Good news – katyandtheword

Branding & Jesus

“He gets You” is really appropriative, because its more about “He gets me: white, straight, cis, conservative, men”

Whereas Jesus does not say “I get you”
Jesus says, “Do you see me”
And when people ask, “Where were you”
He says “I am among the poor, the immigrant, the forgotten, the widowed, the queer, the homeless, the ones without identification, the imprisoned, the ones your eyes slide over because you have deemed them unimportant, the dispossessed, the naked, the hungry, the powerless, the ones you refuse to listen to…” (Matthew 25)
Ministry isn’t even about power, its about something else altogether

You can’t brand Jesus for the masses
Because that’s getting the whole message backwards

Grinding Teeth, A Prayer

Sometimes I wonder
If Jesus ground his teeth

Did you wake up in the middle of the night
Feeling like you were about to fall?
From some inexplicable nightmare?

When you got through a harrowing encounter
with the officially officials—you know the ones that had been in the building
Did you come home with a headache?

Did you practice breathing techniques, and peaceable responses, and politeness and smiles
like most of the women, disabled people and marginalized around you…
All of us knowing—this is how we make it

Did you preach the Good News as a survival technique
Not as a toxic positivity to push on people

But the Bare Bones to give those hungry for scraps of answers of

“Why am I Here? And “Does this even Matter?” And “How Do I face tomorrow?”

And did you sit and look at the stars—Christ—and evaluate your day, and try to comfort yourself:
With the little things that went right; and the good things you saw, and the big picture you were working towards.

Did you ache with the work of it all Jesus? And roll your jaw, and take a deep breath to relax your shoulders, before you faced another fully human day?

Thank you for being human with us Jesus.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

If you want to support my work, follow my blog or please give to my Go Fund Me for Creative Writing (year 3) Doctorate or become a supporter with perks on Ko-Fi

Advent 4 Full of God’s Word Narrative Lectionary Year 4

Luke 2:1-14 [15-20]

Psalm 96:7-10

Call to Worship

Ascribe to the Lord , O families of people!

We will ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!

Ascribe to the Lord, all the glory due God’s Name!

We will Worship God in holy splendor with all the earth!

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that we are not always full of the good news. Sometimes we stop short of sharing God with others. We are uncertain about how to share, or are afraid of how to frame our faith. Teach us to share Christ in a loving and compassionate way we pray, Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: God is good, all the time. Hear the good news: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: God, teach us the good news, remind us of it everyday we pray. Amen.

Hymns: See Advent Candle Suggestions

Children: What do you good with good news? Who would you tell the good news to first? How is good news spread? Also a great Resource: An Unexpected Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1XusYVqNY

If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing!

Advent 3 Full of God’s Word Narrative Lectionary Year 4

J ohn 1:1-18

Psalm 130:5-8

Call to Worship

I wait for the Lord

My soul waits, for with God is the power to redeem!

I wait for God, more than those who are waiting for the morning

Come, let us wait for the joy that comes with God!

Confession: God, I confess that sometimes I confuse abiding joy with the fleeting feeling of happiness. Sometimes I forget the you are working for joy to the entire world. You want every single person to be able to experience security–food, shelter, companionship. I confess that I am not always working towards that goal. Help me to build a kingdom where everyone can experience deep and abiding joy. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: God loves us and forgives us. Let proclaim the joy with truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgive.

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: God, let us remember that our God is a God of Joy. Our God does not dictate unnecessary suffering, but instead wants love and peace. Help us to hold onto that we pray. Amen.

Hymns: See Advent Candle Suggestions

Children: Talk about the difference between Joy and Happiness. Talk about who might be good examples of people who have joy.

If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing!

Seeds David Anointed King: Power & Prophecies Narrative Lectionary

More Narrative Lectionary Seeds Resources can be found here.

David Anointed King: Power & Prophecies 2 Samuel 5:1-5; 6:1-5, M ark 11:8-10, Psalm 150

Call to Worship 1

Lord, you anointed David as the human King

But then you anointed Jesus as the King of Heaven

We celebrated David’s power with cymbals and tambourines

Let us celebrate you with good works

Call to Worship 2

Back of the bread is the flour

Back of the flour is the mill

Back of the mill is the wind and the rain, and the Father’s Will

Come let us worship the source of all power, God Almighty.

