The Politics of Jesus: An Introduction to the Sermon Series

During the Season of Epiphany and Lent we will be thinking about the topic, The Politics of Jesus as he articulates his vision of the Kingdom of God in The Sermon on the Mount. 

In recent years the American evangelical church has seemed dangerously commingled with political agendas that feel distant from Jesus’ vision of the kingdom. The poverty of Christian discipleship was painfully in view amidst the numerous symbols of our faith at the recent protest and insurrection at the Capital. 

Join us as we consider the world and common life Jesus imagined and enacted in his life and ministry. We’ll provide questions to follow up each week’s sermon, which you can find on this Google Doc.

Here are a few resources that we are leaning into as we enter this series. You may find them helpful as you wade into your own questions:

• Skye Jethani, What if Jesus was Serious? A Visual guide to the teaching of Jesus we love to ignore. 

• Lee C. Camp, Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians.

• James K. A. Smith, Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology. 

What to Look for When Nominating Officers

By Kory Stamper

I’m an officer at City Church, and the reason I’m up here is that we need more of me in this church. That is not a cry for help--what I mean is that we as a church are entering into a season of nominating and electing officers to help lead the congregation. 

Since our congregation comes from a wide variety of church backgrounds—or no church background—it seems like a good idea to explain who the church officers are, and what they do. In the RCA, there are two types of lay officers in a congregation: deacons and elders. What do they each do?

So, first, let’s start with a metaphor. Let’s say you slip and fall and break a bone. When you get hurt, you need immediate, acute care. You need trained people who have the resources to deal with this specific problem. Those people work proactively and behind the scenes to make sure that when there’s an acute need, there’s a response. That’s what deacons do. Deacons are called to a ministry of mercy, service, and outreach. They are the hands and feet of the body—they actively and proactively engage to help meet needs. 

Our deacons focus their ministry in four areas. Deacons help make sure that Sunday services go smoothly. Our deacons also work hard to meet the immediate need of people in our congregation—people who are suffering. They also focus their ministry outside of our congregation, to alleviate the suffering in our world. They partner with groups that are both inside and outside our faith tradition that are doing the hard work of meeting some of the acute needs of people here in Philly. And they support missionaries who are working in a wide variety of contexts and countries, and are actively bringing the peace and healing of Christ to our broken world. 

Those are deacons—they are the acute response. But healing often requires more than just the first acute response. You need to go to a doctor for follow-up, and that doctor will guide you through a healing process. That’s what elders in the RCA do. 

Elders are called to a ministry of spiritual friendship. They help attend to the spiritual well-being of the church, which means that elders walk through life with people in the direction of healing and wholeness. That can look different depending on the need. Elders interview candidates for membership or for baptism, because we hold that being a part of God’s body is ultimately a step towards the type of wholeness that Christ calls us to. Elders serve communion to the homebound, bringing the body and fellowship of Christ to people who can’t make it here. They provide healing prayer during the service, which is a time for anyone who suffers in any way to have the truth and reality of Jesus’s care spoken over you. And often, elders walk with people who suffer and who are in pain, and they seek to reflect the love and truth of Jesus into a dark and lonely places that we all find ourselves in. 

These two offices work in tandem for the health of our body, and ultimately, for the health of the world.

That’s the “what”; now, who should you nominate for those positions? You should nominate people in our congregation who are already doing this work, or who have a heart for this work. Christ doesn’t call awesome, well-connected, have-it-together folks to be his hands, feet, or heart: he calls people who love justice, do mercy, and walk humbly with their God. I’ve served as a deacon, and I am currently serving as an elder, and the one thing that I’ve learned in stepping into those roles is that Christ delights in using broken people to heal other broken people. If you know folks like that here in this room, I hope that you’ll consider nominating them as officers. And thank you for giving officers past and present the amazing opportunity to see the redemptive, healing work of Christ in real time by serving you.

