Adult Faith Formation

We have begun a new, exciting program of adult faith formation at St. Paul's United Church of Christ.

We meet in the Multi-Purpose Room on the first three (sometimes two) Thursday evenings of each month, beginning at 7 pm.

[The one exception at this point is the November/December schedule will be a bit different, due to several mitigating factors during those two months.]

Our Fall 2010 schedule is as follows:

September: An overview of Understanding the Bible

October: Developing our Prayer Life

[If you would like to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in preparation for this session in October, please see me for a booklet and answer sheet. The MBTI is the leading personality inventory in the world, and is enormously helpful for us in understanding different styles of prayer.]

November/December (schedule TBA): A look at The First Christmas
(A book published in 2007 by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan)

A book by a friend of mine from Ohio, Dr. Marian Plant, has recently been published in the Vital Congregations series from Pilgrim Press. Faith Formation in Vital Congregations is a book that I will refer to many times in the coming years.

Dr. Plant suggests that one way of helping to promote biblical literacy in our congregations is for a pastor to share with his or her congregation a "GPS" list - Good Pastoral Suggestions for books, DVDs, videos, etc..

I think that's a great idea, so over the next several blogs, I'm going to list some books and authors that I believe will help you to grow spiritually as you make your journey along the path of faith formation.

We'll start that GPS list by looking at Bibles [our current focus in the Adult Faith Formation classes] ....you would be surprised how many people have asked me over the years the following question . . .

What kind of Bible should I be using?

It's not an easy question to answer. If you were to go into a bookstore - particularly a Christian bookstore - you would find hundreds of translations and editions, trying to fit all sorts of niches.

Of all the Bibles on the market, I believe your best option is to choose a Study Bible. Fortunately, there are several very good ones on the market.

The three that I recommend are the Harper Collins Study Bible, the New Interpreter's Study Bible, and the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Click on each of these titles - I've included links to amazon.com for all three - so you can read reviews or purchase the Bible of your choice.

All three use the New Revised Standard Version translation. Most scholars recognize this as the best English translation available.

All three are available with the deutero-canonical books (i.e., Aprocrypha). While Protestant Christians don't consider these books to be "canonical," it is recognized that they provide excellent resource material for understanding the times.

Of the three, my personal recommendation is the Oxford Annotated Study Bible for the following reasons:

It is the most recently updated (2007).

Truly ecumenical, it includes books that would be used not only by the Roman Catholic Church, but also the Orthodox Church (i.e., Psalm 151, 3rd and 4th Maccabees).

The study helps - notes, essays, maps, diagrams, charts, etc. - are quite extensive.

The (Sabon) type font is very easy on the eyes and the [larger] print is easier to read.

The binding and paper is very good, thicker and sturdier than the other two Bibles. The binding - and thin paper - is particularly an issue with the Harper Collins Study Bible.

Nevertheless, you would profit immensely from using any one of these three Study Bibles.

I also want to recommend one other Bible, because of my strong interest in spiritual direction and adult faith formation.

That Bible is the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible.

Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline, one of the 20th century classics in spiritual reading, headed up a team of over 50 scholars that worked on the Renovare Bible.

Here are some comments from Publisher's Weekly regarding the RSFB:

"Foster wrote an introductory note explaining the team's basic mission: to provide a resource for approaching the Bible through the lens of Christian spiritual formation. An opening essay encourages readers to see the entire Bible as the unfolding story of God's plan for how we can have an intimate love relationship with our Creator, while 15 other essays speak to various aspects and stages of that relationship, from exile and travail to Christ's coming and the future hope of eternity. The editors also include spiritual exercises, profiles of key biblical figures and discussions of how those individuals practiced spiritual disciplines like prayer and worship. Christians of many different traditions will appreciate this ecumenical resource devoted to spiritual renewal."

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Not convinced? A friend of mine has been using this Bible on my recommendation for about two years. She likes it so much that this past Christmas, she gave a copy to a devout Episcopalian friend of hers. That woman, who has studied the Bible for all of her nine decades, has put her other Bibles away and is using this one exclusively. And it's already dog earred from use! That's as good a recommendation as I can make.

If you have any questions about any of these Bibles - or have any question about other translations or niche Bibles - let's talk!

