Whiteboard: Palm/Passion Sunday

The long journey of Lent is nearly complete. This coming Sunday will mark the beginning of Holy Week and worship will be marked by the discord at its center. You can even see it in the name of the Worship Service: Palm/Passion Sunday. It isn't often that a "/" makes it into Liturgical Calendar, but this week it does.

In truth, it will probably feel like two worship services, which is generally something you want to avoid but not this coming Sunday. You see, that discordant note is part of the point really.

The first part of the service will be dedicated to Christ's Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem. For six weeks now our Gospel readings have been laden with geographic clues, slight references to ancient cities or towns that are easy to skip over and read past. But those geographic references are important because they underline an important theological theme -- Each week during Lent we have drawn closer and closer to Jerusalem. "Jerusalem, O Jerusalem. Where the prophets go to die." Strangely, Jerusalem is where Christ is greeted with a huge celebratory party complete with palm fronds, a donkey ride, and ecstatic shouts of "Hosanna! Hail the Messiah!" It is a wonderful scene...but it is only the first step in this Sunday's worship service.

You see, if you are a Sunday-only kinda worshiper (and most folks are, if even that much) then all you get during Holy Week is a big triumphant celebration (Palm Sunday) followed by an even bigger triumphant celebration that probably has brass instruments accompanying the choir (Easter Sunday). So for the average (even active) churchgoer you miss the entire crucifixion. And in that sense, you miss the power of the resurrection. After all, you can't really celebrate resurrection -- God's power triumphing over the death dealing ways of the world -- if you skip over the whole death thing.

Which is why we have a second part of our worship service this coming Sunday. It is why we have a "/" in the liturgical title. It is where the "Passion" part of Palm/Passion Sunday comes in.

We'll spend the second half of the service retelling the story of Christ's betrayal, sham of a trial, abandonment, humiliation, crucifixion, and death. If it sounds like a sharp U-turn to make in the worship service, well, it is. And I've always been of the opinion that it should be. It is part of the point of the Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem that it is so suddenly and so sharply cast aside in the face of the cross. We'll experience that whiplash induced shift in the worship service this Sunday...but I don't want to say too much about how we'll do it for fear of spoiling the surprise.

All of that is to explain this week's Whiteboard picture which seeks to capture both the celebratory nature of Palm Sunday as well as the solemnity of the Passion Story. The shadow of the cross lingers behind the palm frond on Palm/Passion Sunday.

I hope to see you in church this Sunday, next Sunday, and on Thursday too for our Maundy Thursday worship service at 7PM following our Potluck Dinner at 6PM.

{ps My thanks to Barry for buying me a set of more colorful Whiteboard markers. He's usually the first one to see my Whiteboard creations...and make fun of them! Thanks for the new markers, Barry.}

Newsbrief: Prayer Vigil

The Prayer Vigil is coming up next week.

The event will kick-off with our regular Wednesday Noon Prayers and then will continue each day in the Alpha and Omega Rooms until Palm Sunday.

If you haven’t signed up yet (and most folks haven’t!) then please find the sign-up sheets this coming Sunday and pencil your name in on a day and time (or multiple days and times) that work for your schedule.

In thinking about prayer, I always come back to Frederick Buechner’s excellent book Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC. In it he begins his definition of prayer like this:

We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of us as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the skyrocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else’s pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else’s joy. Whatever words or sounds we use for sighing with over our own lives. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to ourselves but to something even more familiar than ourselves and even more strange than the world. According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it.

As the Season of Lent rapidly comes to a close, I we will try to “keep at it” through the Prayer Vigil. We will have supplies and resources ready for you, the room all set to go. All we need is your presence and your prayers to help make it happen.

Yours in the journey, Rev. Brian

Whiteboard: Lazarus Come Out!

This coming Sunday we have two familiar texts, each one dealing with the promises of new life that come from God alone. In fact, they are even more powerful than that. They are both about the power of God to bring what was once dead back to life.

Ezekiel 37:1-14 is the story of the Valley of Dry Bones, the very same valley where Ezekiel prophesied to the Lord and miraculously (and rather graphically) them bones, them bones, them dry bones live again.

John 11:1-45 is the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life. It is also the inspiration for the drawing on my Whiteboard this week.

Enjoy the picture, and I hope to see you in church on Sunday morning!

Newsbrief: Henri Nouwen on Prayer

I was reading through a Lenten devotional and decided I just had to share it with you.

It comes from a collection of Henri Nouwen’s writings called “Renewed For Life.” This particular devotion deals with the subject of prayer.

Prayer is the discipline of the moment. When we pray, we enter into the presence of God whose name is God-with-us. To pray is to listen attentively to the One who addresses us here and now. When we dare to trust that we are never alone but that God is always with us, always cares for us, and always speaks to us, then we can gradually detach ourselves from the voices that make us guilty or anxious and thus allow ourselves to dwell in the present moment. This is a very hard challenge because radical trust in God is not obvious. Most people distrust God. Most people think of God as a fearful, punitive authority or as an empty, powerless nothing. Jesus’ core message was that God is neither a powerless weakling nor a powerful boss, but a lover, whose only desire is to give us what our hearts most desire.

May this Lenten season by a time when we all dare to trust in the amazing gifts of God’s grace, mercy, and love.

