The Big Spark! / Ignite the Event!

Oops! I think I messed up the title to this article. Coming in August (but registrations open now) are the quarterly Ignite the Spark! and the annual Big Event, which is routinely lauded as folks’ favorite presbytery meeting because it is when we are our best, truest, connectional selves as Presbyterians. I contend the truest expression of being Presbyterian is found when we are together seeking the way and the will of the Lord. Ignite the Spark! (August 11) and The Big Event (August 12) are opportunities to express these best selves.

Ignite the Spark! (August 11)

The topic of this quarter’s event is connecting your church’s communication with your community. Gail Strange and Mari Graham from the General Assembly will present a communications workshop that,will give you tips and techniques to better reach your audience. We’ll offer insights and guidelines on creating a communications plan for your congregation, discuss the “do’s and don’ts” of media relations and “pitching” stories to your local media. You’ll learn proven techniques for using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter and leave with tips that will make your communications more effective and help increase your reach.

Please note the new time for this Ignite the Spark! is from 9:00-3:00, with lunch provided, in order to accommodate Gail and Mari’s return travel to Louisville. You can register here: Ignite the Spark

THE BIG EVENT (August 12)There are a variety of topics organized around the “three-legged stool” of spiritual formation, missional formation, and congregational formation. Among the topics offered this year are both perennial favorites and explorations in new vision.

In the area of congregational formation, perennial favorites such as stewardship, church growth, and youth ministry are offered but also workshops on using digital media, building a website, and learning lessons from new worshipping communities for an established congregation.

In the area of missional formation, we once again turn to one of our strongest points of giftedness to hear the call to support our immigrant neighbors through both advocacy and direct care, but also offer a three-part workshop on how to cultivate communities where we can bridge the conversation gap in our ever more polarized churches.

In the area of spiritual formation, we will hear both the call to sabbath and the invite to embrace desert spirituality (and this week I feel the desert quite poignantly!) as well as accept the challenge to deepen our understanding of our confessional heritage. And one final question: What can Starbucks teach us about worship? (See Frank Walmsley’s workshop.)

You can register for the Big Event here:  And register for Ignite the Spark! here

Grace and peace,

Brad Munroe

Trinity = Self in Relationship

Last week I reminded us of the ancient Christian word to describe the Trinity:  perichoresis, which literally means “with dancing” or “dancing around.” I suggested that it is the character and nature of God’s personhood to be a unified Self and in eternal Relationship. I further suggested that, as those created in the image of this Trinitarian Fellowship of One, it is our eternal character and nature to express our humanity in relationship with God, self, others and the creation. Simply put: relationship is the core of our faith in worship and in prayer, in compassion and in mission, in who we are and how we live together in community.

Let me repeat that last thought: the God who eternally dances as Triune Fellowship of One teaches us who we are and how we live together in community, which means we are never fully and truly our Self unless and until we are fully and truly in relationship with others. Conversely, we are never fully and truly in community unless and until we are fully and truly our Self.

            “So, Brad, what does this mean for our lives as followers of Jesus?” Thanks for asking.

There is a need in our churches, communities and nation to learn to speak the truth in love to one another, as Paul exhorted the Ephesians (Ephesians 4:15), as well as seek the interests of others as Paul spoke to the Philippians (Philippians 2:4). For example:

·         When a fellow church member expresses a sour opinion about your pastor (organist, custodian, another member, et. al.) with which you don’t agree, do you go along to get along, or do you say, “I hear you but actually have a different perspective I’d like to share. Would that be okay with you?”

·         When in the midst of a Session meeting and the debate gets “robust” and “enthusiastic” around a particular idea, are you able to say, “I like x, y, and z about your idea but have concerns about a, b, and c. I’d love to hear you say more about these concerns and how you think this idea will address them.”

When addressing politics with a friend or colleague – left to right or right to left – can you speak the truth in love without descending to the level of the “politics of personal destruction” and express your concerns with both passion and compassion, both true to your Self and respectful
 of others?

My young adult son has a saying, “You be you, dad.” (Usually this is said when I have done something that reinforces his image of me as a dork.) I want to expand on my son’s quaint saying to express what it means for us to live as those created in the image of the Triune God who dances eternally: “You be you, I’ll be me, but let’s us be us together.” Might this be an ecclesiology on which we can build healthy practices for congregational ministry?

Grace and peace,

Brad Munroe
Watch it as a Video!

Inviting Evangelism: Singing in a New Key

I stood in my father’s bathroom trying to help him stand after falling while getting out of the shower. The blood thinner meds he had taken for a dozen years was causing the small scrapes on his leg and elbow to bleed profusely, and in falling he had hyper-extended his left knee, his good knee, though both knees were actually titanium replacements. What does this have to do with the Trinity?

The next morning I took a walk along the beach; my father’s condo being mere yards away from the white, “sugar sand” of Florida’s Gulf Coast. As I rooted the soles of my bare feet into Mother Earth, in mountain pose for those of you who do yoga, I listened to the wind, the gulls, and my own heart. “It is good to be here,” I thought to myself. What does this have to do with the Trinity?

Upon my return to Arizona, I spoke with one pastor recently diagnosed with cancer and another whose spouse needs organ transplantation. I prayed with a gathering of pastors and elders whose hearts grieved after making a decision a colleague did not want to hear. And I rejoiced at the airport upon seeing my wife, Laura, and Ange, the refugee whom we have welcomed into our home. What does this have to do with the Trinity?

To many folks, the Trinity is some sort of math problem: does 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 or does 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? I get it; really, I do. The doctrine that God is one in three persons, separate but not distinct, translates rather naturally into the language and conundrum of numbers. But what if we understand God as Trinity not as a math problem but rather as an expression of a beautiful mystery?

For Christians to say that God is Trinity is to confess the eternal nature of God is relational; that at the core of the universe is love. God exists for all time in relationship with Godself – eternally, necessarily, intrinsically, and organically. This is who God is!

The early Christian fathers and mothers coined a new, Greek word in their attempts to describe this ineffable mystery: perichoresis, which is a combination of the Greek words that literally mean “with dancing.” God is the One whose nature is with dancing; the Three whose harmony is a unity and whose rhythm expresses infinite diversity.

And we are created in the image of this Trinitarian God. We are created to live our lives with dancing – to express our humanity in harmony, to find our rhythm in relationship, to allow the nature of God to be reflected in who we are and in how we are together, in such a manner that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + N = the Church, the one Body of Christ.

It is the Trinity that calls me to care for my father, to ground myself in our shared humanity on this planet, to pray for you as you pray for me, to grieve with those who grieve and to rejoice with those who rejoice. What do these things have to do with the Trinity? My life – our lives – have everything to do with the Trinity, for God is not a math problem. Thanks be….

Grace and peace,

Brad Munroe