Listening for a Call

This essay by Kathleen Henderson Staudt asks the question, "How shall I respond to the relationship with God that I'm already in, perhaps without knowing it?"

It is a question that turns the business of vocation on its head. Vocation becomes not about my JOB in the real world. It is not about a super-sacred call that will lead to ordained ministry. It is about response, response to something already happening, response to something we may only just be coming to acknowledge.

How are you listening for this tiny prompting in your own relationship with God? How are you managing it, if it is overwhelming you and the Spirit has you in her beak by the nape of your neck?

These are the questions of this All Saints season, as we seek to discover how the saints of God are "just folk like me" and how "just folk like me" can actually attain the sainthood God calls each of us into.

+ Kit

P.S. Kathy Staudt will be with us for the Adult Forum on November 16. Join us.

Catrinas, Calaveras, Tacos and Mariachis

Laugh at death. Cry a little as you remember lost loved ones. Dance to mariachi music and enjoy the flavors of Mexico at our second annual Day of the Dead fiesta, this Saturday night from 6-9 p.m.

This year's celebration is a joint effort between All Saints and Canterbury-MSU, the student ministry. We'll have catered food from Los Tres Amigos, Hispanic dancers, a mariachi band, and a cultural presentation on the roots and customs of this Mexican tradition. In Mexico, these days surrounding All Saints Day (November 1) are celebrated with parades, feasts, and all night vigils in local cemeteries. It is a way of saluting death and remembering those who have gone before, but with joy and celebration, not just mourning.

The centerpiece of the event is a community altar, where we can put items that honor our deceased loved ones ... a photograph, a toy, a favorite soda ... so that we remember those we have loved and lost, and invite them to our fiesta, too.

The event is free and open to everyone! Bring a friend! And bring a canned good to donate to Cristo Rey Community Center.

The celebration will conclude Sunday at 5 p.m. with a bilingual worship service held in conjunction with the Canterbury-MSU student ministry. Join us for Dia de los Muertos, this weekend.

What is Church For?

This website offers the notion that Church exists so members can serve Christ the other six days of the week. Here are the basic principles they outline. What do you think? Do you agree? What can All Saints do to support your everyday ministry?

A theology for member missions

Our missiology: God’s mission and our role in it. Member mission is based on seven very critical truths about God and the relationship we share with the Lord.

1. God is on mission. God is on mission everywhere all the time. God is always working with us and through us to make the world all that it can be. Just think about it: right now teachers are helping children learn to read, aid workers are distributing food to the hungry, and people are reaching out to friends and neighbors in time of need. This is all God’s work. Wherever there is love and justice, God is at work. The Lord’s mission is to bring love and justice wherever they are blocked and to maintain or increase them where they are already present.

2. God’s mission has a church. The church does not have a mission. Rather, God’s mission has a church. The church is the visible instrument of God’s mission and, so, collaborates with any person or group working for greater love and justice. As we set about doing God’s work in the world, remember that the Lord is already at work there. We are only joining what God is already doing.

3. God is as concerned about how we live from Monday to Saturday as God is about what we do on Sunday. What does that mean? It means that what we do with our church, what we will call “congregational missions,” are just one part of our lives. “Congregational missions” are done by the congregation as a whole or by one of its committees. “Congregational missions” may include altar guild work, youth ministry, community service, operating a soup kitchen, and so on. These are critical missions, yet most of us spend the majority of our days doing other things. This is where the other kind of mission work comes in. “Member missions” are what church members do daily at home, at work, in their communities, in the wider world, and during their leisure. In truth, because the members go everywhere in the world each day, what they do can have far greater impact on the world than what the congregation does. Thus, their potential impact is unlimited! It’s about using the vast majority of our time to work for greater purposes – God’s purposes. It would seem then, that God would care most about what we do Monday to Saturday, not what we do on Sunday.

4. Today, churches are often sidelined when critical decisions are made. But, the members are not! Spirituality – our relationship with God and how it influences what we do – needs to go public. Our spirituality is often focused on our private lives and our inner struggles as human beings. Our public lives can easily be overlooked. But it is in our public lives that we can often do the most good for Christ by carrying our Christian values into the world. We do not intend to impose our beliefs on others but, rather, to allow our faith to guide our behavior in every facet of our lives. This way we can influence the political, social, and individual decision that affect people’s lives.