Pastor Al

This post includes an update of a blog published in 2007]

Walking on Holy Ground

If you've ever had the opportunity to see an Easter Egg created by the House of Faberge for the Russian Royal Family, you have seen, as the Tsar's family did, that there was always a surprise of great wonder and delight in each Egg crafted by Carl Faberge.

In the publication of English writer Liz Babb's gift book Celtic Treasure, we have been gifted with a literary Easter egg that offers surprise after delightful surprise in its 80 pages.

The presentation of the book is striking. Almost a perfect square, the book measures 6 inches by 6.3 inches. It is easy to carry or to fit into a purse or backpack for easy transportation. As you can see, the cover presents a precursor of the inside with a beautiful photograph of a glowing orange sea, with a slightly tilted Celtic Cross that draws the eye from the setting sun. The subtitle of the book is Unearthing the Riches of Celtic Spirituality. Liz Babbs unearths those riches with the skill of a miner who finds rich veins of ore.

I was first attracted to Celtic Spirituality in the late 1980's, as I became more familiar with the Iona Community and during the time I was in training to be a spiritual director. As I have collected various books on Celtic Spirituality over the years, I have longed for one that explained the tenets of Celtic wisdom in an easy and pleasant production. I have, at last, found that book.

What impresses me the most about Celtic Treasure is Babb's ability to paint spiritual landscapes with words and use of photographs to enhance an easy to understand explanation of Celtic Christianity.

There are eight chapters in her book:
Unearthing Celtic Treasures
Celtic Saints
Prayer and Solitude
God of Creation
Celebrating Creativity
Valuing Community
Generous hospitality
Celebrating Life

To engage with the book - I hesitate to use the word read as that is not comprehensive enough in description - is to take a journey into the depths of the Celtic landscape. With Biblical quotes, biographies of saints, explanations of Celtic spirituality, wisdom, and culture - interwoven with her own very capable poetry - Babbs weaves a tapestry that richly tells the story of Celtic spirituality.

I particularly appreciated her chapter on creativity, as she used photographs of the Lindisfarne Gospels - perhaps the most beautiful of all the illuminated manuscripts - to show the beauty of the creativity of the Celtic mind. She also writes a rich section on Celtic storytelling and it's communal aspects and explains the richness of music in Celtic life.

On page 41 of her book, Babbs explains the Celtic notion of an anam cara - Gaelic words meaning soul friend. An anam cara was someone you could share your deepest thoughts with, your innermost self, and receive guidance and wisdom for the spiritual journey.

With her newest book, Babbs becomes an anam cara for us.

I highly recomment Celtic Treasure as an entry point into the priceless treasure that is Celtic Spirituality.

Michigan comes to Pennsylvania

For eight years of our ministry, Carol and I pastored churches in the southwest edge of Michigan.

We lived three miles north of the Indiana border - just above South Bend - and Carol pastored a congregation about 17 miles north of where we lived and I pastored. What that means in a very roundabout way is that we lived a scant 20 miles from Lake Michigan and we were in the lake effect snow belt area.

While it might be cold enough for snow 10 miles south of us and 10 miles east, we were very likely to receive the bands of snow coming off Lake Michigan. They really did come in "bands." We lived in Niles and we might receive 10 inches of snow sometimes. Buchanan - the town about five miles west of us - might get nothing. But usually, the entire Berrien County area received lake effect snow on a regular basis.

If my memory serves correctly, we averaged about 120 inches of snow each winter. The winter before we moved to Ohio, I distinctly remember getting 90 inches of snow in the month of December. It snowed every day save a few - sometimes 2/3 inches, sometimes a foot or more.

Some of our best memories were of those snowy days. We had a great room with a working fireplace and I usually bought one or two cords of red oak, white oak, and hickory each Fall. There wasn't anything better than sitting in front of the fireplace on a winter's afternoon or evening with a crackling fire. Our dog was a puppy and young dog in those years and she loved to get up on the recliner with Carol, lay her head on her chest, and fall fast asleep.

I think of all these things today because we are home from the office with predictions of 15-18 inches of snow this afternoon. The Philadelphia area will break its all-time winter snow record today. Of course, we haven't gotten as much snow, but we are certainly getting socked today. And it's beautiful outside.

