I received an email message this week from John Hawthorne, who had written an article about ways to help refugees.  He asked me to share his article.  Below is an excerpt from the article.  You can click the link to read the rest.  He provides doable, practical ways to help refugees, including something as simple as writing letters to them to provide encouragement and hope.  Jesus, himself, was a refugee during part of his life, and the Bible exhorts us to provide hospitality to those in need.  Let's do what we can to alleviate suffering among those who are powerless to do much themselves.  --Pastor Amy

9 Ways You Can Help The Syrian Refugees NOW
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The Syrian refugee crisis has reached massive proportions. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been displaced from their homes and are trying to make a new life elsewhere. Others are stuck in refugee camps, desperately hoping for the chance to move to another country.

As you watch the news and read the headlines, it’s easy to feel helpless. Like there’s nothing you can do to make a difference. You want to help, but have no idea what you should do.

Thankfully, there are distinct, simple ways you can help that don’t require massive amounts of effort. By taking small actions, you can make a real difference.
Nelson Mandela said:

"Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future."

May these small actions help you turn the sufferings of others into hope. Here are 9 ways to make a direct difference in the lives of the refugees.

TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE
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I am sharing an Ash Wednesday sermon I preached at an Ecumenical Ash Wednesday Service a number of years ago.  Pastor Amy

Ash Wednesday Sermon
 
Since I'm new to the West Haven religious community, I'm going to introduce myself.  I am the Rev. Amy Johnson, the new Interim Pastor at the First Baptist Church of West Haven.  Previously, I served as Pastor at the United Church of Stonington, in Stonington, CT.  For the past four years, however, I have been a stay-at-home mother to my two young children – Kiran, my son, and Tula, my daughter – who are currently  five- and four-years old.  Now that they are both in school at least part of each weekday, I am able to do professional ministry again, and that's what I'm doing here in West Haven.
 
As a new clergy person in town, I wrote a note to the other Protestant clergy people to introduce myself and to find out about the West Haven clergy group I had heard about.  I was invited to the meeting at which this service would be planned but was unable to attend.  Then I received an e-mail message inviting me to preach at this service.  Of course, I said I would preach, and I was happy to do so!  There are few preachers who don't enjoy an opportunity to preach.  I have to tell you though, that Ash Wednesday was not my preferred Christian observance at which to preach.  I'm an American Baptist, and the Baptist tradition is not a liturgical tradition.  Baptists are part of what is described as the Free Church tradition.  The authority within our denomination rests within each congregation, not with a presbytery, or with a bishop, or with the denomination.  We don't have a book of worship that we are required to follow; we don't have to preach according to the lectionary; there is no creed that we have to recite; instead, it is the privilege and the responsibility of each church to shape these things for itself.  This might make us seem like an extremely willful denomination, but there is a theology that created and sustains us as we are.  Undergirding who we are and what we do is a strong theology of the Holy Spirit.  We believe  that the Holy Spirit is felt most strongly within the gathered worshiping community, like on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples as they were worshiping together.  So, the Holy Spirit must be given the freedom to move within each congregation in the way that it sees fit, without being hindered by an authority outside of the congregation. 
 
All of this is merely to say that I don't have a rich tradition or experience of Ash Wednesday on which to draw to write a sermon, especially a sermon for a service at which there are present members of denominations that have a rich tradition and experience of Ash Wednesday!
 
What I found when I began thinking about the sermon I would write is that I have strong feelings about Ash Wednesday and about Lent.  There is something in me that resists the penitential attitude of the season, the “O, what a sinner am I” beating of the breast that the season calls to mind.  I think that my resistance has to do with how I came to know God as an adult, because it was as an adult that I really came to know God in a personal and profound way.  As a struggling and suffering young adult, God beckoned me with his love, not with his judgment.  God showed me the heaven on earth that could be mine if I would give my life to him, and the hell on earth in which I could remain if I didn't give my life to him.  Thankfully, I responded to God's beckoning, but what impressed me was not a sense of my sinfulness, but a sense of God's love.
 
What I have discovered over the years since then is that what is essential in having a right relationship with God is vulnerability.  The vulnerability that is essential in our relationship with God can be created in us by different feelings.  It can come to us through shame, or guilt, or grief, or fear, or confusion, or self-loathing, and so on.  The human condition is such that at one time or another – or at many times – we will feel one of these challenging feelings that will bring us to our knees (at least, metaphorically) and it is in those moments that we are forced by our own condition to turn to God in complete dependence and give ourselves and our lives to him, for it is in those moments that we understand on a visceral level that we are not capable of managing our lives or our world ourselves.  Those moments are what I would call Ash Wednesday moments; they may not occur on Ash Wednesday, but they are Ash Wednesday moments.  They may not be filled with the familiar Ash Wednesday feelings of shame and guilt, but they will be filled with a feeling of our powerlessness and God's omnipotence, of our emptiness and God's fullness, of our need and God's providence.
 
I was reminded of this essential ingredient to a right relationship with God at a retreat I attended last week.  The retreat was sponsored by the Ministers Council of the American Baptist Churches of Connecticut and it was intended to prepare pastors for the Lenten Season.  The title of the retreat was, “Encountering Christ:  Remembering Our First Love.”  The retreat leader read a brief scripture passage, then asked each of us to recall a time when we had encountered Jesus.  He began by telling of a time when he had encountered Jesus.  It was during a dark and difficult time of his life.  He turned to the Bible for solace and came upon the following passage:  “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.'  So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me (2 Cor 12:8-9).”  God spoke to him through this passage and let him know that the power of Christ would work through his weakness and redeem him.  He was not able to be his own redeemer but, thankfully, he already had a redeemer who was – even in that moment – working to redeem his life for him.  It was an Ash Wednesday moment.
 