5. A congregation’s basic purpose should be to support the members in their daily lives. However, it may start out as just one of a congregation’s purposes. Ideally, in time, this will become its primary purpose. Now, this may be very different from the current focus of many churches. As a congregation starts to move in this new direction of supporting members in their missions, the members will come to see that it’s in this purpose that God’s greatest presence and power can be found. God’s work in the world thrives when the members move out into the world to join in God’s constant struggle to overcome evil and to bring the world closer to all God wants it to be. This new focus may seem to be a very difficult task at first for any church, but as church life moves toward this purpose, the leaders and members will feel their loads lessen and satisfaction increase as they empower others – and each other – to do God’s work every day. And, in turn, church leaders and members will be empowered as well.

6. As God’s missionaries, we remember that we are coworkers with God; Jesus Christ is the victor over evil and shares that power over evil with us. We have to choose to do God’s work. Then we look to Jesus for help to get it done. Jesus overcame evil in his lifetime through his death and resurrection. Even Crucifixion did not kill Jesus or destroy his message. His resurrection is the ultimate victory over evil. Evil will never have the final say. We are not alone when we struggle with it because Jesus shares his power over evil with us.

7. Our mission is to live the gospel. This means that we are here to love each other and to share in God’s mission by what we do and what we say. We draw on our church life and its members to provide the methods, the support, the guidance, and the power to do God’s work.

Get Ready for Action Community Problems Assembly

This Thursday, October 30, from 7-8:30 p.m., the member congregations of Action of Greater Lansing will gather to choose the issue that we will focus on for the rest of the year.

The choices are:

1) There are insufficient numbers of beds for homeless in the Lansing area.

2) There is not a user-friendly, central point for accessing social services.

3) Public transportation is inconvenient, not user-friendly, and not enough routes.

We will gather in this Community Problems Assembly to vote on one of these three issues. All Saints' participation is crucial, so anyone who can spare an hour and a half this Thursday evening, come to St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 218 W. Ottowa Street, directly across from the Capitol. We hope to turn out 30 All Saints' members to vote.

+ Kit

A Word of Hope on a Rainy Day

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

-- Philippians 4:13

Another Reason Paul Was Not a Woman-Hater

I inadvertently skipped over this very important part of my talk on St. Paul last night, so I share it here ...

Another reason I don't take the "wives be submissive to your husband" verses in Colossians and Ephesians as coming from Paul himself, is because in First Corinthians, which we KNOW Paul wrote, he has advice for married men and women that calls for radical mutuality in the marriage bed.

1 Corinthians 7:1-5 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: "It is well for a man not to touch a woman." But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

In a patriarchal world, where women's sexuality was widely seen as solely under the control of men, Paul's image of husband and wife as subordinate one to the other, each with his or her own rights to sexual pleasure in the marriage bed, is far ahead of his time.

Very Superstitious ...

OK, whose fault is it?

You know who you are ... the person out there who watched the Spartans play, or who didn't watch the Spartans play, or who went to the game or who left the game too early, or who wore the wrong shirt, or the wrong hat, or put your shoes on the wrong way, or who made a cocky pre-game prediction.

It's your fault, you know. For not doing whatever magic ju-ju you needed to do to ensure Spartan success. It had nothing to do with oh, say ... the coaches, or the players, or officials. It was all due to you.

No, not really. But isn't that how we think? Especially about sports, which are sort of a secular religion for us. We try to appease the gods of football or basketball or baseball with the appropriate ritualistic behavior.

I think it's because -- as 21st century Americans of a certain class -- that we have an inflated sense of our own control. We honestly believe that we can control our lives, our futures, our children, our children's futures, our GRANDchildren's futures, our economic success, our health, and our old age. So when confronted with something that we really have no control over ... like a football game ... we dream up ways to "control" it.

In the end, we control very little. We control how we react to situations. We control how to plan for the future, but not how that future will unfold. We control our own morality, our own code of living, our own philosophy.

The rest of it is beyond us. It takes all the grace of God to get us through every minute of every day. It's not in our hands. Thank God!

Peace,

+ Kit