church history

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who makes all things new, even years.

I think a lot about the history of the church. That won’t surprise any of you who’ve heard me teach or preach—looking back at where the church has been is something that I love to do…and love to talk about.

This focus on the past isn’t some sort of professional nostalgia. Even that word is really the opposite of how I think about church history. Nostalgia is a kind of sadness or melancholy—it’s a longing for the ways of the past to return to the present.

No one who reads church history wants that.

Sure, there are some great events and eras that catch our collective eye. We might want to be present at moments of great revival, or one of those times where groups of Christians came together as an honest reflection of who Jesus is, or times where the church was a force for justice and righteousness. We’d all like to be there for those.

But church history is more, well, textured than that.

Last week I used part of my study leave to attend the annual meetings of the American Society of Church History, one of the academic guilds where I’m a member. I heard 27 papers in three days—it was a lot. There were some great moments. One young scholar talked about how a former missionary influenced Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, part of the negotiation to end the First World War. Another told the story of radio evangelist Paul Rader’s work to feed the urban poor during the Great Depression.

But there was pain, too. I was shocked to learn more about the ways the church has marginalized or abused people who lived and loved in ways that were different from the accepted mainstream. Another paper traced the deep links between evangelical Christianity and militarism to a school prayer movement in the early 1990s. A few papers discussed the history of the broken relationship between largely white denominations and people 

of color.

Looking back on our past is meant to be both an encouragement and a challenge. It’s good for us to look at the successes of the past and try to match those achievements in the present—that’s a good thing to do! It only becomes a problem when we get so fixated on “how things used to be” that we miss where God might be leading us now. Still, it’s good to be encouraged by the past. But we also have to be willing to accept the responsibility for places where we’ve failed to be an honest witness to the Jesus we worship and follow. That’s a crucial role that is built into the study of history.

As we start a new year at First Pres—yet another year with some important transitions ahead—as we begin 2023 let me invite you to think about this question:

What can we learn from where we’ve been that will help us be a more effective church in the future?

In The Tempest Shakespeare wrote: “What’s past is prologue.” That same phrase is carved in stone at our National Archives in Washington DC. Where can our past help us understand something about our present and future? The Mission Study Report from last year has done most of the heavy lifting already, but now as we turn a corner it will be helpful to reflect again on the good, the bad, the ugly…and the wonderful of First Pres SLO. I hope you’ll join in this conversation as we discern where God is leading us in the months and years ahead.

Blessings to you all,

Pastor John

Happy Thanksgiving

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, the Son of God and the one who came to save the world.

We’re enjoying this week of thankfulness, as Americans celebrate our national Day of Thanksgiving. When the holiday was established by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg had just been fought, with 50,000 American casualties from that one engagement. The trauma of those losses was so painful that the President issued a proclamation that we should all pause for a time of gratitude, even in times of crisis and tragedy. Here’s what Lincoln said:

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, …to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving... And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him …, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

Being grateful includes penitence—it’s right there in the original proclamation. That reference to our “national perverseness and disobedience” rings true for us, right? We pause this week with the same issues before us that caused us pain the week before…and the week before that, and so on. We pause to be grateful even as we struggle to find that “more perfect Union” we’ve been reading about since we were kids. Learning to express true gratitude invites us to repent and try to be better people—better friends, better moms and dads, better neighbors, and better Christians.

Thanksgiving is one of our inclusive celebrations. It’s not really a religious holiday—it’s not Christian, so our Jewish friends and Muslim friends and Hindu friends and Buddhist friends (you get the idea) can all join together in gratitude for the many blessings in our lives. I think that’s why so many Americans consider this our favorite civic holiday.

But for people of our Christian faith, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to be thankful for the life and ministry of Jesus, and all that it means to us. We’ve just ended the Christian Year with the Feast of Christ the King, and this Sunday we begin again with Advent. We are, on this day, right in that space between the close of one season and the beginning of another. I think that having Thanksgiving Day this week gives us an opportunity to be thankful for the love and grace that Jesus lived and continues to give to us, and also to remember that our faith invites us to hope for his coming again.

So I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week. I hope that you get a chance to see or speak to the special people in your life, and that the holiday gives you a chance to find some reconciliation if you need it. Lincoln was onto something when he invited us to repent a little, so we could be grateful a lot!

May that be your experience this year. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor John

God’s sovereignty

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords—in this season of political conflict, it’s good to be reminded of who’s in charge!

I’m writing this purposely the morning of Election Day, so that what I write isn’t colored by any results. I have opinions, just as you do, and many of them are deeply and firmly held. It is the duty of every Christian to be engaged and involved in the workings of whatever nation we’re in, and that means us. That means here and now.

Many of you will know the popular version of Winston Churchill’s assessment of democracy. Here’s what he actually said:

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”

As we cast our votes and watch for returns, my hope is that the results produce health and safety and justice for everyone in our nation. Any vote from a Christian that doesn’t have that as its goal might need to be rethought. If the Great Commandment, direct from Jesus himself, is to love God, and love others, then our voting should emerge directly from that principle, whatever our party affiliation might be.

Elections are the best time for us to remind ourselves of God’s sovereignty. Jesus spoke so much about the Kingdom of God—the reign of God. As politicians and their supporters throw elbows to assert their control, it’s the final verse of an old hymn that always comes to mind.

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father’s world: The battle is not done;

Jesus who died shall be satisfied,

And earth and heav’n be one.

Whatever the result of this election season means to you, make this verse your prayer. Let it challenge you and work in you as a reminder of God’s message and God’s calling on your life, and on the life of our church.

We live under the reign of the Most High God, the Holy One of Israel, who reveals himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God!

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John

On this date in 1534

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, the one true King of the Church Universal, and the one who walks with us in our own journeys of faith.

As we move through this Stewardship Season, where we’re reflecting on our individual commitments to the work of First Pres, it’s good to be reminded that this is Christ’s church—we are a part of his ongoing saving work on earth. Not a bad job description, right?

You won’t be surprised that there’s a lesson from history for us today. On this date in 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII the head of the Church of England. It was a radical move during that time—in western Europe the Roman Catholic Church was the church, and so this was a serious challenge to its authority. Eventually Henry was excommunicated (kicked out!) of the Catholic Church for his rebellion. No one was allowed to challenge the power of the pope, not even a king.

