Here’s the sermon message from our Thanksgiving service this past Sunday:
Thanksgiving 11-20-2011 from Praxis UCC on Vimeo.
The scripture passage was Matthew 6:25-33
What do you think? Do have some beautiful Thanksgiving moments to share? We’d love for you to add your comments below.
While there is some confusion about what Occupy Wall Street and its affiliates stand for, the community that has sprouted up around the movement is something to behold. At Occupy Atlanta they offer food, childcare, legal assistance, and health care to anyone participating as a testament to an alternate way of doing community. Occupy Atlanta actually includes many people in its ranks who were already experiencing homelessness. Together with those who have chosen homelessness in protest of a broken economic system, they have now created what is so difficult to find in so many American cities: a group of neighbors willing to take care of each other and share “all things in common,” distributing “to all, as any had need.” (Acts 2:44)
This is a movement where it’s difficult to see who has a home to return to and who does not. Whether you agree with the many grievances the movement has espoused, the occupiers have shown us a face of solidarity between those who have and those in need. Isn’t this what the church should be striving for? To erase the lines that divide us? To treat one another as equals regardless of social location? This might be summed up in our UCC motto: “That they might all be one”.
I’m excited for the upcoming Mission 1, where the United Church of Christ will take 11 days between 11/1/11 and 11/11/11 to feed the hungry and confront food related injustice.
As part of our Mission 1 collection at Praxis we’ll be taking donations to the Occupy Atlanta movement where it will help support those who are living on the street–whether by choice or by circumstance. We’ll also collect canned goods that will go to the Atlanta Community food bank.
Here’s a list of items that the Occupy Atlanta protesters are requesting. If you bring these to Praxis we’ll make sure that they get to the organizers:
Warm jacketsDan Fishman, our drummer in the Praxis band, also plays with Always Saturday, a band that plays wonderful music for children. They are currently doing a 10K – A mission to get 10,000 downloads of their song “Love is Plural” with 100% of the proceeds going to Camp Sunshine.
Camp Sunshine is an incredible organization that helps kids that are living with cancer. They are centered locally in Decatur. For more information on Camp Sunshine, go to www.mycampsunshine.com.
Please join us in supporting Always Saturday in their mission to help Camp Sunshine! To listen to some of their great music check out alwayssaturday.com and then download the song through itunes by clicking here!
You’re invited to Service Saturdays, a ministry of Praxis UCC’s Service and Justice team in partnership with Journey, the Druid Hills Men’s Shelter.
Now twice a month, we gather for coffee and fellowship to reflect on issues surrounding homelessness; then we hop across Ponce de Leon Ave. to Journey (next to Druid Hills Presbyterian) and do art with the residents in a low-key, fun environment. Our goal is to create relationships and allow everyone’s creativity to flourish, no matter how “good” at art we are–or aren’t! Come join us!
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Saturday, October 8 · 9:30am – 12:30pm
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| Location |
San Francisco Coffee Roasting Company
676 North Highland Ave.
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Mark your calendars: October Service Saturdays are this Saturday, Oct. 8th, and October 29th!
Preparing stencisl that say "Jesus was Homeless"
George's awesome "FAITH" t-shirt
This Monday, Sept. 19th, there will be an interfaith vigil supporting Troy Davis, a Georgia man scheduled to be executed in four days for a crime it’s highly doubtful he committed. The vigil will be held from 7:30am-2pm in front of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles Office–’Sloppy’ Floyd Building, 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE, Atlanta, GA (map).
Praxis UCC gathered last night with thousands of other Georgians for an Atlanta rally in support of stopping the execution of Mr. Davis. A prayer service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. King served, was held afterwards.
As Christians, we worship a man who was unjustly executed by the state. We are also called to walk humbly with a God who embodies justice and love. Whether you are against the death penalty in general, or for justice to be done in this particular case, we ask you to join us in showing support for Troy and in praying for the family of Officer Mark MacPhail, the victim in the case, as we work for just alternatives to an unwarranted execution and a broken judicial system. For more info on the case and why there is too much doubt to execute, go here. To add your name to a 600,000+ signature petition to stop the execution, go here.
Our friend, and member of the Praxis community, Laura aka Lucki devi-dasi is celebrating the opening of her new art show this evening. Her show will feature her eclectic found object paintings, assemblages, collages, and sculptures.
Come join us tonight (August 5) from 7-9pm at Red Wall Studio. 1428 Ponce de Leon N.E. Atlanta. It’s right next to St John’s Lutheran Church where we used to have worship.
To see more samples of her fabulous art check out her web page - Art Outside the Box – here.
