Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Three Types of Christians, Epiphany 3C (sermon video)

I preached this sermon this past Sunday on January 27th, 2013, based on all three lectionary readings for the day, Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 and Saint Luke 4: 14 - 21.  If you want to check out more sermons from Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar, check out our Vimeo page.  I'd love to hear what you think and thanks so much for watching!



God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Monday, January 28, 2013

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden

As I wrote about in a recent post, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (1/27 - 2/2) are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. While the paragraph below provides some basic information, check out their WCC page for additional prayer resources.
We pray for Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden this week as they, along with other developed countries, discern how to fund global efforts to combat the devastating effects of climate change. We give thanks this week for the precedent set by Finland, which in 2010 became the world's first country to affirm a person's legal right to broadband internet access. We pray as well for most of the countries listed above as they continue facing issues related to unemployment, immigration and the economy.
God's peace,
Dustin


Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Mass for Christian Unity @ Saint Peter's Church

Saint Peter & Saint Paul
While there's been a bunch of amazing things I've encountered thus far during my year-long vicarage at Saint Peter's Church, one of the greatest of those encounters has been moving through the Christian liturgical year on a deeper level than I'd previously experienced.  One aspect of the liturgical year I never knew about before this year was the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which at least in the Northern Hemisphere is celebrated from 18 January - 25 January.  First celebrated in 1908, the week is also celebrated in many churches, especially those in the Southern Hemisphere near Pentecost.

As Saint Peter's was hosting a monthly gathering of nearby Lutheran vicars and their supervisors last Thursday (right near the end of the week of prayer) it struck me that a Mass for Christian Unity might be a great way to spend our worship time together.  At first I thought I was only going to write a prayer or two, but once I discovered an an annual collection of resources co-created and published by the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, I realized that the entire Mass needed to reflect the absolutely amazing work done in the resource.

This year's text, entitled What Does God Require of Us?, is meant to be modified to fit the needs of  individual congregations.  The text is created in a different part of the world each year, and as this year's was created in India, it includes resources for a Liturgy of the Word and daily prayer for Christian unity through the lens of Dalit liberation theologyCheck out the power languages of one of the intercessions included and it's response:
 Walking in celebration, we come to see that the unity we share within
our communities is a profound witness to the gospel of faith and hope.
As we celebrate that unity, let us also rejoice in our rich diversities that
reflect the life of the Trinity.
May we celebrate the wonderful diversity in human life, born from
the struggles for dignity and survival amid oppression, and see in
it a sign of your abiding faithfulness to your people.
I believe our Mass for Christian Unity went exceptionally well, particularly our great homily conversation about the difficulty of feeling unity with our much more conservative sisters and brothers in Christ.  For a copy of the worship guide we used at Saint Peter's, click here.

If you're a reader who has also celebrated the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in your faith community, I'd love to hear more about your experience... please leave a comment.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

What It Means to Be a Christian, Epiphany 3C Sermon

What follows is a sermon draft I'll be preaching during Jazz Vespers tomorrow at Saint Peter's Church, where I currently serve as Vicar.  It reflects on all three lectionary readings for tomorrow, Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-101 Corinthians 12:12-31 and Saint Luke 4: 14 - 21.  It's honestly one of my weaker ones in a while I think, so I'd love some input.  Thanks for reading!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately, and especially over the past week, thinking about what it means it to be a Christian, particularly in the rapidly changing, sometimes exciting, but often discouraging, times we live in. And I’ve been dwelling on this question for two main reasons: First, upon hearing that Saint Peter’s was cited for its strong post-Superstorm Sandy relief efforts in the most recent issue of The Lutheran, I decided to pick up a copy. While I was happy to see Saint Peter’s mentioned in the storm-relief article, I was pretty bummed after the reading another article, entitled “The Shrinking Church,” which discussed the rapid decline of Lutheran churches all over the country. I’ve also been thinking about what it means to be Christian recently because of Barack Obama’s inaugural address. In the address, he not only boldly supports preserving the planet and advancing gay rights, but also cites faith in God as reason for doing so. In a time where many Americans, especially younger ones, have come to identify Christianity with irrelevance at best and bigotry at worst, the President’s words couldn’t have been more encouraging. To sum it up, stuck between fear of decline and hope for the future, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a Christian.

