It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

Note from Pastor Robyn: This reflection was shared by Marcia Chapman during our August Last Sunday of the Month Service. At my request, she gave permission for us to share her reflection with our Spirit of Grace community. 

I assume you have all heard the quote “it takes a village to raise a child” at one time or another. The origin of the phrase comes from Africa (specifically Igbo or Yoruba) to indicate that in those cultures, the children are raised by the entire community rather than just the birth parents. 

I have observed our culture focusing more on what each individual family looks like than on the community as a whole. Parents focus heavily on what their individual family looks like and less on what the communities their children look like. The pressure this puts on parents and on families is enormous. Each individual family becomes responsible for the well-being of their child, without assistance from anyone else. What a loss for both the children and the adults!

The NIH has an entire paper on creating the village for raising children. Here’s a quote from that paper:

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” originates from an African proverb and conveys the message that it takes many people (“the village”) to provide a safe, healthy environment for children, where children are given the security they need to develop and flourish, and to be able to realize their hopes and dreams. This requires an environment where children's voices are taken seriously (2) and where multiple people (the “villagers”), including parents, siblings, extended family members, neighbors, teachers, professionals, community members, and policy makers, care for a child. All these ‘villagers' may provide direct care to the children and/or support the parent in looking after their children. However, the village, in many countries today, is dissipated and fragmented, and individuals are increasingly isolated and are not eager to ask for or provide help to others. Family breakdown, economic pressures, long working hours, and increased mobility have all contributed to families feeling less connected to extended family members and others around them (3).  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8964422/

Spirit of Grace is a village for our young people. Today, I want to talk to you about why it’s so important, what we are already doing, and what you can do to be “the village”.

I’m going to start with a story about my own daughter, Laura. In high school, she came out to us as bisexual. We had a lengthy conversation one Friday evening. We thought we were saying all the right things, but frankly, the conversation ended in tears. In particular, there was a group of kids at school that she really liked who told her they couldn’t support her if she dated a girl because they were Christians. This didn’t make any sense to Laura, and we weren’t able to make it make sense either.  Thankfully, we belonged to a supportive church, so we told her to talk to Don, the youth pastor.  The following Sunday, when we went back to the youth area to get the kids and head home, Laura said, “I’m going to lunch with Don.” Don looked at us for approval, which we readily gave. I’m not entirely sure what Don said to her that day, and it may not have been any different from what we said. What I do know is that Laura is a happy, well-adjusted woman. She attends an Episcopal church on the east side that is open and welcoming. She is in a loving relationship. I also know that Don wasn’t the only person at the church who supported her. There was Bea, who loved the kids fiercely and went on mission trips with them into her 80’s. There were my friends Holly and Nicole, who modeled for her what a family could look like with two mothers. There was June, who travelled with her to Detroit for the Presbyterian General Assembly so that Laura could testify on behalf of an amendment to allow for openly gay clergy to be called to churches. There was Jen, who showed her how a woman could pick herself up with respect after a difficult divorce.

I see all of you being the village here at Spirit of Grace. It might be the Dirt Siblings working with the children and youth to plant a special garden. It might be the men’s group taking the kids golfing. It might be Charles Cole volunteering his time at a youth retreat. It might be any one of our five storytellers meeting with the youth on Sunday. It might just be someone chatting with one of the kids in between services. 

We are called to be the village for our kids. The passage from Psalm 127 reminds us of how precious our youth are and how blessed we are to have them here.

Let me tell you a bit about the intentional village work we do with our young people. For our younger children, we have traditional Sunday school with a program for our very little children and another program for our elementary-aged children. They attend in between services every Sunday except for Last Sunday. But today I want to focus on our confirmation youth. 

Why is youth ministry so important?

• If you look at how young people are raised today, there isn’t much opportunity for inter-generational relationships. Young people have their teachers, maybe their soccer coaches, and their parents. But many families are geographically spread so that young people don’t often see grandparents or others from older generations. The church is a place where they are around people of all ages.

