I'm not posting here

As you may have noticed, I don't use this page any more. You can check out my online comments at my facebook page facebook.com/richardleejones or check richardleejones.posterous.com.

God Is Good--Really

In The Good and Beautiful God, James Bryan Smith says:
"Nearly all ancient religions were built on a narrative that says that we have to do something in order to get the blessings of the gods, and conversely, if we anger the gods we will surely be punished. The narrative can be summed up as, 'God is an angry judge. If you do well, you will be blessed; if you sin, you will be punished."
Smith goes on to say that this "is the most prevalent narrative about God among Christians."
I am sorry to say that I think he is right and the photo of the church sign here seems to bear that out.
But is there another way? In the 1600's, George Fox (founder of the Quaker movement) sensed the Holy Spirit say to him: "There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition." Smith applies this thought and says; "I have learned to ask myself this question when it comes to choosing the right narratives about God: Is this understanding of God consistent with the God Jesus revealed?"
What did Jesus have to say on this subject? Plenty. One of the Scriptures that I think speak to the kind of God Jesus believed in is Luke 13.1-9. This is our Scripture for this Sunday (March 7, 2010) in worship. Join us at 9:30 or 11am!
This week's worship bulletin is here.

Youth News for Feb. 17

Fruit Gleaning Service Project Sunday February 21
2-6pm (dinner is at 5:30)
We will gather to pick fruit to benefit Ishkash*taa Refugee Fruit Harvesting Network. Ishkash*taa uses the fruit to benefit refugee families, but also gives produce to 20 different agencies in Tucson (The Community Foodbank, Primavera, Casa Maria, etc.) We will meet in Fellowship Hall at 2pm and will return at 5:30pm and have dinner together. The dinner is free, but we will receive an offering to help with the cost. Yes, youth, YOU can give a couple of bucks towards this, too! This project is for members, visitors, singles, youth, parents, senior adults, families—everyone is invited!
Parents, you are invited to join us! We will need you PARENTS to drive! Dress to be outside, and if you have fruit picking implements, bring them. Feel free to invite a friend! This is great for community service hours! We also need plastic milk crates that can be donated to Ishkash*taa. Contact Richard with any questions (403-2403 or richard@catumc.org). You can stay after dinner for awhile if you like and play some basketball or just hang out in the youth room. Richard is closing everything down at 7pm—but the official event is OVER after dinner—probably about 6pm.
I am planning for our regular youth group crowd, so parents if you are coming, let me know (that way I can have a good count for dinner).

Paintball is being rescheduled to Saturday, April 24.
Saturdays this Spring are pretty full. This is the first available date I’ve got, and something might come up on this date. I’ll let you know.

Youth Group will not meet on Sunday February 28 (Rodeo weekend).

South District Sports Tournament is Sunday, March 7 from 2-7pm. This is an annual event held at St Marks UMC. We compete in 3-on-3 half-court basketball (middle school guys, middle school girls, high school guys, high school girls) and co-ed volleyball.

An Interesting Map...

I found this Gallup map on Matt Iglesias' blog. The Gallup article is here.
Matt titled his post "Who Goes to Church? Southerners and Mormons". Maybe a more accurate title would be "Who Goes to Church MOST? Southerners and Mormons". The church is not dead and gone in other locales.

Invitation to a Holy Lent

“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”
from The Book of Common Prayer

Catalina Youth News

Hey there, friends! This is just a short note to let you know what is going on!

1-Sunday School will meet at 9:30 in E-225.

2-Youth group will meet with our regular schedule this week. Dinner is at 5:30 and everything is over at 7:30. Yeah, I know it is Valentine’s Day, but I am celebrating on another day (Friday) and you can, too. We will have some special Valentine’s Day activities and I will have a gift for each of you.
3- Fruit Gleaning is February 21!! Here are the details:
This is a great opportunity for you to:
serve God
help people in need
get outdoors
do some physical activity
use what God has given you to benefit others
build relationships with people in your church
work together as the body of Christ for the kingdom of God

What will we do?
We will gather at Catalina (in Fellowship Hall) at 2pm and divide into teams. We will travel to various locations and pick fruit from trees. We will gather back at Catalina at 5:30pm for dinner together. (Dinner is free of charge, but we will accept donations to help with the cost--it isn't free to us.) We will see a short video about the work of Ishkash*taa.

What do we need?
We need workers.
We need drivers.
We need fruit picking implements.
AND
We need plastic milk crates!

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes to be outdoors working.
Contact Richard with any questions: email him (richard@catumc.org) or phone/text him (403-2403).

This Sunday, we will have a sign up list so I can get an idea of how many to expect for dinner.

4-Paintball will be FRIDAY FEBRUAY 26 [Rodeo] Details to follow.

Catalina Parents E-News

Here are the announcements I sent the youth: [scroll down for some parenting-type stuff]

1-Sunday School will meet at 9:30 in E-225.

2-Youth group will meet with our regular schedule this week. Dinner is at 5:30 and everything is over at 7:30. Yeah, I know it is Valentine’s Day, but I am celebrating on another day (Friday) and you can, too. We will have some special Valentine’s Day activities and I will have a gift for each of you.

