Summer Newsletter!

NMCC has one last addition to summer (just as the temps begin to cool.) The summer newsletter is available at nmchurches.org.

Get more information about the upcoming Statewide Gathering, meet our newest PEP staff member, and learn about our new venture with the New Mexico Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice. Photos, articles, and more!

Licenses for All Drivers

The letter below comes from the New Mexico Conference of (Roman) Catholic Bishops. As the issue comes up in the special legislative session, this letter helps to highlight the key issues involved and offers an opportunity for reflection and discussion. Please share with you congregations and communities! If you’d like a version in Spanish, e-mail me or go http://www.archdiocesesantafe.org/. (Sorry. WordPress editor link maker  isn’t working!)

August 15, 2011

Letter to the Editor:
LICENSES FOR ALL DRIVERS: A MATTER OF MERCY, FAIRNESS, AND SAFETY
A Statement by the Roman Catholic Bishops of New Mexico

We, the Roman Catholic Bishops of New Mexico who are the spiritual leaders of over half of our state’s population, are obliged to inform and educate our church’s members and the public about issues of moral concern and social justice as seen through the eyes of the Catholic faith. It is in this regard that we address an important contemporary issue facing our state and nation: the treatment of migrants in our society, including those laws and public policies that directly impact the justice and dignity experienced by all residents of the State of New Mexico.

We strongly support the positive impact that immigrants have made in our state and nation while, at the same time, we recognize the right of our country to regulate its own borders and to control international immigration. Those controls, however, should be influenced by a sense of justice and mercy in light of the God-given right of people to migrate when faced with grave social or economic dangers. It is always important to remember that the United States was founded by a broad collection of immigrants who fled their country of origin seeking a better life. This idea of seeking a better life has been, and always will be, a part of our national identity.

We support extending driver license privileges only to residents of the state. We are in favor of allowing individuals without Social Security numbers to obtain licenses provided that they present other acceptable forms of identification, such as a valid passport, consular identification card, or other recognized government-issued documents, currently required by present law. The present law when enforced addresses the issue of fraudulent documents. We have, in the past, called for a compromise that can strengthen the law and yet issue drivers licenses. We continue to call on the Legislature and the Governor to work diligently on a compromise. We believe that this is in the interest of all New Mexicans, and our rationale for this position is as follows:

•  Licenses for all drivers make our highways safer, since unlicensed drivers have not been tested and,

therefore, present a potential danger to everyone using our roads. In addition, un-licensed drivers
tend to raise everyone’s insurance rates since the former cannot obtain auto insurance.

• Licensed drivers make our communities safer because they are more easily identified and tracked.

If a law enforcement officer stops an unlicensed driver, that individual might easily give a false
name. Such names would not be found in the state’s database, thus undermining law
enforcement’s efforts to determine whether there are outstanding warrants or other matters
related to the person in question.

•  Repeal of the current driver license law would detract from limited state resources at a time of

economic crisis. We want our law enforcement and court resources focused on the apprehension
of dangerous criminals, rather than on the detention of normally hard-working immigrants.

•  And, finally, without legal access to driver licenses, immigrant workers would not be able to travel

to their places of employment, undermining the economic stability of their families as well as the
many New Mexico businesses, farms, and ranches that depend on their labor.

We understand that many people are frustrated at the current state of affairs surrounding immigration in
our state and nation. Ultimately, however, the issue of immigration reform is of enormous importance. The
principal driving force behind the vast majority of undocumented immigrants’ presence in the State of New
Mexico, and elsewhere, resides in a chronic lack of legal visas available under our current immigration
system. With a total of only 5,000 permanent visas offered to unskilled laborers for legal entry into the
United States, it is clear why as many as 300,000 undocumented people each year are absorbed into our
nation’s workforce. Comprehensive immigration reform would replace illegality with a system based on
legal presence and legal entry. This would restore the rule of law to a chaotic system while protecting the
basic dignity and lives of our fellow brothers and sisters, as well as preserving the dignity of the rule of law.
Not to be confused with a system of “amnesty,” this type of immigration reform would require those who
have broken the law to earn their legal status by paying a fine, paying taxes, learning English, and waiting at
the back of a long line to have the opportunity of becoming a United States citizen.

Therefore, the Roman Catholic Bishops of New Mexico endorse state-enacted policies that would permit
migrants to become full members of their communities and our nation. And in that way, all New Mexicans
can continue to benefit from their contributions without sacrificing our long-held values as a nation of
immigrants: freedom, fairness, and opportunity.

Most Rev. Michael J. Sheehan,            Most Rev. Ricardo Ramírez, C.S.B.,          Most Rev. James S.

