ITLOTC
(In The Life Of The Church)
Holy Week
More on the Body
On Monday I spent most of my day planning a digital worship experience that will be your Maundy Thursday dinner companion video (look for this in the future). It’s the most bummed I’ve been about not getting to worship with you since this all happened. In fact, to be honest, I’ve enjoyed a good deal of the change that has been thrust on me since this started (with the exception of the obvious horrible things like death and job loss and . . .). But Maundy Thursday is a bummer for me. If you’ve ever been to our service, you know that it’s a potluck worship experience. And on top of all that, I don’t have to preach. We simply read the Scripture, reflect together, and take communion. That’s it. It’s probably how I would design church if I were a bishop in the first century when all of this got kicked off.
As I’ve been crafting the worship experience, which is designed for you to partake in at your dinner table, I’ve done so with a silent running assumption: all of you will be eating with at least one other person to process the reflections. But I have to assume that at least one person won’t.
Being a pastor has made me a kind of idealogue. Not really, most of my opinions are pretty flimsy, but I have this unrelenting conviction that Jesus is the Son of God and perfect. The church, the bride of this perfect human, is supposed to mimic that perfection. Our theology affords us the space to fail and no one really expects the church to be perfect like Jesus, but I guess I do expect her to strive to be so. Merton prayed, “I hope it’s my desire to please you that pleases.” I guess I think our desire should be sincere even if our effort can’t be. What this has led to me in praxis is confession. I confess both what the church should be and what she is not. What I don’t get excused from is telling the truth, even when I’m complicit.
I’m torn about the single person on Maundy Thursday problem. To honor my neighbor is to abide by CDC guidelines and to honor my brother and sister is to make a sacrifice, sometimes of my own safety. All I have is my confession: I don’t know how to fix this problem.
Let me at least shine a light on the good. This season of separateness has made me think more acutely about the lonely. About the church’s systems that isolate. About our relationship with the scripts about family and normalcy and acceptance. Paul did say celibacy is a calling. I’ve felt called to very few things. So few that I don’t know that I could describe calling very well. I think of phrases like “burning in my bones,” and “can’t stand not to do something.” To be celebate, I would think someone would need to feel those emotions with that intensity about that life. But I don’t think very many people are called to that.
Of course we could maybe clear up some of the confusion on celibacy if the church was a body in a way that disrupted the scripts handed to us about family by culture--if loneliness was rare, if those of us who had the luxury of many in our immediate space could share that many with the few.
All of this has led me to think about the body and its power. One year on Easter when I was a teenager, I decided to get up early in the morning and read the resurrection texts. At some point in my reading a latent problem materialized in my mind concerning my own theology. I was, for all intents and purposes, a Platonist about salvation, souls, and heaven. I accepted Jesus in my heart to save my soul so that I could go to heaven to be with Jesus for eternity. I should also say that I sang about and conversed in the theology of resurrection. What never dawned on me until reading that morning was that the two motifs didn’t really work well together. If my soul was going to heaven for eternity, what would I need a resurrected body for? Well you know how these things work themselves out. I read NT Wright’s 800-page tome on bodily resurrection in which he says that the resurrected body has something in continuity and discontinuity with the present one (this makes sense of Jesus’s cryptic appearances--Mary in the Garden, the Road to Emmaus, the whimsical seashore reveal, and his David Copperfield move through the Great Wall of China act in John 21), and I made friends with a patristic scholar who convinced me that the church fathers were NeoPlatonists. In short, I don’t worry about souls and bodies anymore, I just lean into those images when I need them for confession.
Back to the lonelies and the power of our bodies. I’ll tell you the Bible story I’ve thought about at least 100 times since this shelter in place thing went into effect: Thomas touching Jesus’s scars. How impressive is that one now? How appropriate does the need to verify the presence of Jesus’s actual body seem now? And how important must bodies be for salvation if God redeemed them? And how descriptive (read truth telling) must scars be if they are kept around in a world free from pain?
I can feel the absence of your bodies. I miss your energy, your presence. I can foresee a moment in the future when I’m eager even to see your scars. And what is the grace then? The grace is this: now I know how to pray for the lonelies just a little bit better.
Thanks be to God.
Holy Week Schedule
Maundy Thursday dinner companion video to be released Thursday on Facebook.
Good Friday live stream service @ 3:00 PM
Easter Sunday Service lives stream @ 10:45 AM
Leadership Team Meeting Recap
Our leadership team met this past Sunday 4-5 to discuss a few things.
Craig Nash was selected as a HR rep. We are excited to have Craig as part of the team.
Due to the unforeseen circumstances that COVID has created and the way this may have disrupted candidates lives, we have decided to wait another month before selecting someone to fill Byron Griffin’s role on the leadership team. To that end we are also opening up the nomination process in this time due to the lack of communication about this process because we have not been meeting.
We talked through UBCs current financial information, which is not dire, more info on that at the April town hall (see below).
Staff asked for feedback on ways that we can be actively serving UBC during this strange time.
