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Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Arizona

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Lenten Greetings

Lenten Greetings to all in the Love of Jesus Christ:

I hope and pray that you are all having a meaningful journey through Lent, as we journey with Jesus on his road to the cross. Unlike the first Disciples, we know that resurrection and Easter are coming. But let’s not let that knowledge prevent us from acknowledging the very real experience of suffering in our midst. After all, new life is only necessary when it is preceded by death.

As our congregations are preparing for Holy Week, our Regional ministry is preparing for several events coming up after Easter. Registration is now open for three events: the Disciples Women Spring Event on April 22, the Church Narrative Project on April 28-29, and Summer Camp for our youth and children. You will find all three registration links in this newsletter. While I am excited about all three of these, I probably most need to explain the new event – the Church Narrative Project.

We are excited to welcome our General Minister and President, Terri Hord Owens, and our Associate General Minister, Yvonne Gilmore, back to Arizona for our Church Narrative Project – and I hope you will join us. We will gather at Foothills Christian Church on Friday evening for dinner and a night of storytelling featuring 9 Arizona Disciples. Then we’ll reconvene on Saturday from 9:00-3:00 for a day of training on the Transforming Community Conferencing process. This outstanding training will help leaders in churches with visioning, consensus building, conflict resolution, and more. I hope you will join us. This is a free event but we are asking everyone to register here so we can appropriately plan for the two meals.

As a brief example: what is the narrative you know about the United States? Is it a nation founded on the principles of liberty and well-being for all? Is it a Christian nation? Is it a nation built on the backs of enslaved Africans on land that was forcibly taken from indigenous peoples? Is it a nation of immigrants? Or a nation hostile to immigrants? What is the narrative you tell about the United States?

Similarly, what is the narrative you tell about the church? About Disciples? What have you been taught about who we are? The Church Narrative Project is a bold attempt to construct a narrative of who the Disciples are and who we want to be, built from the ground up by including Disciples from all over the Church. We hope you will be a part of constructing our narrative.

Dios les bendiga!

Pastor Jay
Regional Minister and President, Christian Church in Arizona

Regional Calendar of Weekly Prayers

Join in praying for our Arizona Disciples Congregations. View the full calendar at azdisciples.org.

March

26 – Iglesia Dios de Segunda Oportunidad led by Pastor Minerva Guzman

April

2 – General Ministries and the Easter Special Offering

9 – Office of the General Minister and President and the Easter Special Offering

16 – Larkspur Christian Church led by Pastor Job Cobos

23 – Saguaro Christian Church led by Pastor Kelley Dick

30 – Sun City Christian Church led by Pastor Brett Winters

Uncomfortable Growth

Greetings to all in the Love of Jesus Christ:

I’m tempted to write about all the good things I experience as I travel around Arizona – Foothills CC celebrating with Pastor Bekah Krevens who just gave birth to her third daughter; our new preaching cohort who met for the first time this past Saturday to study preaching in Spanish; my upcoming visits to Community CC in Tempe, who will be celebrating their 75th anniversary, and to preach at Templo Cristiano Central, which will be the 20th different congregation I will have preached for in Arizona, and my fifth sermon in Spanish; or our recent Anti-Racism training event attended by 27 Arizona leaders.

I’m also tempted to write about some of the horrible things I read about – most recently the horrific shootings in Buffalo and Laguna Woods. We are called both to pray for an end of violence and to do all we can to dismantle our white supremacist culture that fosters warped ideologies that lead to violence.

But today, oddly enough, I’m going to write about concentric circles.

Years ago, I was shown a drawing with three concentric circles. The inner circle was labeled “Comfort Zone.” The middle circle was labeled “Growth Zone.” And the outer circle was labeled “Terror Zone.”

The speaker said that if we stay in our comfort zone all the time, we never grow. So, we were encouraged to leave our comfort zone, to allow ourselves to be UN-comfortable, so that we could grow. The more discomfort we can tolerate, the more we can grow – until we get to the place of sheer terror, in which case we shut down. Our leader encouraged us to not confuse discomfort with terror – to let her know if we were reaching a point of terror, but otherwise to hang in there and see how we grow.

I think of these concentric circles often. In anti-racism discussions, white people often say we feel “uncomfortable,” like that’s a bad thing. But it’s not. It’s a good thing. Only through feeling uncomfortable can we grow. I also think of my first times worshipping in Hispanic congregations: it was un-comfortable for me. I wasn’t sure what to do when everyone put their hands up in the air and started swaying around, or when some people came forward and lay prostrate on the floor and started weeping. It was uncomfortable for me – but not terrorizing. So I kept coming back. And I grew. And now, I am finding that when I show up, I am with my Disciples family. And that’s a beautiful thing.

I am reminded of a few lines from a beautiful prayer called “A Franciscan Blessing”: MAY GOD BLESS YOU with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless us all with enough discomfort to help us grow.
Dios les bendiga!

Pastor Jay

Regional Minister and President, Christian Church in Arizona

We invite you to pray for the following congregations in the coming months. Visit our Regional Calendar of Weekly Prayers for our annual list.

