This week, I know most of us are just overwhelmed by the coming inauguration and what it means for us as a country. I am always overwhelmed at the poignancy of Martin Luther King Jr Day, heartfelt gratitude for his life, and so deeply hurt over his early death. He should have been standing with Senator Obama this afternoon, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, listening to the magnificent music and the beauty of it all.
This past week and today, I am also overwhelmed by something else going on. North Street UMC in Marshall MO, an historically African American church in my district, is a congregation that has been in existence for 139 years organizing in 1871. I think it may have organized in Pennytown, out from Marshall, a former slave settlement that was a vital black community for many years. I need to find out more about that. The building in which they have worshiped and "done church" for about 100 years (I will find out the exact age soon) sits about 6 blocks from First UMC in Marshall. About 20 to 25 folks worship there regularly. They are yoked with Elmwood, a small rural church, and are currently served by Rev. Gene Page. He actually retired from there at annual conference, but after a pretty severe mis-match of a lay preacher there, he came out of retirement to serve until this next annual conference, but I think we may be able to hold him another year. You know why? No??? Well, I will tell you.
The North Street church (see the building above) is on a site which is bordered in back and to the east by ConAgra corporation. You can see in back of the building a bit of the ConAgra buildings. They make, at this plant, lower end, easy to fix foods (Banquet, etc) which are selling very well in this economy and were selling well before and the company thinks will continue. The long and the short of it is that ConAgra would like to buy the North Street church and the small parsonage next door. In return they would purchase land for and build a new church building for the congregation, land chosen by the church, building built to the church's specifications. Last Monday, I met with Rev. Page, three members of the church, and two ConAgra managers and it was then this offer was raised. Nothing is written or signed yet, but we were led to believe that this will really happen. Today I was back in Marshall for worship at First Marshall (oh, by the way, their pastor is retiring--announced last week) and then went over to North Street for lunch and a meeting to begin to get our heads around, as they say, this overwhelming blessing. I love the North Street folks---I have gotten to know many because of the pastoral changes we have had to make, and now because of this.
I've been thinking a lot about dreams today--the seemingly dream/fantasy that we would have a black man for president in my lifetime; the dream of Dr. King as he stood on the Mall in Washington DC, recorded this afternoon, and the dreams that God is giving and will continue to give North Street in order to be able to use this gift to build up the kingdom, to care for the marginalized, and to be a place where all can glorify God. As I drove the short blocks from First Church to North Street, I felt the rush, that breath, that sense for a moment that I was living in a kairos time---that the movement of the spirit, that wind is lifting us from our comfortable places and is taking us on a sometimes scary, sometimes bumpy, always faith-maturing ride to that new place which we cannot imagine yet, and if we tried, we probably would get it wrong. That is what I feel right now about North Street. The wind is blowing us where it wilt, though we are called to pray and discern the preferred future that God has for us. And I believe that the ever flowing stream of justice is calling us to go even further into its waters and to be carried by its flow to a place where we of North Street can enable the kingdom values; and that same river is bearing us to a deepening relationship with our Lord, so that all may know us because of our love for Jesus, our love for each other, and for those who have not heard and do not yet know.
Whew. This is probably enough. But you see why I believe that God still gives us dreams, and that I am so very blessed to be able to walk alongside a congregation that is a recipient of such marvelous grace.
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