What’s your dream for the Church?

Last Friday, NMCC’s Board of Directors invited community members to join them for lunch at their quarterly meeting. The topic was ecumenical support of congregational life. Clergy and lay leaders from Presbyterian, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and United Methodist congregations joined us as well as staff and volunteers from Catholic Charities, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Interfaith Power and Light, Bread for the World, Called Back to the Well, Water in the Desert, Church Women United, and the Ecumenical Institute for Ministry. It was a fun and lively congregation about how we can work together to become the Church of the 21st century.

If you’ve looked around lately you’ve probably noticed that the Church is changing. We are smaller, poorer, and older than we used to be. At the same time the culture around us is looking for less institutionalized organizations, greater media engagement, and greater inclusivity. We discussed the challenges we face as well as our dreams for what the whole Church, and our particular congregations, could be. We imagined a Church where kinship was a fact of life and people felt deeply connected to one another. We imagined a Church in which a sense of abundance and sufficiency reigned so that all people’s basic needs were met so that no one was hungry, homeless, or destitute, and no one was burdened with too much. We imagined living in solidarity with one another across lines of difference. We imagined seeking, working for, and living in peace. We imagined all of this in the midst of a recognition of the sacredness of the whole creation that inspires us to care for our environment, the creatures with whom we share the planet, as well as the people around us.

In short, we imagined a Gospel community living out the commands of Jesus Christ, in fellowship with all God’s children. I asked what needed to change in order to make these dreams a reality and how we could work together to make those changes happen. The thing we kept coming back to is that we need to know one another. It’s probably not any worse than ever before, but it’s true that in many communities we don’t know the people around us very well. We may drive past four churches on the way to our church on Sunday morning, but we don’t know the people who are worshipping in those communities. We may chat with the other parents at soccer games but we never get beyond polite niceties.

We wondered what our churches and communities could be like if we dared to go beyond polite acquaintance. We can’t work together very well if we don’t know each other and we can’t embody Jesus’ dream for the whole Church if we don’t care for one another. So, we proposed a one day event that would invite people in neighboring congregations to come together in prayer and fellowship as they walked from congregation to congregation. A kind of Progressive Prayer Walk (like a Progressive Dinner!) Watch for more details. In the meantime look for ways to get to know and work with others, whether in a neighboring congregation, a mosque or synagogue nearby, or the other parents at soccer.

You’re Invited!

The Board of Directors of the New Mexico Conference of Churches wants you to join the conversation! At its August 19th meeting, the board is dedicating the lunch time, from 11:30 – 1:30 to a conversation about how we can support and enhance congregational life ecumenically.

Would you like to see ecumenical continuing education offerings for clergy and lay leaders?

Do you want to explore building ecumenical ministries in your community?

Are you interested in building partnerships among congregations and existing organizations to make your efforts reach further with greater efficiency?

We are all feeling the financial pinch, and we all have more to do than we can fit in any 24 hours. We are spread across a huge geographic area in New Mexico, and many of our communities are a long way from judicatory offices or staff. We are in a unique position to build ecumenical networks that support the day to day work of ministry, not to mention the potential for mission in the world. Join us as we think about what this might look like. Lunch will be provided for those able to join us in Albuquerque at Monte Vista Christian Church. Conference calling will be available for those outside Albuquerque. To RSVP for lunch or to get the conference call code, e-mail nmchurches@gmail.com.

I hope to see or hear you then!

Revealing the Children of God

I got to preach at St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Albuquerque on Sunday. What great readings! This is the early version of my sermon – better in some ways and not as good in others than the final version. I would love to come preach for your congregation sometime – though posting sermons may not be the best way to drum up business!
Have you read the newspaper lately? Or listened to the news?

If so, you’re probably pretty depressed!

It’s no secret that there is a lot of suffering, a lot of heartbreak, and lot of stupidity in the world!
I’m more inclined toward anger than depression, myself, but that’s merely a different expression of the same thing. This life can sometimes be awfully discouraging.

Just this past week there was a bombing in Mumbai. A child was abducted, and brutally killed. Violence in the Sudan continues as the new nation of South Sudan is born in response to years of ethnic fighting.

The fire around Los Alamos continues to burn, highlighting the conflict between people and nature.

Each of us, in our own lives and own families carry burdens of grief, sorrow, anger, broken relationships, and the unavoidable challenges of growing up and growing old.

