"Never let your fear decide your fate"

I heard a song on the radio when Andrew and I were running some errands. It was on a station I do not normally listen to. A phrase in the song caught my attention: “never let your fear decide your fate.” Looking it up just now on the internet, I found that the band’s name is Awolnation. I am not familiar with them or their music, and the rest of the song didn’t grab me, but that particular phrase was powerful.

How often do we do just that—let our fear decide our fate? That attitude is so much at play in the world. I’m not talking about a healthy awareness of risk. I’m talking about allowing our fear to get the upper hand in our lives. Fear got the upper hand when George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin and ended up killing him.

Our fears may be small or they may be large. They may be justified or not. I would not intentionally expose myself to danger, but how often do I evaluate a situation as far more dangerous than it is simply because it is unknown and unfamiliar to me? Why don’t I look more with eyes and a heart of love and compassion? I really liked a meme I saw on Facebook last week: “I dream of a world where George Zimmerman offered Trayvon Martin a ride in the rain.” That would be a world where love and compassion take the upper hand.

1 John 4:18

Perfect love casts out fear.

Response to Injustice: Examine my own heart

What can we say in the midst of injustice? Do we assume that we are on the side of justice? Yesterday my older son Andrew said that he thinks both sides have it wrong on the Zimmerman/Martin case. Why would I think that he has any authority to speak a word on this matter? As a young man of mixed race, who is identified by most people as black, though raised in a home most would identify as white, he faces the same instantaneous judgments so quickly made by strangers.

In response to Andrew’s comment, I read him a blog post by Steve Garnaas-Holmes at Unfolding Light [scroll down to the entry titled “Neighborhood Watch]. He agreed that this was the best he has read about the issue.

We have to begin seeing others as neighbors. We have to pause to consider our own assumptions. We have to question where our thoughts and actions will lead. I know that this is not the way of the world, but this is the way of the Kingdom, or as some call it the Kindom of God. We are all kin because we are all children of our God who loves each one with the fullness of all love possible. This love is not limited by where or whom we are raised, to whom we are born, by what faith or non-faith we claim, or any other of a myriad of criteria set by humans. This love is not limited because it comes out of the limitless heart of the God we know most fully as Trinity--a community of love so powerful that all creation was set in motion by it.

With this said, it does not mean that we are not responsible and accountable for seeking justice in this world. While all human institutions have flaws, the United Methodist Church has stood on the side of justice in many ways. We need to keep challenging and being challenged in our efforts.

We also need to challenge our vision and our hearts to see and receive others as children of God, as sisters and brothers. This past Sunday during our hymn sing, we sang “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” We pray that peace begins with us, with me. Am I living in such a way that the way I treat others leads to peace or not?

Micah 6:8b

and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Grateful for Community

Grateful… surrounded by loving community, even when it is across the miles.

Last December, we began our midweek prayer circle in the chapel. It’s open to anyone. Primarily, there are three of us who felt a deep need for a time when we weren’t talking about prayer, or learning more about it, but simply doing it together. Most of our time is spent in silence. Since we are mostly in silence, you might wonder why we do it together. There is community even in silence, when our quiet breathing helps us to be centered on the One who is Community personified. Our God who is Three in One graciously opens the Divine Community up to include us.

I think all three of us humans who have been gathering will readily admit that there are more than a few moments during our prayer when we become distracted. Thanks be to God that God does not ignore us during those moments. Slowly we bring our breathing and praying back into focus in God’s presence.

Summertime is tough to get together so we have gotten creative in using technology. We have connected in two places a few times. This week we connected from three separate locations. The miles don’t matter. It’s the community in God’s presence. And so today, I am grateful for how technology allows us to connect.

Matthew 18.20:

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

A Creation Story

         This is a story of beginnings and new beginnings.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” [Genesis 1:1-2]

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [John 1:1]

As our Creator burst forth with the power of love, setting all creation into motion throughout over 13.7 billion years, that power of love has been at work in and through the person of Jesus even to this very day through our fellowship.

Part of the DNA of Christ Crossman UMC is to be a church on the edge. Crossman ME Church grew out of Fairfax Chapel, which began meeting around 1770. It was at Fairfax Chapel that Harry Hoosier, a black servant of Francis Asbury, was first witnessed preaching to blacks, mostly slaves.

         When the Civil War tore about the fabric of the United States, Fairfax Chapel was also torn apart. After the war, seventeen persons who had been opposed to slavery formed what became Crossman ME Church in 1872. As a “northern” church, it was definitely on the edges of a still predominantly southern society in Falls Church. Less politically, socially, and financially connected with the dominant society, the impetus of Crossman was to serve the community and the world.

In the 1940s, a group of persons from Cherrydale Church in Arlington began meeting as the Lee Mission. Serving the community and the world shaped the mission of what came to be called Christ Methodist Church. Both congregations grew with the post-World War II population boom.

In the mid-60s the population began to shift to the outer suburbs of the metro area. At first, the shift did not seem noticeable to those who were active in the congregations. They continued in their faithful gathering for worship and working in service to their communities. It was not until the shift and decline had been going on for over thirty years that either congregation began to realize that they had to make some serious decisions about how to be faithful and fruitful with shrinking numbers and resources.

At Christ Church, a few members realized that without a new paradigm their mission would soon become, as one member put it, “give us money to keep our doors open.” They knew that this was not true mission as the Body of Christ and began looking for a way to change that paradigm. They reached out to Crossman Church proposing a merger. In June of 1997, these two expressions of Methodismjoined forces.

For the first few years, all missions of both predecessor bodies were continued along with new avenues of mission. This began to prove unwieldy since the numbers of persons able and willing to serve had not greatly increased. Deaths and retirement moves took their tolls. It became obvious that continuing to function as we had for decades was not going to be the way to be a vibrant, fruitful fellowship for the 21^st century.

While building on the faithfulness of those who had gone before, we chose to take note of their essence, and not simply their style. Worship became more participatory and involved newer styles of music. With the dynamic leadership of our lay leaders, we became more willing to struggle with questions being asked by young adults in the society.

After receiving numerous proposals to redevelop our property to include some form of retail, Christ Crossman discerned that we needed to take the initiative ourselves. In 2012, the congregation established a goal to work towards building a residence for persons with intellectual disabilities either on our property or adjacent to it.

The fellowship of Christ Crossman sees our role as faithful stewards of God’s creation taking shape in our care of creation, in our partnership with differently-abled persons, and in welcoming, and accepting, all of God’s children to the Table. That Table is not just centered in our sanctuary. We take it out to edges of our world with us each week as the witnesses of the One who said, “See, I am making all things new…I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” [Revelation 21:5, 6]