Being a Disciple - Blog

The Kansas City radio station I used to listen to as a kid broadcast
regular commercials for a local auto racetrack. The announcer was always
very excited as he read through the various races coming up for the next
weekend. The ads always ended with the sound of roaring motors and squealing
tires and the voice-over screaming, “Kansas City Raceways! Sunday!
Sunday! Be There! Be There!” It's one of those tapes that plays in my head to
this day. I have thought many times since that it would be nice for us to be
that excited about coming to church—not the noisy engines roaring, but
maybe just a little bit of the voice – the “Sunday! Be There!”

You and I are made from communion and for communion. That's not
an original thought with me, but it's the truth. It's one of those First Things,
that set of priority notions that make us who we are. God has made us in and
for communion. All that we do in our lives is all about how we live in communion,
in relationship to one another, and, we in the faith community would
add, in relationship to God. Every one of us lives and moves and has being
because God has knit us together. And we are not whole unless we attend to
the communions into which we have been knitted.

One of those, my friends, is our community worship. It is not a mere
option among all the “stuff we gotta do” for the weekend. It is putting life
together—or maybe back together. We are given, it's important to remind
ourselves in this week of Earth Day, stewardship of all the creation. We are
tenders thereof. As a species, we humans together pursue creation's prospering.
We do it through caring, loving, and tending—all relationship activities.
It is an ancient chore, given us at the dawn of time. But it is only done well
when we order things rightly. Worship is the right ordering of things. It's not
essentially a learning opportunity. It's not essentially a re-fueling. It's a social
affair—social in the sense that God and We form a society. It's a communion,
a right ordering of things, a rehearsal—or better yet, a reflecting back—into
the cosmos and to its Creator the relatedness for which we were created.

All of that is a fancy way of saying, “Sunday! Sunday! Be There! Be
There!” Through summer's long weeks, with all their temptations to do the
opposite, we need to remember. Our worship is the right ordering of things.
So don't miss out!

I'll see you and your guests under the dome Sunday. Remember to
share rides when possible, to wash your hands often, and to share the love of
God always, even if only with a smile. To prepare for Sunday, please read
Acts 11.1-18.

Peace, Tom

How do we talk about our church? It is important, you know, to do so. We didn't gain 34 new members in 2012 by sitting on our hands, service-wise, or by stifling our tongues about who we are and why we choose to worship God among this special group of people called First Christian Church of Fort Worth.

As a congregation and as a whole church, the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), we have been quite blessed during this year by the attention the women of our church are paying to human trafficking. Gradually, over several years, this modern
plague of slavery has been brought more and more into the open. I wrote in this spot
about it some three years ago, I think. But now, with more attention from outside the
church, and with trafficking being the study focus of Disciple Women internationally,
all the horrifying statistics are becoming well known, and consciences are being
moved to action among us.

Just this morning, one of our former elders sent me information about Traffick911,
a local effort to fight slavery in Tarrant County and abroad. Our friend Phil
Shepherd, of the Eucatastrophe congregation which has a special missional emphasis
on stopping trafficking, says Traffick911 is a good organization made up of good
folks. So I want to pass on to you the info this elder sent me. It's not only about the
$32 billion a year industry of buying and selling children for sex and free labor. But
it's also about a fund-raising golf tournament for the organization. Go to Traffick911.
com to learn more.

Sex-slavery is the fastest-growing crime in the world, with even drug cartels
turning to it because the “product,” unlike a consumable drug, can be sold over and
over and over again, can be transported more easily, and can be exchanged for any
number of things of value besides cash. But human beings are bought and sold in nonsex-
related industries as well. Our Faith Keepers Sunday School class is already active
in encouraging us to make wiser, justice-based purchases at the store, lest we support
with our dollars industries which use slave labor. The bottom line is to open our eyes.
Slavery in America was not ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. There are
currently more people in slavery in the world and in the United States than in any
other time in history.