Quick reminder: our first meeting to discuss Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical is THIS THURSDAY: dinner at 6:30pm (bring a dish to share!) followed by discussion from 7:30-8:30(ish) at Chris and Leah’s place, 1093D N. Jamestown Rd. Our gathering will focus on CHAPTERS 2-5. Dinner will be gazpacho + nachos, and whatever else you bring!
Come out and join us for thought- and faith-provoking conversation, good food, and great fellowship! All are welcome!
I realize this photo is not all that appealing (curse you, bad lighting!). But trust me, friends, this was one tasty dinner.
We hand-rolled 100+ bean and cheese enchiladas Friday night for the guys at the local men’s shelter, cooked up a big pot of Mexican rice, and collaborated on a salad (thanks Marvin!). Then we cleverly forgot to take pictures until all was devoured except the last half-pan.
One thing we love about this shelter (besides the guys staying there–a great crowd) is that servers cook, serve, and then are expected to sit down and eat with the shelter residents. So many shelters conveniently leave you behind the serving counter, at a safe distance from the folks with whom you’ve come to fellowship. This makes it easy to maintain stereotypes or assumptions about people experiencing homelessness, and it’s difficult to create real relationships when there’s always an “us” (serving)/”them” (being served) dynamic. We’ve found we have great conversations and develop good friendships with folks at the shelter, plus it’s fun to get to enjoy what you’ve spent so long cooking!
Speaking of which, we’ve previously made baked ziti, veggie chili, and red beans and rice with cajun sausage. It’s been interesting cooking for a roomful of men used to eating MEAT with vegetarians in our crew, but we have decided that hospitality is more important to us than eating rules (no matter how ethically, Jesus-ly, or environmentally driven)—if we show up with a dinner that no one likes just so that we can be righteously animal- or meat-free, have we really done our job to care for our brothers experiencing homelessness? (Side note: Friday night we did find out that one of the guys living at the shelter is vegetarian and who was SO thankful for meat-free options. So always having a veggie-friendly option for the vegetarians among the servers paid off!)
If you have any suggestions for easy-to-make but quality meals (we are also committed to avoiding stuff-out-of-a-can and pre-made casseroles–extravagant hospitality to us means, in part, caring for others by not making the industrial same-old same-old you find at lots of shelters) and especially if you want to volunteer with us, leave a comment or email us at chris@praxisucc.org or leah@praxisucc.org. We’d love to have you, and so would the guys at the shelter!
Praxis is reading a book together! Join us NEXT week on Thursday, June 30, for our first gathering to explore Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical–check out your copy at the library, or buy one online (used or new) or at a local independent bookstore. We’ll meet for dinner at 6:30 (bring a dish to share!) followed by discussion at 7:30 at Chris and Leah’s place, 1093D N. Jamestown Rd. Our first gathering will focus on the first chapter of the book, and we’ll meet for five Thursdays ending on August 4th.
Come out and join us for thought- and faith-provoking conversation, good food, and great fellowship! All are welcome!
Synopsis of Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
Many of us find ourselves caught somewhere between unbelieving activists and inactive believers. We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we’ve made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world. Shane’s faith led him to dress the wounds of lepers with Mother Teresa, visit families in Iraq amidst bombings, and dump $10,000 in coins and bills on Wall Street to redistribute wealth. Shane lives out this revolution each day in his local neighborhood, an impoverished community in North Philadelphia, by living among the homeless, helping local kids with homework, and ‘practicing resurrection’ in the forgotten places of our world. Shane’s message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable . . . but will also invite us into an irresistible revolution. His is a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love.
Last night we continued with our psalms study for Lent, lead by Mary Miller Brueggemann. We looked at different names for God, found in the psalms. The beginning of Psalm 18 was most interesting.
Typically the second verse is translated like this:
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
We are looking at multiple translations, so I turned to the Jewish Study Bible, where I found this:
O LORD, my crag , my fortress, my rescuer, my God, my rock in whom I seek refuge, my shield, my mighty champion, my haven.
The first use of rock is cela` and it’s translated as “crag” in the Jewish Study Bible. This is so much more evocative – not just a rock, or a stone, or even a boulder, but a high precipice. A mountain top. The second word for rock is tsuwr which could mean a stone, or a piece of rock, or also can mean a sharp edge, as in a rock that’s been sharpened and turned into a knife.
Seeing God as “my crag” reminds me of mountain climbing, of that exertion that it takes to get to the top, and then the beauty of the view. God is not only a solid mountain top, but firm footing from which to see the hills and valleys of life.
So much meaning in just two words that translators have frequently conflated into one. I’m looking forward to unpacking more of the psalms during Lent.
