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There is a particular feeling that comes from the contrast between the expected joy of the season and the looming heaviness and dread. Some of this heaviness might be because of the state of the world and our country. Other people might feel it because of things going on here in our own community or because of things happening in their own lives. I know that, for many of us, this strange feeling is become sadly familiar: I can remember a time when the holidays felt like a break from the struggles of the world; but, in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult to put on holiday blinders: many of the world’s issues are simply too big and too foreboding. If you are feeling these things, no matter the reason why, know that you are not alone. And whether you use cheery holiday music to give temporary relief or if you need a break from the forced cheer of Christmas ads, know that there is not one correct way to deal with these emotions. However - there are helpful and less-helpful ways to deal with difficult emotions. One of my favorite tools to deal with big, unwieldy emotions is this: take your emotions seriously but do not trust what they say.
That idea comes from a TED Talk called The Voices in my Head by Dr Eleanor Longden who talks about what it is like to live with schizophrenia, heal from trauma, and become a psychologist. In this talk, she discusses her discovery that the voices she hears come up when her brain is trying to communicate something to her that she is not fully conscience of yet – often something urgent or anxiety producing. She has learned that the voices are normally correct in identifying situations that need her attention but incorrect in their analysis. For example, she described the overwhelming feeling that her family is in danger from an intruder and she needs to protect them and the voices telling her that if she doesn’t they will die. She goes on to explain that the voices are incorrect that there is an intruder that she needs to protect them from, the voices correctly identified that she is worried about her family members because it is a stressful week for them. While Dr. Longden has a particular neurological condition with some extreme symptoms, I believe most of us have experienced something similar, though to a lesser degree. Some folks are disappointed about the election and feel helpless to change anything, and their inner voice can tell them that society is collapsing, and the world is heading towards a man-made apocalypse. Some are anxious about our job security and our ability to pay for Christmas presents and that inner voice lashes out and lashes out by telling us to fear of immigrants and people who don’t look like us. Some are experiencing change, and that inner voice tells us that things will never be as good as they once were, so we should just give up. Some folks are experiencing setback and dreams that didn’t work out and that inner voice can be cruel telling them that they are a failure. In all of these situations, it is important to take these emotions seriously, but not to trust what that inner voice is saying. The first step is often to acknowledge the base emotion being felt: “Am I angry or sad? Disappointed or grieving? Am I scared? If so, what I am really scared of?” Only after you acknowledge at the center of the issue can you tackle what the voice is saying and analyze how reasonable that response is. So, as we continue on into Advent, if you are feeling weary and heavy laden, check in with yourself and what you are feeling. Give yourself a chance to simply feel the emotions that are bubbling up. It can be scary, but I promise that the sadness and grief will not end you: most often, it will wash over you like a wave. Give yourself permission to feel those things and then, and only then, see if that inner voice is actually being truthful or is speaking out of a place of pain. Despite what the Hallmark company would have you think, the Advent season is not about forced happiness and joy. In the "Christmas movie world", it might be a sin to be unhappy during the holidays, but there is room for sadness, grief, and longing in Advent. So let yourself feel your feelings – but don’t’ always trust that voice. Blessings, Pastor Chris Have you ever noticed that some of the most well-known Christmas scriptures are not in the Gospels? “For to us a child is born, to us a child is given.” “Look! The young woman is with child!” “And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” “And you shall call him Immanuel” “And the wolf will lay down with the lamb.” If these scriptures are not from the Gospels, have you ever wondered where they did come from? What did they mean in their original context? What did the people think of when they first heard them? How do we know that they are talking about Jesus?
Here are some quick answers:
So - join me this Advent season in our worship series Look!: Isaiah’s Prophetic Words for Advent. Blessings, Pastor Chris My apologies for being a day late with the Northminster Notes. Yesterday was a busy day and every time I sat down to write you all my weekly letter, something else would pop up and I would need to attend to it.