Why on earth bring all of this up today? Besides the fact that it’s really interesting history, we learn something important from the behavior of this king and this pope. Both of them saw the church as either the center or the tool of their power, and when either were threatened, they went on the attack.

Here’s the lesson we learn: The church isn’t ours, it’s Christ’s.

There are all kinds of debates and even conflicts in the church that can be healthy. When they stray into power grabs and unloving behavior, that’s when we move into a dangerous area. Whatever matters to us about the church, both the Church Universal and our own local congregation—whatever matters to us most, has to yield to what Christ wants us to do, and who Christ calls us to be.

That’s a good reminder for us as we enter another Stewardship Season. Yeah, budgets are tight and inflation is scary and everything seems so uncertain. But…this is Christ’s church, with a calling and a mission and a purpose for being in this community.

Our shared giving will move us farther along in living into that calling. I’m inviting all of you to consider increasing your giving from 2022. I’m doing the same—I would never ask you to do something that I wasn’t willing to do myself. We have some wonderful ministry opportunities here in San Luis Obispo and beyond, and it’s through our pledges and extra giving that we’ll see it all happen.

This is Christ’s church, and we are his people. I look forward to seeing what we can do together in the coming year.

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John

Stewardship Season

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Sometimes it’s good just to say that—to be reminded that the name of Jesus is a source of grace and peace for all of us.

‘Tis the season!

No, not that one, not just yet. It’s Stewardship Season, one of my favorite times of the year. It’s our chance to talk about time and money, and the ways our sharing of both will help accomplish the ministries God is calling us to do.

Think about all the things our shared giving does. It pays for the program and support staff, for the ways we reach out to kids and youth and adults, for the ministries we support in our community and around the world, and for the care and tending of our property. Our shared giving supports the work we do together in a tangible way.

But it’s not just the staff doing the work! You are the hands and feet and heart of this ministry, and so it’s important during Stewardship Season to remember that your pledges of time and talent are essential to us doing, well, anything.

Over the next weeks you’ll hear about a different area of ministry as we talk about pledges for 2023. This Sunday Joel Drenckpohl is preaching, and we’ll hear about what our shared support of Front Porch is accomplishing on the Cal Poly campus. In the coming Sundays we’ll talk about adult Christian education, children and youth ministries, and our music programs. On November 20thwe’ll pray over the pledges (and the pledges still to come!), and commit them to God’s service at First Pres.

I hope you’ll take some time to pray and reflect about your pledges to First Pres. I’m doing the same—it would be wrong for me to ask you all to do something that I’m not willing to do! I’m thinking about increasing my own pledge by 10% for next year, partly to deepen my commitment to our ministries, and partly to adjust for the increased cost of just about everything.

I’ll be back with you on November 6th, where we’ll share in the Lord’s Table and hear about the work we hope to do next year.

Until then, blessings and peace to each of you!

Pastor John

LIFE OF THE CHURCH

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who offers reconciliation for our brokenness, and comfort in our struggles. Thank God!

I’ve been thinking about this passage lately.

“3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” Second Corinthians 1:3-4

This is such a beautiful expression of the Great Commandment—of loving God and loving others as ourselves. We praise God for the love and comfort we receive, so that we can turn around and offer those same blessings to others. You hear Jen say it every Sunday: “Love God, love others, and do things.”

This is an important week in the life of our church, for a handful of different reasons.

First, this Saturday we’re hosting a Walk for Mental Health Awareness here at the church. This is our way of beginning a conversation about how we can share the love and comfort we enjoy here with people who are struggling. If you were here this past Sunday you know how deeply this matters to me—I know many of you feel the same way. (If you missed Sunday’s message, you can see it here—it begins just after the 42-minute mark.) This first step is our way of learning more about how our church can reach out in love to people who are hurting.

Second, this Sunday will be our Kirkin’ of the Tartan service. We’ll have special music and a piper, and we’ll honor the members of our church family whom we’ve lost in this past year. It’s our hope that this will be a source of comfort for those still grieving, and an opportunity to lend a shoulder for those who feel the pain of their loss.

Finally, October is the time to kick off our annual Stewardship Season, where we ask all of you to prayerfully consider ways to partner with us in ministry for the coming year. We’ll celebrate the work we’re doing in Christian education, music and worship, and outreach in the community, and other ministries. Mostly, we want to look ahead to 2023 as a year for growth and excitement in the ways we serve. As always, you’ll have multiple opportunities to see a pledge form! Join us in this important and exciting conversation.

Looking back at that passage from Second Corinthians, all of these announcements fit into the rhythm of receiving and sharing the comfort we find in God. I invite you to reflect this week on the ways God has loved you and comforted you in the past, and to look around for someone in your own circle who might need that from you.

Blessings to you and yours, and stay safe and healthy!

Pastor John

On this day in 1535.

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Christ, whose life and ministry confirm the prophecies of the Scriptures, and whose words continue to shape us and call us to service.

In our Thursday evening class we’ve been talking about how the Bible came about. Most of us have some sense that our Old and New Testaments were somehow inspired by God, but the rest is a story we rarely tell. The oldest parts of our Bibles started as oral tradition—stories and poems and histories that were passed from generation to generation by memorizing them and saying (or singing) them out loud. Eventually they were written down in scrolls.

The documents that became our Bible were copied and passed down, some for almost 3000 years. After the coming of Jesus, the letters and histories that formed the New Testament were also copied and shared in the church wherever it spread. Thousands of manuscripts were created to make sure people could read (or at least hear) the words of God in worship and in teaching.

I say all of this because we just passed an important anniversary in the history of the Bible. On October 4th, 1535, the first complete Bible in English was published. It was called the Coverdale Bible after its principal translator, Myles Coverdale, and it changed the way the Bible was received in the English-speaking world. It was dedicated to King Henry VIII, the monarch at the time, who was trained in theology and had even published a book against Martin Luther and the Reformation. (Henry VIII studied theology because he was not supposed to be the king—he only took the throne when his older brother died.)

I will freely admit that I take the easy availability of the Bible for granted. I have several here in my office, more at home, and I have electronic copies on my laptop and even my phone. The Bible has been a constant presence in my life since my earliest days in Sunday School, and especially when I was given my first Bible in 5th grade. Bibles are easy to take for granted.

