The Adventure Continues

Our Church Council granted me a sabbatical for three months during the summer of 2010. My intention was to learn Latin American Spanish and to explore Latin American cultures here and abroad. Now that I have had some opportunities to lead mission trips to Yuscaran, Honduras, and to visit Mexico three times, the adventure continues.



Seeking New Horizons

Seeking New Horizons

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

A New Culture All around Us

   Among the ways in which I enjoy people from other cultures is through travel and learning Spanish.  This morning I started reviewing my completed lessons on the Rosetta Stone program.  I can sure use the practice! 
   I am also finding that one of the new cultures is not so far away, but is already among us in the church.  So much is changing so fast, and many old ways of doing things that were effective for sharing the Gospel before no longer have the positive impact they once had.  While sometimes this is frustrating, I also find it exciting.  We can discover new ways of being a faith community together: it's like going to a different culture without ever leaving home.
   In two of my sermons this month I cited an interview on the American Public Radio program "On Being."  The interview is with a Lutheran pastor from Denver, who is very much out-of-the-ordinary in terms of how she looks, talks, and has come to be called as a pastor.  Nadia Bolz-Weber is a powerful voice in the Lutheran Church, and in the wider Christian community.  Since I have quoted her from the interview, I think it is time to share the link so that you can see and hear the entire interview.  It goes for an hour and 16 minutes, including the sight and sound of a freight train that interrupted the flow of the conversation.
   Maybe that's kind of symbolic.  Our ways of being the church have been interrupted by unexpected voices that need to be heard.  Maybe our time is not so different from the time of the Reformation, or Constantine's Conversion, or countless times in the Bible when God interrupted history to show us something new about God's grace.  Here is the interview:  http://www.onbeing.org/blog/nadia-bolz-weber-talks-tattoos-resurrection-and-gods-disruption-video/5921