When I get to the Northminster building in the mornings, I typically have a routine of sorts: Unlock and lock the east door, unlock my office, flip on the lights, set my bag of things down, turn on my computer, hang up my coat, make myself a cup of tea, log into the computer, check my email, and lay out in my calendar what I am to accomplish that day. I don’t always do things in exactly this order, but this is more or less how things go most morning. But this morning I took the scenic route to my morning routine. Yes, I unlocked doors, turned lights on, and set my stuff down but I left my computer off. I grabbed my holiday Christmas mugs and dropped my favorite cozy tea in it (Harney and Son’s Hot Cinnamon Spice tea for anyone who was wondering. I sound like an internet influencer right now, but seriously… if you want a cozy hug in a mug, it is amazing.) Mug and tea in hand, I strolled down to the kitchenette to brew the tea. I love the hot water tap, but this tea also needs a little extra heat to brew right. So, I popped it in the microwave for a minute. In that minute, I reflected on all the work that has been done and what is still left to do. And my thoughts came to me last night when Session met and voted to approved the lease agreement with the Congregational Church of Birmingham. While we call it a lease, it is written up as a Revocable Licensing Agreement. This is the same language we have with the Discovery Corner Academy and Troy People Concerned. A Revocable License implies shared use of the space rather that a Lease agreement that implies sole usage of the space. I know that some folks were hoping that this agreement would be a voting matter at our last congregational meeting, but I cross-checked it with the Book of Order and by G-3.0201 (c), managing the physical property of the congregation is explicitly the duty of the Session and by G-1.0504, many topics are listed as being appropriate matters for a congregational meeting, including sale or mortgaging of property or creating a “joint congregational witness,” but finalizing a lease/licensing arrangement was not included. As such, the Session acting in its designated roll and approved this arrangement. If you would like to discuss this and their rational with Session members, they will be listed below. The Hot Cinnamon Spice tea is, in my opinion, best when you completely boil the water before pouring it over the tea bag. The tea is a combination of black tea (but there is an herbal version), cinnamon, clove, and orange peel. While there is no added sugar, if you fully boil the water, the orange peel will release a small amount of sugar to the tea and add a slight sweetness that balances the spicy cinnamon. The downside to this method of brewing is that you also have to wait until it cools down to drink it. So, I began meandering around the building waiting for my tea to cool. I found myself sitting in the Sanctuary. Yesterday, the Congregational Church of Birmingham began their move, bringing their essential items to our building. As I peered around the sanctuary, I was amazed at how some of their things fit in our space. Their Baptismal Font is made from a similar wood as is the wood of our sanctuary. It is a similar mid-century design and fits perfectly on the left side of the chancel. They also brought a driftwood Jesus statue with them that fits perfectly in with the greenery in the corner opposite the choir. Yes, we had to shift a few things around and we had to find a best-of-all-options location for a few items, but I felt like there was a sense of cozy harmony in the room: the things added made sense and it still felt like Northminster’s sanctuary. I sat in the sanctuary for a good long time just looking around. As it turns out, cold rooms are great for cooling off tea and I was able to take a drink and feel the warm tea radiate through me. I spent that time talking to God, praying your you all, the community that uses this space to find community and connection with God. I prayed for our future and for the future of the church. I lifted up the struggles I know about in the community and those that I didn’t. Slowly I found stillness in that room and my eyes and heart came to rest on the woven cross tapestry that hangs in the front of the chancel. Many times, I have been told the story about that tapestry: it was made during a Presbyterian Women’s even at First Presbyterian Church of Warren. Many different types of material in many different colors were carefully woven together to make the piece. If you are up close, all you see it the checkered weaving of the cloth. But when you stand back and look from a distance, you can see the cross appear out of undulating colors and fabric. The tapestry is not ours, but it is permanently in our care. And like an answered prayer, I felt a small voice inside me say, “this is what we are doing.” I try to be very intentional with my words when I write these letters to you all and when I preach. Since we don’t speak in upper and lower case, when I talk about the local church, I try to use the word congregation to refer to the local community of people. That is because the Church (notice the upper-case C) is the Church Universal, the Church of Jesus Christ, the whole gathering of God’s people. The congregation and its mission is but a piece of the Church and Church’s mission. We are one piece of very-colorful fabric woven into the tapestry of the Church. This one stripe of fabric cannot make the image of the cross by itself, we have to be woven together with the other congregations to make the Church Universal. We are not the Church by ourselves, but tasked with caring for this segment of the Church and our mission gets woven into the wider mission of the Church. We don’t own the Church; we are stewards of this piece of the Church. As we go forward with our relationship with the Congregational Church of Birmingham, we are weaving our stories together. We are two congregations, but we are a part of one Church. Our mission and ministry have brought us together for a time, but we will have to listen and discern where God is leading us as we step out in faith. Practically, we are also weaving together our worship spaces, our offices, our calendars, and our relationships. With any luck, this weaving will make our part of the Church’s tapestry stronger. With gratitude, Pastor Chris I have an unpopular opinion: dislike open floorplans in houses and open-concept kitchens. I especially dislike open-concept kitchens in houses that were not designed with them in mind, where the owners have renovated the old floorplan to include the modern open-concept kitchen. If you love them, great! We can disagree on this. I know that I am biased on this subject. I live in a 1950’s house on a street with a dozen identical houses with identical floorplans. Or at least, a dozen houses that were originally built with identical floorplans. Over the decades, each owner has renovated these houses in unique ways. When I go for a walk down the street at night, I can occasionally see into their windows and see some of these changes. Some owners have taken out the center set of walls that divide the first story into three separate rooms in order to retrofit an open-concept kitchen into the 1950’s house. And I HATE it. The idea is to open up the space by making one giant room that is subdivided by use while allowing people in each area to still see and talk with one another. In reality, it makes the first floor feel small and there is no way to hide the mess in one area of the house from the other: i.e. a messy kitchen makes the living room feel dirty and a messy living room makes the kitchen feel cluttered. The open floor plan also gives the feeling like there is little difference between eating together at the kitchen table and each on the couch. Lines are blurred as to what room should be used for what and the original flow of the floorplan is disrupted.
