a guest from Framingham...

Today, Jim Antal, the Conference Minister of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, was our guest preacher - and he was a blessing.  Not only was he gracious and encouraging about our renewal work, but he brought an important eco-justice message, too. His core insight:  people of faith have been a catalyst in the past to empower people and cultures to shift from an oppressive status quo to a more healthy way of living: think civil rights, abolitionists as well as peace and justice advocates.  Now the time has come to expand Christ's question,"Who is my neighbor" to include creation as well as future generations.  In fact, Jim preached, people of faith are essential in expanding the Golden Rule from the obvious to 2.0!

It was a vibrant morning:  Carlton enlisted some of our guitarists to join him for the opening selection - a jazz improvisation on a Chinese hymn - and I recruited some of our rockers to sing in the choir, too so that we had 5 male voices along with 10 women!  And the band, Between the Banks, preached the gospel of grace in our version of Point of Grace's "This Is Your Land."  Powerful traditional hymns on the organ, piano jazz with guitars and sweet, close vocal harmonies.  And families are starting to return to worship after a long summer away.

And just to push it over the top, we welcomed our new Christian Education director this morning by having the children surround her in a circle as I led them in a prayer of blessing and welcome.  As someone said upon leaving worship today:  "I love this church. There is a place for everyone and each person's gifts are honored and respected without anybody being guilt-tripped or pressured."   OMG - I think I am ready to give up the Ghost - what a sweet testimonial.

I am grateful that our guest from Framingham brought such an important word of challenge and hope to us - and I give thanks to God that the Spirit was blowing through the house.