And it was amidst such thinking this past Wednesday night while reading the three possible Bible passages for this Sunday’s sermon that I realized we needed to read all three of the passages tonight. We needed to include all three, and the Saint Peter’s staff needed to graciously include all three in the bulletin at the last minute (thank you!), because when juxtaposed with one another, each Bible passage illustrates one of the three ways most folks, I think, view their Christian faith in our contemporary world. To demonstrate what I mean, I’m going to need three volunteers to hold up one of these signs [EACH WITH A BIBLE VERSE], in order to sort of help organize what we’re talking about.

Thank you all very much for volunteering, and please know that what I’m about to say by no means represents the holder of each sign… So first we have the Nehemiah 8 folks, and by that I mean those whose view of faith is based off an easy to make misinterpretation of the passage. In Nehemiah 8 Ezra reintroduces the Torah to the post-exilic Jewish community rebuilding Jerusalem… and everyone promptly gets upset about having all these new rules. Ezra, along with Nehemiah, then begins to explain while the Torah is an amazing gift from God. Nehemiah 8 contains some profound lessons, but it’s easily misread to mean that the most central aspect of being a person of faith is following the rules, not sinning, or something like that. Now, sin is very a real thing, and the Bible definitely has some good advice about how to live our lives, but there’s a problem with the view of what it means to be Christian.

First, since the Bible was written over many hundreds of years for many different types of communities, many of the “rules” in are somewhat ambiguous, if not outright contradictory. And since it’s not possible to perfectly make sense of everything in the Bible, we can’t help but making up our own interpretation at times. And then, if we think we’re doing a great job of following whatever rules we make up, we in turn can’t help but look down on others who don’t follow those rules and thus we end up just sort of being downright mean to others. On the other hand, we might end up thinking we’re horrible at following the rules, and we end up living a life of despair that God hates us, or that we’re wholly bad people or that we’re going to hell, to use a predominately post-Biblical term. Looking at it from a different angle, this view of what it means to be a Christian only leads us to worship ourselves, and maybe the Bible, rather than God Herself.

So, now we’ll move onto the second popular view of what it means to be a Christian, the one reflecting a misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 12. In this passage, Saint Paul writes to a diverse, urban congregation in Corinth that’s experiencing a great deal of conflict, telling them that we’re all one body in Christ, despite us all being different parts of that body. It’s a really good and powerful message, but can also easily be misread to mean that the central aspect of being Christian is to just be nice to everyone and to sort of stick up for the little guy in whatever you do. Now, this on the surface sounds a whole lot better than what the Nehemiah 8 folks over there are doing, but let’s dig a bit deeper. On the one hand, if we think we’re succeeding at being nice to people all the time, perfectly welcoming folks into our communities, its really easy to get cocky and really difficult to take a critical look at what were doing, and in turn its really easy to make some very big mistakes. On the other hand, we might think we’re failing all the time because we’re not helping others enough, only to end up downtrodden and hopeless. In the end, the second view of what it means to be Christian ends up looking a whole lot like the first… we only end up worshipping ourselves, rather than God.

Now much of the time, all of us either end up holding view number one or view number two… it’s profoundly in our DNA as people to fixate on what we’re doing… we simply can’t help it. Luckily though, we have a third view about what it means to be a Christian, a view that clearly shines through our Gospel reading today from Saint Luke, a view that reminds us that it’s not about us at all, a view which is very, very good news. Returning to his hometown, Jesus goes to the synagogue, picks up the scroll of Isaiah, and reads the following: [ASK VOLUNTEER #3 TO READ].
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And then, giving the first sermon of his ministry, Jesus simply states, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Much like what follows this Gospel story, the good news might not always make folks happy, it might stir things up, it might startle people, but that’s what the good news is: the profound notion that it’s not about what we’re doing at all, but rather about all the amazing things God is doing through Christ. And just think about how good that news is… it means that we don’t need to be perfect, it means that we are loved, and it means that we are forgiven, no matter what.

So, when thinking about what it means to be Christian in this place, in this city, in this most exciting but discouraging of times, while we can’t help but standing up and caring for our neighbors because of how much God loves us, know that it’s not really about what we’re doing at all… it’s about a God that loves us, a God that cares for us, and God liberates us all from whatever may oppresses us, through Christ.


Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Liberated Into God's Song, Advent 4C (sermon video)

I preached this sermon a few Sundays back at Jazz Vespers on December 23rd 2012, predominately on the Gospel lectionary text for the day, Luke 1: 39 - 56If you want to check out more sermons from Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar, check out our Vimeo pageI'd love to hear what you think and thanks so much for watching!