In contrast, I have come to appreciate the divisions between the rooms of my house. Something happens when I cross the threshold from kitchen to the dining room: I can ignore the mess it took to make dinner and focus on spending time with the people around me. When I enter the family room, my body knows that I can relax and rest from the work I have been doing. This is the same reason why I change clothes after I come home from work: it is a signal to my brain that I no longer have to be productive. Graduations, weddings, baby showers, and funerals are all social thresholds. We hold big celebrations for these things like we are crossing from one room to the next. Some of them are arbitrary lines in the sand but we celebrate them to mark that things have changed, even if the change has been slow and gradual. Without some of these social thresholds, life just blends together like the open-concept floorplans. This Sunday we are crossing a social threshold: worshipping at 11:00 a.m. instead of 10:30 a.m. This is preparation for the Congregational Church of Birmingham to be worshiping in our building at 9:30 a.m. the following Sunday. I know there are a lot of emotions wrapped up in crossing this threshold: excitement for new opportunities, fears about our future, hope for what could be, and grief for a future we once envisioned that is now out of reach. While we are crossing this threshold in a very obvious way now, this threshold represents changes in the world and the Northminster community that have gone unacknowledged for years. It is as if the mess from one room in an open-concept floorplan has been spilling over into another area. By talking with CCB, negotiating building use, and decluttering our space, we are having to confront these changes head-on and acknowledge that we have already crossed a threshold. This Sunday’s change represents a different threshold however: transitioning from being passive in the face of change to being proactive. Many congregations in recent years have ignored the changing world and the thresholds they have passed over until they blip out of existence. By confronting things head-on, we are able to recognize what has changed and make efforts to adapt before it is too late. None of this is easy and there is still a lot of difficult work ahead of us as a community; but I fully believe that it is far less painful to do this work now than wait until the last hour to change. So, thank you all, for everyone working to make this transition a smooth one. Thank you to those who have been working on the details of our plan. Thank you to you who continue to have trust and hope for the future that encourages us all. I fully believe that this is not Northminster giving up, but Northminster defiantly stepping out in faith that God is still calling us to minister to this community here and now. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Pastor Chris Last week, I shared a walk through with what Sunday morning would look like. Details are still being worked out, so I won’t promise that is exactly how things will go, but it will be something similar. If you missed last week’s Notes, here is a link to read it: Notes November 12
This week, I want to do something similar but instead do a walk-through of what a Committee Night could look like. Like last week’s walk-through, this is not a guarantee that this is what things will look like, but a tool to help folks better understand what is being proposed. As such, I have put together two mock-agendas for two ways we could meet: January 19th & February 20th. You will notice some celebrity names in them to help with the illustration. With that, let’s put on our imagination caps and jump into Sunday morning on January 19th: “Aaaah-AAAhhh-aaaMEN!” With that, the sending hymn concludes and the congregation begins shuffling about, grabbing their coats, purses, and “… wait… where did I put my phone? I had it right here… oops! Gotta pick up the bulletin I just dropped.” Luckily the service didn’t go long today so there is still time to grab a cup of coffee and chat before the next part of the day beings. A few of the folks who love doing hospitality sneak out of the sanctuary to make sure everything is prepared in the Lounge for lunch. At twelve noon, a bell is rung and lunch is officially served. Still in the sanctuary enjoying Coffee Hour, Pastor Chris prays over the food before the Session and committee members begin to make their way into the lounge. The meal is open to everyone, committee member or not, but most folks decide that this is their chance to go home and get started on their afternoon nap. As people enter the lounge, the smell of warm soup crashes over you like a wave. Only then do you see a series of soup