But the anniversary of the Coverdale Bible is a reminder that it wasn’t always so. Some of the early scholars who wanted to translate the Scriptures were arrested and punished—William Tyndale, whom Coverdale depended on for part of his Bible, was hunted down and executed for translating the Scriptures into English. Tyndale had the last word (or words), though. It’s estimated that 84% of the English New Testament and 76% of the Old reflect Tyndale’s skilled translation work. Tyndale did the heavy lifting for bringing an accurate translation to English, but he paid with his life. The Bibles we carry came at a high price.

Why is that important? Because Bibles are meant to play a central role in our lives of faith. Because we’re all called to read and reflect on the words of God as we find them in the Bible. No, not everyone has to be a Bible scholar, but all of us bear some responsibility for learning what God is communicating to us through the histories and poetry and even the complaints in the Bible. This book is our record of God’s interaction with the world he made and loves. It’s our job to make the time and take the effort to know some of what it says.

We’re continuing our journey through the story of the Bible on Thursday nights. If you’re interested in learning more, come join us! Either way, let me encourage you to read something this week—try Psalm 23, or the first few chapters of John’s Gospel, or Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Maybe these passages will inspire you to read more and understand more about the God we serve.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite passages, from another of Paul’s letters—this one to the Colossians. It’s in the first chapter, verses 15-20.

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Blessings to you this week. Stay safe and healthy.

Pastor John

Readings for the Bible in Community groups (note the change in order).

October

9         John 1:35-41

16       Luke 12:22-26

23       Luke 7:36-50

30       Matthew 20:1-16

How has Jesus collided with you?

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who came and lived and loved, so much that he changed the course of human history.

Years ago I enjoyed an action adventure movie with an implausible plot. In Armageddon (1998), a large asteroid was headed to Earth, threatening all life, and the only people who could fix it were some oil drilling experts, a group of misfits, and some members of the military. They had to land on the asteroid, drill a hole in it, and detonate a small atomic bomb that would throw the rock off its destructive course. Bruce Willis led the group (who else?), and in the end it’s an act of sacrifice that saves the world.

Crazy, right?

Well…this week NASA tested an emergency system designed to impact an asteroid and put it off its course. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, was deemed a success when it struck the moon of a larger asteroid and changed its orbit so that it would alter the course of the larger body (that’s the Double part). All of this happened 7 million miles away. You can read about it and even watch a clip of the impact here. The Italian Space Agency provided the satellite that captured the images—I didn’t even know the Italians had a space agency.

This whole business reminds me of Jesus.

One part of being a pastor means looking for ways to communicate the gospel message with images and stories from our own lives and experiences. Bear with me here. In the news, a satellite collided with an asteroid to alter its dangerous path. In the coming of Jesus, God comes to earth to change its path, to correct its course, to save the world from itself.

You can’t make this stuff up.

We can talk about Jesus in all kinds of ways: as the Son of God, a brilliant prophet, an example of pure love, and even a sacrifice on our behalf. All of those tell some of the story. But this week I’m reflecting on what it meant for the God who made everything coming to Earth, making an impact (see what I did there?), and changing the course of, well, everything.

I wonder if that doesn’t happen for us, too. Jesus collides with each one of us, reminding us of who he is and who we’re called to be. Whatever course we’re on, this contact with Jesus changes something about us—it moves us closer to a path that allows us to live and love and thrive as his people.

That’s better than any science-fiction movie. It’s even better than NASA’s amazing achievement this week. It’s good news. It’s the gospel of Jesus.

Make that some of your own reflection this week. How has Jesus collided with you and changed the course of your life?

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John

The Cross of Jesus says otherwise

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace to you and peace, in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who lived and loved and continues to challenge us, even today.

In the traditional church calendar, today is the Feast of the Holy Cross. In the early 300s Saint Helena traveled to Jerusalem to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. She found what she believed to be pieces of the Cross, and eventually those relics made their way back to Rome. The holiday dates back to the 7th century, and celebrates the completion of the church built on the traditional site of Christ’s death. Here’s a picture from inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The cross is the universal symbol of the Christian faith, but I wonder sometimes what the earliest followers of Jesus would think of how we see it today. For them it was an instrument of death—they would remember crosses just outside the walls of their cities, with gruesome reminders still hanging on them.

Those images were reminders of the ultimate authority of the Roman Empire.

Rome used crucifixion as a way of killing their enemies, but with the added “bonus” of humiliating them first, and terrifying those who witnesses their deaths. It was a brutally effective way of keeping people under their control. It was a brutally effective way of ensuring that only the power of Rome and the gods of Rome would be feared and respected.

But that’s not how it worked out for them.

There are all kinds of theories of why Jesus died on the cross, but the fact remains that he did. The Messiah, the Son of God, took this instrument of humiliation and oppression, and turned it into a symbol of hope and love and grace and sacrifice.

Every time we wear a piece of jewelry in the shape of a cross, we remind ourselves and others that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Lots of things try to separate us from that love (I’ll pause while you think of your own list). Lots of things try to tell us that we’re not worthy, that we don’t matter, that we could never be loved in that way.

The Cross of Jesus says otherwise.

And so today, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, remember that we celebrate the Cross not because of the way the Romans used it, but because of the way God transformed something so painful and ugly to be a sign of hope and love and grace and sacrifice. God did that for you and for me and even for the people we don’t like. So powerful is the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Here's a prayer you can say today, let it prompt you to offer thanks for the love of God in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

Almighty God,

who in the passion of your blessed Son

made an instrument of painful death

to be for us the means of life and peace:

grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ

that we may gladly suffer for his sake;

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Blessings to you and yours. Stay safe and healthy.

Pastor John

A New message series

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the one we know as the Word, whose life and ministry is revealed to us in God’s words. It is God’s self-revelation in the Bible that I want to write to you about today.

This Thursday evening we’ll begin a journey of discovery on how the Bible came to be. From the ways the Hebrew scriptures were passed down orally within families and communities, to the documents of the New Testament—their writing, sending, reading, and copying. We’ll look at what it means for God to reveal what we need to know about our creator and savior, and some of the debates about what that all means over time. In the end my hope is that your own reading and study of the Bible will be richer and more meaningful for you, and ultimately for our church community. Join us at 7pm each Thursday on Zoom, or watch anytime by finding the recording on the church website.

