Connecticut Conference Staff Blog

Michael Ciba: "He's Back"

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:17:08 -0500

Yes, I am back from sabbatical. On the eleventh day back, I am feeling reconnected, at least with the work and activities of ministry. I am starting to reconnect with local churches and with each of you.

The sabbatical was everything I hoped it would be: an opportunity for learning at a relaxed pace, for rest, for renewal, a chance to reconnect with family and friends, and an opportunity for a pilgrimage of sorts that helped me to reflect on my life up to this point and where it might go from here. During the next few months, I will be sharing, in various ways, some of the things I discovered during this time that might help shape the ministry we share with one another. For now, let me begin with one observation.

A number of people, family members, friends, and colleagues have pointed out to me how �relaxed� and �rested� I looked during and since the sabbatical. I shouldn�t be too surprised by this, since that�s what a sabbatical is for, after all. But these comments helped me realize how �unrested� and �unrelaxed� I often am during the day-to-day activities of ministry. I have also discovered that I can be tired even when I don�t feel that way, and vice-versa.

All of this has deepened my commitment to advocate for importance of weekly Sabbath time, annual vacations, and periodic sabbatical, for myself and for others. While this is fairly obvious, it is easy for any of us to lose sight of the obvious. I�m happy to discuss with you or the leadership of your church issues related to Sabbath, rest, renewal, and sabbatical.

As I reenter our shared context of ministry, I plan to be intentional about checking in with each of you. This may take some time. But please do not hesitate to check-in with me by phone or email. I look forward to catching up and to discovering together how we can move forward in the ministry we share together.

May God bless you and your church during this time of new beginnings.

Eric Anderson: "Forgiving the Internet"

Wed, 26 May 2010 15:44:53 -0500

My career in ministry has been marked with a consistent theme: I repeatedly find myself doing things that I either utterly failed to anticipate, or that I specifically said that I'd never do. I actually said aloud in seminary that I never wanted to serve as an interim pastor; I spent nearly ten years doing just that. And today I spend the vast majority of my time on electronic publishing and communication media that simply didn't exist when I graduated from school over twenty years ago.

More recently, I've found myself leading workshops, several of them, in fact, on social networking, the Church's relationship to social networking phenomena, and how to adapt 'safe church' practices to the virtual world. With these utilities still very young themselves (Facebook is only six years old), I'm obviously just one step ahead of anyone in the workshop groups, and sometimes two or three steps behind...

But there's a characteristic of the Internet that, I think, cries out for a word from the Church, from Christians, and from people of a wide variety of faiths. The characteristic is the longevity, the durability of information in the Internet. My workshop leadership partner successfully found the text of a paper she'd submitted for a class in the 80's -- somehow, it had been posted to a database, 'spidered' by Google, and there it was for anyone to find.

At the same time, we keep hearing of firms and institutions evaluating the applications of potential employees with searches of the Internet and, particularly, of their 'personal' social networking profiles. According to a 2009 Proofpoint study, 8% of US companies with over 1,000 employees had fired staff for misbehavior related to social networking. How many weren't hired in the first place?

In the past, we've been able to leave our errors behind us. The indiscretions of youth, the sins of ignorance, and the painfully-overcome failures associated with addictions or with strongly-held, sadly mistaken beliefs. Graduation, change of residence, change of job, new affiliations all brought a New Start.

With the Internet, we've probably lost that, and it's probably gone for good.

So we're going to have to learn to forgive.

I can't think of anything more counter-cultural at the moment. This is a judgmental time. The ideological politics we bewail has deep roots in the inability to tolerate or forgive dissent. A political victory in one issue makes collaboration on another issue prohibitively difficult.

In 2008, the United States led the world in the percentage of its population which was behind bars. I strongly suspect that in prior years, and in other countries, at least some of those imprisoned offenders would have been confronted differently than they are today.

