All Church Picnic

Sunday, May 23 • 5:30-7:30 pm

Interim pastors, Rick & Rene Jensen, are hosting an all-church picnic at their home on Sunday, May 23rd from 5:30-7:30 pm. Everyone is invited for a fun evening of fellowship, games and roasting marshmallows!

Their address is 13313 W 70th Terrace. The menu is hot dogs, chips, and s’mores.

Please bring:
Lawn chairs
Roasting sticks
Yard games
Lots of smiles

Blood Drive Thank You!

Thank you so much for supporting our community by hosting the recent blood drive at Shawnee Community Christian Church. Mobile blood drives such as yours account for more than 70% of the blood needed to keep our hospitals adequately supplied. Without your help, it would be difficult to collect the 580 pints needed each day for our family, friends, and neighbors.

 

At your Tuesday, May 4 blood drive the Community Blood Center staff registered 24 volunteers and collected 21 units of blood. There was 1 first time donor.

Thank you for your commitment to the Community Blood Center and patients in need.

 

Gratefully,

 

Kira Harsh

Account Manager

Community Blood Center of KC

Join Us on Sunday for In-Person Worship!

Beginning Sunday, in-person worship will not require signing up in advance to attend. As the number of people who are fully vaccinated increases and our COVID cases remain low, we feel comfortable no longer restricting the number of people in worship. We will continue to spread chairs out, wear masks and physical distance while at church. For those not comfortable returning to in-person worship yet, we will continue to livestream worship each Sunday. We look forward to seeing everyone in worship on Sunday!

Children’s ministry and nursery are available during Sunday service. Children 5 and older will need to wear a mask. Most of our children’s ministry and nursery staff are fully vaccinated. We will follow proper physical distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene to keep our kids safe. Patt and the staff are anxious to see their kiddos!

a little r & r

 

On Sunday, May 16, SCCC will recognize our graduates. Despite the obstacles graduates have endured the last year or so, this remains a major milestone in their life. Talk of becoming “independent” now turns a corner from talk to reality.

I’d like to use this week to focus on the 4 major stages and 3 major transitions necessary for a happy life. The first 2 stages and first transition: from dependence to independence surprise no one. We know them well. The third stage and second transition from independence into interdependence also is normal and mostly understood. But the fourth stage: absolute dependence on God may come as a surprise and comes with peculiarities unique to end of life issues little understood, though it can occur amid all ages of life except the first.

We are all very well acquainted with dependence. From our birth until we graduate, we are deeply dependent on the kindness and guidance of adults: parents, teachers, coaches, etc.

Child psychologists can enumerate all kinds of important markers over this eighteen-year period: from infancy to chumship to puberty to early adolescence. No transition is harder on families than this stress-filled transition from dependence to interdependence when the parent-teen relationship can feel like fighting World War III.

But once parents (and to a lesser extent, teens) understand the primary developmental task of adolescence is “differentiation,” when our child undergoes the proverbial “identity crisis” and when they define themselves as separate and distinct persons from their parents, the easier this transition can be. Knowledge is comfort moving through this difficult transition.

During this transition parents have to walk the tightrope between setting realistic limits while granting their child space to exercise freedom and “make their own mistakes.” God bless all parents of teens with flaming hormones.

So far, I haven’t said anything you didn’t know or didn’t know you knew.

At this point many in our society might think, “Okay. Once our child is independent, they have reached the pinnacle of human social development.” We can be proud, as parents well should be, that we have successfully launched our child into becoming adults who know how to think for themselves, do for themselves, and speak up for themselves. Hip! Hip! Hurray!

But, to talk to lots of people in our society, independence is the final stage in human development. However, two stages remain, the first of which is interdependence then all people struggle between what psychologist Erik Erikson calls” Isolation vs. Intimacy.” It is this stage in which young adults are most likely to make major decisions regarding gender, sexual practice, partnering, marriage, childbearing, and group membership. It’s a stage where often life-long relationships and friendships (along with careers) are forged; and from the perspective of religious institutions, whether to relate to a faith community. It’s also the stage people hone their ability and often the necessity to put another person or group’s needs ahead of their own.

The greatest challenge in achieving interdependence occurs in partnering and marriage, where the most successful couples have learned to put the needs of their partner or spouse ahead of their own needs. This can be torturous for people who have never learned how to be altruistic and think of others first and themselves second.

For any person to negotiate this transition from dependence and independence to interdependence successfully, they will have to experience a Copernican Revolution of their spirit. They will need to acknowledge they are not the center of the world. If they fail to submit to this revolution, they are likely to give into the human propensity for selfishness and end up very angry, miserable people. These folks are stuck in adolescence, or “fixated” as Freud says.