3- Fruit Gleaning is February 21!! Here are the details:
[***This event is for ALL ages! Parents, YOU are invited—encouraged—to come with us and help with this project!]

This is a great opportunity for you to:
serve God
help people in need
get outdoors
do some physical activity
use what God has given you to benefit others
build relationships with people in your church
work together as the body of Christ for the kingdom of God

What will we do?
We will gather at Catalina (in Fellowship Hall) at 2pm and divide into teams. We will travel to various locations and pick fruit from trees. We will gather back at Catalina at 5:30pm for dinner together. (Dinner is free of charge, but we will accept donations to help with the cost--it isn't free to us.) We will see a short video about the work of Ishkash*taa.

What do we need?
We need workers.
We need drivers.
We need fruit picking implements.
AND
We need plastic milk crates!

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes to be outdoors working.
Contact Richard with any questions: email him (richard@catumc.org) or phone/text him (403-2403).

This Sunday, we will have a sign up list so I can get an idea of how many to expect for dinner.

4-Paintball will be FRIDAY FEBRUAY 26 [Rodeo] Details to follow.

FOR PARENTS

Teenage girls 'have poorest diet' http://foxyurl.com/Pe3

Take your family on this hike http://www.localhikes.com/Hikes/HBsouthtrail_8520.asp

Tech-savvy 'iGeneration' kids multi-task, connect http://ow.ly/15UNw

Fruit Gleaning is February 21!!

This is a great opportunity for you to:
serve God
help people in need
support young people in your church
get outdoors
do some physical activity
use what God has given you to benefit others
build relationships with people in your church
work together as the body of Christ for the kingdom of God

What will we do?
We will gather at Catalina (in Fellowship Hall) at 2pm and divide into teams. We will travel to various locations and pick fruit from trees. We will gather back at Catalina at 5:30pm for dinner together. (Dinner is free of charge, but we will accept donations to help with the cost--it isn't free to us.) We will see a short video about the work of Ishkash*taa.

What do we need?
We need workers.
We need drivers.
We need fruit picking implements.
AND
We need plastic milk crates!

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes to be outdoors working.
Contact Richard with any questions: email him (richard@catumc.org) or phone/text him (403-2403).

This Sunday, we will have a sign up list so I can get an idea of how many to expect for dinner.

Transfiguration Sunday February 14, 2010

This Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday in the church year. This is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, and therefore the last Sunday before Lent--which begins with Ash Wednesday (February 17). The Scripture for this Sunday is Luke 9.28-43. The worship bulletin is here. With the conclusion of Transfiguration Sunday, the work of Epiphany is over: Jesus is presented as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. And the Transfiguration story finishes this. Jesus is shown in his heavenly glory and is elevated above Moses and Elijah--the Law and the Prophets.
And the message of the Transfiguration is a fitting introduction to Lent. As we will see this Sunday.
Join us for worship at 9:30 or 11.

Jesus Meets Us in Every Day Life

This week we will continue our study of who Jesus is. Our premise is simple: at Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus (and rightly so), but whose birth is it that we celebrate? The season of Epiphany (which follows Christmas and lasts until Lent) strives to communicate that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah.
We have been considering the lectionary texts for the Sundays in Epiphany in our worship. This Sunday the text is Luke 5.1-11. This is the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. I think this text tells us about how we, too, can encounter Christ, and how that can lead us forward in our faith journey. Join us Sunday!
The worship bulletin is here.

Atheist and Atonement

The Blind Beggar blog (say that 5 times really fast) posted this excerpt from an interview with famous author and neo-atheist Christopher Hitchens.

Christopher Hitchens on the Atonement

Published by Rick Meigs on February 1st, 2010 in Quotes.

Christopher Hitchens was in Portland recently for a speaking engagement. Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell interviewed him for a local publication, Portland Monthly. The interview was pretty much what one would expect, but I did find the following a fascinating observation from Hitchens:

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Now, I think there are several possible responses to this exchange.
First, you could say, "That's right!" And in many ways, I would agree with Hitchens about what it means to be a Christian.
Second, you could say "Wait a minute. An atheist is not going to define Christianity for me." And I think that is a valid point too.
Third, I think we must come to terms with the fact that people (yea, our whole culture) HAVE defined Christianity. We all live with that definition whether or not it fits with our personal faith. When you say "Christian", that means something generally to the general public. It might mean something different to you, but in order for language to have meaning, there must be some level of agreement on what the words mean. Does that mean we start calling ourselves something different? This reminds me of the video series "Christfollower vs Christian" (a parody of the Mac vs PC commercials) that you can probably find on Youtube. Or does this mean that we proudly and maybe rebelliously wear the label Christian? Knowing that people are going to judge us anyway, why try to hide? This reminds me of how gay people have taken back the epiphet "queer" and have used it themselves.
I believe strongly that there is a different kind of Christian today--one that is not defined by the religious/political fundamentalism that you find in mainstream America. But in the end, we must admit we are Christian. Maybe we should let how we live define us more than what label we insist on.

Snowblast 2010 Photo/Video