St. John's UCC

Church is not just the particular group of people you meet with in a particular building on a particular day for a particular program. The church as the body of Christ is so much bigger than that. Here is a story that recently happened at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Rosenberg, Texas.

One of our members works as a preschool teacher. She feels that the public school system would be a better fit for her skill set. So she digs up her almost 10-year-old education credentials. Now she needs to have her school submit them officially for the credentialing process for teachers in Texas. That should not be too hard from here, right? Well, there are a couple of twists in her journey that complicate the matter:
1. The school was closed down a few years after she graduated there.
2. The school was located in Boppard, Germany, 5,214 miles away from Rosenberg, Texas.

How do you get a school that no longer exists half way around the world to send a certificate on your behalf? – That’s where the Wider Church comes in!

As a United Church of Christ congregation we are in full church communion with the Union of Evangelical Churches in Germany. One of their denominational bodies sponsored the school in question. The Diakonische Werk Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe still keeps the archive of the long closed Janusz-Borczak-Schule Boppard. Since their pastor for public relations has been a long-time acquaintance of mine it was easy to explore options. And indeed, my friend Ulrich Christenn was able to climb into the basement of the administrative offices in Düsseldorf and locate her diploma.

The lesson learned here is:
The larger the body of Christ is, the smaller the world becomes!
It is crucial for the church to work together in all its structural forms on all levels.
It literally pays off to be involved in the wider church, not just your local congregation.

Your next chance to do that is the Spring Meeting of the Houston Association of the United Church of Christ. It will be on April 23rd in Beasley, Texas – a mere eight miles away!

A team of St. John’s UCC will participate in the West Fort Bend County CROP Walk on Saturday, April 30th. Please register to join our team of so far nine walkers. you can do that during office hours or on Sundays or 24/7 online:
https://www.crophungerwalk.org/rosenbergtx/Team/View/20660/St-Johns-United-Church-of-Christ
Over the last 34 years we were consistently among the top fundraisers. This year let’s also be among the largest walking groups!
The current title holder issues a special challenge to our congregation:

Dear Sisters and Brothers of St. John’s!

Are you up for a challenge? Who got to know me a little knows that I love challenges and I love to challenge others. Today is the day that I, as the Rev. of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church together with my congregation challenge the Rev. Daniel Haas and the good people of St. John’s to beat us in the CROP walk, April 30th at George Ranch Park! The CROP Walk is to not only to fight hunger in and around the world! 25% of the funds raised that day will stay in Fort Bend County to fight poverty right among us in our community! Over the past years no congregation had enough people or donations to beat us – has the year come?

Well of course if you decide not to take on that challenge we from St. Paul’s are more than happy to receive your financial support!
Come, let us fight hunger together – try to beat St. Paul’s!
Rev. Mirjam Haas-Melchior

(Photo BSA)

We all share the common goal of keeping all God’s children safe. Since churches are by state law no longer places where weapons are prohibited we need to set policies for ourselves. We have had this conversation since these changes became known last year. We have had several rounds of honest conversations on the topic and we determined it is best to work on the weapons issue in the context of a broader safety and emergency planning.

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit” (Luke 12:35)
As a Christian community we are called to be prepared. On a very practical level our congregational leadership has recognized that we are entirely unprepared for all kinds of disasters: How do we respond to a hurricane? What happens in case of a fire? How do we respond to an active shooter?

Whatever disaster may strike it will most likely not only affect our church but also Living Word Ministries Inc. and New Covenant Fellowship. All leaders and members of our congregations are invited to join us in learning together how we can prepare ourselves. On Tuesday, April 19th, at 6pm, Alan Spears from the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management will be making a presentation on emergency preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation at St. John’s United Church of Christ. If one of our facilities sustains damage, neighbors may be able to help out with storage and worship space. “If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.” (1 Corinthians 12:26)

The question of firearms is not primarily a Sunday issue but especially crucial throughout the week. How do we make sure rentals are handled in compliance with our safety standards? How do we inform outside groups that use our facilities? Despite the changes in Texas Law the Guide to Safe Scouting remains unchanged: “Except for law enforcement officers required to carry firearms within their jurisdiction, firearms shall not be brought on camping, hiking, backpacking, or other Scouting activities except those specifically planned for target shooting under the supervision of a currently certified BSA national shooting sports director or National Rifle Association firearms instructor.”

Whenever Scouts meet in our facilities or participate in our programs, no firearms are allowed in our buildings. But then how do we treat our non-scouting children and youth programs?

Please join us for an evening of getting prepared together. Everybody may learn something for their homes and families as well.

