We are starting a new series on Evangelism.  After conversation with the Lay Leaders, we feel it is time for Stahl to talk about witnessing for Jesus.  This is a subject that carries plenty of baggage.  But telling people Good News, and talking about Jesus should feel like a joy - like something that we enjoy doing - like giving a gift.  All too often it doesn’t.  That makes for an awkward conversation for everyone.  

The problem is this: We know God. We know who God is, how God has loved and cared for us.  We know who Jesus is, we read his words and we pray to and with him.  We believe that God created the world, and everything in it.  We believe that every human who walks the Earth is a child of God, brought into being by our one divine Creator.

Often times the tone of evangelism just doesn’t match the God that we know.  Often times the language of tracts and of “evangelists” seems manipulative, defensive, full of fear and anger and exclusion.  It seems disconnected from our God.  We have been told things like:

• for us to be in, we need to know that others are out.
• we need to defend God, or defend the Bible.
• God loves the whole world, but is prepared to punish humans for eternity if they don’t confess Jesus as the Christ.
  
  

When we step back for a minute, these things start to rub against the God we know and experience.  Sometimes they don’t make any logical sense.  This series is going to explore a lot of assumptions we have made about the work of God, the Good News of Jesus and the nature of Salvation.  

We are working on being a more compassionate and caring church, we have brought in people who are ready to share, and be vulnerable - ready to lend a hand and help each other out.  That is part of what we are inviting people into when we invite them into relationship with Christ. We are also asking them into relationship with the Body of Christ - which is us.

I hope we can explore the Bible and bring our experiences of God and of being humans into this conversation so that we may be able to find the joy of sharing Christ again.  I pray that through this conversation we can stop thinking we have to deny our experiences, and that we can trust in a God who is good and kind and generous and just.

- Bob Brown, pastor

In Kansas City, Convention was a very emotionally taxing experience.  Being with the youth was a pure joy, but the delegate sessions were exhausting and difficult.  We talked about what it means to be church together. We talked about excluding the voices of our children who are gay and lesbian, and we talked about holding to traditional Biblical interpretations.  Some threatened to leave our denomination if we did not agree with and enforce the way they read the Bible, while some others pleaded for gays and lesbians to be included in the church based on a different reading of the same Bible. My heart was moved before, and even more so during the Convention by the realization that we have silenced the voices that are different than ours (see article).

Allegheny Mennonite Conference (AMC), our conference - voted in March to welcome churches who are fully inclusive of gays and lesbians.  Hyattsville (our sister church) is only one of those. Several other churches have been moved by the Spirit to welcome gays and lesbians into all parts of the church. Because of this decision, churches are leaving the Conference.  Today, I have learned that many of the Mennonite churches in Johnstown are considering their options for leaving AMC. Lancaster Conference - the largest conference of MCUSA is in a discernment process about leaving our denomination. As these church divorces surround us - I am deeply saddened.  It is deeply disturbing to me that followers of Christ would find it so important to build walls of separation from other churches who read scripture differently than they do.

I rejoice often that Stahl has strongly supported staying in relationship with AMC. I pray that we can continue to stay in relationship with the local Mennonite Churches in spite of all the division that is happening.  I also pray that we can see a vision for what is happening. I pray that we can understand what the Spirit of God is up to in our midst and start to see what is next.  Out of my desire to help stop some of the division, I have started work on a project that intends to help churches relate to and understand each other - a sort of Bible study where inclusive churches can share how scripture and the Spirit has moved them to welcome gays and lesbians.  My nudging is that this project might help us respect and love each other in the midst of disagreement.  My fear is that it will be too little and too late for those who feel they must leave to preserve their faithfulness, but followers of Jesus should not operate based on fear.

Please pray for the church - MCUSA, AMC, and Stahl.  Pray for patience, loving kindness and gentleness.  Pray for a vision of God’s work in and through our midst.  Pray the Holy Spirit come!

- Bob Brown, pastor

In my experience the Holy Spirit really is our only hope.  We just celebrated Pentecost, and I plan to talk about the Holy Spirit for another week or so.  It is tough trying to follow God - our Holy God - when we are people who get so caught up in the flesh. We get so caught up with our fear and our worry, and preserving and surviving.  Those fleshy emotions are directly in conflict with our commitment to lives of discipleship.  We try to emulate a generous, giving, loving, un-tethered Messiah.  We try to be like Jesus - and it is really hard.

It is really hard to be like Jesus when we have been doing it for a few months, and it is really hard to be like Jesus when we have been doing it for decades.  That is why I say that the Holy Spirit is our only hope.  Kindness and generosity aren’t our natural response.  It seems in many ways that we can’t be more than greedy, self righteous people without the Spirit working in us.

Even in our churches we get caught up in fear and anger and jealousy.  We hoard and protect our resources.  At the same time we say we follow Jesus who gave it all up for us. It just isn’t easy, and we can’t do it on our own. We need help to overcome our fear and jealousy and anger.  

Jesus models the love of God, that we are trying to emulate.  The love of God - the love of Jesus, the love of the Holy Spirit is generous, overflowing, outrageous.  When we view it through our fleshy concerns, we might even call God’s love wasteful.  Like the beauty of the cherry blossoms.  Thousands of flowers all at once.  Almost more beauty than we can stand, only to fall to the ground petal by petal, and then it is dirt.  God pours out love without reason, without justification, with reckless abandon - and that is what we are called to do.  The only way we do that is through the Holy Spirit’s nudging.  I pray that we call can hear, and respond faithfully to the Spirit of God that moves in, among and through us.

Holy Spirit Come!

- Bob Brown, pastor