On Sunday I’m beginning a new message series called 20 Questions With Jesus, where each week we’ll look at a specific question that Jesus asks during his ministry. This is going to be fun and interesting. Jesus used questions to challenge, to comfort, to scold, and to teach—that’s some of what’s in store for us as we look at those questions.

What did those questions mean then? What was Jesus getting at? What can we learn when those questions are addressed to us now? See what I mean?

The new year and message series gives me a chance to start up the Bible in Community groups again. The Bible in Community groups take my preaching text for an upcoming Sunday and reflect on it with 8-10 people or so. I supply some general questions of my own, and someone from each group sends me the notes so I can use them as I prepare the messages. It’s a way of living into the way scripture was always meant to be read: in community, with brothers and sisters in Christ sharing their ideas and struggles and questions of their own.

For now, I know that the heatwave around us presents challenges of its own. Please stay safe and hydrated, and let us know if there is anything we can do for you.

Looking forward to seeing you Sunday, for worship and for the BBQ after the service!

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor John

would anyone miss you?

(There’s an invitation to Bible in Community groups at the bottom of this letter.)

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Messiah, the one who walks with us and shepherds us as we learn to follow him in faith.

With summer in the rear-view mirror and a new church year underway, I’m reflecting on what it means for us to be the church in this community. If you’ve known me for even a short time, you know that talking about the church is one of my favorite things—it’s not an overstatement to say that I love the role of the local church, especially downtown churches.

Center-city churches work differently to suburban or rural churches. We have more traffic around us, even if sometimes people stop making their way into town for worship on Sundays. We experience some disruptions that don’t happen everywhere, like the guy who walked through the Sanctuary this past Sunday just as I was getting to the good part of my sermon! Even the economics of churches like ours is different. Costs are generally higher, and so often times it takes some visionary leadership to see how a facility can generate revenue (more on that later in the year).

Alongside the challenges, there are so many possibilities and opportunities for churches in busy places. Our church serves the neighborhood in all kinds of ways: 40 Prado, SLO4Home, and Literacy for Life, just to name a few. It reminds me of a critical question that all churches should ask themselves:

If your church disappeared from your community tomorrow, would anyone miss you?

It’s a harsh question, but a necessary one. Christians aren’t called to gather and hide from the world, we’re called to go out and serve it—to love and care and sacrifice for the world, just as Jesus did. That’s why we get to call ourselves the Body of Christ.

I like the answers we could give to that question, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop looking for ways to serve. In this coming year we’re going to look hard at the Mission Study that our team created using your comments. We’ll use it as a road map—more than that, we’ll use it as God’s voice and leading, coming through the combined comments of everyone who participated in the process.

And so welcome to this new church year. I can’t wait to see what we do, and what God does in us and through us.

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John

Bible in Community groups are back!

Bible in Community groups gather to reflect on the texts for upcoming Sunday messages. If you’d like to participate, or even to host a group, contact me in the church office or by responding to this email. On the 11th of September I’m starting a new series called 20 Questions With Jesus, a look at some of the questions Jesus asks people during his earthly ministry. The texts for September are below.

11       Mark 8:27-30 “Who do you say that I am?” (Fall Kickoff)

18       Mark 10:46-52 “What do you want me to do?”

25       John 14:9 “Don’t you know me?”

All moments are key moments

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

(Read to the end for an important announcement about in-person worship at First Pres.)

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Messiah, the one who came to give us a glimpse into the heart and mind of Almighty God…what a glorious gift that is.

This past week we lost one of the great Christian writers of our age. Frederick Buechner explored the heart of belief and calling, and gave words to both the struggles and joys of faith. He leaves behind an extensive list of meaningful sentences and stories and poetry that preserved the grace and gentle love of Christ, even as much of the Christian faith in America became absorbed into bitter culture war pointlessness.

It was Buechner (pronounced, BEEK-ner) who defined the calling of each Christian by saying: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” In other words, “calling” isn’t some lightning bolt moment, but instead the place where the people God made us to be fills a gap in another person’s life. How beautiful.

Buechner reminded all of us that life is meant to be lived and enjoyed as a gift from God. He wrote:

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace."

That’s the kind of perspective that helps keep individuals and churches focused on what’s really important. Each moment of our lives—the moments we spend alone or working or with friends and family—each of those moments are precious and meant to be felt and remembered and enjoyed.

The same goes for our moments together as a church.

It’s easy in church life to have our eyes fixed on future goals and dreams and (if we’re honest) settling old scores. But the moments we experience together along the way are every bit as important. As Buechner wrote, “the boredom and the pain of it, no less that the excitement and gladness”.

We have much to do together, and that will take planning and thinking ahead. But in the meantime, my hope for us is that we remember to enjoy and be grateful for the moments along the way: from the celebration of another wonderful Vacation Bible School, to the challenge of meeting our annual budget, and everything in between. All moments are key moments, we are reminded, and life itself is grace.

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John

Important Announcement about In-Person Worship

The FPCSLO Session voted last night to make masks optional for Sunday morning worship. We encourage you to continue to be careful as the COVID virus remains a threat, but for the time being we are relaxing the requirement for masks during Sunday services. The mask requirement remains for community events such as Jazz Vespers and other concerts or services.

NOTE: In-person worship remains open to fully vaccinated people (we know that some children are not yet vaccinated)—this has not changed.

Please be respectful of each person’s choices as we navigate our response to the pandemic.

A Moment of Grace

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah. It is because of Jesus that we join together in fellowship, worship, discipleship, mission…and sometimes just lunch. 

I’m attaching the following newsletter from David French. He’s a clear thinker and gifted writer—he’s also a man of true faith. He values our capacity to be together…to live and serve together, even when we disagree. That capacity is in short supply these days.

And so I offer you his article in place of anything I might write. He gives a lot of context at the start, but it’s worth it for the rest of the piece. He also mentions some things that might cause upset, though not in any graphic detail. In the end this is a story of grace—have that in mind as you read it.

 Blessings to you,

 Pastor John

A Moment of Grace in a Season of Pain

Earlier this week I witnessed a moment that brought tears to my eyes, exposed the immense amount of hurt that lies just beneath the surface of American life, and demonstrated the necessity of grace. 