With the political mechanisms paralyzed, with huge numbers of citizens released from prisons and anticipating a short stay 'outside' before they're returned, with all of our long-since-forgotten but electronically preserved peccadilloes waiting for us to find them again, we'd better learn to forgive.

Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting, and it never was. Forgiveness does not release anyone from responsibility; I'd argue that until there is repentance, there can be no forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the restoration of relationship; it is the acknowledgement of prior failure and the commitment to a new way of success. Forgiveness reinforces responsibility even as it relieves the offender from the consequences of offending.

Forgiveness has always been a foundational Christian value. It has always strengthened families and communities. It has always been praised when publicly displayed -- remember Pope John Paul II and his attempted assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca -- while simultaneously dismissed as a virtue with utility in the 'real world.'

The real world and the virtual world now, I think, demand that we deliberately, systematically, and steadfastly employ this virtue of forgiveness. When forgetfulness will no longer permit new life, then forgiveness must take its place.

I think this is one of the central challenges for the Church of Jesus Christ in this age: to summon society to this new virtue, for its survival and salvation.

Eric Anderson: "The Language of God"

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:32:07 -0500

It's here! With just a few words, some remarkable images, and compelling music, the United Church of Christ tells its story.

Michael Ciba: "Encouragement's Children"

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:18:34 -0500

I have recently been rereading Charles Dickens' 'David Copperfield', a book I first read 40 years ago. It is the story of a young man in Victorian England who rises from humble beginnings to achieve some measure of success as an adult. Along the way, he encounters many interesting characters, some good and some not so good. When David's wife dies at an early age, on a day when grief threatens to overwhelm him, he receives a letter from his closest friend, Agnes Wickfield. David describes the letter with the following words:

'She [Agnes] gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, in her own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she said) how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher tendency, through the grief I had undergone�As the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me better than I was, so greater calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as they had taught me, would I teach others.'

I certainly hope that all of us, at one time or another, have received words of encouragement when we most needed to hear them. A note (paper or electronic) from a friend, a phone call from a colleague, a hallway conversation in the midst of a meeting, a word of support from a family member of spouse. These communications can be hope giving and life giving and can help us through difficult times.

I also hope that all of us, many times, have sent words of comfort, support, and encouragement to those we know who may be facing challenges. Sometimes we neglect to do this because we are busy or because we are unaware. This can be one of the most important aspects of ministry, even when it goes relatively unnoticed by others. It is at the heart of the pastoral care that God calls us to provide.

Acts 4: 36-37 tells the story of Joseph, a Levite, who offers a gift so that the early church can continue its ministry. For this, the apostles call him Barnabas, Son of Encouragement. Whether we offer words, acts, or material things, our gifts can encourage others to hold on and move forward through challenging circumstances and painful times. We can all be the daughters and sons of encouragement.

May God continue to bless your ministry in the places where you serve and encourage.

Eric Anderson: "New Neighbors, New Conversations"

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:32:42 -0500

Friday morning changed the theme from the shifts in communication and technology to the shifts in religion itself. Ingrid Mattson, our neighbor at Hartford Seminary and President of the Islamic Society of North America, spoke of the changes within North American Islam in the last ten years. One tenet of the Muslim faith that has been both enormously valuable to her and greatly challenging has been the idea that, when evil strikes, there is opportunity in dealing with that evil for people of faith to grow.

The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, came just days after a meeting of American Muslims that promised increased participation in society. Mattson resented the terrorists not just for their violence, but �because it upset my plans.� �Very often we hate having to deal with a situation,� she reflected, but maybe having to deal with it is a good thing for us.

In the wake of the attacks and of the reactions to it - including the disappearance of Muslims required to complete a �special registration� - Mattson noted the community�s common efforts to raise funds for the legal defense of their members, and the emergence of new friends to help them, including the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and the Jewish Action Network. In communities around the nation, it is now normal for interfaith groups to reach out to their Muslim neighbors.