and bread is laid out on the back table; a Northminster classic. You think to yourself, “Which committee was responsible for bringing food again? Last time we had our all-committee meeting, B&G arranged to bring sandwiches for everyone. I think Community Connections brought the soup and bread this time.” Tables are set up in smaller groups around the room. Each seat has a short agenda in front of it for the joint part of the meeting. But you don’t have to worry about that at the moment: you know that you have about 30 minutes to enjoy the food and the company of those at your table. You get to chatting and hearing what is going on in other people’s lives. At some point, they bring up what they are doing in the committee they are on. You make a mental note to bring that up in your break-out meeting as a point of collaboration. Some folks are still eating, but Pastor Chris begins the joint part of the meeting. The Clerk gives a Session update about what they are working on and any motions they passed at their meeting on January 2nd. The treasurer then gives a quick update on how the finances are doing before Pastor Chris gives a quick update on anything else that she’s been working on. She concludes by saying, “Is there anything that one committee needs to check in with the other one about? No? Okaaaayyy… BREAK!” At that, the next shuffle begins. The Building & Grounds team chose to have a standing meeting in the Sanctuary: they found that this was an excellent way to keep the meeting short and to the point. Pastor Chris pops in with them at the start, updates them with something that the Community Connections team is planning, and then continues on to the next group. In 15 minutes, B&G shared all of their updates, planned the work to do, and delegated some tasks. After that, the group prays and then disperses. The Community Connections Committee gathers around a few tables pushed together in the lounge. Since this committee does a lot of planning, they have broken the work downs into categories that the coordinators manage: mission (serving others), outreach (making relationships in the area), fellowship (spending quality time with each other), and education. Since it is the beginning of the year, they are working together to put together a 2025 calendar, so events are even and spaced out. Some work will have to be saved until the February meeting, like choosing which organizations to give benevolence funds to; but this is a passionate group, so some work is delegated to work on between now and the next meeting on February 20th. Pastor Chris pops in toward the end of the meeting to hear some of the ideas for the 2025 calendar. She gives some suggestions and asks about what support she or Suzanne can give to get the word out about a few of these. At 2 p.m., Pastor Chris gives a closing prayer, and the Community Connections members head out. The Church Operations Committee is meeting in Pastor Chris’s office for now. They gather around the table and give updates on the 2025 Budget, Pastor’s Terms of Call, and review anything else needed for the Annual Meeting in a few weeks. After those updates, the Worship & Music and the Tech coordinators give updates with how things are going on Sunday morning with the new worship schedule and sharing space with CCB is going. The Church Operations Committee troubleshoots a few issues and makes a motion to send to Session about a tech issue. The Session liaison makes a note to bring it up in the February 6th meeting. After that, they pray and continue on with their day. As everyone departs once their Committee is done, some think about how nice the fellowship was before the meeting. It is always nice to share a meal and catch up with people that you don’t always talk to during coffee hour. Others are happy that the next All-Committee meeting is on Thursday, February 20th at 7 p.m. on Zoom. While it is nice getting to talk to people face-to-face, Zoom meetings tend to be faster (and then you aren’t at church all day!). As I said above, this is just what things could be like. I am more than happy to adjust this plan as we see fit. My recommendation is to try one in-person and one Zoom All-Committee meeting before we choose one style over the other. If you have any questions, let me know. Blessings, Pastor Chris As things continue with our conversations with the Congregational Church of Birmingham, details are getting solidified. Last Thursday, the Session met and one of the many things discussed was when the start of worship would be starting in December. Taking all of the feedback we received through the after-church discussion on October 13th and through one-on-one conversations, Session took time to consider the pros and cons of various start times.
