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With the school year starting up again, I have been inundated with people’s back-to-school photos. With school starting in mid-August in Kansas and Missouri, my family began posting photos weeks ago. I have seen little kids with “First Day of Kindergarten” signs and parents standing in barren dorm rooms that are filled with bags yet to be unpacked. I have seen friends post photos of themselves with backpacks and big grins with the caption that they are beginning their last year of graduate school. I have also seen side-by-side comparison pictures of the current first-day-of-school picture with the last-first-day-of-school picture. And today being the first day after Labor Day, I have seen the last round of Michigan’s first-day-of-school pictures.
Seeing these photos today made me think about how we measure time. There is a joke on the internet that crops up every now and again that, “Americans will measure with anything other than the metric system.” Want an example? Click here to read 27 of them. Similarly, I find it interesting how many people use the school year as a tool of measurement. Never mind that we celebrate the changing of the year every January, we use the beginning of the school year as a different measure of time. Even folks like me who haven’t had a “first day of school” day in 7 school years! Never mind if you are retired, are actively teaching, or taking someone to school, September still holds a feeling of the year getting stated again. Fall programing begins, some congregations are holding Homecoming Celebrations, and committees start meeting once again. Northminster is no different: Our new fall series will start this Sunday. The following two Sundays we have lunch-n-learn classes after worship. Session meets this Thursday and the Deacon the week after. If you have questions as to what is going on at Northminster CLICK HERE to subscribe to our online calendar and stay up to date with everything happening. And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our Special Events Calendar! And with that, we are off and going again. If Northminster was to have a back-to-school picture, it would be 69 years old and in the 64th Grade. Happy School Year everyone! Blessings, Pastor Chris I have a question for you to consider today:
If you did not need a job or a wage in order to live, what would you do with your time? This may be a silly question for those of you who are already retired… but what would you have done in young adulthood if you didn’t need a job to support yourself? Would you have pursued the same career? Would you pursue a career at all? How long would you have spent basking in the nothing-ness of your days before you got bored? Would you have pursued art? Or music? Tried to write a story that lived in your head? Would you cook or read or volunteer your time? Or would you cultivate your garden and tackle all of those DIY projects that you promised yourself that you would do, “once I have energy”? In the 1970’s, it was predicted that we would only work 20 hours a week at our jobs based on the steady increase of productivity in the workplace. Technology was improving, allowing humans to do less work. And so, it followed, we would be able to work less and pursue whatever artistic and creative endeavors we so desired. But this vision of the future is not the version future we ended up with. Instead, work has expanded to the size of time that we allow it to. Cell phones mean that we are accessible 24/7, laptops and tablets mean we can carry work with us wherever we go, and a desire for metrics means that there is always another computer program to enter in data into to see if we are maximizing our time and resources wisely. We traded a future of creative leisure for an obsession with hard work and productivity. While Artificial Intelligence could be trained to do menial tasks that humans dislike doing, it is instead being trained to do creative work, like creating art or writing movies, that humans would otherwise enjoy doing. When I first read the predictions from the 1970’s compared to our workplace culture today, I felt like Kristen Bell’s character in The Good Place when she finally realizes that the supposed heaven she was in was actually the Bad Place. (Sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen this fantastic show!) But this realization is why I have come to love Labor Day and I love preaching about rest and how Christians and activists fought and died so that we could have a 5-day workweek with 2 days of rest. And it is why I go on and on about the importance of rest (and not feeling guilty about resting) - but there is one more part to my yearly soapbox: Life is about more than just work. Life is meant to be enjoyed. So, what would you do if you had leisure time? What would you do if you were to do something purely because you enjoy it? And I hope you get some time this weekend to do just that. Blessings, Pastor Chris As we come to the end of the “That’s NOT in the Bible!” sermon series, I am sad to report that I was not able to include everything Biblical misconception. I touched upon the topics that I thought were the most important. Some topics were chosen because of their moral implications and other topics were chose because the Christian imagination has added in details that were never there to begin with. And to be fair, I chose not to preach on a few topics because there wasn’t enough to say about these mix-ups and misconceptions. So, here is a list of Honorable Mentions of what is NOT in the Bible:
Blessings, Pastor Chris If you have been inside my office and looked on my bookshelf, you will notice a collection of objects. Some of them are souvenirs from trips I have taken. Other things are gifts that I have been given. While some objects have sentimental value only, other objects I have kept because they are beautiful. More than one has a story behind them. But one thing is for sure: with one look at my bookshelf and you can tell that I enjoy collecting unique and odd things. The same could be said about my brain: I have an odd collection of information that I have learned over the years. Even as a child, I had a penchant for remembering odd facts, like that a hippopotamus’s sweat is blood-red and people have mistaken a sweating hippo for a bleeding one. My mother used to tell me that I had a “bank of random information” that was liable to spit out a piece of trivia at any given moment. I don’t always remember where I learn these facts… but I know that odd nuggets of information stick in my brain like a ketchup stain on a white shirt.
