A Church Dares to Change

As I walked the dog this evening, I thought of a congregation that is making an amazing witness as they step out with faith and courage. Burnt Factory UMC was my first appointment as pastor. I was so naïve. I can’t stress that enough. When I was asked by a reporter from my hometown about whether the people would accept me as a woman to be their pastor, I said that I just planned on loving the people, and that love would prevail. In so many ways, I was so naïve that I did not truly realize how opposed some of the people were to me as pastor. Thanks be to God for that shield.

At BFUMC the people truly loved God and wanted to serve. When something needed doing, they worked together to make it happen. Part of that grew somewhat of being a “family” church, with one particular family being dominant by sheer numbers. That could have been an invitation to be inwardly focused, but as I keep up with the congregation on Facebook, and in other ways, I marvel at how thirty-one years after I moved from there, they are showing their love for God and God’s people in such a way that they are in the process of demolishing parts of their building in order to expand it so they can reach new people for Christ. And in usual BF fashion, they are carefully taking down parts so they can be reused, doing as much of the work as they can themselves. They are daring to take a risk, to step out in faith in order to reach people who need God’s love.

This raises a question for me: how williing am I to be bold, to dare to step out in faith when I cannot see where two steps more of the path will take me. That requires trust; it also requires courage.

Courage

The etymology or root of the word courage comes from the Latin word cor which means “heart.” Courage is a matter of the heart. While some define courage as facing a difficulty or a danger without fear, I rather think that courage is facing that difficulty or danger even in the face of fear. Sometimes courage is getting up in the morning when all seems bleak and lost. Sometimes courage is going to bed knowing that someone you love is in pain, and all you can do is pray.

Over the last week, I have thought a great deal about courage as a step in going deeper within and facing the questions of our lives. It is looking at the unknown and taking a step towards it, maybe even while flinching inside. Courage is seeing only a tiny bit of the path ahead and still stepping out upon it, knowing that God is with me.

The word courage appears only seven times in the New Revised Standard Verson. In four of the occurrences, courage fails, it melts away. Once David prays in courage. Once in Ezekiel, the Lord asks if the people’s courage can endure when God takes measures against their faithlessness. Only once does it occur in the New Testament when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition” (1 Thessalonians 2:2).

Three times Jesus tells someone he heals to “take heart,” and twice he tells the disciples to “take heart” and not be afraid when they see him walking on the water.

There are moments when it feels as though the task is too large, too impossible, too fearful; at those times it seems that my heart will melt away and my courage fail. In those moments, the heart of our community gives me courage and allows me to stand up, and answer the call. In the midst of you, I find the heart of Jesus beating within me.

Mark 10:49

Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”

Risking the Call to Belong

This week has been incredibly beautiful and incredibly hard at the same time. My friend Beth and I have been blest to be a part of Risking the Call to Belong, this year’s Habits of the Heart retreat with the Center for Courage and Renewal. On Tuesday morning Parker Palmer kept turning the prism to help us to look at belonging from different perspectives. In one way, it is a longing to be…fully human, at home in our own skin, fully alive as we journey toward death.

Belonging to community is a paradox, Palmer said. “We are made by God for community; and we are made by God for solitude. If the paradox is not held together in tension then each side falls apart into their degenerative forms.” Bonhoeffer wrote, “Let the person who cannot be alone beware of being in community; let the person who cannot be in community beware of being alone.” Being in community without being able to be alone leads to group think or mob rule, and an inability for self-awareness. Being alone without being able to be in community leads to loneliness and isolation.

The hard work of the past two days was lightened by a concert Wednesday evening. The first song took me back—a long way, though I decline to say how long. I remembered every word of Song of the Soul by Cris Williamson. The second verse asks: “What do you do for a living?/ Are you forgiving, giving shelter?/ Follow your heart, love will find you/ Truth will unbind you/ Seek out a song of the soul.”

Living in community means “continual forgiveness,” Jean Vanier wrote. Do we live in a way that invites others in to community? Do we live in a way that allows people to find the solitude that allows them to grow up, taking responsibility?