Create a Living Room for Families Experiencing Homelessness

City Church Literacy Grant at Work at Families Forward

It was seeing a sweatshirt from her alma mater that first connected Katie Brindley to Laura Smith. But when Katie learned that Laura was a literacy coordinator for Families Forward, emergency family shelter just three blocks from West Catholic Prep, she realized they had so much more to discuss. “Dave and I live just a few blocks from here,” says Katie, “and we never knew about this place!”

Families Forward is one of many services housed at the Kirkbride Center, the 17-acre campus of the old Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital on 48th between Market and Haverford. 65 families at a time stay at Families Forward, some for as long as 7 months, while they receive job training and help getting back on their feet. 

Katie began helping Laura with projects around the center, and as their discussions deepened she began to wonder if there was a way to involve the wider church. “I knew City Church’s City team regularly supported literacy work in the neighborhood,” shares Katie, “and I wondered if we could be a blessing to their work.”

This past summer, Families Forward applied for and received a grant from the City Church for $11,000 to help create a literacy-rich environment for families at the center. 

“Each family has their own room,” says Katie, “but it’s not a lot of a space for a family! The common rooms are pretty cold and clinical, given the building’s history as a psychiatric hospital. Our goal is to create a literacy-rich environment for these families, to make the common rooms into more like living rooms, and to tuck reading nooks stocked with culturally and developmentally appropriate books wherever we can.”

On Saturday, November 16, from 10 am to 1 pm, we plan to paint and put word art up in one of the common rooms, and we’re looking for a few volunteers to help. Please contact Katie Brindley at katie.brindley@cru.org if you are interested. 

Families Forward is located at the Kirkbride Center on 48th between Market and Haverford.

The common room we’ll be transforming on Saturday, November 16.

An Unexpected Birthday Party Favor: Connecting to New Day in Kensington

Katie B’s story on Sunday, March 17

Last May our family left a birthday party in Port Richmond and wound up driving through Kensington on our way home. We’ve lived in Philly for almost 10 years now, but I’ve never seen anything like what I saw as we drove under the El toward Lehigh Ave. Dozens of people were openly shooting up and walking around high. It didn’t feel like any part of Philly that I knew.

Time passed and I felt drawn to go back. I felt the Holy Spirit leading me tospend time in Kensington, but I wasn’t sure how. I explored a few options and eventually got connected to New Day Drop In Center through a friend of mine that was volunteering there. New Day is run by the Salvation Army. They are open Monday to Thursday as a place of refuge during the day for trafficked women, and see 60-80 women a day. 80-90% of the women are homeless and many are in active addiction. As women come in they are greeted by the warm smiles of volunteers and case workers. They can pick out clothing, receive hygiene bags, sign up for a shower, and get food. On Thursdays the center is open until midnight and offers group sessions with focuses like spirituality or arts and crafts.

In addition to helping with basic needs for these women, New Day seeks to provide women with access to free legal advice once a week and case workers who are available daily. Our support of New Day through the Easter Sacrificial Offering will go toward continuing to provide care for the women who come in each day.

If you feel the Spirit nudging you to help in something else in addition to giving to the ESO, you can help by donating the following items:

• New or used women's clothes and shoes

• New underwear

• Combs or brushes

• Hair ties

• Deodorant

• A batch of sandwiches or baked goods

I’m also happy to help you get connected to the organization if you have daytime availability and are interested in exploring serving here as a volunteer. Please contact me at katie.brindley@cru.org to pass along any donated items or to talk further about volunteering.

I Loved Missions Week: How Stories of Changed Lives Change Us

Esuga’s story from Sunday, March 10

When I was 7 years old I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. It was a warm July day during missions week at Westgate Chapel Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Toledo, OH. In the foyer of our church was a bulletin board with a map of the world. And on that map were push pins with lines of red string reaching out from Toledo, OH to places like Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, India, Honduras and the Philippines. These were all the places in the world where our church supported missionaries.