Over one billion persons in the world are Hindus. We have wonderful friends right in our neighborhood who came to the US from India. This past weekend we joined them at the Houston Holi. Holi means “colors” and that is what this festival is best known for: People throwing colored cornstarch at each other. It is great fun and like any other festival it has stage performances, vending booths and bounce houses for the kids. What makes it unique are the colors: They are everywhere, the air is filled with colorful dust, every square inch of clothing and skin is covered. Family, friends, and total strangers throw handfuls of color at each other recreating the entire rainbow.

In the religious background of the Festival of Colors, there are two legends that are very fitting for the Easter Weekend:

1. Prahlad is a saintly boy who was challenged by the demoness Holika. After a lot of temptation Prahlad was supposed to be killed but through divine intervention death loses to life. Holi is the celebration of life overcoming death.

2. Krishna is an ancient deity that is usually depicted with dark skin. Eventually he married Radha, a goddess with “fair skin”. Holi is the celebration of color covering everyone’s face so the color of your skin does not separate person from person.

Just like Easter, Holi is tied to the spring equinox and this season comes with life starting to spring, blooming with hope and bringing out more colors. I am going to crack open a wonderfully colored Easter egg now.

Written by John Dorhauer

Gentle reader,

I recently returned from a 12-day trip to the Middle East to visit our mission partners. What strikes me is that many of the places that resonate so deeply with us as we unfold the narrative of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection are places I visited for the first time only days ago.

Something else occurs to me: the suffering of the displaced and disheartened is still evident in those places. It is real. It is palpable. It is heartbreaking. But so is hope; and I saw that hope day after day delivered through the hands of our mission partners.

Isaiah 53:3 reads: “He was despised and rejected by others, one of sorrows, intimately familiar with suffering; and like one from whom people hide their faces; and we despised him and did not value him.”

I can’t help but wonder how many today, living in the shadows of the monuments we have built to commemorate the suffering of Jesus, are now the ones from whom we turn our faces.

I saw lines of sorrow and pain etched across the faces of so many.

Two things occur to me as I reflect on this now that I am back home.

First, whatever hope we have to offer them can’t be reduced to the promise of an eternal life that our faith teaches us is made possible by the resurrection hope of Jesus. That can’t be the only thing we offer to relieve their suffering.

Second, what we do in the United Church of Christ to share our gifts with these suffering souls makes a difference. Through OCWM and One Great Hour of Sharing, we fund mission and relief efforts that matter. I witnessed that. We will not be among those who turn the face away from the deep sorrow and pain.

Our global mission partners are present to that suffering. They are active not only in the relief work that helps heal the wounded hearts and battered bodies, they are active in the halls of power and privilege trying to change systems that produce, that tolerate, and that revel in this misery – and then turn their own face away from it. They are resilient in the face of crisis. They bear witness to their faith daily. They are an inspiration for the important work of justice and peacemaking in a very challenging context.

They make me so very proud.

It is what Jesus would ask of us.

In this Holy Week, let us be mindful of the redemptive power that our faith in Jesus provides us.

In this Holy Week let us be mindful of the suffering from which we too easily hide our faces.

In this Holy Week, let us be mindful of those who, on our behalf and out of their own deep faith, abide in the hard places and heal the deep wounds.

Today, that is resurrection enough for me.

The Rev. John C. Dorhauer is general minister and president of the United Church Of Christ.

Saint Francis does not want weapons in this veterinary clinic

A photo posted by @revhaas on Jan 27, 2016 at 1:36pm PST

As an Army Chaplain I do not have a choice: When we conduct chapel services in the field there are weapons all around us. Force protection never stops. In the Army everybody with the exception of the Chaplain is in charge of protecting themselves, the team, the nation, the world.

As a local church pastor I cannot imagine people bringing firearms to church. Jesus is so loud and clear in his call for non-violence that the threat or application of force cannot be part of the church’s culture. When the church blesses arms that leads to crusades and bloodshed in the name of Christ.

But the question that my military ministry poses is a valid one in the local church also: How do we best protect the safety and health, ultimately the life of our people at church? For the longest time the two-fold answer was simple enough:
1. We trust law-enforcement officials to keep us safe.
2. The church just like a school, a polling location, a racetrack or an airport is not a place for taking the law into your own hands.

Everyone I have spoken to, seems to join in a clear consensus, that we do not want to see firearms in the sanctuary. How do we go about doing that?