• The focus of schools is increasingly on academics, despite research showing how important mental well-being is to learning. At Spirit of Grace, we can teach our youth how to live in a way that makes the world a better place. We go beyond academics to faith, ethics, and justice.

• Many children are raised without religious education. We know that so many people of the current generation of parents were either hurt by the church or raised by parents who were hurt by the church. At Spirit of Grace, we try to be a church that welcomes those who were hurt by the church in the past. We provide these children with moral grounding and a religious background for their future.

• We can show our youth that they are welcome, as they are. We don’t ask our youth to be a certain person in order for us to love them. We accept and celebrate them as they are. This can be difficult sometimes. We all have expectations as to what a young person will be like. It is our job to lose those expectations and meet them where they are. This can be difficult. I know that I sometimes fall down. I make assumptions as to what will work well for a kid, and I can be wrong. 

What is Spirit of Grace already doing?

The confirmation class, which is made up of middle school and now high school students, meets in Pastor Robyn’s office. Our Sundays start with a debrief of our prior week and end with prayer concerns. I can tell you from those prayer concerns that our kids are very attuned to the injustices in our world as well as to the needs of their friends and family. Our educational program is graciously developed by Mike Keys. It is a three-year program, which enables the kids to enter at any point and finish when they’ve been in for three years. We have multiple “storytellers” who lead the discussion, and I am there every week for consistency. Developing our own program allows us to tailor it to Spirit of Grace. For example, this fall we will spend time on womanist theology because of a question from one of our confirmation students. We are also able to give our confirmation classes perspectives from both the Catholic and the Lutheran traditions.

Through the efforts of parents and Katie Furgison, the confirmation class has performed service projects, including making care packages for the Blanchet House and performing maintenance around the church

In past years we have also sponsored one-night retreats here at the church which give us more time to connect. It is difficult in the structured 45-minutes on Sunday morning to have deep conversations. Those retreats are often attended by kids from other small churches.

For the past two years, I was privileged to take our confirmation kids to Camp Lutherwood, a five-day overnight camp with churches from all around Oregon and SW Washington. This experience gives our kids exposure to other churches and church leaders. It also gives me and other leaders from Spirit of Grace more time to build deep relationships. For example, this year one of our youth approached me during our time at Lutherwood and asked about the language used in the camp songs. That gave us the opportunity to talk about inclusive language, why it’s important to Spirit of Grace and what you will see at other churches (it also gave me a chance to talk to the camp director who is working to improve the inclusive language used in songs at Lutherwood).

It’s important to note that our weekly scheduled program is not the end of the village raising our children. It’s really just the beginning. The relationships that you build with our youth will guide them through the challenges of growing up in a confusing and complicated world. Recognizing that as adults right now we are navigating a complicated world, imagine how much more difficult that would be when you are also learning how to navigate who you are. They need us.

How can you show up for our kids?

There are so many ways.

• The first and most important is merely seeing them. If you see one of our kids walking through the church, say good morning. You don’t even have to engage them in conversation, just acknowledge them. Attend social activities such as monthly games which has just been restarted and play games with people of all ages. I will often say to people who ask about my volunteering with the youth that if I teach nothing on a Sunday morning except that there is another adult who loves them, I have done my job.

• Of course you can volunteer. There are many volunteer roles with our youth. Certainly, we would welcome you as storytellers on Sunday morning. But there are other, perhaps less intimidating roles. For example, the men’s group reached out and took some of our kids to Top Golf. The property team worked with the kids last year to fill potholes in the parking lot. The Dirt Siblings worked with the kids to plant a garden. 

• Our church will be partnering with the Westside Youth Collective, a multi-church youth group which will give our youth a larger youth group, along with an ecumenical lens on their faith.  We hope to provide a few volunteers to the Westside Collective.

What we have is beautiful. We have young children who are comfortable at Spirit of Grace like they aren’t anywhere else. We have youth who know that when they are here, caring adults will listen to them and love them right where they are.

We are a multi-generational community. That is a precious commodity today, which gives our youth a very special resource. The vitality of our church is significantly enhanced by our young people. I am deeply grateful for what we have and the role each of you play.