Preach the Good News of God in Christ. Tell of Christ resurrected from the
dead. Do it at church, sure, and do it to bring people to church. But also do it by helping
bring people out of the literal darkness, out of the shadowy world in which little
girls are exchanged for, well, just about anything, and are kept in absolute fear and
seclusion, filth and hunger, abuse and more abuse, often for the rest of what turn out
to be very short lives.

For this Easter season 2013, I challenge you—learn more, then in prayer do
something about what you've learned. Get together a foursome for the Traffick911
golf tournament (It's April 29 at Fossil Creek.). Talk to your friends in the Faith Keepers
class about how you can make more just purchases. Call the folks at the Euc and
ask how you can get involved in what they're doing to stop trafficking. (Phil's number
is 612.226.0217.) Even if you do it only for this season, between now and Pentecost,
you will have done something important. How many of you will accept the challenge?
Let me know at tomplumbley@sbcglobal.net.

I'll see you and your guests under the dome Sunday. Remember to share rides
when possible, to wash your hands often, and to share the love of God always, even if
only with a smile. To prepare for Sunday, please read Acts 5.27-32.

Peace, Tom

The Second Commandment (not to be confused with the Second Amendment,
which it supersedes – and perhaps even countermands)--the Second Commandment,
of the big Ten from that tablet Moses brought down from Sinai way back when,
says, “You shall not make any graven image, in the form of anything in heaven or on
the earth, and you shall not bow down to such things and worship them.” (Exodus
20.4-5, Plumbley translation). Pretty strong. Pretty direct in ordering our relationship
to all created things. Right? Well, it's not so easily kept!

The first time I was in the Holy Land I was younger than my older son is
now. I was thoroughly Protestant in regard to “holy” things, which is to say I was
pretty much appalled at the notion of tangible holiness, or holiness in things that are
made and can be destroyed. Holy people I understood. Holy relics, holy spots, holy
objects, not so much. I remember being taken aback by the whole notion of an entire
land that bore the title “Holy.” And when I arrived there I remember being irked—no,
really offended—the first time I saw someone get down on her knees, bend forward
and kiss a spot in the floor which someone said covered a place something special in
the Bible had happened.

Nine of us just returned last Wednesday from Israel. It was a great trip, full
of important, interesting and enjoyable relationship-building, marvelous sights to see,
and wonderful people to see and meet. Yet Israel is, at one and the same time, both the
most religiously inspiring and religiously problematic land on earth. There are more
places to point to and say “something wonderful once happened here” than perhaps
any other place on the planet. That, in itself, makes it a dangerous place—and I don't
mean dangerous in the sense that some terrorist might try to kidnap you, I mean dangerous
in the sense that one is tempted to idol worship.

Forgetting altogether the unreliability of claims a thing or event actually happened
in any particular spot two or three millennia ago, there is a deeper theological
problem at work. Holiness is an attribute of God, and God is not locatable. God cannot
be trapped in a box, stone, log or building. God is not ever to be identified with a
piece of wood, a rock, the sun, the moon, a body of water, a building. Our source of
security and our ultimate allegiance is never a piece of cloth, a document, a weapon,
or any other thing, place or system. That Second Commandment makes that pretty
darn clear.

All that notwithstanding, it is undeniable that all of us have fond memories
that are connected to objects, places and people. Sometimes this “fondness” can even
take on qualities of sacredness. This is particularly true when the object, place or person
is associated with something we believe to be an act of God or a time of God's
palpable presence or particularly evident grace. In such a case the object, place or person
may become dear to us. We may properly take action to preserve or protect it (or
them). It (or they) may become a part of our story of God's work in the world. But it
(or they) must never become god for us, and we must never behave in a manner toward
it (or them) that is reserved only for God.

This is why we do not bow before human beings. It is why we do not kiss
stones or paintings or flags or sticks of wood. It is why we grieve, but we do not venerate
our relatives when they die. And it is why we are able to move on when great
changes happen to very dear things and places. It is because God is God, and none of
these lesser things. And we trust the dynamic, living God of all creation to continue to
act, to continue to move, to continue to bring life in new people, in new places, even
in us!