Yet, once again, people may believe they have reached the mountaintop by assuming interdependence is as high as they can go. But achieving interdependence and enjoying all its benefits can be a mirage. Anyone who has ever climbed a mountain and found a great overlook may falsely believe they have reached the top of the mountain when they haven’t.

The summit of our life’s pilgrimage to full spiritual maturity is this fourth stage: our absolute dependence upon God. Rarely have I seen a young person so spiritually precocious who has reached this fourth stage, though some have. They are extraordinarily gifted with a wisdom beyond their years; though all the stages can swing back and forth over the course of a day or a lifetime.

So, how do we know we might be accomplishing this 4th stage? Often it’s thrust upon us, when we face life’s hardest existential questions like illness or health and life or death. These eventual questions explode any illusion we’re in complete control of our life or its longevity. This is when we are most open to acknowledging our absolute dependence upon God. It comes with our woke awareness we can never and will never be in full control of our world or our lives. Understandably, these great, existential questions mostly occur in the second half of life.

This may strike us as enormously disappointing, but this last stage also comes with the opportunity to be freed from any inner demons or inconsistencies in our personalities that hold us captive and weigh us down. We become “Free at last, free at last.”

The great heroes and saints of the church and the world discovered this freedom and often articulated it. King said it, “I don’t want to die, but I’ve been to the mountaintop.” He knew he wasn’t in control of his fate; yet saw the BIG picture before he died! My mentor Forrest Haggard, before dying from ALS, said, “The idea of being dead doesn’t bother me. It’s the dying I dread.” He knew his Redeemer lives! Mother Teresa kept serving the poor in Calcutta, but before she died she was free to say, to everyone’s surprise, that she hadn’t felt close to God in years.” And yet, she kept on serving because she knew she had still seen God’s face in the poor! All of these persons were aware they had reached the true pinnacle of human, spiritual, development: the knowledge of our finitude, that there is so much we cannot control.

I think we reach this fourth phase in our own lives when we can say “I don’t know what the future holds but I know who holds the future. Because He lives.” If this is all we can affirm, it is enough; because in the final analysis all we need to believe is that God knows. God knows He lives!

Praise God!
Rick

Family Picnic at the Jensen’s

Sunday, May 23 • 5:30-7:30 pm

Richard & Rene Jensen are hosting an all-church family picnic at their home on Sunday, May 23rd from 5:30-7:30 pm. Everyone is invited for a fun evening of eating, games and roasting marshmallows! Additional information to come.

In-Person Worship News!

Beginning Sunday, May 9th, in-person worship will not require signing up in advance to attend. As the number of people who are fully vaccinated increases and our COVID cases remain low, we feel comfortable no longer restricting the number of people in worship. We will continue to spread chairs out, wear masks and physical distance while at church. For those not comfortable returning to in-person worship yet, we will continue to livestream worship each Sunday. We look forward to seeing everyone in worship soon!

Children’s ministry and nursery are available during Sunday service. Children 5 and older will need to wear a mask. Most of our children’s ministry and nursery staff are fully vaccinated. We will follow proper physical distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene to keep our kids safe. Patt and the staff are anxious to see their kiddos!

a little r & r

In 2014 René and I were called to do an interim ministry at a church in Arizona that was started in 2002. The new church in the Greater Phoenix area had had only one pastor its first 12 years. For confidentiality’s sake I will call him Paul.

Paul was recognized across our denomination, the Disciples of Christ, as one of our brightest lights. He left that Arizona church to take one of our renowned “preaching pulpits,” a handful of our Disciple churches across the U. S. noted for our denomination’s best preachers.

While at the Phoenix church, Paul served as a mentor to Bethany Fellows, a group of new pastors fresh out of seminary. He had a pastoral heart and a passion for church growth. He connected with the largest neighboring social service club in the Phoenix area, attracting new members from the club to the church. For a time, he served as the club’s president. Until the church was able to make it on its own financially Paul also worked a second job.

The church was successful enough that about six years into Paul’s ministry, the church proceeded to build a sanctuary, with a capitol campaign and the aid of a major Church Extension loan. The sanctuary served as a multi-purpose room while maintaining its beauty and charm. Paul’s ministry was nothing short of amazing.

But therein lay a problem for the church. The church was faced with the obvious question: “How do we replace him?” Members and friends of the church had reveled in his leadership for 12 years. A number of members who didn’t have a church background never knew any other pastor besides him.

It wasn’t rocket science for René and me to figure out Paul would be a very hard act to follow. When the news widely circulated that we would be the church’s interim, a respected denominational executive rudely said to me, “You better be able to preach.” Besides his tactlessness he revealed what all of us knew: Paul was not going to be easy to replace.

But by this time, I’d learned an important lesson about life and ministry; namely, that, while all of us are irreplaceable, none of us is indispensable. There will always be someone who can do the job we’re doing, likely even better. But in the great scheme of things, we are all irreplaceable. We all possess gifts and graces from God that are unique to us & make us special.