This “bank of random information” is my only explanation for the onslaught of odd facts in Sunday’s sermon. In case you were wondering, here is an article that explains what a bacculum is and why the Hebrew might imply that Eve was made from one. I’ll be honest with you all, I am not sure where I first heard this theory… it may have been in a seminary textbook, or it may have been from this book: The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book. What I do know is this: there is a lot more I could say about the first three chapters of Genesis. In case you want to hear a longer discussion, here are the videos from our Tuesday morning Bible Study where we discuss many of these topics in greater detail:
With all of this contextual information that presents us with a slightly different narrative than we expect, it is fair to wonder, “How are we able to make sense of the story in scripture at all?” Another way to ask this is, “Do I need a seminary degree to understand the Bible, or is my plain reading of the text enough?” This question is at the core of what we will be discussing this coming Sunday - and the simple answer is… it’s complicated. With two Sundays left in this series - strap in! - because there is a lot more random pieces of information heading your way! Blessings, Pastor Chris At the moment, the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France are in full swing.
Day by day we are seeing more videos and news clips of the stunning abilities of individuals and the human body. While the Olympics, at its heart, is a competition and every person is striving for a metal, it is also a beautiful display of the beauty of humanity. It is hard not to marvel and just how much these athletes can do. I know that the full range of emotions is also on display as people try their best (which is miles beyond what I could even attempt) and still fail to win. We see both joy and grief in these competitions, but I cannot help but to see beauty through it all. On my grumpier days, I can be heard saying to my friend Melissa, “Mel, I hate people! People are the worst! Why do we have to deal with people!?” She reminds me that a person is often lovely: it is just collectively that people can be awful. Other days, it is the other way around. Other days, she is grumpy at people in general and I am the one to remind her that people can also be wonderfully kind and full of surprises. It is on our grumpier days that I like to think about the beauty of the Olympics. On my grumpy days, I ask God, “Why do you pay attention to us at all? We are horrible to each other! Why do you even love and care about us?” And then I watch the wonders of the human that God designed, and I am floored by the beauty of God’s creation. On those same days, I will get caught off-guard by a stranger offering a compliment, and I will see the kindness that God instilled in our hearts. Other days, it is the hug of a family member… and I wonder how anyone could want to do away with humanity. Yes, hell can be other people… but so is our paradise. It seems like the greatest contradiction: other people can be our greatest pain and the source of our comfort. In the end, watching the Olympics doesn’t make me want to attempt ANYTHING they are doing on screen, but it does make me want to make something beautiful. It makes me want to create so that this world is more beautiful because of me and my work. The question is, what will you do to make this world beautiful? Blessings, Pastor Chris "Rabe’a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seen running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, ‘I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God'.” -John Green, Looking for Alaska Dear Northminster Friend, On Sunday my sermon discussed hell and the afterlife as it exists in scripture and in the imaginative work of Dante Alighieri. As I stated then, scripture doesn’t actually spend much time talking about what this afterlife is like. While Dante gave us vivid imagery that has influenced our conception of hell ever since, we are also able to use what we read in scripture and image something else. In light of that, I thought I’d share with you all what I envision when I think of hell. My beliefs about hell changed in 2011 when Mega-Church Pastor and author Rob Bell published the book Love Wins. Rob Bell had built a 10,000-member evangelical mega-church in Grand Rapids and was thought to be the next Bill Graham (source). But that went off the rails when he wrote a book explaining why Hell didn’t exist. Not only did this book rock my world, but it also had me asking questions that I had never considered before. While I was already uncomfortable with the idea of eternal damnation, Rob Bell was the first to give me a framework for a different way of understanding what comes next. Here is how I envision what is next: After death, you arrive at the threshold of heaven. God is waiting there with open arms saying, “Good and faithful servant, well done!” And you are welcomed into everlasting peace. But right as you are about to cross the threshold, you see a person you don’t expect, someone you hated or that you considered to have lived a horrible life, causing you pain and suffering. Someone