What Faith Means to Me

This post is written by church member, Steve Moldt.

Over the last ten years or so, the idea of faith has cropped up in a number ways that have caught my attention. Faith has surfaced as a factor in a wide variety of contexts and has been used to express feelings, provide comfort, divide parties, stir politics, rationalize policies, strengthen resolve, bring people together, provide focus and unity after great tragedy, and engender comfort in a time of personal loss. Faith can be as concrete as loyalty to a person or idea, as ethereal as hope in something unknowable, or as reassuring as the acceptance of divine will. I know people who find in their faith the core of their spiritual life and are strengthened by it everyday. I have also seen exclusive faith used as a weapon to divide people and rationalize terrible things. I have experienced what I know as faith in comforting a friend who was dying of cancer. Now I am almost 50-years old, have an 11-year old daughter (which definitely changes your focus in life), and am bringing a Buddhist perspective into my reconnection with my Christian roots. So, I have been thinking a lot about the idea of faith lately. Particularly, what is faith? More specifically, what is the character of my faith and what does it mean?

I am often told to have a little faith (in something or someone) or to “put your faith in…(God).” I wonder if this is a justification for blind faith. Is faith simply belief: a belief in something that can’t be explicitely proven? That dilemma of faith is embodied in the classic battle between science and religion, we have often been told. The root of the word faith comes from ancient words meaning “to trust”. So are we to have blind faith in an invisible power that can never be fully explained? Perhaps that is overstating it a bit, but we have many examples of things where unquestioning trust has led to disaster. I think instead, that the creative force that is so elusive, that some sort of unsubstantiated understanding is inevitable also embodies the power of the intellect, the questioning mind, the verifier. I see this as the Yin and Yang of spiritual life, the knowable and the unknowable, the quantifiable experience and the mystical presence that is simply known.

I often think that, to paraphrase the blues song, “If it weren’t for ‘bad’ faith I’d have no faith at all.” You’ll notice that ‘bad’ is in quotes. There are those who believe in a monolithic idea of true faith that has specific fixed parameters that must be met or you don’t really have faith. I have seen some politicians use this kind of faith to sway their constituents and some have used it as a smoke screen of distraction. In fact, there are some who would tell you that if you question your faith then you don’t really have it. And there are many who when faced with beliefs outside their experience feel that they may be at risk of losing their faith. They often feel that the faith that questions itself is a bad faith incapable of true belief. It will come as no surprise that I would question this kind of certainty in the face of the morass of problems, prejudices and politics such faith has often brought us. In fact, I would ask, if that faith is so strong, why would there be a fear losing it?

If you know the Yin-Yang symbol, it is the embodiment in its swirling separateness of the reality of the Buddhist notion of the transcendence of opposites, the false duality of our perceived reality. Inside of the larger areas of black and white are small dots of the opposing color; a dot of black inside the white and a dot of white inside the black. This symbolizes the inter-reliance of one upon the other. White cannot exist without the black to contrast it and the black could not be realized without the absence of black which is white. So in a discrete symbol we see the unity of all things in the display of the false dichotomy of simple hues we take to be opposites and yet have the most intimate of connections. One could not exist without the other. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, God is the sum of all things.

And so it is with my personal understanding of faith at this moment along my own way to where ever it is that I am going. For me the questioning mind is the strength of the trusting soul. If there weren’t acceptance of some divine principle, what would I be questioning? When I come to questions of faith I do not rely solely on belief, but I put my trust in the question and the act of questioning itself. I think that no matter the outcome, my faith will be stronger for it. I will either confirm the faith I have or I will inform my existing faith with new knowledge which will allow me to grow in my spiritual life. This can be disconcerting, even fearful at times because it requires a release of certainty in order to be open to the process of spiritual growth. And therein lies the rub. In this view, true faith is never fixed, never completely realized. It is a dynamic process to be experienced and wrestled with, not arrived at and held tightly.

When I was young I believed that things were finite and life would be realized and then you would have arrived. Over the last number of years, the nature of this existence has become clearer and my relationship with that which I call God, “I am”, has expanded beyond simple obedience and static belief. It is the process, the journey that is the living of the spiritual life. In that sense, the static faith that one simply trusts in the omnipotence that will take care of all things, is easier than struggling with uncertainty. That is where, I fear, the judgmental separation of believers and non-believers, faithful and unfaithful can creep in. For some it is this very notion of the certainty of fixed faith that allows the unity of all things, of all peoples, of all traditions to be overlooked.