Eucharist Prayer During Lent

Eucharistic prayers within Christian worship date back centuries. Within the Lutheran Christian tradition, Lutheran pastors are free to follow the form and function of a Eucharistic prayer but change the language and metaphors to suit the context. This is consistent with Martin Luther's teaching that worship should take place in the vernacular (the language of the people). 

Given that 50% of the members of Spirit of Grace come from Roman Catholic backgrounds but are not currently able to receive the Sacrament from Roman Catholic priests at Spirit of Grace, I have been experimenting with bringing more Roman Catholic language, culture, and responses into the Eucharistic Prayers written for Lent. While consulting with Director Vinci regarding some of the nonexplicit cultural practices common in Roman Catholic celebrations of the Eucharist, I have incorporated a little extra silence at a few key places and the sung responses our community previously used during Roman Catholic mass. 

 While there are some differences and nuanced ways in which Lutherans, Catholics, and other denominations understand the Eucharist, as far back as 1967, Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians have agreed, "Our confessional documents have in common affirmed that Jesus Christ is ‘really,’ ‘truly’ and ‘substantially’ present in this sacrament. This manner of presence ‘we can scarcely express in words,’ but we affirm his presence because we believe in the power of God and the promise of Jesus Christ...."

I welcome your feedback regarding how these language changes may enhance or detract from the celebration of the Eucharist for you as we continue on our journey as an ecumenical community in Christ. 

— Pastor Robyn Hartwig

A Prayer Reflecting on the Good Samaritan by Don Manghelli

When we read the story of the Samaritan in the Gospel, we’ve been primed to think from the viewpoint of the Samaritan, as Fr. Chuck did in his thought-provoking homily last Sunday.  Yet a book I was recently reading by Padraig O’Tuama invited me to be the person beside the road. What if I were a Galilean? And the ones who jumped and beat me were from Judea, would I hold a grudge and hate for Judeans who did this horrible thing to me? After all, the law then was “an eye for an eye.” When I regained my strength, would I inflict my trauma back on the Judeans, in the way a Judean had hurt me?

Modern psychology tells us that unresolved trauma gets taken out on others. In war, we don’t kill another human, a sibling who God loves as much as us, but we kill a less than human, an “enemy.” 

The one we try to follow, Jesus, came with a path that lets go of the trauma—a path of forgiveness. Speaking of his persecutors while on the cross he said, “Abba, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”

Forgiving allows us to let go of the pain and trauma of the wound. We won’t forget the acts that hurt us—just the feelings we hold on to about how we have been wronged. 

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was very angry when he was young—a man who, like Saul, fought those who oppressed him and his Black siblings. He could only lose his anger and establish healing by establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after spending 27 years in prison.

So I have to ask myself, “If I lived in Palestine now, would I be open to seeing a Jewish person as a wounded person like me, someone who inflicts their inherited wounds on me? If I were Jewish, would I be able to see Palestinians as people who come from the same Creator rather than Gentiles who have persecuted my ancestors? Can each side live in the now, by letting go of the past, to see common humanity, to see a way forward from their mutual violent acts?

For that we pray. We pray that grace will flow onto the Holy Land and its people. That a spiritual and cultural roadmap will emerge to lead to peace in a troubled land. We ask this in the name of the loving Mother of the whole human family, and the whole universe.  And we ask this in the name of Jesus, who with the Spirit, is with us today as the Christ.  We pray together:  Amen.

What Dream for Our Country? A Reflection by Pastor Janet Parker

An Introduction from Pastor Robyn Hartwig

From the January 6 Congressional Committee hearings to the Supreme Court decisions on abortion and guns, there is so much unfolding in the life of our nation right now. As our country prepares to celebrate Independence Day on July 4, I will be turning over the sermon time to you on July 3 and inviting your own perspectives on the theme of "I Have a Dream" from Martin Luther King, Jr. Specifically, I invite all of us to consider:

1. How might you describe God's dream or your dream for our country?

2. As you consider this dream, what gives you hope and what weighs heavy on your heart?

3. Understanding that Christian faith calls us to civic engagement for the common good, are there particular ways you feel called to help realize this dream?

