katyandtheword

Great Thanksgiving / #communion #prayer #breath #taste and #word of God

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is truly right to give our thanks and praise
to our Lord God, who breathed life into us
Let us now breathe out praises
God, who spoke the Word to us, and that word is
Hope, Life, and Peace incarnate.
So that all might taste God in the breaking of Christ’s body,
and the spilling of Jesus’ blood.
So we might all taste and see that God is good

Holy Spirit, holy breath move once more among us
that the bread we break and the cup we bless
so this may be a kingdom meal
so we are nourished by Christ.
Unite and repair all brokenness
in communion
Grant this to be a communion celebration
among us
and within us
and throughout the world we pray in Christ’s Holy Name.

#MYOGHS a counter to #notmyOGHS, ideas for better theological #media

Presbyterians are awesome. I say this completely biased opinion, but I love, Love, LOVE our theology and integral to that is the community-connectional nature of our theology…We are one in Christ

We shoulder our burden together trying to connect smaller churches with bigger ones, trying to partner up those congregations that differ, trying to reach out into the community…sometimes our actions are not as effective as we like–but we base them on a solid theology.

Were I to run the campaign for One Great Hour of Sharing I would illustrate the following theological statements from 1 Cor 12

Because the Eye cannot say to the hand “I have no need of you” (Someone looking for things, Another person working with their hands)

The body is not made up of one part…but many…(I would make a body shape out of a diverse bunch of bodies)

If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be. (I’d have someone listening, and someone else smelling food)

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable..(maybe share one of our stories of someone who was raised into ministry or service with low resources, or an illustration of the widow’s mite)

For we were all made to drink of one Spirit (water for all)

One Great Hour of Sharing: Because we need each other…

#Presby #PCUSA #Media & #Marketing #notmyOGHS

Hmmm…..

The #notmyOGHS movement on twitter points to 2 deeper issues.

The first of which is the utilization of stereotypes to market (even if meant ironically). The deep and complex issues of this campaign is summarized well here https://storify.com/breyeschow/concerns-raised-over-2015-oghs-campaign These are amazing issues, that are too complex to address in one blog post, please read over the variety here.

The other issue is media….some people raised the fact that an outside (non-theologically) based company was hired to help with the campaign.

In the quest to be hip(ster) and cutting edge, the denomination mis-stepped…In fact, from what I know about Millennials they might be some of the first to point to the hegemonic issues that exist in such an advertising scheme. I think this was part of the issue with the One Thousand and One Worshiping Communities scandal as well…

#wecandobetter

We can find new ways of speaking…We can do better in media…but we can’t leap ahead, we need Presbyterian marketers, we need to groundsource our young pastors to help with twitter, tumblr and instagram (FB is already passe)….

Media is so, so important…if we are preaching the Gospel we need to translate into all kinds of language–we learn this lesson over and over again.

How can we translate the Gospel into these forms of media, how can we get digital natives to do the translating? If we want to be hip to hipsters…shouldn’t they be the ones helping with the campaign (or give a substantial slice to them?)….

We have so many gifted resources, we should be using them.

How to Get Run Out of Town in 6 Easy Steps

Thoughts of the changing pastoral role

I #believe in #miracles, and other weird #Christian things…

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+3:1-12&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

Ps. 2:7-8

⁷I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.

⁸Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”

Brownson says that Baptism is not Salvation, but the promise of salvation. It is the faith in that promise, it is the acknowledgment that our God is a Promisekeeping God

Baptism particularizes the promise that God makes to the world.

Why?

God promises to love the world, to take care of it, to save it. Baptism, adopts us into that promise, particularizing it into us…embracing us into the reality of Jesus Christ, making us part of it all…We are all children of God in general, baptism, makes us each children of God as individuals; Matt 28:19-20 baptize them in the name of the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit and teach them my commandments, and I will be with you always..making us effectively related to God (effectively changing all our last names to be Jesus Christ). Hence my name becomes Katy Jesus Christ–thus I become part of the body of God!

Every single baby that is born is a miracle. Babies being born are so,

so miraculous…

but your baby being born is a PARTICULAR miracle…Right? I mean all babies are amazing, but your baby (whether its yours, your friends, your child’s baby, if you have ownership) is SUPER-EXTRA AMAZING..because its your particular baby. Baptism is special for that same reason.