In the end, the Session voted to have a 11 a.m. worship service starting on December 1st, 2024. This was chosen because this new time is only a 30-minute shift from our current 10:30 a.m. worship time and because whole-hour times are easier to remember than quarter-hours (10:45 or 11:15). It was decided to start at our new worship time on December 1st to give us one week of adjustment before CCB tentatively plans to hold their services in our building on December 8th. The Session also set the February Session meeting – projected to be on Feb 6th 2025 – to discuss whether or not the 11 a.m. worship time is working or if additional changes need to be made to our Sunday Schedule. With that in mind, let’s talk briefly about what Sunday mornings are going to feel like, not with charts or timetables, but from a narrative perspective: It is 10 a.m. and the first Northminster members begin to arrive. There are already cars in the parking lot and a second row of cars has already started to form. You, a choir member, laugh because it turns out that the CCB folks are about as skilled at starting the second row as we are; but it is in good humor because Building & Grounds said that they were looking into getting the parking lot professionally striped. The South Entrance is already unlocked and when the choir members enter, they can hear that the CCB service is still happening, but it sounds like they are beginning to wrap up. The choir members then turn to their right to find Brandon waiting in the music office to begin choir practice. While the choir is practicing, other congregants gather in the lounge. Some of the folks here are spouses of choir members, others are just the ushers and greeters that like arriving early. These folks who have gathered early have been encouraged to bring their morning coffee with them and it looks like someone brought bagels with cream cheese to share. At 10:15 a.m. the CCB service ends. Both the choir in the Music Office and the folks in the lounge can tell because they hear the sound of people shuffling down the hallway to the Ark where they will be having their coffee hour. At that point, the Ushers will grab the Northminster Bulletins from the main office and lay them out on the Usher’s table. Then they will set out the attendance sheet on the podium and make sure that the collection plates are in the sanctuary. Greeters will take up their stations at the two entrances, and the tech team will make sure that everything is set for our live stream. The Choir or Bells will have a chance to practice in the sanctuary before service if need be. Otherwise, Brandon will be free to practice some of the hymns on the organ. But true to Northminster’s culture, folks will still likely roll in close to the start of service. Most people will wander into the Sanctuary at 10:55 a.m. and a few might make it to their chairs by 11:03 a.m. Our service will continue as usual, but Pastor Chris will watch the clock a little bit more closely in order to ensure that the service is done by 12:00. Toward the end of the service after the Lord’s prayer, the coffee servers will sneak out to the Nursery to put the coffee and cookie cart together. And by the end of the benediction, coffee hour begins as always. People linger for a bit, but eventually drift away because it really is lunchtime now. On the way out the door, we might run into a few CCB folks. After their coffee hour, they had a "Comma Conversation". You might ask them about what they discussed this week and linger in the parking lot as you get to know them a bit more. Then you both get in your cars to drive home, knowing that you might just see them next week (and remember their name this time!) While we are moving the time of our service, if it goes similarly to what I just described, a lot about our Sunday worship stays the same. For all of December, I will make sure there is some sort of breakfast foods provided for those who want to come early and have a pre-church coffee hour. And if this doesn’t work as seamlessly and I described, make sure to share your feedback with a member of Session before Feb 6th or make plans to attend that Session meeting to share your feedback with our leadership yourself. If you have any other questions about our new projected schedule, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. Blessings, Pastor Chris When it comes to doing chores at home, there are few things that annoy me quite like dirty dishes. On good mornings, the kitchen is clean by the time I leave for work so that I can easily come home and cook dinner. On truly bad days, every dish is in the sink, the dishwasher is full, but nothing is cleaned. I feel most accomplished when I can cook dinner and, whilst cooking dinner, clean the dishes that I used for cooking so that I have a finished dinner and a clean kitchen at the same time. I feel most discouraged when I have to clean the entire kitchen just to cook dinner and then by the end of dinner, the kitchen is a mess again. It amazes me just how much time I spend every week cleaning and putting away dishes just for them to reappear in a matter of minutes the next day. I dream about being able to do the dishes, put them away, and never have to do the dishes again! Alas, unless I either hire someone to do them for me or eat takeout on entirely on disposable dishware, I will be doing the dishes for the foreseeable future.
Today is Election Day. If you haven’t voted already, go to your polling location and vote! They are open until 8 p.m. There is still time! While today is no doubt an important day that will decide what direction our country takes for the foreseeable future, I wonder if we put too much importance on this one day, and not enough on the other 1,460-ish days until the next Presidential Election. I wonder if civic engagement in politics should be more like doing the dishes: a frequent task if we want to live in a clean, organized world (even if it is annoying to do). Therefore, if we want to make the Kingdom of God a reality in our midst as our faith instructs us to do, we must work toward that goal more than one day every four years - and so, we mustn’t put all of our hopes and fears into the outcome of this election. Never mind if our preferred candidate wins or loses, we must continue working towards a greater goal. Like doing our dishes, I wish we could do it once and then sit back and enjoy the results. However, if we do that, we are signing away all of our collective power and voices to those we elect rather than choosing them to represent our voices at a higher level. So, know that our calling as the People of God is to be active and engaged with this world. No matter the outcome of the election, we will still have work to do. What kind of work we are called to do might change, but the need for us to stay active and engaged with our community will not. I hope you all have gone out and voted. I also hope that you all are not overcome by worry and fear. God will remain with us and God’s call to engage with our community will remain. Blessings, Pastor Chris We are one week away from the US’s Presidential Election. Michigan is a battle ground state. That means that we are being flooded with campaign ads, political mailings, and incessant text messages asking for more money. If you are experiencing what I am experiencing, politics feels unescapable at the moment. And while it is an important election (I hope you all have voted or plan to vote), this inundation of politics to every aspect of our lives can also be detrimental to our mental health.
