May 22, 2010

Inside the Courier

•

A Look at the BriteSide, page 2

• Mission Notes,

page 3

• Property Committee

parking questionpage 3

• June Calendar

page 4

•

Summer spiritualformation classes,page 5

On the Web: fccminneapolis.org

Share the Careis today at FCC!May 22, 9-1

C’mon out and

lend a hand!

Seeing Pentecost spirit in life stories

PentecostOfferingMay 23

Pentecost, which we celebrate thisSunday, commemorates the comingof the Spirit to the disciples, as toldin the book of Acts. Of course, webelieve that the Spirit

didn’t just come on Pent

e-cost; it comes every day tothose who are ready to re-ceive it.In what ways have youseen the Spirit's transform-ing effects in your life andin your church's life? Pas-tor Adam Frieberg, Ad- junct Regional Minister forCommunication, is collect-ing stories about the Spiritmoving among us andposting them on the

“Shared Spirit” webpage (more about

this below).Here is a spirit story Rev. Friebergcollected this past March from TerriHolmgren, a member of First Chris-tian church in Des Moines:In December, just a few days be-fore Christmas, an 84-year oldman from our church was a vic-tim of an attempted carjacking.He was knocked down, from be-hind, on his way out of a localgrocery store. He refused to getin the car with the attacker. Hisattacker drove off for a couple of miles, pulled over, and shot him-self in the chest, committing sui-cide.The attacker was 37 years old and lefta wife and a couple of small children.Our church member immediatelyopened up a fund to help his at

tacker’s

family. Less than a week later, he was in church, mak-ing a request for our mem-bers to help fill the fund for

this man’s fa

mily. Hestarted the fund with $500out of his own pocket. Thatis a lot of money fromsomeone who is 84 yearsold. Our fund resulted innearly $6000 for the family.

Our church member said, “I

feel sorry for him. He musthave had reasons for goingthrough all of this. My lineof thought is that he probably was adecent person and he needed some

money, fast.”

This man is a perfect example of our

church’s ministry philosophy.

If someone needs help and we can helpthem, we do. We endeavor to find away to love them the way Jesus told usto.

You’ll find more of these stories on the

Shared Spirit page on the Christian Churchof the Upper Midwest website. Perhapsyou have a Spirit Story of your own, orexamples of Good News that you canshare. Guidelines and a form that lets youwrite and share your story are also onlineat: http://tinyurl.com/2d5v984.

Christian Courier

First Christian Church of Minneapolis (Disciples of Christ)

Page 2

Pastor Bob Brite

Gracious God, we lift up these persons in our prayers, asking theblessing of your Graceand outpouring of your Love upon them.

In our prayers

Whose initiatives determine the church’s dire

ction?

We pray in sympathy for those who are ill, in the hospital, or recoveringfrom surgery including

Karen Kandik’s father

;

Bob Brite, Sr

Ri-chard

Schwersinske

;

Jenn Caughron

;

Pat Shoop

;

Kirsten Cackoski’s

sister-in-law

Sharon

and brother

Carl

;

Kathy Merkel’s

friend

CarolineClayton

;

Tristan Whitaker

;

David Pyles

, and all others enduring illnessor treatment; in celebration for the graduation of

Corrie Brite

, the birthof

Joseph Daniel Wolf

Dan and Kristin (Wolverton) Wolf

, and thegifts of music from

James Barnett

, our

Chancel Choir

and guest musi-cians; in concern for those affected by economic difficulties, including allwho are unemployed and also the persons who stole bus passes andstamps from our church office; for all our homebound members including

Emma Armstrong

and

Lois Cobbs

, Amen.

May 22, 2010

Frequently (maybe always?)

a church’s direction is not

determined by the pastor or pastors, but by the willing-ness of people in the body tostep up and pursue a direc-tion of ministry.