As we each consider our own perspectives, Pastor Janet Parker offers her reflection below.

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“The Spirit of our God is upon me:
because the Most High has anointed me
to bring Good News to those who are poor.
God has sent me to proclaim liberty to those held captive,
recovery of sight to those who are blind,
and release to those in prison—
to proclaim the year of our God's favor.”
Luke 4:18-19

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When I read Jesus’ “mission statement” in Luke, I see the contours of God’s dream for human society. I see Jesus’ vision of the kin-dom of God, the beloved community he came to inaugurate. In today’s terms, I read this passage to mean building a society of social, economic, and racial equity, where Black Lives Matter, mass incarceration ends, people’s basic needs are met, and oppressed groups are liberated and secure. And I would extend this vision to include the full and equal participation in self-governance—democracy—as the law of the land. I believe Jesus would be on board with that!

From the time I was born until 2016, I felt pretty confident that our nation was making slow if uneven progress toward these goals. Even after the 2016 election, I clung to faith that we would self-correct and return to our more typical pattern of two steps forward, one step back progress towards a more just society. However, the events leading up to and following January 6 and the Supreme Court’s recent decisions dismantling established voting rights and women’s rights have shaken me to the core. Now, I realize that I have been woefully naïve about the fragility of our American democratic experiment and the inherent flaws in its foundation. I am deeply worried about the survival of democracy as we know it, and about the basic freedoms and safety for anyone who is not a cisgender, straight, Christian, white male. This is what literally keeps me up at night.

But if the last couple of years have taught me anything, it’s that I constantly need to interrogate my assumptions. For example, why was I able to assume for most of my life that the American story was largely one of slow, uneven but inexorable progress towards “a more perfect union?” And why am I so quickly liable to feel demoralized and despairing when powerful, entrenched forces threaten to sweep away hard-earned gains and turn back the clock?

I am slowly realizing that these assumptions and feelings are a sign of my unrecognized white privilege, a symptom, I might even say, of a kind of “white fragility.” Because Black folks are not surprised when white supremacy rears its ugly head and scores victories, or when domestic terrorists launch attacks, or even when whole branches of government are taken hostage by regressive forces and their rights are stripped away. And while they no doubt feel anger and fear when this happens, they know that despair and inaction are not an option. For Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, hope is not a feeling; it’s a spiritual discipline—a practice of choosing to act for a better world.

Some Black leaders I am now listening to—Dr. Peniel Joseph and Rev. William Barber II—are calling our era “The Third Reconstruction.” The First Reconstruction, after the Civil War, brought great progress and real political power for Black people, but Southern whites violently dismantled it by the end of the 19th century (Jim Crow) and it took more than fifty years for the Second Reconstruction to break out—the Civil Rights era with all its achievements. Then, the marriage of the religious and political right at the end of the 1970's began rolling back these gains until the Third Reconstruction began with the election of President Obama.

With each period of progress for African Americans, a strong backlash has followed (Make America Great Again!) The difference this time is that White progressives are finally aware that our democracy and our rights are at stake too. And this time, women, LGBTQIA folks, environmental activists, and people of color are more aware that all oppressions are interconnected—all stem from an ideology that believes white, cisgender, heterosexual Christian men are created by God to rule family and society. These things give me hope: our increasing awareness of our intersectionality and the incredible resilience of Black, Brown and Indigenous struggles for justice. And above all else, my faith that God’s Spirit is the wind in the sails of every movement bound for freedom land.

In this moment of national crisis, I am struggling with the best way to deploy my energies. I feel pulled in several directions. I feel called to keep “doing my own work” when it comes to anti-racism education and to look for ways to engage in the issues I care about with “rainbow coalitions” or what William Barber II calls “fusion coalitions.” I also know that I have skills I can offer as a Christian ethicist and pastor to help ground our activism in our faith and defuse the hatred arising out of our polarizing environment. I’d like to find more targeted and effective ways to offer these gifts.