This fall, we are discussing what it means to be a steward of faith. Part of being a good steward is making sure that we are being mindful about how we use our mental, emotional, and physical energy. When talking about stewardship, we don’t always think about our time and energy as a resource in the same way we discuss money as a resource, but it is easier to see how our attention, mental energy, and emotional energy are resources in an election year like this one. Campaign ads are trying to use your emotional energy every time they try to make you afraid or anxious. It takes mental energy to sift through headlines for the truth amongst the exaggeration truth and the outright lies. And many campaigns are asking for your physical energy as we engage in conversations about politics or as people help to canvas for particular candidates. While I am supportive of people who willingly choose to participate in campaign efforts, if you are feeling tired, anxious, or afraid due to this election, here are some of my tips on how to be better stewards of our time and energy: Set a timer for how much time you want to spend on the internet or watching television. Then, turn it off. By setting a timer or time limit, you set you intentions before engaging in an activity. This can prevent doom scrolling on the internet or watching the news for longer than you intended because of gripping headlines. Make plans to do something that is not technology-based. Schedule time to read a physical book. Make plans to spend time with family or friends. If you know that you will be tempted to scroll the internet or binge-watch the news, make plans so that you are too busy doing things to interact with the internet or tv. Remember, it is easier to avoid temptation if you don’t go near it. Set boundaries around conversations or topics that makes you angry, frustrated, or anxious. Take some time to plan out responses to conversations that you are not in a place to have. This can sound like, “I care a lot about this election, but talking about it right now is not helpful for me. Can we discuss something else?” “I can see that you care a lot about this topic. However, we don’t agree on this topic, and I don’t think we will be able to change each other’s minds. Can we change the topic?” or “I want to be able to listen to what you are saying because I care about your opinion, but I am not in the right headspace right now to give you the attention you deserve. Can we discuss this at another time?” Make a plan for how you are going to spend Election Day next Tuesday. The best time to make a plan for how you want your election day to go is to plan it out this week. How much time do you want to spend watching the news and election results? How will you let yourself know when to go to sleep? If you feel anxious or angry, how will you deal with those emotions? If you don’t follow your plan, how will you remind yourself of the intentions you have set this week? Your time, energy, emotions, and mental bandwidth are all important resources. Unlike money, we all have a limited amount of them to use and when they are gone, they are gone. So please be good stewards of your time and energy these next two weeks. There are many things that will be trying to get you to use those resources for their own purposes. By making plans, you can gain more control over how you use those resources and be able to allocate your time, energy, and emotions for things you really care about. Blessings, Pastor Chris When you are thinking about creating a painting, most art instructors will tell you to start with a gesture drawing. Gesture drawings are loose and messy. They are meant to help the artist figure out what elements to include, proportions, and a general layout. But you can’t get attached to the gesture drawing: even the best gesture drawing will be covered up by paint. After the gesture, many artists will do an underpainting. The goal of the underpainting is to help with the color palette and the tone of the paint on top. Like the gesture drawing, the underpainting will largely be unseen by the end. Next, many artists will paint color blocks: each element of the painting will be given a base color. Slowly by slowly the images will be added to. Larger details will give way to smaller and smaller details. The general will give way to the specific. If you want to see this magic happen, click here, or here for short videos showing this process.