When I was in seminary, and on the occasion of a significant snowfall, I'd follow a certain routine. First, I sat in my rocking chair in my bedroom, opened the blinds, and occasionaly looked outside as I read the "snow" poems of my favorite American poet, Robert Frost. Then I'd get bundled up, and walk north of the seminary on North Main Street in Wake Forest, NC. Most of the homes on that six block stretch of road were Victorian or early 20th century architecture. I felt a strong sense of peace and connection with God when I would take those walks in the deafening silence of snowfall (yes, it was sort of like being in a Thomas Kincaide painting). And though I did not have the words for it at that time, it was one of my earliest cognizant experiences of what Celtic Christianity called thin places.

One my Facebook friends, Liz, wrote these words in a recent blog. The novelist Mary DeMuth, in her memoir Thin Places, describes thin places as, '..snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where, if we pay very close attention, we might just catch a glimpse of eternity.....They are aha moment, beautiful, realizations, when the Son of God burst through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh.'

I think that is as good a description of thin places that I've ever heard. I hope today that you have an opportunity to rejoice in the beauty of God's creation, the overwhelming silence of the snow, and the delight at a winter wonderland presented to us. I hope you have an "aha" moment, and a sense of the presence of God that burst on us in these serendipity moments of life that are all too rare and so life-enhancing.

(Thanks to Daria, Omar, & Richard for providing these photos)

A new kind of GPS

A friend of mine, Dr. Marian Plant, recently published a book in the Vital Congregations series from Pilgrim Press. Faith Formation in Vital Congregations is a book that I will refer to many times in the coming years.

Dr. Plant suggests that one way of helping to promote biblical literacy in our congregations is for a pastor to share with his or her congregation a "GPS" list - Good Pastoral Suggestions for books, DVDs, videos, etc..

I think that's a great idea, so over the next several blogs, I'm going to list some books and authors that I believe will help you to grow spiritually as you make your journey along the path of faith formation.

We'll start that GPS list by looking at Bibles....you would be surprised how many people have asked me over the years the following question . . .

What kind of Bible should I be using?

It's not an easy question to answer. If you were to go into a bookstore - particularly a Christian bookstore - you would find hundreds of translations and editions, trying to fit all sorts of niches.

Of all the Bibles on the market, I believe your best option is to choose a Study Bible. Fortunately, there are several very good ones on the market.

The three that I recommend are the Harper Collins Study Bible, the New Interpreter's Study Bible, and the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Click on each of these titles - I've included links to amazon.com for all three - so you can read reviews or purchase the Bible of your choice. Incidently, these are all in Hardcover. You can purchase them in paperback as well.

All three use the New Revised Standard Version translation. For a variety of reasons, most Biblical scholars recognize this as the best English translation available.

All three are available with the deutero-canonical books (i.e., Aprocrypha). While Protestant Christians don't consider these books to be "canonical," it is recognized that they provide excellent resource material for understanding the times.

Of the three, my personal recommendation is the New Oxford Annotated Bible for the following reasons:

It is the most recently updated (2007).

Truly ecumenical, it includes books that would be used not only by the Roman Catholic Church, but also the Orthodox Church (i.e., Psalm 151, 3rd and 4th Maccabees).

The study helps - notes, essays, maps, diagrams, charts, etc. - are quite extensive.

The (Sabon) type font is very easy on the eyes and the [larger] print is easier to read.

The binding and paper is very good, thicker and sturdier than the other two Bibles. The binding - and thin paper - is particularly an issue with the Harper Collins Study Bible.

Nevertheless, you would profit immensely from using any one of these three Study Bibles.

I also want to recommend one other Bible, because of my strong interest in spiritual direction and adult faith formation.

That Bible is the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible.

Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline, one of the 20th century classics in spiritual reading, headed up a team of over 50 scholars that worked on the Renovare Bible.

Here are some comments from Publisher's Weekly regarding the RSFB:

"Foster wrote an introductory note explaining the team's basic mission: to provide 'a resource for approaching the Bible through the lens of Christian spiritual formation.' An opening essay encourages readers to see the entire Bible as 'the unfolding story of God's plan for how we can have an intimate love relationship with our Creator,' while 15 other essays speak to various aspects and stages of that relationship, from exile and travail to Christ's coming and the future hope of eternity. The editors also include spiritual exercises, profiles of key biblical figures and discussions of how those individuals practiced spiritual disciplines like prayer and worship. Christians of many different traditions will appreciate this ecumenical resource devoted to spiritual renewal."