Whatever I do, I am committed to careful power analysis and to making sure the means match the ends—because otherwise we’ll just replicate the same unjust power arrangements in new forms. I hope to connect with many of you to hear how you are feeling called to respond to our current crisis; perhaps together we can find our way toward not just preserving, but strengthening our democracy.

-- Janet Parker

What Dream for Our Country? A Reflection by Pastor Brian Brandt

An Introduction from Pastor Robyn Hartwig

As our country prepares to celebrate Independence Day on July 4th, I will be devoting the July 3rd sermon time to one-to-one conversations on the theme of "I Have a Dream" from Martin Luther King, Jr. I will invite us to consider:

1. How might you describe God's dream or your dream for our country?

2. As you consider this dream, what gives you hope and what weighs heavy on your heart?

3. Are there particular ways you feel called to help realize this dream?

To help us all begin to consider our own perspectives, Pastor Brian Brandt and Pastor Janet Parker accepted the invitation to share some of their own reflections this week and next. Thank you to Pastor Brian Brandt for his offering below.

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I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.  — Isaiah 43:19

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When I retired a year ago, the new thing I planned for myself was walking along forest paths, meditating beside still waters, dwelling in sacred scriptures. In other words, making laziness my spiritual practice.
 
But God, it seems, has other plans. I’ve heard the Spirit’s call to organize a “Faith in Democracy” team working under the auspices of The Lincoln Project, specifically with its network of partners known as The Union.
 
The Union is “a pro-democracy coalition dedicated to saving our democracy from the authoritarian attacks it currently faces.” I’d seen The Union’s call for volunteers, so I filled out a form and listed my skills. I didn’t think they’d have any use for a pastor but offered my services anyway. Several months later, I got a call from The Union’s volunteer coordinator. She asked if I’d organize a faith-based group to address the religious dimension of the authoritarian movement sweeping America.  Once we’d talked, my heart said, “Here I am; send me!”
 
Why did my heart say “yes”? Because I’m worried about how religious faith is being misused by right-wing zealots to harm our nation. Because I don’t like how the name of Jesus is being misused to erode love for our neighbors, abuse human dignity, undermine the common good, and destroy the democracy we’ve used to secure these values.
 
It’s been a month since God summoned me to this new thing. I’ve got six partners on the Faith in Democracy team, Christians of all sorts from across the nation.  More will join us. We’re getting to know other teams in The Union. We’re figuring out what to say, how to share our message effectively.  The way forward is coming into focus.  The task is daunting. We feel less than capable. But God calls the weak and lowly to do great things. So, like Mary, I say to the angel: “I am the servant of my God; let it be with me according to your will.”
 
I am interested in being part of a new thing at Spirit of Grace, too. As you see in Pastor Robyn’s introduction, on July 3 she’s planning one-to-one conversations on questions drawn from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. My own interest is to be in conversation with people who want to explore “Faith in Democracy” at Spirit of Grace.
 
Why is “Faith in Democracy” important? No form of government can adequately embody the Reign of God. But authoritarian regimes actively work against it. Living in God’s reign means protecting human dignity, promoting the flourishing of individuals in their communities, and caring for the whole creation as if our lives depended on it. In God’s reign, we use love to do justice for all people, especially for those who are least, weakest, and most at risk. We do all this to express our devotion to God.
 
In America today, all this is at risk: dignity, decency, freedom, love, and justice — all these are at risk because of a growing militant authoritarian political movement that comprises “a clear and present danger to American democracy.” Our democracy “is on a knife’s edge.” [Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, to the January 6 Committee]  Adding insult to injury, in this so-called “Christian nation,” these aspiring authoritarians abuse the name of Jesus to help them do their dirty work.
 
Personally, I find this as outrageous as it is astonishing. I never thought such things could happen here, in America, during my lifetime. Something new and profoundly dangerous is sweeping across America. We must respond by doing something new, as God’s people, to “bring forth the City of God” in our communities and our country — for ourselves, our children, and our descendants for all generations to come.
 
I believe God is doing a new thing, calling us to a new practice of Faith in Democracy. If you feel as I do, please join the conversation.
 
Brian Brandt
Formerly the interim pastor at Spirit of Grace