While there are styles that will start with the small details and end with the background, most paintings follow this patter I just described. However, many young artists know the struggle of wanting to draw the small details that they enjoy first. I loved drawing faces, and I had a habit of finishing all of the small details of the face before refining the details of the body or its surroundings. However, my drawings always looked unbalanced when I did this because you could tell what I found interesting and what I was bored with. When I saved my favorite details for the end, the drawing was much more likely to have a uniform, or at least harmonious, level of detail across the drawing. Details were included that made sense for that piece and details that were interesting but distracting were left out. When thinking about our ongoing conversation with CCB about them potentially sharing space with us at Northminster, I find it helpful to think about it like the process of refining a painting. We started with brainstorming conversations and created a gesture drawing to see if this idea was even possible. We presented them with an initial offer that laid out some of the brainstorming ideas with a first attempt to put the pieces together. This was like the underpainting that set the tone of our continued conversations. We are now in a stage of color-blocking: we are trying to figure out how the larger details will work together before we can address the smaller details. It is easy to want to jump straight to the details on the face and paint the curve of the lips and capture the twinkle of someone’s eyes. But before we can do that, we have to make sure that the facial proportions are correct. On Sunday in our after-service meeting, more questions arose about where the conversation between Northminster and CCB stood. There are details that were being asked that I don’t have answers to yet because they are contingent on information that we do not yet have. Here are some details that I can share:
Thank you to everyone who has been asking questions and giving feedback. Your input has helped this process immensely. If you have additional thoughts or would like to talk about things in detail, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or the members of Session to talk about this. I have never claimed to be a mind-reader, so unless people come forward, we are not able to address your concerns or needs. Gratefully, Pastor Chris Dear Northminster,
For the past two days, I have been thinking about the word consensus. Defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary, consensus is 1.a) General agreement, unanimity b) The judgment arrived at by most of those concerned 2) Group solidarity in sentiment and belief Most of the systems we work with in society are not based on consensus but a system of democracy where the majority wins. Setting aside the complexity of the Electoral College where that isn’t the case, the closest our country gets to consensus is the system put into place for amending the US Constitution. Constitutional Amendments require a 2/3 vote in both the House and the Senate and then to be ratified by 3/4 of state legislatures. While 2/3rds and 3/4ths both qualify as super majorities, creating a supermajority is not the same as building consensus. Building consensus is not about ensuring that the majority of people agree with a position, but working on an issue or a solution until almost everyone is in agreement. We tend to pass over consensus building in favor of a simple majority because building consensus can be extremely difficult. While consensus is more difficult to achieve, consensus is what I am aiming for when it comes to the various changes happening at Northminster. I know that some of the changes we have discussed sound similar to previous plans that previous Northminster leadership teams have suggested. Folks have not been shy about sharing how similar plans didn’t work and the reasons why they fell apart. The Session and I has been taking notes on why those plans didn’t work. Moreover, by aiming for consensus rather than a simple majority agreement we are hoping that these changes fit our needs today. Knowing that not everything will work straight away, we are also planning check-ins to adjust our plans as we encounter issues. I am incredibly grateful for everyone who has come to the Lunch ‘n Learn sessions after worship the past two Sundays. Your feedback on our plans has been invaluable. Not only has your feedback pointed out some places where we need to fine-tune our plans, it has provided ideas we had not yet considered. Furthermore, it is only by this process of feedback, change, and more feedback that we are able to build consensus on how to move forward. If you haven’t made it to either of the previous two meetings, click here to get a copy of the committee restructuring plan, and click here to access the document that discusses the initial ideas for a CCB/Northminster rental agreement. This Sunday, we have one more Lunch ‘N Learn discussion after worship to discuss the 2025 Preliminary Budget. This Budget is not finalized but will give us an initial idea of what to expect for the following year. Blessings, Pastor Chris I am fully aware that the Northminster event calendar has been full so far this fall.
From joint worship services, to educational talks, to potluck picnics, I am touched by how many folks have dedicated much of their Sundays to eating together, learning, and fellowship with one another. And a special thank you to everyone who contributed to the potluck this past Sunday. Whether you helped set up, brought food, or stayed to talk with folks from Congregational Church of Birmingham, our guests were touched by your hospitality. While I know that the fall remains a busy season for many of us, I hope that you can make time for our next three after-church conversations: Oct 6 – Committee Restructuring Plan Oct 13 – Informational Session about CCB Rental Negotiations and Q&A Oct 20 – 2025 Budget Presentation. With each of these topics, we are hoping to present a plan or an outline in order to receive feedback from the congregation. That means we want to hear from YOU! And while these are three separate conversations, they are also interconnected. Therefore, I hope as many people as possibly are able to make time to be a part of these conversations. If you are not able to make it to one of these conversations but would like to know more about what is being presented, please send me an email and I will be happy to send you my presentation and answer any questions. The next presentation will be about restructuring our committees at Northminster. The proposal that Session has forwarded on to the Congregation for comment includes two main pieces: 1) Reducing the number of Committees down to 4, in addition to Session and Deacons 2) Changing when and how these committees meet. With these changes, our committee structure will only require 26 volunteers (down from the 38 to 53+ volunteers currently needed). Yes, this proposed plan requires less people in order to function. Since we are a smaller congregation, a smaller structure is required for our long-term viability. However, I am aware that, in the past, similar attempts were made to lighten the load of committee work but those efforts instead made people feel like they were pushed out of life-giving work they enjoyed doing. Our goal is not to push people out of positions they enjoy but to give people who are tired an off-ramp and to make all committees have a similar workload throughout the year. If you enjoy the volunteer work that you are already doing, we will find a way so that you can continue doing that work. Lastly, if you are planning on being at any of the next three after church conversations, consider volunteering to bring food to share. We are looking for three people each Sunday: one to bring soup, another to bring salad, and a third to bring bread. Let us know if you would like to volunteer to bring food. Blessings, Pastor Chris While I expected this fall to be busy, I'll admit that I didn't quite expect it to be this busy.