There is no shortage of examples of what Paul calls the sufferings of this present time. Perhaps most insurmountable are the interior struggles that Paul knew so well. At the end of chapter 7 of Romans, Paul expresses his frustration at his inability to do the good he wants to do and to avoid the evil he does not want to do. Most of us can relate. Have you ever promised you wouldn’t do something ever again – smoke a cigarette, drink too much, eat the WHOLE thing – only to find yourself back at it before you know what has happened? We want to be kind, but hear ourselves shouting in anger. We want to be patient, but feel impatience rising up inside of us like a fog. We want to be open minded and generous, but our biases and misperceptions can form walls around us that we aren’t even aware of. These tares can choke out the wheat we seek to grow in our lives. Our brokenness can keep us from being who we long to be and who God invites us to become.

Paul seems to have understood this in the very core of his being. Through his own personal struggles and no doubt an acute awareness of the sufferings of his present time, he saw himself and his world with a startling clarity. Because of that; because he was so intimately acquainted with the darkness in the world, he also saw the light of Christ with startlingly clarity. He saw the freedom that God’s grace gives us, and he saw the glory that was to be when we are finally who God made us to be.

It is this glory that we are called to bear witness to. Taken together, today’s Gospel reading and the epistle reading would suggest that we are not to be weed pullers, but rather weed identifiers! It’s God’s job to do that weeding in God’s own time, but perhaps we are invited to find the wheat among the weeds, and to point it out, to nurture and encourage it, to help it grow so that the weeds do not overtake it while we await God’s pruning.

It is not just we human beings who long for God’s coming, but creation itself, Paul says, longs for redemption. I hate weeding, so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to watch what happens to plants among weeds. There is a kind of tension and groaning and the plants reach for the sunlight, sometime twisting around stronger plants, climbing upward or out, fighting for light and air. And beneath the soil, the roots stretching and push toward water, drilling downward, or reaching out for nourishment. That is the picture Paul gives us of our lives, of the life of all of creation. We are all reaching, stretching, pushing toward the glory of God.

I expect Paul to say creation is awaiting the revelation of God.

But we are in an interim step as we await the coming glory. Paul says earlier in chapter 8 that the children of God are those who are led by the spirit of God. In the midst of the groaning and the waiting and the pushing, it is we who are to proclaim the hope and promise of God. In the midst of war and violence, despair and plain old boredom, we are called to speak of joy and glory. It is not an easy thing, because we too despair. Being a Christian doesn’t protect us from the suffering of this life, as Paul so eloquently shows us. In fact, what Paul tells us is that trying to escape it, trying to look away from the suffering around us, focusing on spiritual things while ignoring the things of the world will only separate us from God. Because the children of God are those who suffer with Christ. Only then can we be glorified with Christ. Only then can we set down the shadows of this life and step into the glorious light that is to come.

Too often in the church we have spoken of “suffering with Christ” as if we were to plunge a sword into our own side or climb up onto a cross. This invitation of Paul’s has been misused to keep the poor at the margins of society, wives in abusive marriages, and all kinds of people in the anguish of mental and physical illness. I don’t think this is what Paul intended at all. We don’t see him seeking to physically harm himself,

Rather, Paul simply jumped into the world around him with both feet. He did not eschew the pain and heartache of his life or of the world. He knew persecution first hand, but he also escaped from prison. He did not run away when threatened with death for preaching the Gospel. He did not ignore the physical hunger and poverty of his brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. Neither did he wallow in the brokenness of the world.

Suffering with Christ, then, must mean something other than creating pain for ourselves and others. I think it is about embracing this poor broken world. It is tempting to turn away from news of violence and degradation. It can seem easy to turn away from neighbors struggling with a drug addicted child, or a friend whose pain we cannot bear to witness. If we are to be children of God, though, our call is to turn toward the pain. The embrace the heartache around us. To live deeply in this world that God has created. So that in the midst of pain we can see joy. So that we can point to the suffering that is being redeemed. So that we can be revealed as the children of God, revealing the glory of God.

Do you want to turn off the TV when the politicians start arguing about the budget?
What if instead you wrote to your legislators and urged them to listen to one another, and to the people they are supposed to serve? Perhaps your voice could be heard above the din and that official could find some support to do a noble and courageous thing instead of merely what’s expedient?

Can you not bear to read one more story about children being abused, or neglected instead of cherished? Rather than turn away, perhaps you can turn toward God. Pray for families and children in need. Pray for your children and their children. Pray for the children who run past your house or that nearly knock you over in the grocery store.

Do you despair of war fought in your name, or tremble at the thought of another terror attack? Rather than turning inward in fear, reach outward to get to know new people. Learn about other cultures. Attend an interfaith dinner or an ecumenical workshop. Seek peace in your home, and in your neighborhood, and in your life.

