[CHPC] ... [2007-09-09]

Karl's mother died last week (they knew it was coming, and all the kids were visiting for her and their father's 60th wedding anniversary) so Tom Kepler guest-preached again today.

It took me a while to fall asleep last night, so I was tired at church this morning.  And definitely.  I find Tom difficult to listen to anyway.  His voice and way of speaking just don't seem very engaging to me.  (Plus since he no longer attends here, he follows the bulletin but it doesn't really flow.)  At Coffee Hour, someone mentioned that he was co-minister with Pat (the minister who preceded Karl) before she became full-time.
    The Scripture readings were Philemon and Luke 14:25-33 .  It took me a minute to remember that Philemon is an actual book (I recalled the line 'Titus and Philemon" from that kids' song to memorize all the books of the Bible).  Alex said he wondered if it was one of the ones unlikely to actually be Pauline -- that the ones stressing obedience to authority are considered unlikely to actually have been written by Paul (which I find ironic given the bad rep Paul has amongst progressives) and "obedience" definitely cropped up at the end of this book.
    I was awake for the opening, about the "useful" ("Onesimus") pun in Philemon, and for the ending, about the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.
    Alex said he thought it was actually a fairly good sermon.  It was about the central tenets of our faith and the faith vs. works discussion (with Tom emphasizing the importance of works).  I'm sorry I slept through that.  Though I'd prefer exegeses of the specific lectionary text to "All you need to know about Christianity, in under a half an hour."

Gusti's back.  I was glad to see her, but I continue thinking that I really don't feel connected to this church in meaningful ways -- there are some people I like and a lot I'm indifferent to or could do without -- though I don't feel really strong connections anywhere that I am.  I think checking out the Congregation would be a good idea of me, but I don't wanna lose what connections I do have here, so I'm not sure I wanna do this.

They changed the font or something of the bulletin.  It feels more accessible.  And they now list the titles as well as the numbers of the hymns, which I appreciate.

( and the requisite copy-and-paste of the prayers )

[CWM] Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost [2007-09-09]

( grieving mothers, and being Christs in the world )

*

Announcements included the Living Faith, Seeking Justice conference in Fort Worth Nov. 1-4.  Over dinner, Rob was asking Tiffany about the conference because he's gonna be in the area around that time, and at one point she mentioned it being run by liberal progressive folks.  He said that had been one of the things he had been concerned to know.  I said that Tiffany had been speaking positively about it so of course it was liberal people.  "I'm sorry, I'm a mean person," I said.

She said she met George Hunter at Oxford and told him she would read his book (Christian, Evangelical, and Democrat? -- a book which he apparently he got a lot of flack from his colleagues for) and dialogue with him afterward.  She said she'd let me know how that goes.  I said I was definitely interested to hear about it and that I thought it was great she was doing that.

I told her about how at Singspiration one of the ushers noticed my "Ask. Tell." and we talked briefly and one of the other ushers overheard us and so we talked about it some while we counted the offering money and how I definitely intend to mail him Biblical info since we had mentioned that but not gotten into it.  And I told her how another guy there writes a column for the Herald and it's usually feel-good stories but when it gets political we often disagree and I'll write him letters and he writes back and everytime he sees me he says how much he appreciates my letters and how proud my parents must be of me and how he is as well and how I'm doing great things with my life and so on.

She said dialogue is hard, and that I seem to be good at it.  I said I was good (better than some people here) at certain types of dialogue, that I was sure there were other kinds of dialogue that she was much better at than me.

***

In other news: The CWM 5 year anniversary is Sunday, September 30 (5pm).  It's hoped to have 250 people in attendance and will be held in the sanctuary rather than in our usual upstairs room, so if you want a real feel for what CWM services are like it's not ideal, but if you need an excuse to come check out my queer church....  (Mom, if you just want visuals for my people, Jeremy e-mailed a digital copy of the Convo photo -- Rob, Tiffany, Annie, me, Sean, Marla, Will, Sean.)