God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara

As I wrote about in a recent post, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (1/20 - 1/26) are Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara. While the paragraph below provides some basic information, check out their WCC page for additional prayer resources.
We give thanks for relative stability in the Western Sahara, an area in Northern Africa that is currently listed by the United Nations as the largest non-self-governing territory in the world.  We pray that the UN’s personal envoy, Christopher Ross, can negotiate a path forward between the government of Morocco, which occupies much of the territory, and the Polisario Front, a national liberation movement.  While unrest continues in Libya, we give thanks that political rights and civil liberties have improved over the past year, according to a recent report released by Freedom House.  We pray for increased stability in Tunisia and peace to all those affected by the recent hostage crisis in Liberia.
God's peace,
Dustin 

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Praying for Marriage Equality in NYC

Friends, as most of you have long known, the Supreme Court will soon be taking up two marriage equality cases, one concerning the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the other on California's Proposition 8, the constitution amendment that stripped same-sex couples of their freedom to marry back in 2008.  The court has scheduled oral arguments to begin on March 26th and March 27th, with a final ruling expected in June.  Although the court could make a wide variety of rulings on the two cases, there's great hope that we could win the struggle for marriage equality this spring.

In such hope, people of faith in New York City are gathering every Saturday evening at Saint John's Lutheran Church at 81 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.  While the weekly vigil will be held from 7-9pm, its designed to be a free flowing style of worship where folks can come and go as they please.  Various stations will be placed throughout the Saint John's sanctuary, where folks can pray for the Supreme Court Justices, pray for those who wish to deny same-sex individuals their civil rights, celebrate those who are married, and remember those who have died before they could enjoy the right to marry, etc.  An additional station will offer the opportunity to brainstorm additional ways we can take action to forward the cause of nationwide marriage equality.  For more info, you can find contact information for Pastor Mark Erson on the Saint John's website, or simply comment on this post.

Additionally, if you're someone in or outside the New York area planning a similar pray vigil, I'd love to hear about it. 

God's peace,
Dustin 

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Cyprus, Greece and Turkey

As I wrote about in a recent post, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (1/13 - 1/19) are Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. While the paragraph below provides some basic information, check out their WCC page for additional prayer resources.
We give thanks for relative stability between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities on the island nation of Cyprus and pray that the recent discovery of offshore oil and natural gas reserves in the region will lead to further peace.  We pray for success in recently announced disarmament talks between Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party and the Turkish government.  These talks are an important step towards ending the over twenty-five year old conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives in south-east Turkey.  We pray for those facing unemployment in Greece and Cyprus, where unemployment rates respectively reached 26% and 14% in recent months.
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen

As I wrote about in a recent post, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (1/6 - 1/12) are Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. While the paragraph below provides some basic information, check out their WCC page for additional prayer resources.
Despite continued civil unrest, human rights violations, violence and threats of war in many of the Middle Eastern countries we pray for this week, there is much to give thanks for. Iran has slowed its uranium enrichment efforts in recent months, indicating its leaders may soon seek to end the nuclear standoff with Western countries. Iraq ratified the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this past October, indicating its commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. Qatar will hold its first national legislative elections in mid to late 2013. We also pray for Christian minorities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and the countries listed above.
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Monday, January 07, 2013

Calumet Yellows Reunion Sermon: Rowdy Faith in A Rowdy God

What follow's is a rough manuscript of a sermon I preached this past Sunday at Camp Calumet Lutheran during a reunion retreat weekend for the previous summer's teenage campers.  There's a few inside jokes throughout the text, but hopefully they won't be too distracting.  For a full Twitterfeed from the event, click here.  For more info about our curriculum for the weekend, click here.  I'd love to here what you think!

So, you may have heard at some point that we’ve been live tweeting throughout the Yellows 2012 Reunion. There were some pretty good tweets out on the tweetosphere this weekend… on one end of the spectrum we had some about exploring our faith. On the other, we had some about the smellyness of our farts… all of these were good tweets. That said, my favorite tweet of the weekend was one of the first… it was written by Rachael. She was probably heading back to her cabin Friday night when she wrote something along the lines of “that was a rowdy devos.” A rowdy devos… a rowdy devotionals… who would have thought! Those two words don’t usually go together, but Rachael was definitely right… while we were learning about each other’s faith and playing people bingo and singing a bunch of camp songs, things got pretty rowdy.