It involved my wife, Nancy. A local Christian college called Williamson College invited her to speak to students on the topic of “loving your enemies.” The inspiration for the talk was a story she wrote for the Washington Examiner last December. 

Nancy was slightly apprehensive before the speech. The last time she’d visited a local Christian college, a man rushed up to her after she had been honored in the college’s chapel, got in her face, and yelled “Fuck you and your husband. You’re ruining America.” It was unnerving. 

But this was supposed to be a feel-good speech about overcoming political differences. I’d urge you to read Nancy’s essay. The story is remarkable. In 2016 both Nancy and I experienced a profound rupture with the political party we’d belonged to our entire adult lives. She grew up a young Republican in Henry County, Tennessee. She worked for Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander when he was a presidential contender.

She was a ghostwriter for Ann Romney, Sarah Palin, and a host of other Republicans. In 2006 we formed a volunteer group called Evangelicals for Mitt, which attempted to answer evangelical questions about Mitt Romney. In 2012 we were both Mitt Romney delegates to the Republican National Convention. 

Then 2016 happened, and everything changed. While we were both Never Trump conservatives and rejected Donald Trump early in the presidential campaign cycle, nothing hit Nancy quite so hard as the combination of the Access Hollywood tape and the multiple, corroborated allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against Trump. 

Nancy is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. And after the Access Hollywood scandal, she told her story in The Washington Post. A Vacation Bible School teacher molested her when she was 12 years old. It turned out that the man was a serial abuser. Nancy’s pastor later told her that 15 women in the congregation had complained about him. Yet nothing decisive was done.

He was never prosecuted. He was never truly punished. He left Nancy’s church and later coached girls’ basketball at a Kentucky high school. 

My wife came of age politically during Bill Clinton’s administration, and she was repulsed by his sexual scandals. She was disgusted by the Democratic Party’s defense not just of a serial philanderer but of a man who’d faced his own corroborated reports of sexual assault. 

She’d thought the Republicans had a moral spine. After all, they’d impeached Clinton. The Southern Baptist Convention had passed a resolution in 1998 highlighting the importance of moral character in public officials. 

Then came Donald Trump. Nancy choked on Republican hypocrisy. She choked on the Church’s betrayal of its own professed values. Her essay ended with these two paragraphs:

Here’s the truth. The GOP once was alive but is now dead. It confuses me to hear the values preached from the podium but ignored in real life; it feels odd to just repurpose a political party into an extension of the Trump Empire without acknowledging the values which had so recently dwelled there.

My party—which should’ve been a place of a certain set of values—now shelters an abuser. I’m thinking of this when the GOP presses against me and asks me to close my eyes just one more time.

The reaction was volcanic. Close friends were supportive, but even members of our own congregation were angry at her. An elder confronted her after services. And vile voices online claimed she had “seduced” her molester.

She stopped following people on Twitter who were cruel. She started following people who were kind. One of them was a woman named Kathy Kattenberg. But when she followed Kathy, she noticed something peculiar.

This person who was nice to Nancy went out of her way to constantly hector me online. She trolled me constantly. She hated my pro-life positions, and she hated my defense of religious liberty. She was relentless.

Early in the pandemic, Kathy was in distress. She tweeted that she was having trouble finding food. So Nancy reached out. It turns out that Kathy is disabled. She lives alone in New York, and she was struggling to get groceries delivered. Markets were out of basic goods. Delivery services were overwhelmed.

During 26 years of marriage, Nancy has kept exactly two New Year’s resolutions: to always have mints and gum in her purse during church, and—this was much more important—to always respond to people in distress.

So Nancy activated. She worked with a pastor friend named Ray Ortlund and my former National Review colleague Kathryn Jean Lopez to find someone, anyone, who could shop for Kathy and find her groceries. It took time, but within a week, Kathy’s apartment was overflowing with food, and a troll had become a friend.

Kathy and Nancy are friends to this day, and I think that maybe (just maybe) Kathy has softened a bit toward me as well.

Nancy told that story Monday night in her speech at Williamson College, and she ended with an exhortation. Civility and tolerance, she said, were milquetoast compared with actual love. The lack of love is our nation’s real problem. Incivility is a mere symptom. And when you love people who seem to be your enemies, she said, it turns out they might not be enemies at all.

I’m biased, but I thought it was a necessary message that was beautifully delivered. Plus, the crowd seemed to love her. She received sustained, enthusiastic applause. Then the questions came. A young man went first.

I had a hard time hearing what he said, but he sounded oddly aggressive. Nancy then leaned into the microphone and spoke directly to the questioner. “Sorry, did you just ask me if I love or merely tolerate the Vacation Bible School teacher who molested me as a kid?”

“Yes,” responded. That’s exactly what he’d asked.

There was a gasp in the room. A number of women shouted out, “No!” and “You don’t have to answer.” Nancy absorbed the question like a physical blow. I could see her face change. She tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come. Was that student trying to humiliate her?

Nancy tried to move on to the next question, but she couldn’t continue. She handed the mic to her host and left the room. Immediately, three women followed her into the hallway. I left also, but by the time I got outside the room, Nancy and the three women were in the bathroom. I could hear the sound of crying, and it wasn’t just Nancy in tears.

When she came out, she asked for advice. She was embarrassed that she’d left. She told me that the women who were crying with her were also victims of abuse. I told her that if she could, she should return to the stage. At the moment, I told her the student was trying to hurt her, and it was important to not let the pain silence her.

I had no idea if that was good advice at the time. But Nancy decided to go back into the room. I knew it took every ounce of courage she had, because she’d just felt humiliated in front of the entire audience.

I didn’t know what she was going to say. Everyone turned when she walked in the door. But before she could speak, the young man asked for the microphone again.

The audience was hushed, and they strained to hear what would happen next. However, this time his voice was different. He apologized. He said he hadn’t meant to offend, and his question didn’t come out right.

He paused for a moment. Then he revealed he was a victim of abuse, and he was struggling with how to read scripture that admonished Christians to love their enemies. He wasn’t a troll at all. He was a hurting kid who had trouble expressing himself.

Nancy responded beautifully. She didn’t just forgive him; she honored him. And she turned to the crowd and told them that there weren’t just hurting people in this room; there were hurting people across the Church—victims of abuse at every level of Christian ministry. A moment that at first seemed profane and tainted by malice and cruelty turned sacred, enriched by love and compassion.