Yours in the journey, Rev. Brian

Trial Balloon

Along with the new computer system at the church, we were able to start digitally recording my sermons. This past Sunday was the first stab at capturing that audio, and this post is my first attempt at posting the MP3 files to the web. There are still some bugs to work out, but it sure seems worth a try.



This past Sundays sermon was called "Living Waters" and draws from Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42.

Newsbrief: Strengths

“Our strengths are many, and our weaknesses are manageable.”

Those were the wise words that Dave Groves used to sum our Administrative Council Retreat two weeks ago.

It was a wonderful event. The Administrative Council Retreat was the very beginning of a process of discernment we’ll be a part of here at First Christian Church Scottsdale as we strive to live into the bright future God is preparing for us.

One of the tools we used that morning is called the SWOC Analysis. SWOC stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Challenges. It is a brainstorming activity that helps an organization to evaluate itself across those four metrics. In a sense it is a way of asking: What are we good at and what can we do better.

Instead of sharing all of the results with you (which would fill up pages!) I thought it might be worthwhile to share a handful of the answers that came up in that very first category – the answers that led Dave to affirm “Our strengths are many…”

• Fundraising!
• Friendliness and Caring
• Inclusiveness amd Diversity
• Outreach Oriented
• Church Campus
• Good Youth Program
• Fresh Start! - A new time in the life of our church
• Energetic Pastor
• People are looking for an intimate community like ours
• Use of Technology
• Terrific Lay Leadership
• Financial Stability
• Fabulous Music Ministry
• Communication Tools
• Members who are generous with time, talent, and treasure

Isn’t that a great list! We truly are blessed as a congregation to have so many blessings and strengths to draw from!

And I’m curious: What strengths do you see in the church? What other blessings can we lift up and celebrate? As we listen for the voice of God guiding us into the fullness of the future, our strengths will be the things that help bring us there!

Yours in the journey, Rev. Brian

On the Whiteboard: Living Water

As we continue our journey through the Season of Lent, this coming Sunday we inherit two more of the great stories from our Biblical tradition -- Moses bringing forth water from the stone (Exodus 17:1-7) and Jesus meeting the Samaritan women at the well (John 4:5-42).

This Sunday we'll be talking about living water, about the gift of faith and the ways that Christ is calling us to the fullness of life. On the third Sunday of Lent we'll cast aside all stumbling blocks that keep us from knowing the grace, love and mercy of God as we drink deeply from the well of living water. 

Newsbrief: New Computers!

Computers.

They are a central part of our modern lives. From the personal computers we use to check e-mails to the cellphones we carry around to the check-out machines at your neighborhood grocery store.

Computers are also a central part of our ministry at First Christian Church. I mean, you wouldn’t be reading this blog post without computers!

From the e-mail messages we exchange to the Elder’s Rotating Visitation List to the Worship Bulletins on Sunday morning and the Sermon Slides I create every week, we use computers in almost every aspect of the church’s ministry.

Which is what makes this announcement so exciting: This coming Tuesday we will begin installing a brand new computer system for the church!

The need for a new system became apparent when one of the machines in the office started routinely locking up (in the tech world they call it “The Blue Screen of Death”) because it was out of memory. We quickly discovered that the machine only had 32 GB’s of memory (for comparison sake, my cell phone has that much memory; most new computers come with at least 500 GB hard drives now).

The upgrade will also allow us to do some new things in worship as well. Our current server is too old to support the most recent updates to our Worship Software, meaning we aren’t able to take full advantage of what it can do. We can also start digitally recording the worship service and making my sermons available for folks who cannot make it into church on a particular Sunday morning. Stay tuned for more news on that in the coming weeks.

We are fortunate that we can pay for the entire new computer system (3 desktop PC’s and one Server) by accessing unrestricted Memorial Funds. However, if you would like to make a onetime contribution to help offset the expense, that would be fabulous. Simply mark your donation for Fund 5017 and we’ll make sure it gets to the right place here at the church office.

By the way, the system we use to keep track of donations and the church budget…all done on computers! I told you they were central to our ministry!

Yours in the journey, Rev. Brian

John 3:16 on the Whiteboard

This Sunday's scripture couldn't be more familiar. Or, at least one part of it.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son..."

In fact, you'll find "JOHN 3:16" slathered on signs and proudly held up at all kinds of public events and forums. Mostly sporting events. Especially football games.

It is one of the defining texts for us as Christians, and this Sunday I'll make the case that we see the covenantal promise of John 3 written all throughout creation...not just on cardboard signs held up in a crowded football stadium, but everywhere that God leads us in our life of faith!

Down Home on the Farm

Yesterday wasn't just Ash Wednesday at First Christian Church Scottsdale.

It was also the Keenagers first field trip of 2011!

We took 22 folks down to Stanfield, AZ to tour the Shamrock Dairy Farm. It was a great time, and I'm not just saying that because they gave me an icecream cone at the end of the tour....though that always helps.

Here are a handful of photos from our day with 10,000 cows!

The Greeting Committee was waiting for us 

when we pulled into the parking lot.

Our crew of Keenagers on the tour 

Lunch time on the farm...for the cows.
We had hotdogs, chips, and pretzels.

If anyone is interested in taking their own tour of the dairy, check out Shamrock Farm's webpage for details. In April the Keenagers will be going on a 90 minute boat ride on the Desert Bell at Saguaro Lake. You can RSVP through the church office.