{"id":594,"date":"2015-07-01T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/?p=594"},"modified":"2015-07-01T11:03:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T16:03:45","slug":"so-what-is-it-we-do-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/so-what-is-it-we-do-here\/","title":{"rendered":"So What Is It We Do Here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is good every now and then to reflect back on just what it means to be \u201cthe church.\u201d I receive a daily devotion from The Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. They are always thought provoking and, more often than not, timely to what is happening in my life. I\u2019d like to share one that came this week. It\u2019s call \u201cTo Be Myself\u201d and comes from Jean Vanier\u2019s book From Brokenness to Community<\/i><\/b>. Vanier writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not have to pretend that I am better than others and that I have to win in all the competitions. It\u2019s okay to be myself, just as I am, in my uniqueness. That, of course, is a very healing and liberating experience. I am allowed to be myself, with all my psychological and physical wounds, with all my limitations but with all my gifts too\u2026. Experience has shown that one person, all alone, can never heal another. A one-to-one situation is not a good situation. It is important to bring broken people into a community of love, a place where they feel accepted and recognized in their gifts, and have a\u00a0sense of belonging. That is what wounded people need and want most.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Can I emphasis that one more time? \u201c<\/i>It is important to bring broken people into a community of love, a place where they feel accepted and recognized in their gifts, and have a sense of belonging. That is what wounded people need and want most.<\/i>\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll agree that we have all, at one time or another, been broken and wounded. For some of us those wounds have healed, but for others they are still fresh. Pastor Kelly and I, along with ALL of you, work hard to make this a welcoming place where healing can take place. But as Vanier states, it takes a community<\/p>\n

to really make that happen, a community that extends even beyond our church family.<\/p>\n

This is why Pastor Kelly and I meet each month with pastors from other denominations who serve churches in our neighborhood. It was within that circle of brokenness that we began our support of the Divine Intervention program and extended our own Bread & Jam meal program to every Sunday.<\/p>\n

This is why our church is part of a United Methodist circuit of churches. It was within that circle of brokenness that we felt the need to pray for our city in Red Arrow Park this past January, and then took the big step of sitting down together to talk about racism.<\/p>\n

This is why I continue to offer myself to the Urban Ministry Certificate program at Cardinal Stritch University. Many years ago I was among the first to receive that certificate and every year I go back to talk with incoming students. I did that this past week and I was blessed to meet a young African-American man who is now a Roman Catholic seminarian. When I shared my story with the class, a story that includes graduating from Bay View High School and how I came to this church: his eyes lit up. He too was a Bay View High School alumnus, but what caused me to smile was when he told me he remembered being in our church back in 2008. He was in the BVHS choir and they sang at our Cookie Walk. He then told me that several of his friends graduated high school because of the opportunity our church gave them by housing the Outpost alternative high school program. Sadly, that program was discontinued by MPS a couple years ago, but its positive effects continue to this day.<\/p>\n

So never ever discount the power of your presence; be it in worship, at a church meeting, or more importantly, in a community event. Together\u2026and only together\u2026can we hope to heal the hurts of our world. Amen.<\/p>\n

Pastor Andy<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is good every now and then to reflect back on just what it means to be \u201cthe church.\u201d I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[536,259],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastorandy","tag-book-study","tag-pastor-andy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bayviewumc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}