In addition to these new relationships, the crisis of sectarian strife after the Iraq invasion prompted imams and teachers from around the world to gather and come to consensus, for the first time, on what groups would be considered Muslim. The intersection of interfaith opportunities and the possibility of internal consensus resulted in the 2007 release of �A Common Word Between Us and You,� an initiative oriented toward finding common ground with Christians. Responses have come from Christian leaders around the world, and have included a major conference at Yale Divinity School.

Diana Eck, professor of Comparative Religion and Director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard, noted that, �In this [digital] world, no one speaks in private.� That has brought religious communities that previously had little exposure to each other into new relationships. �Religious difference is increasingly part of our lives,� she said.

The Pluralism Project holds a high value in helping faithful people of different traditions to make connections, and not simply live side by side. �Pluralism begins with difference and not with an easy sameness,� said Eck. Building the relationships will take both time and effort, and much of that work must be done on the local level, between members of Hindu temples and Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques and Christian churches.

Several speakers at the Congress have noted that customary understandings of religious authority have faded in recent decades. Cultures around the world seem to be �seeker cultures,� comparing and contrasting leadership, doctrine, and spiritual depth.

Living with each other clearly requires such magnificent efforts as �A Common Word� and the presence of religious leaders together at their neighbors� groundbreakings or festivals. It requires as well, I think, a renewed commitment to and grounding in the best of our own faith traditions. To come to the discussion with Muslim imam, Buddhist monk, or even an Eastern Orthodox priest, I owe it to them to prepare myself in the faith, so that I present and represent it honestly and as fully as I may. Common ground may lie at the foundations, and it may lie also further up in the piled stones of our religious edifices (to push the metaphor toward the sky).

I owe my partners in discussion the same labors the imams made in �A Common Word.� And I owe it further to them to listen to what they say with something other on my mind than what I�d like to say next.

Dr. Mattson left me with another thought, one that requires further humility in the conversation. Christian mission in many places in the world, she said, carries with it a great difference of wealth, with all its attendant baggage of assumed power for good or ill. That wealth can be a resource for truly caring ministry, but also a catalyst for resentment and fear.

It�s something to bear in mind.

Eric Anderson: "It's a Joshua Generation"

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:51:08 -0500

I wish I were half as smart, half as accomplished, and half as good a preacher as the Rev. Otis Moss, III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. His sermon last summer at the 2009 General Synod was engaging, scholarly, and dramatic. His address to religious communicators, though not precisely a sermon, seized upon the Biblical image of Joshua�s succession to the leadership of Israel after the death of Moses.

�Moses is dead,� Moss repeated in a rhetorical refrain. �This is the Joshua generation.�

Moss considered the development of rap music, its foundation of social critique of poverty and violence and its co-option by moneyed interests into a profit center. In gangsta rap �corporations saw the chance,� he asserted, �to sell black pathology to the suburbs.� But he surveyed as well the decline in public space, illustrated by the shift of porches from the front of homes to the back, reducing neighbors� awareness of each other; the rise of prosperity gospels in the 80s and the decline in attention to poverty and racism; the arguments in mainline churches about �contemporary services.�

�You cannot reach a Joshua generation with Moses methodology,� said Moss. The focus on method obscures the message, in which lies the power. �We have eight-track ministries in a CD world.�

Moss identified four pillars of hiphop music as a way of helping to understand this basic movement of the teenage generation. First, there is graffiti: graphical representation, or in short, art. Second, there is the DJ, who appropriates technology. This generation, says Moss, wants to connect through technology. Third, there is rapping: orality, poetry. And fourth, there is breakdancing: movement and dance.

The pillars themselves are no different from those of other musical forms and, for that matter, of liturgical forms. Worship, even in the plainest Puritan church, understands and employs the power of visual art. The Church has employed technology since it appropriated the basilica�s architecture for its acoustics and, more recently, the wireless microphone and digital projector. Christianity is profoundly wedded to the spoken word, to the point that nearly every great reform movement in its two millennia has included a renewed commitment to great preaching. Movement, likewise, has its place. Not all churches share in dancing, but all move: if only to stand for hymns and designated times of prayer.