Call to Worship 3

God often we think power comes from kings and wealth

Yet you remind us of the power of presence and prayer

Kings and rulers are anointed everyday, governments reign in the human world

Yet often truth is more powerful than any human being or structure

Remind us of your power, God, gift us with prophecies of hope

All glory, laud and honor to God.

Call to Worship 4

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary;
Praise him for his mighty deeds praise him according to his surpassing greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

Invitation to Confess: Let all who struggle with power and empowerment come and lay that struggle at the feet of Christ.

Prayer of Confession: Lord God we all give things power over our lives. We fail to take responsibility. We fear things that are not you. We blame as much as the day is long. We forget that you have the power, we forget that we have nothing to fear but you. Take our confession and transform our hearts so that we no longer give sin or objects or other people what is due to you we pray.

Prayer of Confession: Lord, we are always looking for easy fixes. Like the people of the Bible, we would love to find a King David to celebrate when things go right, and to blame when things go wrong. We forget that only Christ can save us. We forget that Christ does not give us the easy out, but instead requires responsibility and hope. Remind us of who Christ is so that the scales may drop from our eyes and we can see our Savior at work we pray.

Affirmation of Forgiveness: Nothing separates us from the love of Christ: all our imperfections and wrong turns and roadblocks are nothing in the face of God’s love, so declare and know the truth today and everyday In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Eucharist Prayer: Lord when you came in to the world as a tiny baby, you experienced human life. You felt the wonder of watching dandelion seeds, the love of a warm snuggle and the joy of spending time with family and friends. You experienced the world viscerally, in tactile and concrete ways. You know that we humans have trouble with abstract experiences, so you came to us a flesh and blood human who could skin his knees and hunger in the desert. Then you consecrated the simple, necessary act of eating together, putting your very flesh and blood into this simple meal, reminding us that we only have to call out and you will be particularly present to us in this communion word-act. Come Holy Spirit, fill this bread and cup with your wholeness and wholesomeness, that when we go into the world, we can ignore kings and power and instead pay sharp attention to prophets of good news, the presence of friends and family, and the joy of eating together. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Prayer of Dedication/Prayer of the Day: Parent God, sometimes our eye gets caught by the flashy things in our lives. Sometimes we forget to celebrate the simple pleasures of green grass, warm homes, and good food. Remind us of who is the source of goodness, and let us celebrate all that is good and wholesome in our lives, we pray.

With Children: Write down all kinds of praise words for God, Hold a parade for God, Do follow the leader/Simon Says discuss power and kingship,Write Letters to someone in power to change something: discuss how power can be changed with truth telling, Tell the Emperor’s Clothes Story.

Hymns

Praise to the Lord, The Almighty, the King of Creation

Thine is the Glory

To God Be the Glory, Great Things He Hath Done

All Glory, Laud and Honor

Painting here by The Sanctuaries, a community of artists whose mission is to ignite the sacred power of the arts for social change

More Narrative Lectionary Seeds Resources can be found here.

Good NEWS and extroverting

Nextchurch2015

We are listening to the immeasurable Diana Butler Bass who is greatly illustrating her theories on church and culture, when the news breaks on twitter a little before 7:30 (she started at 7).

Its a amazing, its wonderful.

I text the news to my parents.

I can’t believe it.

Twitter is going crazy.

The real question is Can we interrupt Diana Butler Bass?

7:28 pm @miheekimkort suggests “@revJohnRussell at 7:30 lets stand up and scream”

I tweet @bookkats “Feel the pcusa urge to stand up and proclaim the good news even tho its rude to interrupt awesome DBB” at about the same time

I wait for 7:30, sure someone will do it…

THREE agonizing Holy Spirit Bubbling minutes later (7:31) I realize no one has….

Then she talked about the fourth awakening, and its true realization (as in any realization) is when social justice comes into play, so I’m like “Ok, and now she’s talking social justice. Holy Spirit help my extrovert.”

I am totally bursting with the news. This is good news! This is my job to tell good news, and I have REALLY GOOD NEWS, and texting my parents isn’t going to do it!

@jledmiston says Can someone ask Q@dianabutlerbass for a brief space to acknowledg the PCUSA’s big news?

We were awaiting authority, in Nextchurch, which I love to define as the organic and hands on ideas of what is next for the church …irony….