I'll see you and your guests under the dome Sunday. Remember to share rides
when possible, to wash your hands often, and to share the love of God always, even if
only with a smile. To prepare for Sunday, please read 2Cor. 5.16-21.

Peace, Tom

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), through our largest
seminary, Brite Divinity School here in Fort Worth, has moved to the front
of the line in the provision of real assistance to those who have served our
nation in war. A couple of months ago, on Veterans Day, our seminary at
TCU officially dedicated a brand new program called the Soul Repair Center
to do research and to support recovery from moral injury for those who
in war have witnessed or carried out acts that have profoundly challenged
their own moral conscience and moral identity.

In the wake of every war in our nation's history there has been an
extraordinary but clearly identifiable wave of psychiatric problems, domestic
abuse issues, post-traumatic stress disorders, suicides, and other profound
disruptions in the individuals and in the families of the individuals who have
served. To cite only one statistic, veterans account for twenty percent of this
country's suicides, an average of eighteen per day. Scholars began studying
these problems as far back as the Civil War. But the issues themselves were
often ignored, explained away as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” and the
soldiers, sailors and airmen involved were often shamed, belittled or worse.
These moral injuries sometimes last for a brief time. But often they will,
without attention, affect our service personnel for the rest of their lives.
They particularly affect the combat veteran's efforts to return to civilian life
and employment.

Moral injury is not a neurosis, nor is it PTSD (though it may lead to
these). Moral injury is the questioning or abandoning of faith following
upon one's remorse or shame based in memories of war or even other occasions
of the infliction of profound injury or the crossing of long-established
moral lines.

The Soul Repair Center at Brite is one of a kind. Its goals are to provide
research, develop curricula, create training programs for seminarians
and congregations, and work with colleges, seminaries and veterans organizations
to create large-scale training programs in moral injury recovery. We
look forward to great things from such an ambitious and cutting edge effort.
I'm pleased to be able to say that our church and our seminary are the first to
step out in this way not only to recognize but to seek to heal some of these
very difficult and profound wounds. Founders and co-directors of the Soul
Repair Center are well-known professor and ethicist Rita Nakashima Brock
and retired Colonel Herman Keizer, Jr., both ordained Disciple ministers.

To learn more, go to www.brite.edu, or read the Huffington Post
article on the center.

I'll see you and your guests under the dome Sunday. Remember to
share rides when possible, to wash your hands often, and to share the love of
God always, even if only with a smile. To prepare for Sunday, please read
Lk. 4.21-30.

Peace,
Tom

p.s.-- Regarding last week's article about the old Rock Church pews, we've
had interest from both TCU and the Tarrant Historical Commission, plus a
few individuals. Please, if you have concerns about these old pews leaving
the building, call or e-mail me (or Adrian Park) now. See the larger article
on another page for more on the pews.

Last week we thanked God for thirty-three new members in 2012, and then
another came to make her confession of faith Sunday morning. Isn't that great?
Thirty-four new folks for the year!

It strikes me that the influx of new folks this year has to do with a thoroughgoing
engagement in mission that is palpable by simply walking in the door
and reading the website or the newsletter. It also strikes me that new folks always
challenge us in the area of leader development. The Lord brings new folks our way
because the Lord has new and great things implanted in their spirits and new and
great dreams for the ministry to which they and we together are being called.

One of the things we always need to do in regard to leaders is to be calling
out the gifts and graces of new folks, guiding them, and giving them opportunities.
But we also need to be thanking those who have been in leadership for a time and
are now stepping into some new form of ministry.

With that in mind, I hope you'll join me in thanking Mickey Shelton and
Trish Roberts who have finished their terms as President and Vice President, respectively,
of the board and congregation. We are deeply in their debt. Mickey, in
particular, never dreamed, I'm sure, that his leadership in 2012 would include not
only board leadership but also the architectural work for the new eye clinic. Mickey
and Trish, for your many, many hours and for your deep commitment, I know the
congregation joins me in saying a huge “Thank you.”

