Discerning Call, February 3

Bishop John Shelby Spong, author of A New Christianity for a New World, has said, “I think the only task facing the Christian Church in our day is to enhance the humanity of every person, so that living fully, loving wastefully and daring to be all that they can be, they make visible all that the human word ‘God’ means.” In that light, Church of the Loving Shepherd beautifully fulfills its task.

The above quote is from the Church of the Loving Shepherd website, and while some of the wording I found a bit over the top, I found myself smiling and nodding over this one. I even have a comment in my notes for this site, "My mom would think it's a cult".

I was lucky enough after visiting the site to have a chat with my uncle, who had one time gone to try out this church. He had left the Roman Catholic church in the early 90's and had/has found a lot of peace from the Quaker movement. He was intrigues to see how a church would run with having those elements instilled in the service. Unfortunately, he is rather shy, and while he felt the atmosphere was welcoming, didn't return after his first visit.

This was also a session I missed in class and watched the recording of (that in and of itself was a weird experience) but the readings for this week I felt needed some more context in order to ground themselves for me. I have enjoyed how the passion and excitement of doing God's work comes out in many of our readings, some of them describe things so outside my realm of experience however I find myself needing similar experiences in order to really be able to analyze and work with them.

And speaking of missing the class, I found it interesting in the introduction for the Church of the Loving Shepherd there is this: "it’s no substitute for the in-person experience" (church of the loving shepherd). The line is under their welcome portion, and it is made to encourage people to visit the church I am sure. I just found it ironic to be there in a class where we have participants who will never have the in-person experience of class!!