Mental health conditions are common everywhere, including in our churches.  People are dealing with a variety of mental health and substance use challenges every day.  Due to stigma, many people may be reluctant to either seek help professionally or to speak about it with their pastor or other members of their church.    But we want to create a place of belonging, where truly everyone…including those with mental health challenges…is welcome, no matter where they are on life’s journey.

Congregations are invited to explore becoming WISE: Welcoming, Inclusive, Supportive, and Engaged for Mental Health by attending a conference on March 2 at City of Refuge in Oakland, offered by the UCC Mental Health Network.  

This conference is an opportunity for clergy, church members and leaders to:

• learn about mental health
• explore how our faith communities can support those among us with health challenges
• attend workshops
• begin the steps to become a WISE Congregation for Mental Health, following the UCC resolution passed at General Synod in 2015.

The conference brochure is attached, or can be seen on the Mental Health Network website, mhn-ucc.org.  All are welcome and encouraged to attend.   Questions? Contact Robin Kempster, member of the UCC Mental Health Network, at [email protected].

UCC WISE Conference (Oakland, CA 3_2_19) for more information about break out sessions, speakers, and schedule.

This week we explore the meaning of the Greek word, agape.  Every time you hear the word “love” in the passages like the First Letter of John, and 1st Corinthians 13,  it was agape in the original Greek.  “God is agape, and everyone who abides in agape abides in God and God abides in them.”

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. contributed his own experience to the traditional interpretation of agape.  King saw this kind of love from the perspective of someone whose church had been bombed, killing four young black girls.  King knew the power of agape as someone who struggled with the temptation to hate and fight violence with violence, to get revenge and oppress those who had oppressed his people.  King spoke about the power of agape as someone who had seen it work miracles, not only in enabling his own heart to transcend its hate but also overcoming a vast systemic evil that no one thought could ever be overcome.  King saw firsthand that the love a person wields when they become zero is the most powerful force in the universe.

We need that power now for the overwhelming challenge ahead of us, bringing about a revolution of values in human civilization within a very short period of time.  We need King’s wisdom about it.

He called us in his book, Stride Toward Freedom, to project the ethic of agape love to the center of our lives.  He said, “Agape…. is the love of God operating in the human heart….  It is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor…. Agape is not a weak, passive love.  It is love in action.  Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community…. The Holy Spirit is the continuing community creating reality that moves through history.  He who works against community is working against the whole of creation…. In the final analysis, agape means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated…. Whether we call it an unconscious process, an impersonal Brahman, or a Personal Being of matchless power and infinite love, there is a creative force in this universe that works to bring the disconnected aspects of reality into a harmonious whole.”

On that rainy Sunday, we honored the Spirit of God, remembering the prophetic life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in inspiring music, in preaching, and in community. 

On Sunday evening we were blessed with a glimpse of the lunar eclipse.

We lift up prayers of gratitude, as we are called to creating the Beloved Community.

 Blessings upon your week, Laurie 

O God, You who created the sun, moon, stars and this planet earth,
and set them all in motion, Who’s beauty we honored, 
in beholding the rare lunar eclipse, when the shadow of the earth,
illuminated by the sun, is cast upon the moon.

O God, all people are your Beloved,
across races, nationalities, religions, sexual orientations
and all the ways we are distinctive from one another.
We are all manifestations of your image.
We are bound together in an inescapable network of mutuality
and tied to a single garment of destiny.
You call us into your unending work
of justice, peace and love.
Let us know your presence among us now:

Let us delight in our diversity
that offers glimpses of the mosaic of your beauty.
Strengthen us with your steadfast love and
transform our despairing fatigue into hope-filled action.

Under the shadow of your wings in this hour
may we find rest and strength, renewal and hope.
We ask this, inspired by the example
of your disciple, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Have you ever felt discouraged about the world lately and powerless to do anything about it?  In need of hope that it’s possible for ordinary people with no weapons but the truth and courage of their convictions to overcome oppressive forces of hatred, injustice and violence? In need of an epiphany to shine forth and give us ways to shine this little light of ours so that we may be an epiphany to others?  You’re not alone!

Jesus said that if his followers were to fall silent the stones themselves would shout out their praise. (Luke 19:40)  The light we see in Jesus is as old as the universe—older, for it brought this universe into being.  It has filled and  moved all things, held together all that cohered, evolved and changed all toward higher levels of organization and life and eventually consciousness, and brought life out of death, forming new stars and planets and living beings out of the old.

It’s this force speaking through Jesus in The Gospel of Thomas saying, “There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world…. I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all come.  Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there…. The realm of God will not come by watching for it…. Rather, it’s spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.”  from the Gospel of Thomas, 24, 70, 77 & 113

Join us this Sunday, for the story about an ongoing movement; a movement of freedom, of light, and of epiphanies that draw us forward. Epiphanies are not for us alone.  They recruit us to a Movement, the same movement that Martin Luther King Jr. led, Jesus led, Isaiah led, and Moses led; and the movements of our time.  Epiphanies transform us by the light of God they reveal so that we will transform the world around us to be more like God’s realm of mercy, justice and peace.  Let us see and be radiant and go out into our homes and into the beloved community of this town and into this divided and endangered world and shine in every way we can so that others see our light and are inspired to shine their own.

Join us as together we look for the light within our deepest heart, and open ourselves to be led to new ways to shine.