[ROWDY SONG INTERRUPTION]

Ya know, sitting by the fire last night, thinking about the weekend and going over the Bible texts for today, I eventually realized why I liked Rachael’s tweet so much… it was filled with really, really good news. And that good news is that we have a faith that can make things get a little rowdy… we have a rowdy faith. In fact, God Herself was getting a little rowdy in today’s gospel story. It’s a pretty well known one… three wise men, or sometimes we call them the three kings, came from the east, or from basically really far away, and told King Herod they came to worship the baby Jesus because they were led by a star in the sky. Herod wasn’t a big fan of baby Jesus, so he tried to use the wise men to find Jesus and kill him, but luckily, Herod’s plan didn’t work… Instead, the wise men followed the star all to Bethlehem; they knelt down and worshiped Jesus, and eventually, they went back home by a different road.

Now, I imagine you’re wondering, how was God getting so rowdy in the story? The answer begins with the fact that God didn’t put that star in the sky for some priests in Jerusalem or for King Herod… She put that star in the sky for three wise men from far away, which means three folks that were far outside God’s old covenant with Israel. By putting that star in the sky for the three wise men, God proclaimed the good news that all are welcomed, that all are saved and that all are loved through Christ. You see, for all the religious authorities and King Herod, this news would have been completely unexpected… they thought the Messiah was only coming for Israel… by shaking things up, God was getting pretty rowdy.

[ROWDY SONG INTERRUPTION]

You see my friends, we have a rowdy God, and we have a rowdy faith, and that is amazingly good news. And you know what, we learned a bit this weekend that at least in some ways, we have a rowdy church too… As Lutherans we have the largest charitable organization in the United States, Lutheran Social Services, shaking things up and helping folks out… that’s pretty rowdy. Through it's Young Adults in Global Mission Program, the ELCA is sending about fifty young adults, some just a couple years older than you all, abroad ever year to shake things up and help folks out… that’s pretty rowdy too.  We also have offices at the international, national and state levels advocating for a more just society.  Of course, our church needs to do more… the world is changing really, really fast, and as faith communities we’ve got to change too. In our world, in this time and place, the church can’t look like it used to. We talked a lot this weekend about what Calumet means to us as well, and for me at least, by providing such a powerful model of serving others, of loving others and of worshiping God in fun and life giving ways, Camp Calumet is one place that represents the change we need to make as a church… it’s a place shaking things up with a rowdy faith in a rowdy God.

The good news of the rowdy things God is doing through Christ… that’s what today’s gospel message is all about and it’s the same good news that Christians all over the world are celebrating today. You see, today’s a very special church holiday called Epiphany… in many Spanish-speaking congregations it’s actually a bigger celebration than Christmas. On Epiphany, the reason we read the story of the wise men is that when God put that star up in the sky, guiding folks from far away to the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem, the good news that through Christ, God loves, accepts and cares for all us was proclaimed. So my friends, as you go home on this Epiphany Sunday, celebrate and share the good news of our rowdy faith in a rowdy God… a God that loves you and you and you… a rowdy God that loves all of us, whether we’re young or old, gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, whether we’re outgoing or shy or even a weird kid that loves cats, fireworks and margarine. In short my friends, celebrate God’s good news, and get rowdy.

[LOUD, ROWDY ENDING SONG ABOUT GOD’S LOVE]

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Calumet Yellows Reunion Weekend Update

I've been amazingly blessed to have the opportunity to help out as chaplain at Camp Calumet Lutheran in New Hampshire, where over sixty teenagers and former Yellows campers from the previous summer have reunited for an awesome weekend of fun, friends and exploring their faith.  The theme of the weekend has been the "The Best of Calumet," with gourmet grilled cheese for lunch, favorite songs from the summer and a bunch of awesome option time activities like tubing on the toboggan run, a bonfire on the beach and an epic game of broom-ball.  Earlier in the day, we talked about what Calumet made to us and made time capsules to reopen the coming summer.  Especially as many of the campers will be entering into one of Calumet's leadership programs for future staff this coming summer, it ended up being a really important conversation.  All the kids and counselors have been "live-tweeting" the retreat on Twitter using the hashtag #CCL.  Just a couple awesome things they've come up with:


Having deep conversations of our faith


Sledding was the fabest thing I've ever done

There are many different types of love and it means many different things to many different people

To check out our whole Twitter conversation, either search for #CCL or check out our Storify page.