I know many of you already do just these things. Some of you are probably getting tired of doing them with few tangible results. Leave the results up to God. Our challenge is to be led by the Spirit. To be revealed as the children of God. To promise hope and light to a creation groaning under the weight of suffering.  You cannot bear every burden, and none of us should try. But we all confronted with ample opportunities to be light in a dark world. And the wonder of that, is it brings us light, too. Being light makes us light. And children of God.

Strengthening Congregational Worship

Choeur d'Enfants 2010 Tour

SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/dlmcn27/Documents/NMCC/blogJuly11

I worshiped at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Albuquerque on Sunday. They were hosting Le Choeur d’Enfants, the children’s choir of Paris. The choir was wonderful and did exactly what sacred music is intended to do: shut out the noise of our busy lives and raise our minds and spirits to God. We also sang some of my favorite hymns.

As I was soaking up the music all around I began thinking about how important music is to our worship life. I also remembered serving congregations that were too small to afford a regular musician. At times we used recorded music and sometimes we were fortunate to find a pianist who could carry us through our favorite hymns. At other times we weren’t so fortunate. I’m not a great singer and inevitably we meandered around a tune until we had made it to the end. It was fun and often funny, but it rarely lifted our spirits to God. Providing music for worship can be a real challenge for smaller congregations.

On Sunday I began imagining what other options there might be. I’m a big fan of congregations sharing resources. Frequently, a small congregation may have a real ringer in one area, such as education, but lack people to fill other areas such as music or financial management. Small congregations that are near one another can work together to cover all the bases. For a short time in college I was the youth director for several congregations that were doing just that. It provided the critical mass to make the group work, not to mention the salary that paid my rent!

I wonder if congregations could share musical resources in a similar way – and ecumenically? Three or four congregations in a small town might join together to hire one music director. The choirs members could rehearse together each week, and perhaps the pianist could move to different congregations. Instead of a circuit riding preacher he or she could be a circuit riding musician. The choirs would still be small on Sunday morning, but would have benefited from rehearsing both accompanied pieces and acapella pieces for when the circuit rider was at a neighboring congregation.

Sharing isn’t just for small churches. Larger congregations could share their abundance with smaller ones. What if the congregation of Local Big Church in Town offered to loan out their choir director once a month to a small congregation near by? It would be a wonderful act of outreach and evangelism to strengthen the ministry of another congregation.

We understand that individually we are members of Christ’s Body. The same is true of our congregations. We are a part of one another and there can be no over-abundance of worship that glorifies God.  The majority of congregations in the United States are small congregations. That isn’t likely to change any time soon. How can all of us, whether worshippers in large or small churches, work together to strengthen the whole Body?

Our Achilles Heel?

photo courtesy of CoG NPIO Reports

As fires continue to burn throughout NM and residents return to Los Alamos, I’ve been thinking a lot about the environment and our relationship to it. Did you see the picture of the bear in the tree as people were fleeing the flames? He looked traumatized to me, but maybe that’s just anthropomorphizing. It highlights the challenges we face, however. There are no easy answers and resorting to rhetoric on one side of a political debate of the other does not help us move forward.

We are called to be stewards of the earth. From the authors of Genesis to modern day “tree huggers” there seems to be some agreement on that. Exactly what that means is the challenge. As our habitats increase, other creatures’ habitats decrease. Forest fires are a natural and healthy ecological event. The largest in state history, though, was caused by a tree falling on power lines bringing electricity to the homes, businesses and government facilities now threatened by the fire.

This is one of the driest years on record. Water is quickly becoming one of the most valuable and vulnerable natural resources on the planet. Many have said that future wars will be fought over water not oil. Last year I spent 4 months on a ship traveling around the world. In each port our crew refilled our water tanks. There were also desalination plants onboard, though they were the more costly option for potable water. We were cautioned repeatedly to conserve. It was a call that gained even greater urgency as we approached India, where less water was available for purchase. In 8 out of the 10 countries we visited, clean water was a pressing national issue. We came to understand that one of the reasons that we are the wealthy and powerful country that we are is simply an accident of geography. Our forbears inherited or captured a land that was rich in natural resources, including coal, oil, and water, with a mild climate ideal for agriculture.

I worry that our ability to weather the environmental storms upon us, including drought, fire, and flooding of this summer, makes us less willing to engage the very challenging questions of how to move to a sustainable economy. We bounce back so readily. And we forget so quickly. The very wealth and strength that makes this possible may also be our greatest vulnerability.

Funding Ecumenism

Thanks to the Rev. Bill Ingraham of Church of the Good Shepherd, I’ve been reading Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate. I recommend it highly!