I’m sharing this story for three reasons. First, because it is profoundly sad that in that relatively small crowd, there were multiple women and at least one young man who were survivors of sex abuse. They’re in every crowd. Christians can’t look at abuse as something that happens in other places to other people. The survivors are all around us.

Second, it was moving to see the immediate bond between Nancy and the women who comforted her and wept with her. As one of the women told me, there is a verse in the 42nd Psalm that says “deep calls to deep.” There is a beautiful and terrible fellowship that comes with suffering.

And third, we’re so primed to see evil in others that we can miss their brokenness. In her Twitter persona, Nancy’s new friend Kathy was an angry troll. In the offline world, she was alone and vulnerable. In his first question, a suffering young man seemed vicious. But he was uncertain. He didn’t know how to ask what he wanted to ask, and the question came out wrong.

If Nancy had left—if she hadn’t come back out on that stage and given the mic back to the person who’d just wounded her—we’d never know that truth. The telling of the story would be entirely different. We’d presume that he was malevolent. But in an act of grace, Nancy gave him a second chance, and everything changed.

I know there are evil people online. I know there are evil people who are cruel up close and in person. But sometimes what seems like cruelty is really loneliness, or confusion, or heartbreak. We define each other by our worst moments and withhold forgiveness.

But we should forgive. We must forgive. Otherwise this nation of broken people will keep breaking each other. Pain can look a lot like anger, and when we know that to be true, we can take risks. We can give second chances, and when we do, we can sometimes see that an enemy isn’t an enemy at all, but another struggling person who needs healing and grace. There must be mercy in the public square.

Churches live in a space between

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, who teaches us every day how to walk and live and love as he did.  

Churches live in a space between listening for God’s direction and finding the financial resources to respond to God’s call. Those aren’t opposites! I believe that discerning God’s plan is an essential part of church life, and God’s provision is an affirmation of our response and action.

Moving out of the COVID restrictions (mostly) was always going to lead to an increase in spending. The campus is open, which means added costs of cleaning and repairs. We have families with kids coming for in-person worship, meaning more staff are needed to teach and care for them. For more than two years we haven’t really been able to get the word out and invite more people to join us in our worship and mission, and now we can. On top of all of that, everything is more expensive these days!

All of those new (glorious) opportunities for growth require a little more financial support from all of us. As we move past the middle of 2022, the trends point to a significant deficit at the end of the year, and that threatens to stall some of our potential growth before we really even get started.

I’d like to avoid that.

The leadership of First Pres is inviting all of us to review our giving for the current year. Keeping up with pledges is a good first step. Special giving is certainly welcome! We’ll be looking for ways to hold expenses down as tightly as we can, and we’re looking for new ways to generate revenue through strategic use of the campus. I encourage all of you to consider increasing your support for the work of First Pres as we emerge from a 2+ years of holding the line.

I don’t want to ask for anything that I’m not willing to do myself, so I’m going to increase my own pledge by 25% for the rest of this year, and renew at that level for 2023. Please see that as a sign of my own commitment to the work we can do together.

As we move into this season of reflection on the life and work of St Francis of Assisi, my hope is that we’ll all renew our commitment to this shared ministry. There is so much good work to do! This would be a much harder letter to write if we weren’t serving each other and our community with love and care. Now is the time to join our discernment of vision with generous—even sacrificial—financial support.

I look forward to seeing what we can do together in the second half of this year. Thank you for your continuing encouragement and support of this great work!

Blessings in Christ,

Pastor John

faith is to love God, love people, and to do things

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who loves us and empowers us through his Spirit. Blessings to you as we live into the Pentecost miracle!

Last Sunday we talked about that first Pentecost, how the events of that day led to visitors to Jerusalem from all over the known world hearing the gospel in their own languages. It was more than a parlor trick. It was a reminder of just how important the words of the gospel message are to God…and to us.

A passing glance at the Epistle of James will remind all of us that the words of faith are meaningless if they’re not accompanied by actions. But that doesn’t mean the words are disposable! It means that they’re SO important that we never want to disrespect them by failing to live them out.

The Pentecost miracle reminds us that God wants everyone to hear the good news about Jesus. And James reminds us that after hearing those words, the only proper response is to live what they say. Jen reminds us almost every Sunday that the foundation of our faith is to love God, love people, and to do things.

St Francis of Assisi took the words of the gospel seriously. He gave up his privileged life to serve the poor and to preach the gospel—he literally joined the words of faith to action, and continues to influence the world, more than 900 years after his life and ministry.

After church this Sunday I’ll be leaving for some study leave and vacation. For my time of study I’ll be reading some books and visiting the sites related to the ministry of St Francis. His life has fascinated me for years, and I’ve been drawn to the prayer that carries his name—my son and I learned it together when he was 12 years old, and it continues to shape how we see our faith.

Later in the summer I’ll be preaching a series based on the life and prayer of St Francis. I look forward to exploring those words with you all, and seeing how they help us focus our actions and care for others. The Prayer of St Francis probably wasn’t written by him in the form that has come down to us, but it summarizes his inspiring ministry. You can read it here—I invite you to make it a part of your own spiritual journey.

I’ll be here this Sunday with a fresh look at the encounter between Jesus and the two other men who were crucified alongside him (Luke 23). Don’t forget our Special Congregational Meeting, immediately following the service.

May God bless you and keep you, today and always.

Pastor John

it’s all Holy Land

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who came and loved and died and rose again, then left so we could become his reflection here on earth.

It’s that leaving that we reflect on today. Last week we marked Ascension Day, a little known and largely ignored date in the Christian calendar. Ascension Day commemorates the way Jesus left the earth, and it marks a crucial shift in the way God interacts with Creation. Up until the Ascension of Jesus, the Bible’s narrative is focused on “place”—literally, on where God lives and where the people of God reside. A garden, an Ark, the Promised Land, the Temple—you get the idea. Jerusalem becomes the central place in the story of God’s love for humanity…that is, until the Ascension.

We see the story of Christ’s Ascension in Luke 24:50-53. Some background will help here. The events of Holy Week come to their big finish with the resurrection of Jesus after his death on the cross. The disciples are amazed and emboldened—the same people who run away or fall asleep when the chips were down suddenly become brave preachers and healers, even at the risk of their own lives.