For one week every summer, these missionaries would all return to tell us stories of what God was doing through his global Church. I loved missions week. Every night of that week we would hear stories, and see picture slides and most importantly our missionaries would tell us that our prayers and financial support were being used by God to further his kingdom in the world. And at the end of that particular mission week, a missionary stood up at the front of the church and said that if anyone wanted to follow Jesus, to ask Jesus to be their Lord and Savior and to serve him, they should wait after the service and someone would pray with them. The Holy Spirit opened my heart and that night I became a follower of Jesus. And my life has never been the same. 

So the story of my Christian faith has always been inextricably linked to the story of what God is doing through his global church. That’s why when I was asked to join the diaconate at City Church, I chose to join the Global Team. I wanted to help our congregation think about ways to connect our practice of faith to the work God is doing through his church all over the world. One way the Global Team has tried to do this is through story-telling. During the January term earlier this year, for four Sundays during our Sunday school hour City Church hosted missionaries or told the stories of missionaries who have been called to serve in places like Japan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

For those who did not have the opportunity to hear those stories, we will be having a new storytelling session on March 31 when we will be hosting Jean-Luc Krieg and hearing about his work in Mexico City with Urban Mosaic. I had the opportunity to meet Jean-Luc for the first time almost three years ago, and he is an amazing person; born in West Africa, raised in Switzerland, trained here in Philadelphia and now living and working in Mexico City with some of the poorest neighborhoods in the world. My wife and I had the privilege to travel to Mexico City and visit the neighborhoods where Urban Mosaic is working and it was clear to us that God is using this ministry to transform lives.

One example was particularly powerful to me: we saw a park and playgrounds where there used to be a literal trash heap. Jean-Luc told us that when he first moved to that community he asked local leaders what they needed, and they all responded unanimously that they wanted to clean up the trash heap. Because it was in the middle of the community, people had to walk through it every morning to catch the buses that took them to work in the city. And at night they had to cross it on their way home. So Urban Mosaic mobilized a few volunteers to start cleaning the trash. And little by little, they cleared a small area. Then, as people saw what they were doing they added more volunteers and cleared a larger area. Pretty soon they had cleared the whole field of trash. Then they decided to pave a portion of the field and put up basketball courts so the neighborhood children would have a place to play. Pretty soon the local municipality took notice, and although they had previously ignored the trash heap they now contributed money to build a community center and municipal building. Now people get married there. This is one example of the practical implication of the gospel at work in transforming people’s lives, and in turn transforming their communities.

On Sunday, March 31 at 9 am, you can come and hear stories like this for yourself. I know that you will be blessed and encouraged and inspired by what you hear.  For a bit of a preview, you can watch a video about Urban Mosaic here.

Creating More Than We Consume: This Year, We're All in the Choir

By Bethany Brooks

In the spirit of Andy Crouch's call to "create more than we consume,” I want to ask you all to take part in preparing special musical moments in the Good Friday and Easter services.

On Good Friday, there will be times when the congregation hums sustained notes while a soloist sings; a little advance instruction (see video on this page) will help you to know what's happening and enter into the experience.

On Easter Sunday, we'll all sing a new song with simple 4-part harmony. You could just show up and follow the music in the bulletin on Easter Sunday...but getting familiar with it in advance will help this song to ring out with joy. And maybe you can pick a verse to memorize so that the words can be working their way into your heart and mind. As you learn it by heart you can, as George Steiner says, "(perceive) the elemental pulse of love implicit in that idiom." Audio/video recordings, sheet music, and instructions are available below, and I’ll have short rehearsals around the piano every Sunday during Lent from 12:10-12:25 in UCity and 4:00-4:15 in Fairmount for anyone who would like to practice together.

Thank you in advance for singing in the choir!

Download sheet music for “Glory to God for Christ”

Bethany Brooks shares some instructions about how the congregational choir can help with the Good Friday music.