It appears that we have the following options:
1. Do nothing and let common sense and common courtesy rule our behavior towards one another.
2. Hand out a card or other document on which is written language identical to the following: “Pursuant to Section 30.07, Penal Code (trespass by license holder with an openly carried handgun), a person licensed under Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code (handgun licensing law), may not enter this property with a handgun that is carried openly” and “Pursuant to Section 30.06, Penal Code (trespass by license holder with a concealed handgun), a person licensed under Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code (handgun licensing law), may not enter this property with a concealed handgun”
3. Post signs with the same text in both English and Spanish on every entrance to our buildings with each letter at least one inch in height.

The church council has wrestled with this issue since late last year and had not been able to reach a conclusion when the new Texas laws went into effect on January 1st. So on Sunday, March 13th, we have scheduled a table talk after church to address this issue. We need your input on the question of how do we make our people feel safe in the sanctuary?

In a world where communities are being displaced by the catastrophes of war, famine, and natural disasters, the Church is called to reclaim the spiritual discipline of solidarity. Christians are summoned to adopt and live out a “theology of acompañamiento [accompaniment],” in the words of the theologian Roberto Goizueta. As natural, economic, and political forces disrupt and uproot communities, the Church is called to stand in solidarity with those who seek to move beyond the trauma of displacement toward a promise of healing and peace.

The story of Ruth is ultimately about this solidarity. Naomi and Ruth were very much like today’s refugees: they never chose to move from country to country, rather, it was imposed upon them by forces beyond their control. They lived in a society where the patriarchal economy meant that a woman’s livelihood was entirely dependent on her male relationships (father, husband, even son). Yet when that system failed them, Ruth chose solidarity with Naomi over despair, and accompanies her mother-in-law to pursue a livelihood for both of them.

This option for accompaniment is truly a biblical principle that saturates the pages of scripture. From God who is present with Hagar in the desert and calls her to remain close to her son Ishmael (Genesis 21), to the Parable of the Sheep and Goats where the criterion for judgement is that of compassionate accompaniment (Matthew 25), to St. Paul’s exhortation that Christians should “rejoice with those who rejoice [and] weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). This promise to walk together is mutual and reciprocal, where both parties are in need, and both experience the real power that emerges from the spiritual discipline of solidarity.

Ruth’s promise to Naomi defines what solidarity authentically entails, and it stands as a challenge for Christians today to walk with refugees as they build new homes in strange lands.

Through the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, we, as the body of Christ, have opportunity and power to help those who are living in despair as refugees. If refugees had the choice to return home, many would not have a place to return because their home most likely has been destroyed—either burned, severely damaged, or is still an unsafe place to live.

This year as you consider your gift to the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, for one moment, think of what it would be like to not have a place to call home, and then make your very best gift. Let us make Ruth’s promise our own. Let us live out the call of solidarity with all people, especially those displaced by disaster, war, and famine.

Thank you! —Interpretation by José Francisco Morales Torres

When Christians talk about a “call,” we mean that God is calling us—in our mind and heart—to take an action or make a choice with our lives. The Latin word for “call” — vocatio — is the root of a word often used to describe a call that leads us into a way of life: a “vocation.” A call to ministry includes the community’s recognition of and calling forth gifts for ministry. One of the distinguishing aspects of ministry in the United Church of Christ is the affirmation that ministerial leadership is always defined by an ongoing sacred covenant among the minister, the congregation and the denomination; thus ministry is more communal than individual, and the call to authorized ministry is always discerned with others.

A great theologian from the early days of the United Church of Christ, H. Richard Niebuhr, identified four aspects of a vocation:
1. The call to be a Christian is the beginning of any call to ministry, including yours.
2. The secret call between God and you, when you feel an inward invitation to become a minister.
3. The providential call when you recognize that God has given you specific gifts–intellectual, spiritual, psychological, and moral–that God wants you to use in ministry.
4. The ecclesiastical call (from the Greek word ekklesios, meaning church or assembly) when the community affirms your call, helps you prepare for ministry, and then ordains or commissions you for that ministry.

On Sunday, February 28th 2016, St. John’s United Church of Christ will receive a special offering that benefits our three regional seminaries Chicago, Eden and United (CUE). The CUE Regional Seminary Support Program brings together over 2,000 United Church of Christ churches in mid-America, Local Church Ministries, and Chicago, United, and Eden Theological Seminaries, our three United Church of Christ seminaries in this region.
Our mission is to:
1. Strengthen the relationship between our churches and our seminaries.
2. Further the mission and work of these seminaries.
3. Provide financial support for our seminaries.

We live in challenging times and we recognize the vital impact of our seminaries as they:
1. Prepare leaders for church and society.
2. Increase theological thought and scholarship.
3. Provide multiple resources to the local churches.