I don’t know if y’all noticed it, but

on Easter Sunday we had 14young people up on the chancel

for Young People’s Moments in

worship. A lot of this is due to theefforts of Deb Murphy who, this

past fall, started a children’s class

for the first time in several years,and of young parents and grandpa-

rents who’ve started bring such

folk. (Yes, there are such thingsas young grandparents.)Frequently (maybe always?) a

church’s direction is not de

ter-mined by the pastor or pastors, butby the willingness of people in thebody to step up and pursue a di-rection of ministry. This is a lothealthier for a congregation any-way; having the pastor pursue in-itiatives often means that, once thepastor leaves, the initiative col-lapses. Last fall, Dennis and Iwere pursuing a direction of start-ing an alternative service for theneighborhood folks in the congre-gation; the congregation even

passed funds in the current year’s

budget to do so. However, theTransition Team (wisely, I think)decided that such an effort neededownership from the congregation,and together we decided to take alonger view of working towardssuch a service.The immediate opportunities arewith children and youth; some of those opportunities may indeedprove to be strong ones. So for

the last three months I’ve me

n-tioned to the Board the possibilityof using some of the budget forthe new worship service to take ona part time staff person for build-

ing on the work that’s been

started. Given the fact that OpenTable, our new initiative with theGLBT community, has identifiedcertain needs in this area in theTwin Cities and are working topursue it, it seems like an oppor-tunity, congregationally based, onwhich we need to take a good,strong look.Grace and peace,Bob

A Look at the Brite Side

Christian Courier

Truly I tell you, just as youdid it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Matthew 25: 40

Property Committee seeks input on parking question

Page 3

If you have some time over thesummer months, please considertaking part in the many missionprojects going on at First Chris-tian:

•

On June 10 at 6PM, we will goto

Feed My Starving Children

inCoon Rapids. If you are interestedin showing up, either contact meor signup at church beginningMay 30.

•

Also during June, we will have a

Welcome Basket Drive

for theCurrie Avenue Project, a new in-itiative to help house the home-less. More information will becoming in the next Courier.

• In late June, our Open Table

Ministry will take part in

TwinCities Gay Pride

. We are lookingfor people to help staff the Down-town Congregations tent at Pride.Interested? Let me know.

•

In mid- to late July, we will havea work day at

Community Emer-gency Service

, located in the Phil-lips neighborhood. I'm still work-ing on the dates, so stay tuned.

•

During July we will also launch

Minnesota FoodShare: SummerEdition

. With the current reces-sion, Groveland Foodshelf is be-ing pushed to the limits and needsfunds to help purchase food tofeed needy Minnesotans. Duringthe month of July, we will collectmoney and food to benefit Gro-veland.Also, I am meeting with folksfrom Hennepin Avenue UnitedMethodist Church to find outabout the one their ministries, the

Dignity Center

. Their ministrytries to help those in poverty geton their feet and become self-sufficient. They are looking forpartnering congregations, and I'vemet with their Director, AnneCarlson. I will be touring the cen-ter to get a more detailed view.This may be another great way toget involved in hands-on-missionsuch as making sandwiches orsimply greeting the clients as theycome into the center.Finally, I am also meeting withRolf Lowenberg-DeBoer, whoheads social ministry at CentralLutheran, to find out more abouttheir ministries and maybe wayswe can work with them as well.Look for some detailed reports onboth churches soon.That's all for now. Go out and bethe church.Dennis SandersAssociate Pastor or Mission andDiversityThe Property Committee, chairedby Max Hurlocker, has been look-ing into parking issues at FCC.The Committee seeks responsefrom the congregation on a specif-ic question about handicappedparking spaces.Please answer the question below,clip out your response, and leavein the mailbox next to the churchoffice, or e-mail to the church of-fice. Your answers will be care-fully considered!

Does FCC have a suffi-cient number of designat-ed handicapped parkingspaces?

(Circle your answer)YES NOAdditional Comments:

Clip out your response, and leave in the mailbox next to thechurch office

or give to prop-erty committee member. Or e-mail to fcc-mpls@qwest.net.

Getting Dirty for Jesus: Mission Project Notes