Baptism…and Communion are sacraments…for Presbyterians there are two such sacraments; which are another weird thing that Christians do.

That’s what makes a sacrament, a sacrament in the Presbyterian church a sacrament is that which Jesus enacted, commanded and then promised particular presence during…

This is my body broken for you…this is my blood of the new covenant

That’s after all, what a miracle is…its seeing God’s particular presence in a particular circumstance, its when you don’t know how or when things happen, but they do, through God’s presence. Its different than magic, which is when you explain the unexplainable….Miracles are about grace-filled instances which happen through God making connections that we might not expect

Ever time we practice communion or baptism, God promises to be particularly present. God is present and loves us all the time, but the fact that God promises to be particularly present with these moments …make them miracles

Like a roof that needs to be fixed, and suddenly a bequest appears that covers it….like a lesbian couple who end up not getting married at the church but force the governing board to extend welcome to such a wedding…like having way, wayyyy too much work to do and suddenly a snow day gives you the extra time you need.

These moments are miracles, places where our humanity is insufficient, and yet God’s presences helps things to work out….

These moments are the difference between Spirituality & Religion

Spirituality is talking about who God is…and what God does in general…a generalized understanding of God and how it effects spiritual life. Spirituality is good…its practiced by most people, even those who don’t go to church.

Religion is (nothing more & nothing less) than the practice of God’s presence, the practice of miracles. The practice of seeings where God is present, participating it and then telling others about it. It is through this practice that we are joined together. We recognize and practice God’s presence, together.

Its just like practicing family–practicing family can be as easy as having dinner together…you plan the dinner together, experience the dinner together and then discuss how dinner went (maybe with people who aren’t even your family)…Each of those steps are within the practice of the miracle that is family…

So too is communion…we prepare for communion declaring what it will be (how it binds us to God and eachother), then we practice it together, then we discuss how it went and what it means for our future…in this we practice the miracle of God’s presence. We do this every time we talk look for/experience/witness to God’s presence in our lives….

Let’s go practice some miracles….

(thanks to Barb Hedges-Goettl for the theology of Christ’s transformative presence in communion)

Katy’s Ultimate Fairy Tale List

#fairytales list….did you know Shannon Hale’s One Thousand Nights is onsale as an e-book?

katyandtheword

First off if you need to know anything about fairy tales I recommend references by Maria Tartar, Jack Zipes and www.surlalunfairytales.com, Jane Yolen is fairly good as well (although she is focused on feminist fairy tales)

Secondly, here are all of the fairy tale things I love

Please note that fairy tales are meant to be oral i.e rewrites are not only allowed, they are within the VERY essence of what makes up a fairy tale–so even bad fairy tales are valid

TV:

Disney: Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Tangled (although they are Disney-fied they are still valid)

Once Upon a Time (obviously),

Jim Henson’s StoryTeller

10th Kingdom (which is usually only about $15 to buy),

Fractured Fairy Tales in Rocky & Bullwinkle,

Nickelodeon’s Grimm Fairy Tale Classics, Fairy Tale Theater

Ever After (Go DaVinci)

Belle and La Bete (The Original French movie in…

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Writing!

Anyone want to join a writing class? So far its not making, but its a GRAD level creative writing class for fairy tales (any kind of class in speculative fiction for creative writing is hard to find) the professor is bona find and has great reviews…

Reblog/share around please

🙂

http://www.transmography.net/brainery/syllabus-schedule/science-fiction-fairy-tales-spring-2015/

Beauty and the Beast

Theology and my favorite Fiary Tale

katyandtheword

I may or may not own a billion different versions of Beauty and the Beast. (Plus some figures, snowglobes and plastic McDonald’s toys)

Why? Because its my favorite fairy tale. Why? Because its the first/best fairytale and it is so TOTALLY theological!!!! (did I put too many exclamation points there?)

Things to know about Beauty and the Beast which I have disseminated from years of study (no seriously I have been convertly studying fairy tales for 8 years. First as an “English” major at Oberlin, then as a theological student at Princeton)

1. It is the FIRST fairy tale we know of

2. It evolved from what is the last myth we know of: Cupid and Psyche (in “The Golden Ass”) written a couple of hundred of years after myths were in style

3. Before Christianity, the “happily ever after concept” did not seem to exist in stories….In…

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