This past Sunday, we held our second Lunch 'n Learn about the Israel/Palestine Conflict - a date for Part Three will be announced shortly. There have been neighborhood gatherings, interfaith events, and memorial services. If you haven't been able to make it to everything (or everything that you have wanted to), we understand. There is always more to do than most of us have time for in a day, a week, or even a month. However, the next event on Northminster's social calendar is coming up this Sunday after worship: Northminster's Fall Potluck Picnic. I encourage everyone to 1) bring some food to share & 2) invite someone to come. Call someone up and see how they are doing and ask what they are planning on bringing. Send an email to ask if a friend has made plans to come. Or simply, let someone in our community know that you are thinking about them. The weather forecast for this week looks like rain. If it is rainy or drizzly on Sunday like it is today, we will move our picnic inside to the Ark. While I hope you all are excited to come and fellowship with one another, we also expect guests to join us: The Congregational Church of Birmingham. As we enter into official space sharing negations with CCB, we felt that it was important that the two congregations get to meet each other and mingle for a bit in order to see if the culture of our congregations is a good fit. Since we were already planning to gather for some extended fellowship time, we felt that the Potluck Picnic would be a perfect opportunity for the congregations to officially meet one another. As I mentioned on Sunday, we at the beginning stages of negotiations with CCB. We have not come to a formalized agreement, and we will be discussing the details of a possible agreement in the coming weeks. We expect this process to take time in order to make sure that we have gotten input and feedback from both congregations, have found solutions to potential issues, and ironed out details of our weekly rhythms before we sign any agreements. By taking this slowly, it also gives both communities a chance to envision what this will look like before implementation. We also hope that this process will give us opportunities to change plans if we think something won't work. This Sunday's Potluck Picnic will be an important step on this journey: we get to meet each other and put names, faces, and personalities to a congregation that we have mostly just heard about. My hope is that you make this picnic a priority this week so that you will be able to contribute feedback as we continue on this path. If you have any questions about this process or what next steps look like, do not hesitate to email me with your thoughts. Blessings, Pastor Chris Let’s cut to the chase: there is a lot of this coming up the next few weeks.
So let us take a moment and touch on some of the highlights: Lunch n’ Learn: The History of Israel & Palestine The conflict between Israel and Gaza continues to be in the news but the full history of the conflict is rarely discussed in detail. Come and learn about how this conflict devolved, the major players, and the key issues. Lunch will be provided. Talk will be recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel afterward.
Troy-area Interfaith Group: International Day of Peace Building Harmony to Create Peace Sunday, September 22, 2024 at 7 p.m. at Congregation Shir Tikvah Join together with our interfaith partners for a night of singing and discussion about harmony and how building harmony in our community can create peace. Northminster’s Homecoming Potluck Picnic. Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. in the Pavilion, weather permitting. It is time to christen our new pavilion with a Homecoming Potluck Picnic. We will gather in the front yard after worship to in fellowship to celebrate the harvest season when we take time to remember where we came from and the communities that shaped us. Haven’t visited in a while? Now is a great time to stop on by! Haven’t seen someone in a while? Now is a great time to invite them to come! Bring a dish to share. In addition to these events, there are a couple of things that you will be hearing more about in the coming weeks.
If you are a Google Calendar user and want to say up to date with the "goings on" here, subscribe to our Google Calendar of Special Events HERE. To subscribe to our regular weekly events calendar, go HERE. Blessings, Pastor Chris 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 |
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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