The Bible tells us that after his resurrection, Jesus spent 50 days with his followers, spending virtually all of it talking about his favorite topic: the Kingdom of God. We know (because I keep going on about it) that the Kingdom of God is actually the reign of God—God’s demonstration of ongoing sovereign power over all times and places and things, even death. The values of the Kingdom are the focus of Jesus’s teaching in the parables, and they are the values we’re called to live as disciples of Jesus.

With me so far?

So why is the Ascension so important? It would have been easy to leave the risen Jesus on a throne in Jerusalem for all time. So many things would have been simpler—Jews would have come to see Jesus as their Messiah. People of other faiths might have seen how the deities of their religions point to the loving gospel of Jesus. We all would have been making peaceful pilgrimages to Jerusalem to see Jesus, because the place where he lived would be the most important place in the world. The holy land would have become The Holy Land, and everything and every person would have been focused there.

I think that’s why Jesus chose to leave the way he did.

Between the Ascension and its partner day, Pentecost, God does something dramatic. God changes the way we understand our relationship to the one who made us and loves us. After the Ascension our relationship to God is no longer rooted in a place, and once the Holy Spirit comes to empower and energize the church, the presence of God isn’t limited to a box or a Temple or a country. Each of us carries that presence with us, which is meant to be a blessing for every person and nation in the world. That has huge implications for us and for the rest of the world. Why?

Because after the Ascension and Pentecost, there isn’t any specific holy land anymore.

After the Ascension and Pentecost, it’s all Holy Land—every beautiful, troubled, broken, glorious inch of this earth is Holy Land, rich with the presence of God because we’re in it.

How amazing is that?

During the past two years of disruption from the pandemic, we’ve learned some new things about what it means to be the church when we can’t have our regular place. As much as I couldn’t wait to gather again in person, I’m grateful for the ways we’re grown into our new sense of what it means to be the Body of Christ in the world. During the worst of the pandemic we continued to gather, continued to worship, continued to grow, and continued to serve. (You should be hearing Fellowship, Worship, Discipleship, and Mission in there.) We never stopped being the church, we only learned what it means to be the church apart from any place.

That’s the lesson the Ascension of Jesus has been teaching us all along. The church is everyplace we go and everywhere we are. That isn’t going to change.

May God bless you and keep you as we remember Christ’s Ascension. Stay safe and healthy.

Pastor John

to keep our eyes on God

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, even if there is little peace to be found this week. I’m writing to you today from a place of grief and frustration and despair.

More than 200 years ago, William Wordsworth wrote a poem that began with this line:

“The world is too much with us; late and soon…”

For him it was a call back to connect with nature, something he saw disappearing as people were caught up in the energy spent on earning and spending and achieving. I’ve always read it differently. For me that first line hooks me and reminds me that the events of the day can drown out the experience of goodness around us—they can block our view from seeing anything that is good or lifegiving or hopeful in our daily lives.

Today is one of those days.

A persistent war in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic (which I’m experiencing in a personal way this week), another church tradition rocked by scandal and lack of responsibility, and a classroom filled with children who didn’t go home last night. What the actual hell is going on?

(Please don’t be more disturbed by the question than by the previous sentence.)

The Psalms are filled with laments that question God’s presence in a world going off its rails. I like that they don’t manufacture some artificial answer—the best of the lament psalms leave the lament unresolved. They’re worth reading as we try to navigate world events without losing our faith in a loving God.

But for today I’m sticking with Wordsworth (the whole poem is below). He thought that when the busyness of life keeps us from experiencing nature, that we lose something important. He wrote that it was a tragedy if nature didn’t move us deeply. For me, part of the life of faith is working every day (every day) to make sure that the brokenness and tragedies in our midst continue to move us, even if they don’t edge out our trust in the one who promises to make all things new.

In short, real-world discipleship calls us to keep our eyes on God, even when the real world gets in the way. But it also means we never ignore what’s happening, giving up our role as agents for justice and peace and safety for children. It’s a hard balance, and we’ll rarely get it just right, but it’s our responsibility as people to try…and try again.

So I’m frustrated today. COVID has made me feel lousy, I’m grieving the precious children and teachers who are gone forever, and I have little patience for excuses that involve how one’s personal freedom is more important than someone else’s health and life. That’s no way to love our neighbors.

So it’s a time for prayer and reflection, but it’s also a time to pay attention to the sadness and anger—to let it spur us all to action. Sometimes the world really is just too much, but today I’m choosing to lean on the one who said: “Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I’m not sure I want that “rest” just yet. I want to feel this burden for the innocents who always pay the price for our national failures. It’s a disrupted, disruptive week, and I’m trying to put its pieces together as I wait to feel healthy again.

For now, blessings and peace to each one of you.

Pastor John

PS: Here’s Wordsworth’s poem, written around 1800.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn

The promise of order in the midst of chaos

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who draws us in, sends us out, and promises order in the midst of chaos. We claim that promise today!

It’s been a week of intense emotions. I’ve been in Pennsylvania for my son’s graduation from college—it’s such a huge milestone for him. He was surrounded by family and probably smothered by all the attention. I helped him move off campus for the final time, which brought back a flood of memories of the other move-ins and move-outs, especially the ones disrupted by the impact of COVID. (His graduating class was the last one that had a full year of college before the pandemic.) There were tears and laughter all at once.

As we were celebrating his graduation I started getting alerts that something awful had happened in Buffalo. You know the details. Yet another mass shooting—yet another individual whose fear and hatred was expressed in bullets—yet another set of images of loss and grief and anger.

I struggled to hold both of those events in my heart at once. The happiness and pride I felt for my son’s hard work and recognition, alongside the sick grief and frustration and sadness for those precious lives lost…for nothing. I’m reminded that real life often means having to hold the good and the bad together, in tension sometimes, and that it’s OK.

On Sunday we were at the University of Pennsylvania where my son’s girlfriend was finishing her own college career. It was another inspiring service recognizing the achievements and aspirations of the graduates, and I was moved again by a sense of hope. It was at Penn’s Commencement that I started getting alerts about the shooting at the Presbyterian Church in Orange County. The whole cycle flowed again, of inspiration and sadness, of hope weighed down by feelings of futility.

To be honest, right about then I’d had enough of real life.