you think is not deserving of eternal peace. “Wait! God, how did THEY get in?! Why are THEY in heaven?!” “Yes, my child,” God responds, “my love and forgiveness extends to all. “But they were horrible! I don’t want to be stuck in heaven with THEM!” “I can’t force you to accept them… But know that you are choosing not to enter heaven because of them. I love them and have forgiven them. I hope you can do the same so that you can be united with everyone here in heaven. There are no flames in hell: it is simply the absence of my presence. You can choose to go there, but I hope that you don’t.” And then that person will be faced with a choice: choose to enter hell knowing that their enemy will be there with them or choose to turn away and choose emptiness. It has been over a decade since I read that book. I am not sure how much of the above image came from Rob Bell’s writing and how much was simply inspired by it. Frankly, I’m not even sure what happened to my copy of that book; but when I think about hell now, I see too many people using the idea of eternal torment to inspire fear in people in order to coerce, manipulate, and control people into behaving in a certain way. When I look at scripture, I see ideas of hell being used to make the comfortable uncomfortable and giving comfort to those who are suffering. I can’t quite claim the title of being a universalist since I do still believe in a sort of hell; I just pray that hell will always remain empty. Blessings, Pastor Chris As we talked about this past Sunday, nowhere in our scriptures does it state that, “God helps those who help themselves.” On the contrary, the Bible often tells stories about how God fought on behalf of people who couldn’t fight for themselves. I discussed how the image of the Body of Christ opposes rugged individualism and self-reliance. But there is another aspect of how this phrase get used in our culture that I didn’t have time to go into on Sunday: The Prosperity Gospel.
In the simplest terms, the idea behind the Prosperity Gospel is this: God blesses those who are righteous. So, if a person is rich and successful in life, it is because God had blessed them and their lifestyle. I have heard preachers state, “God doesn’t want you to be poor! God want to shower you with abundance! So, give boldly to our collection to show God that you are committed to his cause and God will rain that abundance back down upon you!” God helps those who help themselves: so, if you work hard and live a righteous life, God will reward your efforts. You can’t sit on your hands and wait for God’s blessings to fall into your lap; you have to work for them and God will bless you in return. In my opinion, the message of the Prosperity Gospel is manipulative at best and outright predatory at worst. It works by preying on the fears of the vulnerable for the enrichment of the powerful. Most heinous of all, this is done in the name of God despite the fact that it is in direct opposition to scripture and the words of Jesus: But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets - Luke 6:24-26 Rather, our scripture tells us of how God fought for the Hebrew people were enslaved in Egypt and could not save themselves. We hear Jesus tell the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man in Luke 16:19-31 that speaks of the dangers of ignoring the needy that cannot help themselves. Jesus also speak of the lilies of the field in Matthew 6:25-34 where he proclaims that God will provide for us just as God provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. We do not earn God’s love and blessings: we already have them. Yes, there is work to do to make sure that everyone can enjoy them, but the fact that some people are not able to enjoy God’s abundance is because of the flaws in human systems, not God withholding love. So, know that you are already loved and claimed by God. Blessings, Pastor Chris In our last series about the Book of Confessions, one topic that came up frequently was the role of the PCUSA’s (and prior Presbyterian denomination’s) General Assembly. General Assembly (GA) is the PCUSA’s national gathering that is held every other year. The Next GA will be in the summer of 2026 in the Presbytery of Milwaukee. While the national gathering is over, the work of GA has just begun. While GA is a time to make decisions, vote on changes, and assemble commissions, much of the work of GA is carrying out what has been decided upon at the gathering. Think of it like this: in a church worship service, we worship God and hear about how we should live our lives in faith, but the work of the church really only begins once the service is done.
With the 226th General Assembly having officially come to a close, here are some of the things we can expect to hear more about in the coming two years:
So come with me, for the journey ahead is long. Blessings, Pastor Chris |
AuthorPastor Chris Hallam earned her degree at Princeton Theological Seminary and moved to Michigan to become a pastor. Also trained as a studio artist and graphic designer, with an interest in pop culture and social science, her passion is thinking creatively about the future of the church. Archives
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