In terms of some of the stuff I've been working on, we've been talking about ways we respond to God's love, types of service we do, the world we live in, and how it all relates to our identity as people of faith.  Campers have been tweeting the bishop and presiding bishop about what they've been talking about as well.  Gotta go get my costume ready for a theme dinner, but I'll write more soon.

God's peace,
Dustin 

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Calumet Youth Retreat Plan: Faith, Identity and the World We Live In

Friends, as part of my internship this year I have the honor of chaplaining a retreat up at Camp Calumet this coming weekend in New Hampshire.  It'll be for sixty youth between ages 13 - 15 who were Yellows campers at Calumet last summer.  I haven't done one of these in a while (and never one this big), so I'd love to hear your thoughts:

Looking back on the past year, it’s pretty easy to get discouraged.  Amidst continued economic problems, superstorms, long elections and the tragic school shooting in Connecticut, not to mention what might be going on in our own personal lives, it’s easy for all of us to wonder where God is in everything we’re facing.  For young adults coming of age in such challenging and changing times, figuring out what it means to be a person of faith can often be particularly difficult.

Luckily, our Lutheran tradition offers the world the precious insight that God is gracious God who loves all Her children.  In a world where we’re hungry for acceptance, love, community and meaning, whether they’re a person of faith or not, the central Lutheran insight that God loves us is indeed very good news.  But the question then becomes, how do we respond to the good news that God loves us in the actually world we live in?  Perhaps putting it even more fundamentally, how does God’s good news affect who we are?

Throughout our weekend at Calumet, we’ll be exploring that very question through four steps, with 1 John 4: 7 – 12 as our guiding framework:

7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Our first step during devotions on Friday night will be to think about how we live out our faith in everyday life.  We’ll be doing this through a fun bingo activity where participants can sign off on squares about what types of service, etc. they participate in.

Our second step during the Saturday morning session will be to think about issues facing our world and how Lutherans are responding to such issues.  Participants will break into groups and answer quiz questions about various facts (multiple choice, true/ false, etc.)  They’ll then break into small groups and discuss what they’ve heard.  If there’s leftover time, they’ll report back some of their responses to the larger group.

Here are just a few of the facts about the world we live in that we’ll touch on:

-       Lutheranism is no longer a Western tradition.  Roughly 5% of the US population is Lutheran, while roughly 50% of the Namibian population is Lutheran.  There are more Lutherans in Lutheran World Federation member churches in Ethiopia and Tanzania than in the United States.

-       Despite nearly eliminating hunger in the US back in the 1970s, nearly one in four American children live in a household facing food insecurity.  One quarter of children below the age of five are stunted worldwide due to lack of proper nutrition.

-       In 2011, Lutheran World Relief helped nearly 5 million people in forty countries.  Lutheran Social Services is the largest single charitable organization in the United States, based on revenue.

-       One third of US teens report being bullied in school, while 8% of students report being injured or hurt with a weapon at school.

-       ELCA Lutherans advocate for social justice through a national office in Washington, twelve state public policy offices and the Lutheran Office for World Community in New York.

-       Nearly a quarter of American young adults have no religious affiliation.  New England is the least religious area of the country.

-       Average global temperature increased by about one degree Celsius over the 20th century.  The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets lost 36 to 60 cubic miles of ice per year between 2002 and 2006.

-       The ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission program sends roughly fifty young adult volunteers to serve abroad each year.

-       In developing countries, women tend to work far longer hours than men. In Asia and Africa, studies have shown that women work as much as 13 hours more per week.

-       After a strong effort since 1990, nearly 90% of primary-school aged children are now enrolled in school worldwide.  Most countries have achieved relatively equity in primary school enrollment between girls and boys.

Our third step will be to reflect on what it means to be a person of faith in the world we live in.  We’ll do this by discussing how what we learned in the morning session relates to what the 1 John passage reads in our small groups.  We’ll then take some time to think about what it means for us to be a person of faith and then break into different stations where we can express our identity.  This can be done through writing, taping of YouTube videos, art, and perhaps even a skit performance.  What we come up with will be shared with the wider world through a variety of avenues (LWF Youth Blog, NE Synod blog, etc. are possibilities)

Our final step will be to gather around Word and Sacrament during Sunday worship to showcase and discuss what we’ve experienced over the weekend.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.