And so, I cling to my unclingable notion of dynamic faith, that paradox of reason and mystery that I find so intriguing and provides, I feel, the only road, whether we are aware or not. Thank you for taking time to read and consider these thoughts. Please share your ideas of faith if you are so inclined. I am interested in your questions and/or answers that they may inform my own. I wish you peace on your way whichever it is.

Changing Lives in the UCC

Great Quote

A friend on Facebook posted this quote.

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together...there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart...I'll always be with you.” - Winnie the Pooh

Summer Newsletter and The Weekly

Our summer time is now upon us. For those of you, not in the know, life here in church slows down pretty dramatically to give you a chance to spend time with your family, enjoy the summer season, and to go on various trips and whatnot. We do enjoy seeing you when you're in town, but for many, summertime is about vacations and weekend sightseeing. We hope you have a wonderful vacation and will look forward to seeing your regular presence with us on Sundays, when the seasons change.

To keep you updated and informed about what we have planned for the summer, let me invite you to go to our church website and download our Summer Issue of our printed newsletter, The Spirit Seeker. You can also stay informed by signing up for our free e-newsletter, The Weekly. Just send me an email at bo@cresskillucc.org and I'll add you to the list. Also, if your email address has changed, please let me know and I'll update it.

Catching You Up

No doubt you know that I have returned to the office and am finished with my summer school (all except for a paper due at the end of the month). My time at Drew was wonderful; I esp enjoyed the fellowship of my colleagues in ministry.

As I have returned, I have been thinking about ways to integrate what I've learned into my pastoral ministry. In the coming weeks, you'll know that I am doing some experimenting and hope that it'll be as beneficial in practice as it seemed in theory, as I heard it.

We'll see though, right? ;)

Welcome to the Digital Generation | Edutopia

This is a video shown on Wednesday morning in my class.

Welcome to the Digital Generation | Edutopia

Shared via AddThis

Generation We

Here is a sobering video about the Net Generation and their values.

Generation WE: The Movement Begins... from Generation We on Vimeo.

Shift Happens

I posted this a few months back but it's worth seeing again. We watched this yesterday in class. It underscores the relevance of the digital age upon us.

A Great Video about what the digital age

We were shown this video in class today.

Drew Update, Week 3

Okay so my final week for my summer intensive is underway. I am taking an interesting class called Thriving in the Digital Age through Collaborative Leadership. This class seeks to evaluate and understand how the Net generation is affecting our ministry and overall culture.

The class really is as exciting as I had hoped it would be. The particular texts for the class have all been read and we all already written our integration paper (a way to prove we've done the readings by writing a paper about them and how they interpret our ministry context). If you'd like a great book to read, find one of these books on Amazon and get it used. They are all amazing reads:

1. The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church, by Rex Miller.
2. Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect, by Joseph Myers.
3. Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change, Organizations, and Society, by Peter Senge
4. The Equipping Pastor: A Systems Approach to Congregational Leadership, by Paul Stevens
5. Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World, by Don Tapscott
6. The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, by Phyllis Tickle.

Seriously those last two books are definitely worth your time.

As for my other assignments, I am partnered with two other classmates for a collaborative writing project. We're working out the details today and the paper will be a 25-pager due on July 31. To help facilitate our conversations, the teacher set up a Wiki site on our Moodle page on the school's website. If I am talking a foreign language to you, a Wiki is a collaborative website that allows for personal interaction and a Moodle is a software program whereby the entire class readings, handouts, and reports are submitted, posted, and read.

As an interesting aside, I have created a special Wiki-site for the Lay Advisory Team, a church group who'll help shepherd me and my DMin project. How cool is that, right?

In any event, my class goes from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM. It is a full day of interaction, lecture, and class participation. I'll let you know all about it as the week comes to a close.

So that's my update. I hope you'll have a fab week and will see you on Sunday when I return.

Week 2 Update

I have reached the midpoint of my summer intensive here at The Theological School. As many of you know, I can be a tad dramatic at times--and the amount of work I have to accomplish and figure out ways to navigate my sleep schedule had, for a brief time (say three days) turned me into a whiner. If you have been reading my status updates on Facebook, you'll know what I mean.