Joshua is a remix of Moses, Moss declared. �We�ve got to learn how to remix. To take all the values our ancestors taught us and give them a new beat.�

Moss didn�t say so, but he might easily have noted that in the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, we are reminded of the Church�s obligation to make the faith new in every generation. He did say, in the question time, that God is still speaking.

Much of the rest of the day illustrated just how difficult some of that task will be. The morning�s panel brought two professional journalists and an academic to the stage to reflect on the way changes in the media landscape change coverage of religion. Religion News Service�s Kevin Eckstrom and National Public Radio�s Barbara Bradley-Hagerty both work in more �traditional� media services, and both experience the struggles and anxieties of the landscape shifting under their feet. Both lament the drastically shortened news cycle which encourages quick reporting over considered analysis, and which favors pundits� opinion over substantive scrutiny.

In contrast, the Poynter Institute�s Kenneth Irby asked how we can embrace the change. He sees great opportunities for building communities, the strength of social networking. He sees the value of people being able to tell their own stories. Like Eckstrom and Bradley-Hagerty, he sees a need for people to take the role of sense-makers; people who will take the sacred responsibility to be trusted sources of information.

The great church historian and writer Martin E. Marty moderated the panel, and said something that struck me very profoundly: its takes an average of 250 years for the Church to adapt to change. And we�re only thirty or so years into this one. Hm.

I attended three workshops that day as well. One was technical, in which I learned some very useful techniques for Photoshop, but the others continued this same theme of adapting to technological change. Kenneth Irby�s workshop on ethics in new media was very useful in considering the themes underlying the choice of using images. And Rabbi Aaron Spiegel did a good survey of the use of social networking by congregations.

In the evening, I visited Chicago�s Art Institute, where with Moss� words still echoing, I was able to see each generation �re-mixing� the work of their forebears and their contemporaries. It�s an amazing collection, particularly of the Impressionists, but also one where the curators have very clearly attempted to illustrate the artistic �conversations� as they display the pieces.

Eric Anderson: "Dilemmas of Faith"

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:47:04 -0500

That�s a profoundly misleading title, and at the same time a perfectly fair one. In my first day of the Religion Communication Congress 2010, I�ve heard about a pretty good range of topics in just a few hours -- shifts in institutional authority, the relationship between religion and media of mutual influence, the comedy of religion, the profound influence of faithful people on the communities around them -- but as I seek to impose an impossible order upon it all at an advanced hour (and ignoring my lack of sleep), the word dilemma leapt to mind.

Some of it emerged from conversations I�ve had with other communicators today. As Stewart Hoover said this afternoon, we have a bad habit of assuming the power is in the medium rather than in the message. Tonight�s presentation by Mitch Albom, author of Have a Little Faith, reinforced that basic truth. Yet here we are conferring, not about the message (which, in an interfaith gathering, cannot entirely cohere), but about media. Hm.

Some of it emerged from tonight�s trio of religiously oriented comedians. Two -- Rabbi Bob Alper and Baptist pastor the Rev. Susan Sparks -- actually lead congregations; Chicago-born Muslim Azhar Usman boldly lifts up his faith in his comedy. The three regularly perform together to demonstrate both that God has a sense of humor and that the three faiths can laugh together (and Irish step-dance together, but that�s another story). Yet the dilemmas of comedy are quite stark. Much laughter derives from pain, and each of them, at some point, walked up to a place, pointed to it, and said, in effect, �There�s something very wrong here.�

As Shaw said, if it�s funny, start looking for truth.

Earlier today Nabil Echchaibi described a phenomenon in Islam of new media-savvy non-traditional authorities offering guidance on spiritual, cultural, and ethical practice primarily on Muslim �secular� satellite television and the Internet. Instead of older, school-authorized imams, these hosts adopt Western costume and deliberately evoke contemporary cultural touchstones. One hosts a reality show with the look and feel of �The Apprentice,� but the weekly challenges are ones of charity and service. LIke other reality shows, of course, a contestant is dismissed at the end of each episode.