Current seminary statistics show that:
1. Tuition and scholarships currently pay for about 32% of the total costs of seminary education each year.
2. The CUE Seminary Support Program raised about $547,000 in 2014, covering another 7% of these costs.

I cast my ballot today and I encourage you to do the same. I have my fair share of experience in politics and policy-making. In college I served as a staffer to a first-term member of the Bundestag who later went on to becoming Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development. I ran campaigns and chaired political organizations in different states. Since I was naturalized as an American citizen in 2014 this is my first go-around in primaries of a presidential election cycle in this country.

As a pastor I cannot tell you who to vote for. Like everybody else I have strong opinions about topics and persons. The political arena is competitive. Ideas and personalities are supposed to wash out the best through the process of competition. As a Christian I recognize that Pontius Pilate hit the nail on the head when he asked: “What is wisdom?” – There is not the one “Christian answer” or the best “Christian candidate”. There is not the one wisdom!

In the church we have millionaires and homeless. We have persons paying social security tax and persons receiving social security benefits. We have immigrants and life-long residents. We have liberals and conservatives. We have gun rights supporters and gun control supporters. We have women who had abortions and persons who oppose that option. We are a reflection of society.

The body of Christ is not a political party and it must not act like one. There is no Christian party that is better than another. Christians support and serve in different parties. And members of different parties live together in the church. When I walked into the county annex to vote this morning the first question they asked was: “What party?” – After my response I proceeded to one of the booths. And guess what: Those booths are the same for everybody. There is only one booth for all. Nobody is better here than anybody else.

Church and voting booth have a lot in common after all. God calls us to live responsibly the life we have been given. Part of that responsibility is to take part in the political process. Let your voice be heard and make your vote count.

The United Church of Christ and the Boy Scouts of America re-established a formal relationship on Oct. 5 2015 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding regarding local UCC congregations chartering Scout troops.

Signed by Michael B. Surbaugh, BSA chief scout executive, and the Rev. John C. Dorhauer, UCC general minister and president, the document affirms the recently-adopted BSA resolution that removed the restriction on gay adult leaders and employees, and formally states that UCC congregations chartering BSA units can conduct scouting programs according to their own values of inclusion and extravagant welcome for all.

“As a former Boy Scout growing up, and one committed to the open and affirming ministry of the United Church of Christ, it brought me a great deal of pride and satisfaction to be able to sign my name to that memorandum of understanding,” said Dorhauer. “I am grateful to Mike Schuenemeyer for the hard work that he did over the last few years to bring this historic document to us, to help the Boy Scouts understand how important this is.”

The memorandum follows several months of renewed efforts by a UCC working group, headed by Schuenemeyer –– UCC executive for health and wholeness advocacy –– and the Boy Scouts of America to re-establish a partnership. The negotiations began in earnest following the July 2015 BSA policy change.

In the July policy change, Robert M. Gates, national president of the BSA, said, “Everyone associated with scouting agrees to follow national policies and comply with BSA’s behavioral standards; no youth may be denied membership to our organization on the basis of sexual orientation; and no council can deny a charter to a unit that is following the beliefs of its religious chartering organization.”

The UCC had pulled back from any formal ties and had withdrawn its letter of endorsement in 2001 because of BSA policies of excluding boys and men based on sexual orientation. The BSA changed its policy regarding youth in 2013.

“This is significant moment in the relationship between the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Boy Scouts of America (BSA),” said Schuenemeyer. “With the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, we are entering a new time of mutual cooperation and collaboration as a direct result of the policy changes the BSA has initiated, opening their doors to full, inclusive participation of youth and adults no matter their sexual orientation.”

The MOU states, in part, that “the United Church of Christ and the Boy Scouts of America will work cooperatively with each other within the policies and regulations of each organization to establish and nurture scouting units as an expression of the nurture and outreach of the ministry of the United Church of Christ and its member congregations so that boys, young adults, and adults may grow in their relationships with God, develop into responsible citizens, serve the needs of others, and develop personal fitness to achieve their greatest potential.”

“Since its founding more than 100 years ago, scouting has been important to many congregations in United Church of Christ. Today UCC congregations sponsor more than 1,000 units of scouting with nearly 28,000 participants,” Schuenemeyer said. “Our commitments to justice and the inclusion of all people in the life of the church continue to call us to engage in actions that promote a just and peaceful world that affirms the gifts and ministry of each individual. That is why we welcome this opportunity to engage with colleagues in Scouting, the UCC and other faith traditions to foster inclusive Scouting programs.”
Written by Barb Powell

Read the text of the Memorandum of Understanding.