As it turns out, I have learned a few lessons:
1. I am no longer as young as I used to be. When I was younger, I could stay up for several days in a row with little sleep. Let me nod off for a few hours, and I'd be good for the entire day. Now, if I don't get my 7-8 hours of sleep at night, I am both incoherent and dazed.

2. If you work hard enough, you'll eventually figure it out. When I was younger, there were times that I would get so frustrated that I'd quit trying to figure it out after trying for just a little while. Now, I actually have the patience to look at something for a long time without either zoning out or losing attention.

3. Not having an Xbox to tempt me away from work has been a good thing. But then, there is Facebook and I have tended to escape there from time to time.

So yeah, I've learned some good lessons. And, I have also been learning other things too. As of now, I have my final draft of my Prospectus completed. My Prospectus is the overview of my ministry project including information such as my problem statement, my purpose, the scope of the project, the methodologies I intend to use, how I will evaluate my project and tonight, I finished a rough draft bibliography (that can change during the course of my project).

I am also working on an assignment in my Practical Theology class where I have learned to interpret and deconstruct narrative stories using particular methodologies meant to frame the stories. This will be important as I navigate the various personal narratives within my particular project. The class lectures have been intense but very rewarding.

Next week, I will be taking a class called Thriving in the Digital Age through Collaborative Leadership. I am very much looking forward to this class as it'll focus its attention on modern narratives as experienced by younger generations and how to develop particular ministry that affects them with the Gospel. Or at least, I think this is what the class will be about. ;) I'll let you know once class begins if I am correct or not.

As an aside, I've still been swimming while I am here. While I didn't swim as far yesterday as I normally do, it did feel good to get some exercise into my day.

Okay, so I have to get back to my homework. I have a project due to tomorrow in which I am to design a teaching/learning event for a designated community using material taught from the Gospel of Mark and the course I am taking. I am supposed to communicate one of the primary insights or theological constructs that I have gained in the course and then describe the context and community that will be my primary responsibility in this teaching project. In the end, I am to describe what the learning or engagement process will be and what theological action/reflection I expect will lead to this community's religious/political/social transformation. The paper doesn't need to be long, say 5-7 pages. Then, I am to give a 15-20 minute presentation on this methodological teaching curriculum.

Interestingly, I was only given this assignment today. You'd think that I would be panicking right about now as to the scope and breadth of the assignment. But I am not. I am actually calm...sorta. But I do need to get working on it. I may be up rather late tonight getting this accomplished.

Friday at Drew

Wowsers, this week has been a killer. I had forgotten how difficult is was to concentrate in class when you stay up so very late studying so that you can participate in class. Fortunately, a report due today was postponed until Monday; otherwise, I'd've spend yet another day in class glassy-eyed, punchy, and dazed.

While this week has been difficult, it has also been richly rewarding. I have two classes this week, one in the morning from 9:00 - 12:30 PM and another from 1:30 - 5:00 PM. In the morning class, I am taking a practical theology class that is teaching me to due pericope analysis using an acronymial method called the V.O.T.E.R analysis. Using this method, you are able to been discern the intent of the passage in order to reveal the vision of the author by understanding the obligation, tendencies, environment, and rules/roles being communicated. Yesterday I used this analysis on Mark 3:20-30 where Jesus is called Beelzebul by the Scribes for his casting out demons. After my presentation in class, the professor implied I was the only one who got this analysis right, and after class called my presentation "Brilliant." I was on Cloud 9 for a long while.

In my afternoon class, we are working to pinpoint our DMin project. Since beginning this process last semester, my project has had a few incarnations from creating a cirriculum around a liberal and progressive discipleship program to revitalizing a Sunday school using postmodern and emergent concepts. Yesterday I presented an overview that is even more narrow in focus than my other attempts. Ultimately I don't have to decide on a final project until September; the goal of the course is to teach me how to decide what to do and the steps involved in presenting a prospectus to be approved by my professors come September.