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Not convinced? A friend of mine has been using this Bible on my recommendation for about two years. She likes it so much that this past Christmas, she gave a copy to a devout Episcopalian friend of hers. That woman, who has studied the Bible for all of her nine decades, has put her other Bibles away and is using this one exclusively. And it's already dog earred from use! That's as good a recommendation as I can make.

If you have any questions about any of these Bibles - or have any question about other translations or niche Bibles - let's talk!

Pastor Al

Thanksgiving

As we approach Thanksgiving each year, I always think back to an earlier time in my life, when life was simpler and memories deep.

My father (we are both named Alfred, though we both go by Al) is the fifth child of seven born to my grandparents, Clinton and Adelaide Bastin. Ruth was born in 1917, followed by Dorothy (Dot) and Georgia (Jo). Clinton Jr was born, then my father in 1929, followed by Roger and Kenneth.

My grandfather was an electrician and found his way to Atlanta, Georgia, after several years of fairly nomadic wanderings in the midwest. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, my dad has a tear in his eye every year when they play My Old Kentucky Home just before the running of the Kentucky Derby. I used to tease dad by pointing out, "Dad - you only lived there for six weeks!" But dad is, if nothing else, sentimental about the past.

My grandparents lived in Decatur, Georgia, the last 50+ years of their lives. Of the seven children, my dad was the only one who stayed in Decatur. We lived just one mile from my grandparents and some of my fondest memories are of spending the night with them. I developed an affinity for Dr. Pepper (how many of you remember the "10, 2, and 4" numbers on the clock that was printed on the bottles?) because grandmother always had one or two there whenever I was over at their home. I slept in the "back room," the one with two single beds in it, and I always slept comfortably knowing my grandparents were near by. I remember the breezeway between the garage and the house, where the old-fashioned roses with velvety texture gave away their fragrance when just a touch of breeze floated through the screen on the breezeway. And I always loved going out to the garage. No car, there. Just a wonderful assortment of hand tools and electric gadgets that filled a young boy with wonder. It's no wonder that I look back on those times with such fondness. I remember picking fresh mint from various spots around the house (for that perfect sweet tea that a true southerner knows how to make), sitting in the Adirondack chairs in the back yard, and watching my older cousins play baseball back in the field near the woods.

But the favorite time of the year for all of us was Thanksgiving Day. My Aunt Dorothy (Dot or Dottie) and Uncle Paul, along with their two children, lived on a farm north of Atlanta. The family always gathered there for Thanksgiving Day. My parents would load all of us kids in the car and we'd head out of Decatur. As soon as we left the old, sleepy country town of Roswell (for those of you who know Atlanta, it has grown just a wee bit since the 1950's), we'd head out into the country for the last half of the hour long drive to the farm. We always knew we were getting close when we saw the silos at the crossroads that we would turn at to head up towards Hickory Flat, the farm area that they lived in. All these years later, the farm is the only undeveloped large piece of property in a five mile radius!

We'd get to the farm and the five Bastin children would rush in the back door, where Dottie was presiding over the kitchen. The smells were intoxicating, and even with the passage of time so long ago, I can still smell the creamed corn, green beans with small pieces of potatoes in the mix, the cut corn that tasted like just picked fresh corn from my uncle's 1/2 acre garden, and those heavenly mashed potatoes bubbling in butter on the stove. Dot was a "cast-iron skillet" kind of cook and she used her cooking instruments with skill not unlike a first-chair violinist playing a Beethoven concerto. There was always that semi-frozen "green punch" we kids loved so much and the wonderful turkey, ham, and other fixin's that Dot would prepare and that other family members would help supplement on that glorious day. I should point out, however, seeing how this remembrance feels like Norman Rockwell should have painted it, that sliced cranberry sauce from the can also made its presence known that day!

The small children - myself included - would beg our oldest cousin, Aunt Dot's daughter Parrie, to let us ride ol' Gyp, my cousin's horse, Gypsy. Fortunately, she was very docile (the horse - my cousin definitely was not the docile type) and she would ride us around the farmhouse once or twice before the next cousin would "saddle up." As we went around the house, holding on for dear life as we moved at least four feet a minute - I wasn't kidding when I said ol' Gyp was, well, docile - we'd smell the aromas rising from the smokehouse and the grapevines located just 20 feet north of the house.