May

22 First Christian Church (Globe) led by Pastor Al Beasley

29 Comunidad Limen Christian Church led by Pastor Pedro Ramos-Goycolea and New Church Ministry

June

5 Iglesia Casa de Adoración (Phoenix) led by Pastors Aurto and Janett Laguna & New Church Ministry
12 Larkspur Christian Church (Glendale) led by Pastor Job Cobos
19 Iglesia Dios de Segunda Oportunidad (Glendale) led by Pastor Minerva Guzman
26 Desert Heritage Church DOC/UCC (Mesa) led by Pastor Derrick Elliot

Holy Week and an Invitation

Greetings to all in the Love of Jesus Christ:

This past week, I was blessed to observe Palm Sunday at FCC in Scottsdale. I continued my long-standing tradition of leading a palm processional while playing the bagpipes. We remembered Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, an entry filled with hope and expectation, expressed by the crowds shouting “Hosanna!”

But Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday – the Sunday on which we tell the story of Holy Week, of Jesus’ passion, of his betrayal, arrest, torture, and execution. It is a week that brings us face to face with the pain and suffering that human beings can inflict on each other.  And, of course, it is a week that ends with the promise that Love can transform pain, that new life is possible.

Reflecting on these themes, I find it appropriate that this newsletter contains an invitation for all of you – pastors, church leaders, and other interested Disciples – to an Anti-Racism/Pro-Reconciling workshop on April 30. Racism is one of the ways humans being inflict pain on each other.  None of us really wants to face it.  But pretending it doesn’t exist will never make it go away. We see in the story of Jesus that the only way to transform pain is to go through it, to confront it face to face, to deal with it honestly and openly, and then allow God’s love to bring new life.  Over 20 years ago, the Disciples proclaimed that Anti-Racism/Pro-Reconciliation is one of our mission priorities. I hope you will join us, and encourage others to join us, on April 30.

In the meantime, I wish for you a rich and deeply meaningful Holy Week.  May the story of Jesus offering love to all inspire you.  No matter what the world threw at him – even when he was betrayed by a friend, denied by another, abandoned by others, and hung on a cross – Jesus kept on loving.  May Jesus inspire us all to love each other no matter what.

Happy Easter, and Dios les bendiga!

Pastor Jay

Regional Minister and President, Christian Church in Arizona

We invite you to pray for the following congregations in the coming months. Visit our Regional Calendar of Weekly Prayers for our annual list.

April

17 Office of General Minister and President Terri Hord Owens & the entire Disciples of Christ movement

24 Alfa y Omega (Phoenix) led by Pastor Elias Garcia

May

1 Chalice Christian Church (Gilbert) led by Pastor Vernon Meyer

8 Iglesia Cristiana Ebenezer (Tucson) led by Pastor Sandy Flores

15 Foothills Christian Church (Glendale) led by Pastor Bekah Krevens

22 First Christian Church (Globe) led by Pastor Al Beasley

29 Comunidad Limen Christian Church led by Pastor Pedro Ramos-Goycolea and New Church Ministry

Still Called to be the Church in a Broken and Fragmented World

May 27, 2020

Greetings to all in the Love of Jesus Christ:

The Coronavirus continues to dominate the national news, and we grieve as it has now struck some of our Arizona congregations.  We ask for your prayers for the Arizona Disciples leaders and members who have tested positive for COVID-19.  We also ask for your prayers and support of all of our pastors and church leaders as they continue to navigate the conflicting information and guidance from health experts, the media, and the government.  I promise you that all of our church leaders are in prayerful study and dialogue about the best way forward, and I can assure you that they all need your support.

As we continue to do our part to defeat the coronavirus, I would also remind you that we are still called to be the church in a broken and fragmented world.  We,  as the church, need to continue battling the evils of poverty, racism, sexism, and all the other principalities and powers that keep God’s children in bondage. That is why I would like to personally invite you to join me, other Disciples leaders from all over the U.S., and Disciples of Christ pastor, and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, Rev. Dr. William Barber, in a virtual “Moral March on Washington.” Rev. Barber has become one of the strongest moral voices in the nation.  Rooted in deep Christian principles, Rev. Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign seek a better world for ALL people.

The work of the church, and organizations like the Poor People’s Campaign, continues to be vital even in the midst of a pandemic. African-Americans are still being harassed and killed by white people.  Powerful men are still sexually harassing women. Our national immigration system is still hopelessly broken, making it virtually impossible for most people to immigrate “legally.”  And we are noticing that deaths from COVID-19 are disproportionately from black and brown communities, once again highlighting some major inequalities in our society.  Now, as always, it is time for the church to speak.

Dios les bendiga!

Pastor Jay
Regional Minister and President, Christian Church in Arizona

COVID-19 Resources for Congregations

Arizona Regional Resource Page

General Church Resource Page

“Healthy at Church” document from the Christian Church in Kentucky

If you would like to respond in this time by financially supporting the Pro-Reconciliation Anti-Racism work right here in Arizona and through the Reconciliation Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada you can give multiple ways:

  • Give a special gift to your local Disciples church and note “Reconciliation Special Offering” in the memo line. This special offering is typically received in congregations late September and early October, but can be given to at any time. Your congregation will send this gift to our Disciples Reconciliation Ministry which will be used partly here in Arizona, and partly throughout Disciples ministries in the United States and Canada.
  • Give online to Reconciliation Ministries via our online giving portal. Choose “Special Offering – Reconciliation Offering” to designate your offering. This gift will be shared with Reconciliation Ministries and Arizona Pro-Reconciliation and Anti-Racism efforts.
  • Give by sending a check to 917 E Sheridan St. Phoenix, AZ 85006 with “Reconciliation Fund” in the memo line. The entirety of this gift will remain in Arizona for Pro-Reconciling Anti-Racism work in our communities.

We are thankful for your generosity and passion to dismantle systems and structures that perpetuate this sin of division within the Church.

A musical gift from the College of Regional Ministers