Town Hall
We will have a town hall to discuss the life of the church another information on Sunday April 19 after church. We will give you an update on finances and other plans.
UBC’ers Graduate Recognition
If you are graduating (hs, college, grad school, phd) we would love to recognize you at our annual Mr. Rogers service this year. The service is going to be on 4/26, and we are putting together a video so we can know who is graduating and what your next steps are. If you are graduating, please send toph@ubcwaco.org an email and let him know. Then he will follow up with instructions on what he needs from you. We are sad we won’t be able to honor you in person, but want to make sure you are recognized. If you have any questions, contact Toph.
UBC Pen Pal Program
Want to connect with other UBCers during this time of social distancing? Want to make a meet someone new and make a new friend or connect with a family and make a BUNCH of new friends? Then you should let Taylor know that you want to be a UBC Pen Pal! You can email her at taylor@ubcwaco.org and let her know you want to participate! And just think of how fun it will be when you get to meet your Pen Pal in person when we all worship together again! You should do it!
Family Resource Pantry - (any questions, email toph@ubcwaco.org)
We are partnering with WacoISD, Prosper Waco, Grassroots Development, Baylor External Affairs, and Antioch to create The Family Resource Pantry, which will be a strategic way of meeting the needs of families in Waco ISD. UBC is partnering by helping to provide volunteers on Tuesdays, and helping to provide “Essentials” to stock the pantry. Grassroots Development, in partnership with Waco ISD, will help identify the families within our community who have the greatest needs, and we will do delivery to those families on Tuesday/Friday. Below are two ways to volunteer.
1) We need volunteers to help package and distribute pantry items on Tuesday afternoons, from 1-5pm. There will be two shifts, 1-3pm, and 3-5pm. We will need at least 3 volunteers each shift. If you would like to volunteer, please contact toph@ubcwaco.org
2) We need to help stock the pantry. Below you will find a list of essential items we will need. If you are willing to buy these items, you can have them shipped directly to UBC, contact Toph to come pick them up, or schedule a time to drop them off at UBC. Here is the list of items:
Food: (Bread, Cooking oil, Milk, Peanut Butter, jelly, Cereal, Granola Bars, trail mix)
Diapers (need sizes)
Formula
Wipes
Cleaning supplies
Toilet Paper
Soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrushes
Laundry Detergent
School supplies like:
Spiral notebooks, Pencils, pencil sharpeners, Pens, Crayons, coloring books
Sunday Liturgy Stream
If you missed the livestream from Sunday and/or don’t have Facebook, we’ll be uploading the videos to our Vimeo account. This weeks however is on youtube. You can watch the service from 4/5 here.
Social Distancing Social Opps
Because the pub group extravaganza live on instagram was such a wild success, brother Jameson McGregor will come to you live again this Wednesday 4-8-20.
We had a second great lunch today with 14 folks in attendance from "Alabama to Waco".” The UBC Staff will be hosting lunch virtually every Tuesday at 12pm, for about an hour. We would love for you to join. Follow us on FB, and will send out the meeting link shortly before noon each week. Any questions, contact toph@ubcwaco.org
Friendly reminder that the youth are gathering digitally on daily from 1:00-1:45 and Wednesday evenings 6:30-8:00 PM. Links can be requested from hannah@ubcwaco.org
We are going to be starting a UBC Pen Pal Program! If you would like the opportunity to connect with other UBCers during this time to exchange emails (or letters!! In the real mail!) please contact taylor@ubcwaco this week and she will get you connected!
Parishioner of the Week
Kaleb Loomis & Aly Vukelich for getting engaged. Great job team.
Work is Worship
Greeters: No Greeters this week
Coffee Makers: no coffee makers this week
Mug Cleaners: no mug cleaners this week
Money Counter: no money counters this week
Leadership Team
If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.
Chair: Kerri Fisher: Kerri_Fisher@baylor.edu
Byron Griffin: byrontgriffin@gmail.com
Jeremy Nance: Jeremy.J.Nance@L3T.com
Joanna Sowards: jo.sowards@gmail.com
Kathy Krey: kathykrey@gmail.com
Jose Zuniga: jzgrphix2002@yahoo.com
Taylor Torregrossa: Taylordtorregrossa@gmail.com
Student Position: Davis Misloski
Student Position: Maddy O’Shaughnessy
UBC Finance Team
Do you have a question about UBC’s financial affairs? Please feel free to contact any of your finance team members.
JD Newman: JD_Newman@baylor.edu
Catherine Ballas: catherine@refitrev.com
Jen Carron: jen.carron78@gmail.com
Mike Dodson: financeteammike@gmail.com
George Thornton: GeorgecCT1982@gmail.com
UBC HR Team
If you have concerns about staff and would like contact our human resources team, please feel free to email any of the following members.
Erin Albin: erin.albin1@gmail.com
Sam Goff: samuelgoff92@gmail.com
Rebekah Powell: rpowell671@gmail.com
Kristen Richardson: wacorichardsons@gmail.com
Craig Nash: Craig_Nash@baylor.edu