J. Clif Christopher takes on congregational stewardship as compared to the way most non-profits function. The Church is changing and the way we fund the Church must change, too. I don’t agree with everything Christopher says, of course, but I do agree with his conclusions and suggestions. You’ll see many of them implemented soon at a conference of churches near you!

The New Mexico Conference of Churches has typically been funded by judicatories. We are grateful for the dioceses, districts, areas, presbyteries, and conferences that have made our work together possible. This model is beginning to change, though. These middle governing bodies are struggling to make their budgets work as the economic correction trickles up. In order for ecumenism to bear any weight, these judicatories must continue to be active supporters of our efforts. But they can’t do it alone. All of us who care about ecumenism, who believe that Christ’s Church is bigger than any one denomination or congregation, must be supporting this work. Those of us who think that our differences should be celebrated, and are gifts given by God to be shared with the whole Body, must put our treasure where our hearts are. You’ll be hearing more about this, I promise!

In the meantime, I believe that ecumenism changes lives and can change the world. Coming together breaks down walls of division. It provides us great insight into who Jesus Christ is. It deepens our Christian vocations, strengthens us for service in the world, and inspires us to dare to follow Christ.

Many years ago, when I was an intern at the World Council of Churches in Geneva, I was participating in worship during a Central Committee meeting. I looked around the full chapel and noticed Orthodox bishops dressed in their array of ecclesial garments, delegates in traditional dress from Africa and Asia, and a slew of Western Protestant colleagues. We ranged in age from 18 to 80, I’m sure. We were male and female and we represented every ethnic group. At the appointed time, we stood and recited the Nicene Creed. I was moved by how our common confession of faith bound us together across profound differences. I saw the glorious abundance of God’s creation in that one room. My faith hasn’t been the same since, and I trust the same is true for the others who were there, or who have been privileged to participate in similar gatherings at other times or in other places.

We ecumenists bear witness to the God who is incarnate in our unique humanity, and who encompasses all our diversity. This is a reality that our world – torn apart by religious, class, racial and national conflict – is desperate to hear.

How has ecumenism changed your life? How might it change the world?
Leave a comment below and share your experience.

Ecumenism as Missional Friendship

I had the privilege of speaking at the Church Women United annual Friendship Day gathering in Albuquerque last month. I confess that I did not take the theme of friendship very seriously at first. That is perhaps a testament to how casually we use the term in today’s world. (My collection of Facebook ‘friends’ is one example of how fluid the term can be!) Then I remembered Aelred of Rievaulx who took friendship very seriously and wrote at length about it’s importance in the Christian life. I also remembered that I have been talking about friendship a lot as I get to know people around the state and share my vision of the New Mexico Conference of Churches.

It occurred to me, and I said to the women gathered early in May, that Ecumenism is Missional Friendship.

Mission is everything we do that carries us out into the world. It is that which unites us to what God is up to all around us. It is also that which calls us into new action, new relationship, and new faithfulness. I love Paul’s image of the Body of Christ in 1st Corinthians. It is so familiar that we can take for granted what it means to be Christ’s Body. It is a reality whether we acknowledge it or not. AND, it requires nurturing. In order to make that realty active in our lives together, we have to nurture our relationships with one another, and one of the most basic is friendship.

The beginning of ecumenism is simply building friendships among people from different denominations. In time, we trust that those friendships will bear the fruit of greater understanding and appreciation of one another, sharing of differing gifts, and joint work in response to the needs of the world. We hope that they will bear the fruit of mission. Without this fruit, the friendships may make us individually happier and content, but they do little to further God’s purposes in the world. We seek friendship with a purpose. Friendship that steps over dividing differences in order to join the God Movement all around us.

We seek Missional Friendship that sends us out of our comfortable places, out of our congregations, out of our denominations, out of our neighborhoods to places we might not have dared go alone, to face challenges we cannot over come on our own.

Entering the Blogosphere – again!

This is not my first blogging experience. I have an older blog at rosewindows.blogspot.com. I said some things there that may or may not be interesting! I haven’t blogged in a while, though. I had thought that I would continue with the old blog, but somehow it seems a new one is needed that focuses specifically in ecumenism – especially that related to the work of the New Mexico Conference of Churches. So here it is!

I’m new to WordPress. I don’t know if I like it, yet. It’s more difficult to use than Blogger, but I’ve always liked the look of WordPress blogs. So I’ll try it out.

I’m glad you stopped by. I hope you’ll come again, comment, argue (respectfully of course), and share your views about the Church in the 21st Century – which I believe has to be ecumenical by definition, and at least informed about interfaith dialogue, if not actively involved in building interfaith relationships.