New Wine

I've been having conversations with folks from our churches that are exciting. More to the point the folks with whom I am having these conversations are excited. This is wonderful!

How much better than the church with whom I worshiped recently. Good folks. Faithful folks. Worshiping every Sunday folks. But bored to tears folks. It's not the form of their worship or what's being preached from the pulpit or sung from the hymnal. All of these things are fine. In another setting under different circumstances even these same people might be excited. But for these folks in their circumstance, things are pretty boring. Why? It's the spirit. They've heard it all before. The expect nothing new so nothing new happens.

Fortunately, there are those that are excited. Interim Pastor, Joanne Lanfear talks to me every time I see her about her anticipation over planning and leading the Easter Vigil at East Side Congregational UCC in Binghamton. She loves this ancient Christian ritual and was excited to rediscover the liturgy right there in the UCC Book of Worship.

So, on Holy Saturday night, March 22, she and the folks at East Side will gather outside the sanctuary to light the Paschal Candle. Together they will process into the sanctuary and through prayers, hymns and the reading of scriptures, they will experience the story of God's saving grace, leading to the proclamation, "Christ is Risen!" Christ is Risen, indeed!"

This week I met Ed Townsend for coffee. Ed is the pastor of the new parish of former Presbyterian and UCC congregations called Three Steeples United. We got together to talk about next steps for the congregation as they discern where God is leading them. Ed reported that a parishioner announced to him that they needed to talk. This sounded ominous, so Ed took him out to lunch. The parishioner told him that the church was ready and able to do this discernment work. (How refreshing such announcements are!)

The parishioner from Three Steeples United went onto say how important his involvement in the church is to him. A member of the congregation that works for a social service agency asked parishioners to gather together baskets of food and clothing to give to needy families at Easter time. She asked her fellow members to give 8 baskets. She immediately had volunteers for 12. The man and his family were doing two of them. He said to Ed, "You know this may not seem like a big deal in the big scheme of things. But it is a big deal. If I weren't involved in the church, I wouldn't be doing even this. But now I feel that I can do something to help someone else and be apart of something that matters."

Yesterday, Conference Minister, Geoffrey Black, was pleased to announce that the New York Conference, and specifically, the Hudson Mohawk Association, has a new church start. Sandy Damhof, chaplain at SUNY Albany, working with the conference taskforce on new church starts (chaired by Randy Hammer, pastor of First Congregational UCC, Albany), is now the pastor of the Slingerlands New Church Start in New Scotland (a southwestern western suburb of Albany.

Sandy reports that "After knocking on a lot of doors and making a lot of phone calls, we have finally found a new 'church home' at Buona Sera Italian Steakhouse located at 1903 New Scotland Rd/Rt 85. It's the restaurant previously known at JJ Madden's ... and a few other things."

The mission of the Slingerlands New Church Start: Slingerlands NCS is a God-centered church family welcoming all to join us on our journey as we worship joyfully and live, learn, and grow as servants of Christ through our faith and actions. "I pray that Christ Jesus and the church will forever bring praise to God. His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine." Ephesians 3:20-21 (CEV)

Worship begins on April 6 at 10:00. The Clinton Heights Community Church is the sponsoring congregation.

Jesus said that one doesn't put new wine in old wine skins. Indeed. The new wine will burst the old skins. Thank God for the new wine that God is creating in United Church of Christ congregations and people across the New York Conference. Newness brings excitement. Excitement brings purpose. Purpose brings energy. And energy brings contagious new life and growth.

It is also true that with the presentation of new wine comes old "whining". Those that have been around for awhile wonder why our efforts can't go to helping those that, well, have been around for awhile, like that the folks in the church I mention at the beginning of this posting.

Indeed, new wine is good, but the most expensive and best tasting wine is that which has been well aged. Enthusiasm and excitement doesn't have to be the sole possession of the new or the young. I remember visiting the Sunday morning liturgy in the cathedral in Iasi, Romania as part of a delegation from the New York Conference to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Bucovina and Moldavia in 1999.

Worshippers packed the cathedral, standing shoulder to shoulder, wall to wall for the entire 3 hour liturgy. They drank in the ancient words and chants of the Orthodox liturgy in that old building with a grateful exuberance that was truly inspiring. The newness for them came not from the words or the form of worship but from the freedom to be able to worship freely and openly in the aftermath of decades of communist repression.

Anthony B. Robinson in his meditation that appeared in the March 11, Stillspeaking Lenten Devotional, reminded us of the old aphorism: "Salvation is about grace. Ethics is about gratitude." Indeed! Although I would change this slightly to say that living as God would have us live is about gratitude. Worshipping God is about gratitude. Our work, our play, our personal and public lives as Christians -- it's all about gratitude.

Blessings,

Rick Cowles