So I’m like, maybe a quiet way is better (I guess I’m getting better at practicing some restraint) I Tweet “Stand up and hold up your phone maybe?”

This is the time, I realize, Diana Butler Bass is talking about the no going back change, the revival at the point ofsocial justice: what a moment to tell the news!

Meanwhile I hear rustle, rustle, rustle, everyone is looking at their phones

@mollyfid nails it on the head “Y’all, I”m about to Burst! UNfreeze yourselves presbys! Surely DBB will pause for a cheer”

Then I realize…I’m in the balcony, I’m in the first row. This is totally not awkward (I mean heck I’d love to do it from the most awkward and silliest position ever)….I’m the extrovert.

Oh my God….its me…I’m the one who is called into this place at this time to do this….its me, and I’m going to LOVE it

I stand up and (rather timidly) raise my hand. “Excuse me Diana….Sorry to interrupt, but we are just bursting here. We just passed 14F, all people can marry”

And I see it……from the balcony, everyone stands up and hugs and cheers in an almost disordered fashion….

It was beautiful, it was holy

my sister is trans…

I burst into tears

Diana Butler Bass asked my name and then said “The Episcopalians welcome you” 🙂

The amazing moment when God uses my no-hold-barred extroverted self who happened to sit in the front of the balcony at that moment…on the day when Brian preached about acceptance in the morning in the evening where the Presbyterian Light people were already planning their reception.

What do you call that but holy?

Holy

And then, we listened as best we can to Diana, hearing all the better her critiques because we were in a better place as church (claim the entire denom has failed, no problem : )

And then, we went and did church! The planned 80 people who went to the Presby Light & Covenant Network Joint reception were way…way…more….

Too many Presbyterians, after a long day, did church that night at a bar.

We have become a fuller church, how can we include people next, is Belhar Confession around the corner?

We did church, then and there with loud music and too many Presbyterians and drinks and food…

And we told each other the good news.

Amen. Alleluia

Young Families in Church…continued…..

A lot of young people don’t go to church (I know your shocked, your really, really shocked).

Here is my vast knowledge about church

1. Its a good community…its a good way to have intergenerational interaction, its a good way to ask hard questions (at the good churches anyway)

2. Church Shopping is tough: churches are desperate (which isn’t that attractive) and its hard to church shop when you feel unsettled, and lets face it, with the way the economy is, most people are fairly unsettled, especially the young people. I have been at the same job for 4ish years…that is VERY unusual for a person my age. If you don’t have a steady job or don’t know if your going to have to move (again) within the same year, its hard to make time to church shop.

In theories churches should be helping with this process (how about get to know your town guides? New to the neighborhood events that aren’t creepy? My church does a playgroup that allows a little bit with this)

3. Churches need to advertise themselves as a pace of transition (ie we are a stable place to come while your transitioning)…too much to Churches self-advertise or give the impression that this is where to go when you start to sort out your beliefs or your all set on where you are in life. This is OPPOSITE of what church should be, church should be a place to be crazy, screwed up and confused, a place to support people who are figuring it out…….Maybe churches should be more like college and less like a government.

4. Young Families Basic Needs: tend to include activities at a time of day they can actually manage, Sunday School that is enjoyable, Family friendly events, Adequate Rooms for children, Babysitting for events that are not suitable for children, changing tables, cribs, and preferably a space in the Worship area for kids to worship during church (try getting that one done, its almost impossible)…want to welcome families? Go out of your way to give them a real space to be….

5. Try to focus more on the Sabbath piece of church. Every single person I know is stressed and overwhelmed, if church could be a place of sanctuary, rest and sabbath we might actually communicate our message better.

6. That whole forgiveness of debts thing: do that. We preach forgiveness of debts, practically everyone I know is WAY in debt, yet we do nothing to practice what we preach….um….yeah….

