Humility

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

northchurchblog's avatarNorth Presbyterian Church

Parents do strange things sometimes.

My dad used to introduce me to people by my shoe size:

“I’d like you to meet my son.  He has a size 11 shoe.”

I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.  Can you imagine what would have happened if I had internalized that fact as an impressive talking point?

I might have said something like, “That’s right.  You heard the man.  Size 11 is nothing to mess around with.  I expect to be treated with some respect around here.”

Obviously, that would have been ridiculous.  Shoe size has nothing to do with how good or interesting a person is.  It would be silly to suggest otherwise.  Of course, we laugh at that idea, but how many other criteria do we have for evaluating a person’s status that are just as ridiculous and arbitrary?

My favorite ridiculous commercial is the one where a guy…

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Essential Tenets, Core Beliefs, and the Presbyterian Church

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

This is a reblog from an article on the website of First Presbyterian Church, Dallas, TX.  It is one of the most astute and concise statements on theological authority I have read in a long time and it resonates deeply within my soul:

What about our core theological beliefs?  Since the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the early 1900’s, the Presbyterian church has battled over a need to assert “fundamentals” of the faith,” a term invoked by Presbyterian lay leader Lyman Stewart, who published a series of essays that would become the foundation of a fundamentalist movement within Protestantism.   Some see our lack of defined “essential tenets” as a lack of core theological beliefs.  I do not.  It  keeps our theology in proper perspective to the sovereignty of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  So we debate essential tenets of the faith.  We hold to the sovereignty of God in all things, and we debate what that means.  We point to the total depravity of humanity, and we debate what that means.  We debate predestination and its impact on the important decisions of discipleship.  This does not mean we lack core theological beliefs, rather we refuse to make an idol out of our theology.

Click here to read the full article

The Authority of Compassion

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

northchurchblog's avatarNorth Presbyterian Church

This quote was sent to me by Marion Palmer, North Church’s Clerk of Session.  Submitted for your edification and enlightenment…

The Church often wounds us deeply.  People with religious authority often wound us by their words, attitudes, and demands.  Precisely because our religion brings us in touch with the questions of life and death, our religious sensibilities can get hurt most easily.   Ministers and priests seldom fully realize how a critical remark, a gesture of rejection, or an act of impatience can be remembered for life by those to whom it is directed.
There is such an enormous hunger for meaning in life, for comfort and consolation, for forgiveness and reconciliation, for restoration and healing, that anyone who has any authority in the Church should constantly be reminded that the best word to characterize religious authority is compassion.   Let’s keep looking at Jesus whose authority was expressed in compassion.

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Knowing God

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This morning’s sermon from North Church

northchurchblog's avatarNorth Presbyterian Church

Do you know God?

There are a lot of different ways one might answer that question:

1.  If you have been in this service today, you have at least heard the word a few times.

2.  You probably have a general idea of the concept (i.e. “Supreme being, creator of the world, infinite in goodness, power, and knowledge.”)

3.  If you come to church or read the Bible on a semi-regular basis, you probably know a lot about God. This is the knowledge that comes from religious observance.  You can probably quote your favorite verses of the Bible (John 3:16, 1 John 4:16) and sing some of your favorite hymns (Amazing Grace) by heart.  If you’re really savvy (and very Presbyterian), you might even be able to recite parts of the Westminster Shorter Catechism from memory (“The chief end of humankind is to glorify and enjoy God forever”).  All of…

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(Reblog) Why Nobody Wants to Go to Church Anymore

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

northchurchblog's avatarNorth Presbyterian Church

Reblogged from Huffington Post

By Steve McSwain

As I see it, there are “7” changing trends impacting church-going in America. In this first of two articles, I’ll address the “7” trends impacting church-going. In the second part, I’ll offer several best practices that, as I see it, might reverse the trends contributing to the decline.