But this is a critical place where faith is meant to provide support and comfort and buoyancy in the face of all the things that want to pull us under the water. I said during this past week that evil won a few battles, but that faith reminds us that the darkness doesn’t win in the end. I needed that reminder. I needed to filter my own despair through the promises of Jesus.

As I look back it occurs to me that it was the graduation ceremonies that gave me the most hope. Hearing stories of students who had spent their summers helping inner-city kids find healthcare, or worked to create projects that helped save our natural resources, or who developed economic models that promoted a fairer and more just society. I mean, these young people were amazing. They took their privilege and elite educations, and devoted them to helping other people and creation with energy and creativity. Maybe you need to hear this: Young people are wonderful!

Evil may have won a few battles this week, but my money’s on this next generation of graduates to make sure it doesn’t win in the end. We can all be thankful for that.

See what I mean? It was an intense week of feelings—grief, frustration, and even anger, alongside pride, satisfaction, and an extra-large portion of hope. Real life means holding all of those, allowing God to help us address the problems and celebrate the joys.

That’s what I learned on my week away. How about you?

Blessings to you,

Pastor John

caring for the least of these

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, the Risen One, who walks with us as we live our lives and serve our neighbors.

It’s going to be a pretty challenging year in politics in the US of A. Now some of you will tense up just reading those words. That’s fine—I tensed up just writing them.

Election years seem to do that now, right? I’m old enough to remember enjoying the campaigns and debates and the exchange of ideas, all between friends who didn’t let their political views get in the way of their relationships.

That seems quaint, now.

Still, it’s our task and responsibility, especially when we’re engaged in the important questions of our day—it’s our calling to show people that Jesus followers can do this more graciously and more lovingly. That’s not so quaint—that just sounds like hard work we don’t want to do.

I have my own political views (that’s no sin for a pastor), and some will surprise people wherever they are on the issues map. It’s certainly not my place to impose them, but it is without question my responsibility to model and even nudge us into a healthier way of engaging these disagreements.

Henri Nouwen wrote this:

“For a Christian is only a Christian when they unceasingly ask critical questions of the society in which they live, and continuously stress the necessity for conversion, not only of the individual but also of the world.

A Christian is only a Christian when they refuse to allow themselves or anyone else to settle into a comfortable rest. They remain unsatisfied with the status quo.”

We are faithful representatives of Christ when we challenge the status quo in our society. It’s this line that draws me in: “A Christian is only a Christian when they refuse to allow themselves or anyone else to settle into a comfortable rest.” As long as there is racism, or oppression, or any other social condition that diminishes the value of one of God’s precious creations, it’s our job to agitate against it no matter what our political views might be.

Let me say that a different way: If your politics aren’t focused on making life better and fairer for the “least of these”, then those politics really don’t measure up to Christ’s call. Liberal or Conservative or Independent—" A Christian is only a Christian when they refuse to allow themselves or anyone else to settle into a comfortable rest.”

And so we’ll continue to see where the words of the actual Bible we have take us in the coming year. The Matthew 25 Project will continue to shape and guide our engagement with our community. Who could possibly disagree with caring for the least of these on our doorstep, when it’s Jesus himself who calls us to do it? I’m looking forward to moving forward with you all as we gradually, cautiously, open back up for the business of the Kingdom. Our goal is not to rest until we’ve made some significant and lasting difference for our neighbors in need.

Who’s in?

Blessings to you,

Pastor John

the Body of Christ.

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

 Grace and peace to you in the name of the Risen One, Jesus the Messiah, whose resurrection reminds us that all things can be redeemed and renewed and reborn!

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

It is that call and response that energized the church in the first century as it does for us today. The question right after each Easter Sunday is the same: what do we do now?

Like many pastors around the world, I focused on the Thomas story for the Sunday after Easter—it’s often the text for that particular Sunday. Usually it gives us some room to admit our confusion and doubt about what the resurrection means—how it happened, how we’re supposed to understand it, and what we’re supposed to do about it. This year I tried to do something different, and I want to give us one more chance to think about it. 

We often see ourselves in the passages we read in the Bible. Usually, if we’re honest, we see ourselves as the good guys in the story—the faithful, the repentant, or the called. One of the ironies about that, as I said on Sunday, is that in the Exodus story we count ourselves as God’s people, released from bondage and on our way to the Promised Land. We never think of ourselves as the Egyptians, even though there might be some value in acknowledging our troubled history and the lasting impact of slavery here.

Who are we in the Doubting Thomas story? Usually we see ourselves in his role, as the ones who struggle to believe and need some evidence—God, show me a sign!—before we believe.

I think we learn something deeper in this story when we take on the role of Jesus. 

Now before you string me up, here’s what I mean. The church is known as the Body of Christ—we refer to ourselves that way—it’s one of the historical names for the church. What if we took that seriously? What if that’s how we introduced ourselves to the world?

When Thomas saw Jesus for the first time after the resurrection, he showed Thomas his wounds. He invited Thomas to look close and see exactly what had happened to him—what the world had done to him. 

I think we’re at our best when we do the same.

People aren’t looking for simple answers. People aren’t looking for lukewarm gatherings and popular causes. People aren’t looking to join in with groups that pretend to have it all figured out (as if!). People aren’t looking for perfection.

People are looking for resurrection.

I think we can help with that. How?

We are Christ’s body in the world—his resurrection body.

We’re something different than we were before we knew him.

We don’t invite people to come see our perfection. 

We don’t invite people to see how cool we are.

We are the body of the crucified Christ in the world.

We invite them to come and see our redeemed brokenness.

We invite them to see what the world has done to us, and also how God has made us whole again.

We invite them to come and see how God has made something beautiful and useful out of the broken materials we brought to him.

But if we’re Jesus in the story, and I believe we are, then who’s Thomas?

The people who aren’t here yet.

The people who are looking at our lives to see if there is anything different about them because of this Jesus person we follow.

The people we invite to come and see.

Over this next year we have a lot of work to do together, and some big decisions to make together. No matter what happens, we’ll be a better, healthier, more loving church if we take this lesson from the story of Doubting Thomas:

We are the Body of Jesus Christ when we welcome people to see how our wounds and broken places have been transformed by God’s power into something new and living and powerful.

We are the Body of Christ. 

It’s time to show the world what God is doing with us.

Blessings to you and yours,

 Pastor John