7. Engage, engage, engage, find as many opportunities as possible to serve the community, to experience the community and to get to know the community (this is that piece of advice every single leader of churches gives)

8. Do NOT talk about young people as the “future”; first off, they are already people, not just future people (get my drift?), secondly this gross genera9lizing of who the young are is not appreciated

9. Try not to be judgmental: To be human is to be judgmental, its how we separate the “us” from the “them” its a defense mechanism, its natural, and its sad….we don’t need to judge other people, that’s God’s job. Plus! loving is our goal, good news is our job, and judging people adds to their problems. I used to have someone call me up at night and tell me what I needed to worry about…guess what…that is the opposite of helping…

10. Have Faith: Preach Good News, practice joy, dwell in the spirit, worry not about today or tomorrow, consider the birds, consider the lilies of the fields, they toil not, but God takes care of them…

General Service Announcement

“This is a general service Announcements reminding everybody that the best treatment for dementors is CHOCOLATE…in light of the sad events in Boston, in my professional and pastoral opinion I recommend CHOCOLATE for everybody” (Should you be someone who is unable to do chocolate, Cookies may be substituted). Chocolate may not fix our sadness, but it reminds us of the good that does exist in the world and encourages to act out of love not fear.

PS Check out today’s Lectionary Reading from the Bible–remember the opposite of love is not hate but fear, hate grows out of fear
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
1st John

When your heart is breaking….

Yesterday my heart broke….It was a difficult day with sad decisions and a good look at how temptation effects our lives….

Isn’t it interesting how it is easier to believe and remember evil than good? (for more on Good and Evil look here)

If you preach a sermon 90% about gospel and 10% about sin, most people remember the sin portion.

Why is evil so much easier to connect with? I think some of this has to do with our insecurity. Ted talk The Power of Vulnerability tackles this issue with storyteller/researcher Brene Brown.

In fact a lot of people I know don’t believe in Hell (Christians obviously included)…

So why then are the “less happy” endings more believable??? Why is it that “truth is hard” is the “real world” mantra

I don’t think life is shit and we struggle through it the best we can. I don’t think life is brutish, nasty, short. I think there is MORE than that.

But when my heart breaks, when difficult decisions are made, when people don’t show love and care towards one another, when people-hate-the-sin-not-the-sinner, when they fall back on smile-Jesus-Loves-you, when they use religion (as the TED video says) to provide answers instead of exploring faith), when people struggle with addiction, when parents don’t take good care of their children….

When these things happen, when its clear that the world is not perfect because of our self doubt, it is important to remember Jesus made us and loves us exactly the way we are…

Jesus believes that we are equipped, as those made in God’s image and as co-creators, to spread the good news…

How do we know this? Because Jesus spent time as one of us. Jesus went to the desert and endured the Devil telling Jesus …you are not good enough, you are not a success, you can’t help in God’s work, you need (food, drink, success, fame) Me, the devil, to get there…Matthew 4:8-10 (Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ⁹“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”). And Jesus says, no, the way is through love and God, its through knowing myself as an intricate, important and beloved part of God’s plan and I don’t need to be perfect/in control/married/successful/rich to do that…I just need to be grounded and centered on God (Matthew 4:10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.) Take that evil. Yes, evil exists, yes life is difficult, no I don’t think we have to accept the chains of temptation, we don’t have value our “Success” the way the world does. Instead we can depend on God (we don’t need to dull the pain or even control it), we can know Christ has been there, understands that we stumble and loves that about us, because we are stumbling on his path, we are doing the best we can, and we are created in his image. We participate in Lent, so that we can participate more fully in Easter–we participate in Lent, because its a part of life, but we also participate in it so we can acknowledge that EASTER wins!!! All the time, everytime (even during Lent, Easter creeps through on Sundays!!!) Easter like Christmas, needs to be lived (see my post on Being Christmassed for more)

comic

Please note: I discuss heartbreak and difficulty as a tangible part of life (for more look at Anne Lamott’s thoughts here)

BUT: The Good news has written the ending for us, and we can Participate in God’s Celebration…we don’t have to just watch or hum along to God’s Concert–we can party and scream all the words<<——–THIS IS THE MESSAGE, try to remember this, don’t walk away already forgetting the good news

Good News: Jesus is the Savior

Better News; So you don’t have to be (subtext you get to help!!)

So the hard decisions were made, I am continuing to pray, to live into hope, to put into practice God’s love and care and to trust that my participation although it feels small is important and that the love I show has had meaning…and really knowing that heals my heart even as its broken (just as God heals are brokenness in a broken world)…I wonder if this is how Christ feels when he makes loving and difficult decisions on our behalf…Good news JESUS is the savior….Jesus loves ALL of us, no matter what. Amen.