But the best part of Thanksgiving was seeing family. Uncle Roger and his family from Alabama, Uncle Clint and his family from South Carolina (later Pennsylvania), and those rarer occasions when the Texas cousins and Massachusetts relatives would come down for the weekend.

After dinner was over, everyone would take a nap. To this day I don't know how we managed to do that with the family being so large. And after our naps, my grandmother would sit at the piano and play selections from Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart,and Chopin. She was magic when she played her piano, just like she was magic, it seemd, with everything she did. I don't think a boy every loved his grandparents with quite the adulation that I had for them. After the concert, the adults would sit on the front porch, in the living room or dining room and talk of family, of God, of life, sharing the things for which they were thankful.

Now many of them are gone. My grandparents, of course, are long gone. They both died in their 90's. We buried my grandfather on their 67th anniversary. They were both enriched - and enriched us - by living a very full and grateful life. Uncle Roger was the first of the children to pass, followed by my beloved Aunt Dot. Jo joined the family reunion awaiting all of us just in the past few years. My Alabama cousin, Tim, a medical doctor practicing Adult medicine is, ironically, the only one of my cousins to die so far. He was a Christmas day baby, born less than three months after me, but had the tragedy of being the youngest person (at that time, anyway) ever stricken with the particular cancer that took his life.

I was at the farm last year for the first time since Emily was a baby (19 Thanksgivings ago). The area looked so different, that I drove right by the house and had to turn around to come back to it. The house was refurbished a few years ago and a small church was currently using the house as a worship center. A Friday afternoon, there was no one there. So I walked around the house, saw a few familiar sights - the well and the smokehouse were still there - but mostly I sat on the familiar cement front porch, in the quieting of the late afternoon, with the tears flowing freely as the memories rushed back.

How I wish I could see those family members again. I wish I could relive some of those Thanksgivings, without them being just a memory. As I am firmly planted in the years called middle-aged, I look back to those years long ago, at what were truly the "wonder years" of my life. And I am grateful.

I have never forgotten those memories, those family members, those times when the world seemed just a bit more innocent. And I hope as you gather with family and loved ones one this Thanksgiving day that you will remember old - or create new - memories for yourselves and your loved ones. And I hope that as you do that, you will give thanks also to the God who has sustained us in all the ebb and flow of life, in the good times as well as the bad, and shall bring us all together for the Great Thanksgiving that awaits us all.

Beginnings

One month ago yesterday, Carol and I opened the door of our new apartment to wait for the trucks to arrive carrying the various odds and ends that we had moved from Ohio. To all my friends who have known me over the years, yes, there were lots of books!

We were glad to see the crew from St. Paul's later that afternoon - we ate our lunch from Wendy's that day while sitting in the bathroom (I was sitting on the edge of the bath tub. Carol, well.....)!

We then spent the weekend without cable or internet services. Carol and I went "stir crazy" for 72 hours while we waited for the cable company to arrive on Monday. You would have thought we'd been banished to the high Gobi desert in Mongolia. It just goes to show how much we can get addicted to television and the computer. Thank goodness we two hardware illiterate people finally figured out how to set up all the wires and plugs to get the video player to work. Must Love Dogs became an academy award winner as far as we were concerned! After Monday morning - with the ability to check emails, etc. and watch a football game on TV - life became a bit more common place once again.

We have spent a good bit of time this first month just getting acclimated to our new surroundings. Of course, we have planned for and led worship. We have attended meetings, made visits, met new friends, gone to our first Conference meeting, and other things. We have gotten to know the Lehigh Valley and the countryside (including one unfortunate side trip that almost landed me in New Jersey this past Saturday).

What we have discovered is that St. Paul's UCC, Trexlertown, Emmaus, Allentown, etc. are beginning to feel like home. We continue to unpack at the apartment - it looks less and less like a storage unit and more like a place that people are living in. We continue to set up the offices at the church - we're almost done.

The people at St. Paul's have been warm, gracious, and welcoming to us. And we have discovered once again, that "home is where you hang your hat."

In the course of my 27 years of serving congregations, we have lived in Richmond, Virginia; out in a very rural area near Williamsburg; the city of Charlottesville; just outside South Bend in a small Michigan city; in a small city north of Dayton; and now Emmaus - just six miles down the road from Trexlertown and St. Paul's United Church of Christ. And you know what? The whole area is beginning to feel just like home.

We are happy to be here.