Rick Morrison is finishing up after many, many years leading our Property
Department. What are we going to do without him? Thanks immensely, Brother
Rick. Your tireless efforts over the years have helped us keep this old building in
working shape and thereby enabled a lot of ministry.

Elders who have now completed three year terms assisting in shepherding
the congregation, holding members up in prayer, and leading at the Lord's Table are
Ronda and Adrian Park, Terry Smith, and Tom and Susan Warren. This has truly
been a committed and helpful quintet. Their wisdom and grace has been of great
help to the ministerial staff, I know, and to many, many of you as well.

Deacons who were in the Class of 2012 were Ruth Cooper, Chris Gonzales,
Wini Klein, Joryn Koski, Marilyn Lansford, Sandra and Wayne Mason, and
Bob Muncy. These too have worked faithfully at the Table and in various other
roles to make the last three years good and faith-filled times of growth within the
congregation.

In addition, FD Kisor finished his three-year term as a Trustee. With the
growth in use of the building, this has been a particularly important job, and FD has
always been faithful in it. This is also a good place to recognize Wayne and Emma
Gardner and to say thank you to them as well. Wayne and Emma were elected Elders
Emeritus at the last congregational meeting as a way of recognizing their many
years of service to God and to FW1st. They're not getting around as well these days,
but they are still looked to for their wisdom and love, and they still lead the Prime
Timers and work in both the Men's and Women's Fellowships.

I'll see you and your guests under the dome Sunday. Remember to share
rides when possible, to wash your hands often, and to share the love of God always,
even if only with a smile. To prepare, please read Matthew 2:1-12.

Peace,
Tom

I'm really on vacation now—or at least when you read this. But wanted to celebrate with you the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013. Now (JUST now, in fact) it is the Christmas season. And at Christmas we celebrate, as I said last Sunday, that “thin place” or thin man in whom heaven and earth seemed to touch. We call him Christ, the anointed of God, in our very midst.

The third Sunday of Advent, the third week of getting ready for the coming
of God With Us, is the Sunday of Joy. Whereas weeks #1 and #2 have been
about Hope and Peace, respectively, next Sunday is about Joy. But we have to ask,
HOW CAN WE BE JOYFUL?

I’m reminded of the Marine reservists standing at our intersections these
days, raising money for children’s toys. Yet what have they seen? What trauma do
they carry with them? As we thank them for their service and hand them a twenty
for the toys, we look into their eyes and wonder what destruction there has been to
their spirits.

Or we think of the first responder who cradles the head of an auto accident
victim, trying to calm her until his partners can cut her from the wreckage. Then,
just before they have her freed, he feels the life go out of her. And he carries that
heartbreak with him for days and weeks.

A twenty-something shoots the mother of his new baby, then later himself.
And another drives while drunk, has a wreck and kills his best friend. A pair of
parents together and repeatedly breaks perhaps our most sacred covenant, the covenant
to protect our children. While maintaining a façade of respectability, they assault
their child sexually, for years, in silence, without consequences except to the
mind and heart of the child. And we are called to JOY?

I sometimes wonder if our world might suffer a sort of mass PTSD, a communal
post-traumatic stress disorder. You see, PTSD is rooted in trauma. It consists
of a repeated rising of the emotions and trauma associated with some incident. It is
a keeping fresh of horror, repeating some terrible impact over and over. The repetition
of the trauma becomes debilitating.

I would not want to belittle the tragedy of PTSD for those individuals who
suffer from it to suggest that those of us whose lives are tranquil by comparison
could somehow have the disorder itself. Yet I would suggest that to the degree that,
as the Apostle says, “when one suffers, all suffer together,”—to the degree that is
true, it might be said that we collectively remind ourselves of the bad even when
we ourselves have not suffered from it directly. And we are, collectively, debilitated.
So, what is this Advent call to Joy, to rejoice in the Lord always? Is it a willful
blindness? Is it a call to forget?

