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ten reasons

Posted on March 29, 2006 | Filed Under ucc

From the April/May 2006 edition of United Church News: Rev. Michael Kinnamon, a Disciples of Christ minister and a leader in the contemporary ecumenical movement, lists his ten reasons why someone might consider joining the United Church of Christ. His reasons echo many of the things I value most about my adopted church!

Because, in an era when communities so often define themselves by whom they exclude, this community joyfully claims an identity as those who welcome the excluded, even as Christ had welcomed us.

Because, in an age of growing fundamentalism, this community joyfully seeks to be a “People of the …

new ucc ad

Posted on March 27, 2006 | Filed Under ucc

The new UCC television ad is entitled “Ejector Seat.” It is scheduled to air nationally for three weeks, beginning April 3.

Watch the ad for yourself:
http://www.stillspeaking.com/resources/ejector.wmv (Windows Media)
http://www.stillspeaking.com/resources/ejector.mov (Quicktime)

Let us know here what you think! Add your comment!

From what I had heard ahead of time, the ad sounded rather silly. But seeing it now for myself, I liked it better than I thought I would. It will make people take notice … and think.

whose church is it?

Posted on March 26, 2006 | Filed Under favorite posts, humility, ucc

Christ is like a single body, which has many parts; it is still one body, even though it is made up of different parts.

So, then, the eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” Nor can the head say to the feet, “Well, I don’t need you!”

But that is just what we are doing! Saying we don’t need each other. Saying we’d be better off without each other. It breaks my heart! We call ourselves The United Church of Christ, but I wonder. Sometimes, it seems, we are hardly “united” and hardly “of Christ.”

We are increasingly polarized as …

tipping the scales in “balance of powers”

Posted on March 26, 2006 | Filed Under general

From the Boston Globe (Read the entire article)

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | March 24, 2006

WASHINGTON — When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how …

much ado about nothing

Posted on March 18, 2006 | Filed Under justice

Much has been made of the missteps of the prosecution team in the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui, a confessed al-Qaeda operative. Because one of the prosecution lawyers illegally coached several witnesses, Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the witnesses could not be called, severely undermining the government’s case against Moussaoui. On Friday, however, Judge Brinkema agreed to let the government substitute other “untainted” witnesses.

The great outcry over the government’s mistakes, raised by media commentators and relatives of some of the victims of the 9/11/01 attack on the World Trade Center, disturbs me. I do understand the need to “get this right,” …

just say no

Posted on March 18, 2006 | Filed Under justice

Thomas Powers writes in The New York Review of Books: ‘The Biggest Secret’:

In public life as in kindergarten, the all-important word is no. We are living with the consequences of the inability to say no to the President’s war of choice with Iraq, and we shall soon see how the Congress and the courts will respond to the latest challenge from the White House—the claim by President Bush that he has the right to ignore FISA’s prohibition of government intrusion on the private communications of Americans without a court order, and his repeated statements that he intends to go …

no matter who you are …

Posted on March 8, 2006 | Filed Under grace, ucc

No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey,
you are welcome here.

The folks at my church have heard me repeat this tag line from the United Church of Christ national media campaign countless times. For me, it expresses something fundamental about the gospel to which I am called to witness, something not so much about our readiness to welcome anybody, as about Jesus’ readiness to welcome everybody, something not so much about our hospitality, as about Jesus’ gracious invitation. Jesus invited me and Jesus welcomed me! So I know Jesus will invite and welcome you … …

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