Trends Impacting Church Decline:

1. The demographic remapping of America.

2. Technology.

3. Leadership Crisis

4. Competition

5. Religious Pluralism

6. The “Contemporary” Worship Experience

7. Phony Advertising

Click here to read the full article

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Make This Place Your Home

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Last Sunday’s sermon from North Church

northchurchblog's avatarNorth Presbyterian Church

Do you have a place in your life that you can call home?

What is it about that place makes it feel like home?

I want you to keep this idea of home in mind as we take a look at this morning’s Old Testament reading from the book of Jeremiah. You’ll see that idea of home emerging as a theme within the text.

This passage comes to us from the same era of Jewish history that we talked about last week: the Babylonian Exile. To recap: in the year 587 BCE, the Babylonian Empire invaded and conquered the kingdom of Judah southern Israel. Many of the people who lived there, especially the leaders and members of the upper classes, were enslaved and taken to Babylon, where they would spend the next fifty years or so in captivity and servitude. We talked last Sunday about how it was…

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Book Review – See Me Naked

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

northchurchblog's avatarNorth Presbyterian Church

Book Review

See Me Naked: Stories of Sexual Exile in American Christianity
By Amy Frykholm
(Beacon Press: 2011), 184p.

Something is amiss at the intersection of body and soul for American Christians.  It seems that church folks at large have not yet learned how integrate their sexuality into their spirituality.  We are told that God made this good earth but we should forward to the day when we will “fly away” to our heavenly home.  We are taught that sex is God’s gift that we should be terrified of and avoid until marriage, at which point we should expect to be magically transformed into experts of passion.

Amy Frykholm offers See Me Naked: Stories of Sexual Exile in American Christianity as a deep, attentive look into the stories of nine people for whom the oxymoronic relationship between sex and spirit has become unsustainable or even deadly.  By hearing these folks…

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Monica A. Coleman Prays with her Feet for Mental Illness

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment
Image
Photo by quinn.anya. Retireved from Wikimedia Commons

Reblogged from the Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman:

Today is the National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding. People often ask me how they can pray for people who live with mental health challenges.  I like prayer.  I pray.  I’m a minister who often prays for other people.  I believe that God can change our hearts and our lives through our attention and focus on God and others.  My colleague Susan Greg-Schroeder has some excellent resources for prayers and liturgies at Mental Health Ministries.  Check them out here.  But I keep thinking about how Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel talked about marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, AL.  He said, “When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying.” So I was thinking about ways people can pray with their feet for mental illness.  Here are ten ways.

Click here to read her article

The Chaplain’s Voice

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

ImageRev. Dr. Barry Black, Chaplain to the United States Senate, is following in the prophetic traditions of Daniel and Joseph: speaking truth to power from within.  Knowing that these prayers are being offered by him from the Senate floor each morning gives me tremendous hope.  I say “well done” to this, my professional colleague and spiritual brother.

These are his words, most of which were spoken in the context of prayer:

  • “Save us from the madness,”
  • “We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness and our pride,” he went on, his baritone voice filling the room. “Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable.”
  • “Remove from them that stubborn pride which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism,” he said. “Forgive them the blunders they have committed.”
  • “I use a biblical perspective to decide my beliefs about various issues,” Mr. Black said in an interview in his office suite on the third floor of the Capitol. “Let’s just say I’m liberal on some and conservative on others.”
  • “I remember once talking about self-inflicted wounds — that captured the imagination of some of our lawmakers,” he said. “Remember, my prayer is the first thing they hear every day. I have the opportunity, really, to frame the day in a special way.”
  • “May they remember that all that is necessary for unintended catastrophic consequences is for good people to do nothing,” he said the day of the shutdown deadline.
  • “Unless you empower our lawmakers,” he prayed another day, “they can comprehend their duty but not perform it.”
  • “I see us playing a very dangerous game,” Mr. Black said as he sat in his office the other day. “It’s like the showdown at the O.K. Corral. Who’s going to blink first? So I can’t help but have some of this spill over into my prayer. Because you’re hoping that something will get through and that cooler heads will prevail.”

Click here to read the full article from the New York Times