seeking Jesus and Justice

I was invited by Melvin Woodworth, Pastor of First United Church to a discussion on religion and homosexuality at the Hide and Seek exhibit.  During the discussion, an African –American pastor of a local Baptist church stated the typical line of churches that do not support LGBT people in their churches. He spoke of how he could not support those living the gay lifestyle and it was not  part of  God’s plan for humanity. Finally at one point he stated that he received an insight, that he should refer the LGBT members of his congregation to churches that are accepting. Many in the room thought that was a bit step in his   own development, he acknowledge that the LGBT community should not be discriminated in housing and employment and spoke with warmth about the patriarch of his family who is gay.

His statement seems like a major shift for those attending, I however I felt uneasy about it, and had to  sit with the idea for a few weeks. It dawn on me what was the cause of my discomfort. Where could an LGBT person worship in a style that reflects the black church in an open and affirming faith community?

There are many wonderful open and affirming churches in Tacoma and Pierce County, but not one c that worships in a tradition for those from African-American and/or Spirit-filled backgrounds.   I realized that a lot of black LGBT people remain in homophobic churches because of cultural traditions from the Methodist, Baptist , Pentecostal  and even Catholic churches that worship in African-American styles. Though there is a connect to the worship tradition, even if it is disconnected from their sexuality. This kind of disconnect causes brokeness in some people.

I believe that as one is making the transition to accepting ourselves as LGBT, there is a comfort in hearing the sounds of Zion. So these people often sit on the edge of their churches, because they cannot live openly as a whole person. Christ has called us to wholeness and holiness.

 I want to  offer a place where those who have been on the edge of our churches bring people into the center of the church. but most important to  help people follow Jesus. One should expect to hear gospel/praise music, testimony, visual arts, dance, order of worship that reflect tradition and innovation, black preaching style and the sacraments.

Last week, I had a conversation with a gay man  who could not believe that it was possible  for him to be gay and Christian. It was like a burden lifted off his shoulders to know that God loves him and he did not have to give up being gay to follow Jesus. I told him that the simply that God loves you and there is a place for you to worship and grow in your faith.  It reminded me that we still have a message to share with the LGBT community.  The message is  that “God is love.”  We need “Whosoever” churches to proclaim a message where “Jesus and Justice” is our path to holiness.

I have been talking with folks in Tacoma about this dream to create a radically inclusive, racially diverse, Spirit-filled faith community here in Tacoma. So we go forth to build the Spirit of Christ Community Church, where the doors of the church are open for all to seek Jesus and Justice.

I have no idea where this will go, but I remember the words of my friend Anthony W. Sullivan for me to “run on and see what the end will be”

Let me be clear that while this church is targeting a specific group of people, the doors of the church are open to all seeking Jesus and Justice. No matter who you are, you are welcome to be a part of the Spirit of Christ Community Church. Please feel free to contact me if you have an interest in helping to build this new faith community in Tacoma!
www.spiritofchristtacoma.org

A missionary church: Go

I f we are going to be a missionary church, and then we must be people prepared to Go! The Great Commission began with the word “Go and make disciples”

The apostles and disciples were first sent to meet people where they were. Then an invitation was issued to come and see.  While we may have the form and function  of tradition, we must apply them  as though our neighbors and communities are the mission field that we are trying to reach and invite them to see what a life changed by Christ means in community. We know the day of Christendom is over. Gone are the days when we say if we build it, they will come. People are not attracted to a Christian community by its building, social standing or its great history. People are attracted to Christ, before they are attracted to the church. We must be willing to find new ways, new opportunities to live as the Body of Christ in our communities. Our worship will not always be in a church building. Worship alone will not be enough; we must help form people into Christians through worship, service and study. That will not all happen on Sundays.  What does the mission field look like in your community and how are you called to serve them?

Why John Wesley was so great an inspiration, was that he prepared the Itinerant Preachers to go where the people are, to create societies (congregations) where people grew in accountability and were formed as Christians through classes. They were then challenge to invite others into this new way of living. The goal was holiness of heart and life changed by love and grace.

Will those of us prepared to create this new emerging community, accept this commission and invitation.

Means of Grace by John Wesley

The Wesleyan Means of Grace

Courageous and forward-leaning mission congregations practice spiritual disciplines. Our vital work is a spiritual adventure based in John Wesley’s means of grace. John Wesley taught that God’s grace is unearned and that we were not to be idle waiting to experience grace but we are to engage in the means of grace. The means of grace are ways God works invisibly in disciples, hastening, strengthening and confirming faith so that God's grace pervades in and through disciples. As we look at the means of grace today, they can be divided into works of piety and the works of mercy.
Works of Piety
Individual Practices – reading, meditating and studying the scriptures, prayer, fasting, regularly attending worship, healthy living, and sharing our faith with others
Communal Practices – regularly share in the sacraments, Christian conferencing (accountability to one another), and Bible study
Works of Mercy
Individual Practices - doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting those in prison, feeding the hungry, and giving generously to the needs of others
Communal Practices – seeking justice, ending oppression and discrimination (for instance Wesley challenged Methodists to end slavery), and addressing the needs of the poor
Making disciples, growing vital congregations and transforming the world is part of a spiritual adventure that is empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit as churches engage in the means of grace. Spiritual goals are accomplished by connecting the means of grace with proven vital church practices such as planning, strategic direction, prioritization, clear focus and alignment.

Source for this material the United Methodist Church Board of Global Ministries.

Response To President Obama on Marriage Equality

The Christian United Church is thankful that President Obama has joined on this march to marriage equality. We will truly arrive at the day where we mean "One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all".

Opening the doors of the Church, the Christian United Church