No, it is neither. You and I, Christian and un-Christian, must learn to live
with our memories, pleasant and unpleasant alike. We must, because emotional
pain is instructive. Wisdom is not free. Hurts, sins, misadventures, good intentions
gone awry—all of these teach us. Without them, we are like the blind goose who
arises every morning to a new world and bumps his head, every morning, on the
same low-hanging tree branch.

The Apostle Paul’s “Rejoice in the Lord always” is not a Bobby McFerrin’s
“Don’t worry; be happy!” But it is a key characteristic of the Christian life. It
has more to do with confidence that the Lord is near at hand. It neither denies nor
runs from the pain. It simply does not let the pain rule. For it remembers the God
who is most clearly and completely revealed as one who enters our lives, beginning
to end, and stands with us at each moment. And that, now that, truly that, allows
healing.

I’ll see you and that guest you’ve been intending to bring under the dome
on Sunday. Remember to carpool when you can. Wash your hands often. Find
some way today to share the Good News, even if it’s only with a smile. And prepare
for Sunday’s worship by reading---- Philippians 4.4-7.

Peace,
Tom

Wow. I did say it Sunday. I meant to. I hope you heard. Under the general
theme of being tired of all this highly inaccurate and unbiblical stuff about a coming Apocalypse I said in my sermon that Jesus never, ever spoke of his followersbeing taken away from the earth and everyone else “left behind.” The statement is absolutely true, and I stand by it.

So what about all this “Rapture” stuff we hear about? Well, the short answer is that

When I went straight to the pulpit Sunday for the reading of the Gospel,
following the serving of communion, it wasn't because I had forgotten to prepare a
Children's Sermon. It was because we had no children in the age group that usually
comes forward. But I was prepared. I was going to talk to the kids about how
they know there's anything to be thankful for. We always ask them what they're
thankful for. We seldom ask how they know. We seldom ask ourselves either.
What are the signs that let you know you've got something for which to give
thanks this week?

I was going to suggest to the kids that they begin by looking at hands. I
had some faint streaks of blue and red paint on my hands which I was going to
show them. It hadn't come completely off even after several washings. It was paint
from a project I've got going at home, making a special something for one of my
grandsons for Christmas. The project is a gift of love, and, I was going to suggest
to the kids, a sign of the sort of love for which they too might give thanks—the
love of parents or grandparents in their lives. And I was going to suggest they begin
looking for calluses, burn marks from cooking or baking, fingers poked by
sewing needles, tired eyes, droopy shoulders, even tears sometimes—all of which
might be signs of people who regularly and repeatedly go out of their way for
them, to love them. All are signs of things for which they could give great thanks
to God.

What signs are there for your thanks this week, or any week in your life?
Perhaps a uniform, or a badge. Maybe a smudge on someone's cheek, some
grease, flour or dirt. How about a hand reaching out for yours, or someone simply
walking into your room or your office? Maybe it's simply a phone call or a text
message, a tweet or a posting on some social networking site. Maybe it's an individual
thing, but maybe there are also signs for our communal thanksgiving as
well. Perhaps it's a local project that'll make things better, a bridge, a clinic, a
meeting of the minds among folk who once were greatly at odds. Maybe an election
that set direction or stabilized things. Maybe something unexpectedly positive
from a group or in a situation we'd given up on.

And what about between you and God? The sunrise was one for me yesterday,
and the cool temperatures. Or you know they tell stories about some signs
on the hands of the Risen Jesus, some nail prints, and a scar on his abdomen. The
church itself is intended to be, and at its best sometimes even is, a sign of the grace
of God for which we give thanks. Don't just ask yourself what you're thankful for.
That can sometimes yield a rather superficial listing. But look for the signs – on
hands, in eyes, on horizons, in print – look for the signs. That way you'll truly
know. I'll see you with your guests on Sunday and we'll talk about it. Remember
to share rides when possible, to wash your hands often, and to share the love of
God always, even if only with a smile. To prepare for Sunday, please read 2Sam.
23.1-7.

Peace, Tom