Nepal Earthquake Relief

Dear friends,

Our hearts and prayers have been with the people of Nepal after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck west of Nepal's capital of Kathmandu this past Saturday.  The earthquake was also felt and caused significant damage in the neighboring countries of India, Tibet, Bangladesh and China. 

This is the most powerful earthquake to hit the region in over 80 years. 

Tents in Nepal. Photo Credit: ACT Alliance

The quake has caused tremendous damage in the vulnerable Kathmandu Valley. Homes were flattened, ancient temples destroyed, and the death toll, which has risen to 4,000 people at the time of writing, continues to rise.  The immediate need is search and rescue teams, which are being deployed by Nepal's government, as well as by other countries from around the world.  Food, water, blankets, clothes, medical supplies, and temporary shelter are also needed.

Week of Compassion is providing emergency aid through our partnership with ACT Alliance.

Nepalese authorities are struggling to assess the full scale of the damage across the remote Himalayan nation as communications systems have been damaged in many areas. "We are totally cut off from most parts of our country," Nepal Disaster Management Authority official Ram Narayan Pandey told Reuters.  Reports are stating that thousands of people have rushed into the streets of the capital in an effort to remain safe, with many too afraid to return indoors as the city continues to be rocked by aftershocks.

One report on the ground from our partner and first responder ACT Alliance shares that, "It has been raining on and off. There are many makeshift shelters in the streets, as people had to abandon their homes quickly. Community kitchens have been set up, and there is generally a spirit of kindness and mutual support in the city...and a shortage of supplies, in particular drinking water and shelter materials. There is no electricity or running water throughout the city. We spent an uneasy night outside - together with the rest of Kathmandu."

Your support through Week of Compassion allowed us to be on the ground in these communities within hours of the earthquake to help with relief efforts. We are working with other relief teams and providing support to the many affected and displaced individuals as they seek assistance and hope. We will continue these efforts in the upcoming weeks and months, working alongside the people in Nepal and accompanying them as they recover and rebuild. 

If you would like to put your Compassion into Action and donate to the earthquake relief efforts in Nepal, please go to our website here  and select "Earthquake" in the designation.  100% of your contribution will go toward helping the relief efforts in Nepal.

Week of Compassion continues to seek your prayers and support as we work with our trusted partner organizations to provide both immediate relief and long-term support to people of Nepal in the next few weeks and months.
 
In solidarity,
Rev. Vy T. Nguyen
 

Week of Compassion is sharing resources and changing lives. Thank you for sharing your resources and helping to change lives.

ARE WE TRAINING PASTORS FOR JOBS THAT NO LONGER EXIST?

It’s safe to say that the traditional expression of church has not varied for hundreds of years. This form worked well when the dominant culture in the world was agrarian, most people were uneducated and illiterate, and books were either unavailable or very expensive. Information and stories were spread by people who had dedicated their lives to learning, reading, and teaching. Many of these were pastors who received more schooling than most before going out into the world to build a church. Farmers from miles around would put on their “Sunday best” and walk, pile into wagons, or ride to church each Sunday morning. Together they’d sing and then sit and listen to the minister or priest teach from the Bible and his brand of theology. Afterward, they’d catch up on how life was going, learn how they could help each other, and perhaps even share a meal.

WHAT WAS THE APPEAL OF CHURCH?

It still sounds appealing in many ways, doesn’t it? There’s a simplicity to it that makes me feel a little nostalgic. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, there are three important things we can learn from this model:

1. The people who came to church were drawn together by a COMMON faith experience. In rural settings, commonality just happened because there were very few, if any, choices in denomination or Bible translation. As society transitioned from being rural to urban, commonality was still important—we were just able to decide which church we felt most comfortable in ethnically, denominationally, and geographically.
   .
2. Because most people were either illiterate or didn’t have the resources to educate themselves, Christians needed a dedicated person — a pastor — TEACHING them in a dedicated, centralized place—a church building. This hasn’t changed much in recent times. Even as American movements from the Big Tent Revivals through the Emergent Church introduced metaphors and stories as the dominant mode of evangelism and discipleship, teaching remained the main attraction for church-goers.
   .
3. Since people were drawn together each Sunday often from many miles away, they had the opportunity to experience COMMUNITY — loving and supporting each other, sharing meals and sacred rituals, before going their separate ways again for another week. This too survived into contemporary times as suburban churches flourished and people poured in from miles around.

POST TEACHING-CENTRIC CHURCHES

These elements are the core of what we call the teaching-centric church, and they were an important part of life for hundreds and hundreds of years.

But times have changed. Most people in the Western world are no longer illiterate. Books have become inexpensive and easy to get, information can now be accessed and transmitted even more cheaply via audiobooks and podcasts, live events and TV programs, websites and Internet videos; those who cannot read can still find the information they want. We no longer need someone to read the Bible to us, but as we read for ourselves, we also decide which translation we like best. Pastors are still educated in a broad range of subjects, but they are no longer the sole source of wisdom — for example, a marriage and family counselor would have greater insight and understanding into relationships, a small business owner would have more insight into the nature and use of money, and the average person might have a deeper grasp of a book of the Bible after doing their own intensive study.
 

THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH HAS RADICALLY SHIFTED

It shouldn’t be surprising to us, then, that attendance in teaching-centric churches has been rapidly declining. But we are still training our ministers and church leaders how to perform in jobs that are rapidly disappearing in an industry that has radically shifted. We still need leaders and ministers to rally and organize people, but they need to learn how to lead in church environments that are becoming increasingly service-centric. Next week, we’ll explore what the elements of a service-centric church are, moving from a Common Teaching Community to a Common Cause Community.