And yet, the temptation for churches and church members is to get caught up in America’s “culture of celebrity” to the point the church becomes so enamored with the character of the pastor it forgets the chief cornerstone of the church is still Jesus Christ!

In 2018 René and I were visiting friends living near Garden Grove, California, where Dr. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral was located. I say “was” because once Dr. Schuller, who had a weekly listening audience of 20 million to his “Hour of Power” for years, retired the church fell apart. It filed for bankruptcy to the tune of $50 million. Despite the fact Dr. Schuller’s son succeeded him as Crystal Cathedral’s minister, the church had been built on the sand of the father’s reputation, and not on Christ, its cornerstone. It wasn’t that Dr. Schuller preached himself. He did not. But the congregation (and the world) mistook him for the church.

As the son of loving adoptive parents, I often heard my mom say countless times, “You’re special.” More children need to enjoy such positive strokes as I did. But here was the irony: I took myself too seriously as a young adult. Being called “special” influenced my call into ministry, but I took it too far even though I was never like Pastor Paul. It took one of my seminary professors in my doctoral program, Dr. Keith Watkins, to bring me down to earth, when he said, unapologetically, “You’re just an ordinary person.” At first it sounded to me like a put-down. But in point of fact he did me a favor. His comment freed me from trying so hard to be something I’m not. I could be happy being just who I am.

When congregations seek a pastor they hope will fit the mold of a former pastor, they are unwittingly making the mistake I made about myself. They are making a mere mortal into an idol, an almost God-like figure. The truth is, as the apostle Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans 3:25, “All have sinned and fallen short of the kingdom of God.” That goes for you, for me, for the church, for every pastor, for all of us.

It isn’t that we shouldn’t aspire for the best pastor we can find and for the best from ourselves. That’s the sin of sloth, spiritual laziness. Our reach should extend beyond our grasp. But alas! Over the years I’ve seen a woeful number of people worship the pastor more than God!

Toward the end of René’s and my ministry at that Phoenix church, René was making a capital campaign visit on a major contributor in the congregation. Mind you, the church was trying to make $14,000 monthly payments on a $1.9 million loan. We had to do something to staunch the bleeding.

During her visit the donor says to René. “You know, as far as I’m concerned, I support ‘The Church of Paul’ our former pastor. That’s why I became a part of the church.” The donor was self-transcendent enough to make a sizable pledge and fulfilled his pledge. But it didn’t take long for him to disappear when the new pastor showed up. She just wasn’t Paul and never could be Paul. But she was great just as she was. Thing is: This donor forgot something vitally important about the Paul he idolized and worshiped. Paul loved that church. Paul gave 12 years of his life to that church. Paul did everything he could to get it going, off the ground, and flying on the wings of the Holy Spirit. But the donor didn’t realize how much Paul loved that church. Paul knew he wasn’t the church. Yet, the donor never discerned the difference.

It’s true: no pastor can be replaced. Besides we pastors have feet of clay, like everybody else. But no pastor is indispensable either. God will send a new witness, a new leader, a new preacher who will have a word from God no one else can express in the same way.

All because God is ever and always doing a new thing in each of us and through each of us, including our congregation. It’s why in ministry and in church we remain on the alert for the excitement of discovering what great thing God might be up to next.

An expectant future awaits SCCC!
Rick

 

 

Blood Drive at Shawnee Community

Tuesday, May 4 • 3-7:00 pm

Shawnee Community and the Community Blood Center are hosting a blood drive at Shawnee Community on Tuesday, May 4th from 3-7:00 pm. There are still appointments available!

Schedule Donation Appointment

Why Give Blood?

Community Blood Center must collect almost 600 units of blood daily to meet the needs of area hospital patients.  As there is no substitute for blood, Community Blood Center relies on volunteer donors like you to supply the life-saving blood and blood components to hospitals in Kansas and Missouri.

Thank you for your support!

Student Ministry Calendar

Sunday, May 2nd • Bowling

Looking Ahead

Sunday, May 16th: Creek Hike

Sunday, May 23: Shawnee Community Summer Family Event

Sunday, June 6th: Canoes and paddle boats at Shawnee Mission Park

 

Join Us for In-Person Worship on Sunday!

Sunday, April 25 • 10:00 am In-Person or on Facebook Live

Sign-up to attend in-person worship on Sunday! We will be celebrating Earth Stewardship Sunday in honor of Earth Day. We can’t wait to see you in-person and worship as a community. If you aren’t comfortable attending worship in-person yet, we will stream the service at 10:00 am on Facebook Live.

 

 

 

Children’s activities have resumed and our staff and volunteers are excited to see everyone again! If you sign-up to attend, please let us know how many people will be attending so Children’s Ministry staff can plan ahead. Thank you!