My first thought in learning about this was to wonder why a program about charity would never work in our country. My second was to admire the artistry of the new frame for fairly traditional Muslim values being constructed. What I came to appreciate was the daily dilemmas of living the faith in a culture that is not particularly friendly to it.

And I appreciate as well that the those dilemmas are not for Muslims alone. All the presenters I heard today made that case to some degree. Living the faith requires facing those questions every day.

I leave you with this thought, shared by MItch Albom from a conversation with his long-time rabbi. Asked for the secret of happiness, his rabbi said, �Be satisfied with what you have, and who loves you, and what God has given you. And be grateful.�

In each situation, that may be the most critical dilemma of all, and the difference between the laughter of truth, and tears of falsehood.

[Author's note: one curious irony of this Congress on communication change was that the host hotel had entirely inadequate Internet service: slow and, at $15 a day, incredibly expensive. This post was written at the end of the first day, but not posted until I returned home.]

Eric Anderson: "Blogging Through Holy Week: A Reflection"

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:44:16 -0500

It was mostly an idle notion, at the beginning. I'd written a Spirit Calendar reflection encouraging Christians to make a real journey through Holy Week, to 'Let your Easter joy find roots, nourishment, and depth in the shadows of the Passion.' One way to do that, it occurred to me, was to reflect on the Passion texts throughout the week.

It became a personal discipline. I was late with the first day, and I confess that I hoped throughout the week to write and publish those reflections earlier in the day. That didn't happen very often.

It was different from other Holy Week activities I've appreciated before. I remember a Good Friday procession I walked in many years ago, during which I sensed deeply the millions of Christians who have walked the Way of Sorrow in devotion. This was not like that.

I did come out with a concrete sense, at the end, of building upon a holy community of wisdom and Christian thought. One of my pastors, some of my colleagues, some friends and some great saints of the past all informed, and greatly shaped, the reflections I recorded. Of some I'm conscious, and of many more, I'm sure, the influences are deeper than my understanding.

I emerged also with a strengthened appreciation of story, and of the Story. Unlike much of the material in the Gospels, which have been arranged to illustrate theological points (and we simply have no idea in what order events really happened), the Passion account is a coherent narrative. Even as I brought a narrow focus to some of the texts within the story, I was acutely conscious of the current of events. I was aware as well of the power of the small stories within the greater - the widow's mite, the betrayal of Judas, the (undescribed) reconciliation of Peter - and their place in building the Great Story.

I've also been humbled. Another friend of mine spent the week posted one-line reflections from the Iona Community into her Facebook status line. I read the one for Easter somewhat after finishing my own - 'It's not a story to explain. It's a story to live by.' - and wished I'd come even close to that profound statement in all the words I used.

I've been pleased and flattered that some have found these reflections helpful in their own journeys through Holy Week. It has been a delight to me to spend this time with the Scripture, with the Story, with the Shadows, and with the Sun.

The pun on the last word is, as those who know me well might expect, entirely deliberate.

Later this week, I hope to add more entries to this blog, though of a different nature. On Wednesday, the Religion Communication Congress begins, and I'm pleased that I'll be attending this once-in-a-decade gathering of those who work in media and in faith. I plan to share my learnings as I go.

Much as with this past week, the exercise serves two purposes: to share what I've learned, but also to help me reflect upon it, digest it, and remember.

May the love, hope, and joy of Easter always be yours.

Eric Anderson: "Testimony to Resurrection: Easter Sunday"

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:09:27 -0500

Luke 24:34 - '[The eleven disciples] were saying, 'The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!''

There's a curiously untold story in the gospels, a tale that we have every reason to expect but which is never told. It's the story of the risen Jesus' first meeting with Simon Peter.

In the earliest written record of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, penned by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, Simon Peter (by the Aramaic form of his name, Cephas) heads the list. All four gospels agree that Jesus had a special relationship with the man he nicknamed 'Rock.' Despite his Friday night panicky denial, Luke and John report on Sunday morning he had raced to the tomb at the word that it was empty.