Having said that, I may have found my project. I presented yesterday a prospectus that creates newcomer/new member classes to be done before a newcomer joins the church and classes after a member joins. These classes would focus on telling individual stories and narratives, giving history to the other faith stories in the congregation, membership guidelines and expectations, spiritual gift inventories, discipleship, and mission and outreach. Using this project, I could employ emergent and missional concepts into the cirriculum (where my heart lay). I am more excited about this particular direction of our project than I have been of any other. This may, indeed, be my project.

I have another class that begins a week from Monday that has me busy writing a paper. That class is called Thriving in the Digital Age through Collaborative Leadership. I have to write this report based upon the current leadership challenges and opportunities in my ministry context in light of six books assigned for the class. I will finish this report over the weekend; I may even finish it by tomorrow (hopefully).

I am planning on being in Cresskill Sunday afternoon to see Jay and Maggie (and to bring home laundry to wash). I will also need to pick up a raincoat. It has rained practically everyday I've been here and its getting annoying.

So that's it--my week in class. Today should be light: My morning class will be discussing Elaine Graham's Theological Reflection: Methods. My afternoon class will be full of my other classmates presentations on their prospective prospecituses (did I spell that right?).

Two final notes, I had originally planned to write up my experiences daily--obviously I've only been doing that every other day. That seems to be working for me and will continue to do this.

My next week will be a lot like this week with the same classes--just more intense. I'll be sure to keep you informed as it happens. Keep praying for me that this week will be a blessing to you, me, and all involved. And, I hope your Sunday with Lauren is a blessing too.

Wednesday Morning

Well folks, yesterday was my first full day of classes. Monday was an all-day orientation and, while interesting and dare I say fun, Tuesday was where the rubber hit the road.

So here is my schedule: I have Pastoral Theology: Of the People, By the People, and For the People, taught by Dr. Elkins. The class will meet for the two weeks from 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM. It is a class to help me understand culture theology by using Lincoln's Gettysburg address as a way to meat out and interpret cultural theology. The purpose of this class is to help me when I construct my DMin project and write it up in my dissertation.

My afternoon class is Theological Methods and Practice, taught by Dr. Menking. This class meeting from 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM for two weeks. This class will help me do the background work to prepare for the writing of my Topic and Prospectus for my project.

I will have a third class beginning next week, with a paper due this coming Friday (I will start writing it tonight). This class is called Thriving in the Digital Age through Collaborative Leadership, taught by Dr. Hammond and Dr. Hollon. This class is meant to address multiple world views, perspectives on what it means to belong and participate, and the multi-layered expectations that affect congregational leadership. I am not exactly certain how this directly relates to my DMin project but I haven't had this class yet. When I find out its correlation, I'll let you know.

So that's really it for school. The idea for each class is the workload is equal to that of a full year of classes crammed into a week. We have tons of reading (that I've almost finished prior to coming to class), many papers to write, and lots of thinking. All the classes are meant to help us as we begin planning our project. We are also to hit the library as we see what projects other DMin candidates have completed and use their projects when they relate to our own.

For myself, I have narrowed down my ideas for a project to center around doing Christian Education a little different for a small congregation. My project may be to create a multi-generational Sunday school program within Christian Education. At least, this is something our congregation is already considering--and it makes sense to make such a consideration a part of my project. Nothing is set in stone yet, though. These three weeks of class is meant to help me discern my project, I have until September to finalize it.

Okay, so I need to do some homework before my classes today so I am going to stop writing now. See you soon (on here).

Sunday Night at Drew University

I have been thinking about keeping some sort of travelogue concerning my 3-weeks at school. I want to keep you, dear church member or anyone else who might be reading this, up to date on what I am doing, learning, and other fun activities.

This being my first post, I want to let you know what I've been up to today. Following Sunday morning worship, I went home and packed and played on the Xbox, packed some more, ate, took a nap, packed, played with the dog, and then I was done. After all that, I was kind of too tired to leave but I did. I left Cresskill about 4:30 PM and arrived in Madison, NJ before 6:00 PM. Getting my keys and pertinent information, I drove to the dorms where I got myself situated. Then, I moved the furniture to fit my space, went shopping, set up my computer and printer, and ate cereal for dinner.

Now I am going to do some reading and get to sleep. My day begins at 7:30 AM and its promising to be a big day. I'll write about it tomorrow night.

I hope to keep these posts somewhat interesting. If I think I am boring you to death, I may just write a 3-week summary when it's all over. ;)

See you tomorrow night! (on here)