About the author:

Spencer Burke is the Founding Executive Director of Hatchery LA, an incubator for Common Cause Communities. For more information, please visit www.HatcheryLA.com.

Light of the World in an LED Culture

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.    —Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)

I think it’s safe to say that when we read this verse, our imagination paints a nostalgic, beautiful picture—warm light shining through a cabin, flickering candles, cheerful flame in the fireplace, a beautiful little lake outside. Right? The language of the verse encourages this: “ . . . light a lamp . . . put it on its stand . . .” And so this is the only way many of us are willing to think about it. But there are other ways of creating light—most of us, at least in the Western world, don’t even use fire anymore. So, as people leave the traditional church—the keeper of the flame—by the tens of thousands, perhaps it’s time to reinterpret what it means to be the light of today’s world.

There are Three Things You Need to Generate Light

1) a source or ignition, 

2) some kind of fuel, and 

3) a suitable environment. 

To ignite a flame, you need a flintlock or match—something that creates a spark. Your fuel substance would most likely be something made from oil or wood. If you need a brighter light, you use more fuel—more wood, more oil, more of a non-renewable resource. (Of course, as you toss more wood on a fire, you’re not just creating a brighter light, you’re also making the fire hotter and hotter, which may or may not be helpful.) To keep the flame going, the environment must have plenty of oxygen. 

Fire has been the light source for humans for thousands of years, so it’s no surprise that we have built our churches in this paradigm. Traditional churches, whether small or mega, want to light their flames and put them on stands—and in a “dark world” the brighter the better, right? Which means they need bigger and bigger fires consuming more and more fuel, more and more resources. 

Why We Burn Out

But we’re finding that these resources are, like wood and oil, non-renewable. Lay and professional ministers are burning out, money is scarce, and the people the light was meant to attract are repelled by the wastefulness and the excess energy—the heat—that is no longer cozy or even useful for life.

But in the same way that our most common source of light has moved from the flame to electrical light, we’re seeing a migration in what it means for us to be the light of the world. 

Same Mission, Different Approach

An electrical light has the same three requirements a flame does, but these are met in a very different way. First, the source is either an alternating or direct current. Unlike a match or flintlock, electricity is unseen most of the time . . . it’s kind of magical. You flip a switch and the light turns on whether you understand the physics behind it or not, whether you accept it or fear and shun it.

Second, the fuel we used first were filaments before we moved on to gasses. Here we discovered different kinds of light, like neon and all these colors that were bright and cool. As we worked on generating brighter and more efficient light, we discovered halogen and now LEDs, which are very bright, power efficient, safe to touch, and if you hook them up to solar panels, completely renewable.

What is really mind-blowing is that the environment in which these new sources of light work is the direct opposite of flame. Rather than the air-filled oxygenated environment that fire needs, electrical lights operate in a vacuum. 

Church Is Radically Transforming

What a drastic change in a relatively short period of time! We have moved away from the traditional, age-old flame to a technology that is at once more mysterious and more useful while achieving the exact same goal—lighting up dark places.

So this change will be different, strange, perhaps a little threatening to people who think of fire as the only or proper way to generate light. But it will be very natural, logical, and appealing for someone who has grown up flipping a switch to generate light in a brighter, cooler, more efficient way. 

We Have a Challenge and an Opportunity

Here’s a potential problem, though. Someone in the new world might look back and say to someone in the traditional world, “You’re wrong! Building bigger and bigger fires doesn’t make any sense and is a waste of resources!” And those coming from a traditional world view might look into the new world and call what they don’t understand “heresy” or “unbiblical.” But both would be rude, and we don’t want to ever insult or disparage each other because that behavior is like a wet blanket or flicking a switch—either way, the light is extinguished.

To have either a traditional or a cultural way of interpreting what it means to be the light of the world does not mean that either is the only way to interpret Jesus’ words—we are merely looking at what he said in a different fashion. And as the church moves from being teaching-centric to service-centric, we need the next generation to lead us, discovering new, more efficient ways to shine the light more brightly than ever before.

About the author:

Spencer Burke is the Founding Executive Director of Hatchery LA, an incubator for Common Cause Communities. For more information, please visit www.HatcheryLA.com.

2015 MLK Celebration | Downey Memorial Christian Church

The 2015 Annual MLK Jr. Celebration is Sunday, January 11 at at Downey Memorial Christian Church (8441 Florence Ave, Downey, CA). You don't want to miss this unique day of events. 

REEL RECONCILIATION//
The celebration begins at 1:00PM with the PSWR Youth hosting "Reel Reconciliation", which explores what movies and media teach about justice in America. Click to download the flyer for "Reel Reconciliation"

MLK CELEBRATION CHOIR//
Lift Every Voice and Sing! You can participate in the MLK Celebration Choir. Listen to the songs below to become familiar with the music and then come to choir rehearsal on January 11 at 2:00 PM in the sanctuary at Downey Memorial Christian Church.

-None of us Are Free (Solomon Burke)
-Total Praise (Richard Smallwood)
-Freedom (Eddie James)
-I Need You to Survive (Hezekiah Walker)
-I Open My Mouth to the Lord (a cappella song) 

WORSHIP SERVICE//
The worship service will begin at 4:00 p.m. and will last until 6:30 p.m. 

2015 PSWR Prayer Calendar Now Available!

The 2015 PSWR Prayer Calendar is now available for download. Join with other Disciples in the Pacific Southwest in praying for a different congregation and unit every week.