Seeking Authentic Voice

The slightly longer version for 8 and 10am   The book of Genesis is one of the most important books of the Bible. In it we hear the ancient stories of our Judeo-Christian ancestors. These stories resonate with human experience through the ages. Tales of how the world began, of God invested in all creation, of human beings growing in self-awareness and wisdom, struggling through suffering, pain, and joy. These are family stories of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and brothers. They are ripe with emotions of jealousy, greed, love, anger, hope, faithfulness, risk, and what it means to be a people of God. The stories in Genesis reflect the rich, mythic culture of Mesopotamia in the 6th Century BCE. An oral tradition of stories was shared and passed down through the centuries until they settled in written form about three thousand years ago. Ancient Israel emerged out of this culture of wise courtiers, wisdom traditions, collections of proverbs, and manuals for reading om

On my son’s 22nd birthday he requested a trip to the Detroit Institute of Art to view the Samurai exhibit. It was a really interesting exhibit telling the history of the Samurai, with beautiful art and displays of intricate armor, knives, and tea sets for the Japanese tea ceremony. For some people art is decorative, something we hang on our walls or place on coffee tables to adorn our homes. Other people consider art to be a commentary on our lives and the world. This is true of the work of Picasso and Dali and other great artists. Pablo Picasso, the famous 20 th century artist,was deeply impacted by the Spanish Civil War. Picasso’s paintings of that era expressed the devastation of the war through images that were abstract and distorted. This genre became known as “cubism.” Some suggest this technique depicted the world as if there were no God. Without God, without the divine vision, everything was wrong, abstract, and distorted. Salvador Dali’s work is part of the Dada movement, als

Between 2009 and 2010 people of Christ Church participated in a series of small group discussions. The purpose of these discussions was to understand who Christ Church was at that point in its history and begin to articulate some ideas for the future. This process was called the Charette Group. Out of it came our mission statement and our core values, which you should have received with your worship bulletin this morning. The process was then put on hold until the new Rector was in place and the work could be continued. So, in 2012, during the annual Vestry Retreat, the Vestry and I took up this work and began to develop it further. Along with our consultant, Jim Gettel, the we discerned that Christ Church is a “Community-Centered” Church. By this we mean that our church building is used consistently by church members and various social, civic, international and community groups and organizations. Without the use of our building these organizations might not have a local and internatio