We have every reason to expect that the gospels would record the story of his first meeting with the risen Jesus. And yet...

We never hear it.

As my friend and colleague Ron Brown wrote last week for the Connecticut Conference's Spirit Calendar, resurrection is not natural. There's no hard proof that Jesus rose to new and greater life, but there is a good deal of evidence for it. And one of the pieces of evidence is this missing story of Peter.

The Peter of the gospels blusters. He jumps into things, and finds himself over his head. He impulsively declares his absolute loyalty at that final dinner, and just hours later denies his friend.

This same Peter becomes the acknowledged leader of a new religious movement, successfully maintains it amidst informal disapproval and official persecution, and at the end gives his body to the same torturous death as Jesus. The man who fled became the man who led.

The source of his courage, I think, is in the story we never hear: in his first encounter with the risen Christ. My own spiritual journey has moments which are like what I imagine Peter's to have been. I imagine a painful and uncompromising self-assessment, a tearful realization of forgiveness, and a powerful call to a new and different way of living.

In the end, we don't need to know Peter's story, because we already know Peter's story. We know that Jesus' life transformed him, and that Jesus' resurrection renewed him. We know that Jesus has reached into our own lives to help us see ourselves without compromise, to offer pardon, and to commission us to new faithfulness.

Peter bore witness to his teacher's life and power with his words, but most of all with the way he lived the rest of his life. That, more than the missing tale, is the story of potency and strength.

Peter's testimony to resurrection is ours as well.

Eric Anderson: "No Suspense: Holy Saturday"

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 19:30:35 -0500

Luke 23:56b - 'On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.'

A few weeks ago, the public radio program Studio 360 rebroadcast an interview with Kathryn Bigelow, winner of the Academy Award for direction of the film 'The Hurt Locker.' In the interview, she told host Kurt Andersen that she avoided casting well-known actors in the movie. 'If it's a very well-known face in the lead role,' she said, 'you're going to anticipate he can't die.'

I can't remember if I ever flipped the pages to the end of the book to learn the ending. I suspect I did, though I refuse to do so now (okay, I was tempted with the last Harry Potter book). In a story, suspense can be a wonderful thing.

Holy Saturday, however, is not suspenseful. We Christians know the story is not over. We've heard it before; we know that Good Friday is a comma, not a period. We spend Saturday preparing for Easter's joy. I spent this morning, in fact, at the annual Saturday pancake breakfast at my church. One of my son's friend accompanied us, and he said, with some wonder, 'Are we really in church? Everyone's happy here.'

Holy Saturday was not suspenseful for the followers of Jesus. Jesus was no well-known actor; he could die, and he had. The suspense was over. The story, as far as they knew, had ended. All that was left was to wait through the day of obligation until they could perform the ultimate obligation: finishing the hasty preparation of his body for burial.

They had no idea that the period was a comma.

So today I wonder about the other final markers of life, and how many of them might be pauses, not conclusions. Christians have learned (or are learning) that death is no end; what else is not?

Theologies come and go; yet somehow we endow them with eternity. Perhaps that's appropriate for some, yet surely not for all.

Laws and government programs begin and end, yet somehow we fear the beginning of a new one, _any_ new one. I recall that even the Constitution has been amended over time: and in one case, a later amendment removed a prior one.

And my heavenly days, what about 'precedent.' Of all things, I think there's nothing so feared in our culture as the creation of a precedent. What makes our choice today determine all future choices (and if it's a generous act, is that really a bad thing)?

What makes it a period?

Where are the commas?

Gracie Allen, leaving a letter for her bereaved and beloved husband George Burns, wrote, 'Never place a period where God has placed a comma.'

God made death a comma. In so doing, God created a new element of suspense.

The mystery now is to see where, in life, God has placed even more commas: more commas to emerge to our surprise and our delight.