One by one, as we shared that day, we heard one Ash Wednesday moment after another.  For one person, the Ash Wednesday moment came in the shame of drug addiction; for another, it came in the rage of anger over spurned romantic love; for another, it came in the face of helplessness over infertility; for another, it came in the realization that we need God even when our lives are mundane and no great drama is occurring.  What was the same about each story was the vulnerability at the center of it.  We encounter Christ most often when we are vulnerable, for it is then that we are open to receive him.
 
And that is what Ash Wednesday and Lent are all about:  bringing us closer to God, bringing God closer to us, closing the gap that separates us.  It turns out that I didn't need to be wary of Ash Wednesday and Lent.  When we say that we are sinners, what we're really saying is that we have become separated from God and from doing God's will.  When we say that we are filled with repentance, we are saying that we have recognized this separation and are turning back to God. 
 
Even though Ash Wednesday moments can happen anywhere and anytime, it is good to have a day on which we acknowledge the push and pull of our relationship with God, the giving of our lives to God and the taking of them back from God that happens over and over as we live our days.  It is good to have a day on which we begin the journey with Jesus that took him to the cross.  As the scriptures say:  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).  When he was about to enter his final trial, all that Jesus asked of his disciples was that they stay awake with him.  That is what Lent asks of us, too:  that we stay awake with Jesus on his way to the cross and that we witness his final trial, that moment of ultimate weakness in which the power of God is made known:  the mystery of Christ crucified.
 
It is the end my sermon, and I would like to reintroduce myself:  My name is the Rev. Amy Johnson and I can say now without resistance that I am a repentant sinner.  Amen.
 
Sermon preached by the Rev. Amy R. F. Johnson on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008, at the Church of the Holy Spirit, West Haven, CT.

For their final project in their baptism class, the youth in our church made backpacks full of supplies for the homeless and people in need. Some of the youth gave their backpacks to the local social services office. My children decided to keep their backpacks in our car for those times when we see someone by the side of the street asking for money or food. Today, on my way home from seeing a doctor in New Haven, there was a man on the side of the street with a sign saying he was hungry and needed food. I put the car in park, put on the hazard lights, opened up the back, gave him one of the backpacks, gave him a hug, said God bless, and then got back in the car. As I was waiting at the light, he came up to the window to show me the ratty backpack he had. He said that he had been hoping to get a new backpack and now he had one. I said, "God is alive!" the light changed, and I drove off. We are preparing to celebrate Christmas soon, that day on which we rejoice that Emmanuel, God-with-us, is born. Where do YOU see GOD ALIVE in our world?

Pastor Amy Johnson

Image is from http://thebridge-uk.com/files/headers/blogs/characterofgod/header-godsalive.png

Yesterday, during the communion service at our church, the organist, Alan MacMillan, was playing "Ave Verum Corpus" by Marcel Dupre. For me, it was one of those lovely moments during a worship service when all the pieces of the service come together to touch me in a special way with the grace of God, and the music was central to this experience.

While listening, I began to pray for everyone there, then for those of our church who were not there, and then for everyone in the world. I imagined the love of God as tendrils touching each person, beginning with those in our church and then spreading out into the world. Then, I began to choreograph a dance in my head to "Ave Verum Corpus" that would express this idea that God touches each one of us with God's love and grace, and then we touch others, and on it goes until all have been touched and transformed.

For me, worship is a window through which the Divine can visit us and we can visit the Divine. Afterward, I feel I glow a bit more with the light of Christ, the love of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit, for God has been back and forth through that window we in worship have opened for Him/Her.

BELOW IS A LINK TO HEAR "Ave Verum Corpus."

The link below is to a good article about giving money to your church.  Here is an excerpt:

"The nature of salvation is the primary focus. Money and giving are secondary. It's a salvation that creates true unity and belonging, not a division between those who profit and those who lose. Giving to the needy does not earn salvation, but it demonstrates that a person has come to grasp what the economy of Christian salvation is all about: relinquishing one's real and perceived advantages and entering into true solidarity with others."

"Barnabas and the others in the story who give money to sustain the culture of mutuality do not give because they are "sowing seeds" of faith that will allow them to reap material gain down the road. Nor do they give because their leaders demand a share. Rather, they give because they understand their united existence, sharing a single "heart and soul," as so tight that radical sharing of possessions seems a natural outgrowth."

FULL ARTICLE HERE

I am sharing with you an interesting article, by Jonathan Storment, I read today about singing in church.  Here's an excerpt and the link to the full article:

"The Church has always known what the New York Times just stumbled across last month, that wonder and awe leads to service and justice and compassion. This is why the largest book in the Bible is the Psalms, because God knows that the Psalms can do what the Prophets cannot.

When we worship, it softens our heart and makes us more susceptible to the strange ways of the Gospel. I’ve seen this time and time again, the biggest lever to changing the human heart isn’t a sermon, it is what we hear ourselves sing.

I believe that the way Jewish/Christian ethics were woven into most of our hearts, wasn’t primarily from that Bible class, but from hearing our grandmother sing things like “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother” or our dad singing “Each day I’ll do a golden deed, by helping those who are in need.”

Our songs have shaped the way we view the world, and how we think about things like justice and mercy toward other people. They have given us courage to resist the status quo and to live in counter-cultural ways."

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

In Christ,
Pastor Amy

One of my new favorite writers is Glennon Doyle Melton.  She wrote a book titled, Carry On Warrior, and she writes a blog titled, Momastery.  She is a Christian, a mother, and a recovering addict; therefore, she has a lot of wisdom!  I loved the blog post I read today so much, I decided to share it with my church community.   Below is an excerpt, and you can click on the link below to read the whole thing.  By the way, the conversation in the excerpt is between her and her daughter, Amma, who has been wearing a green blob on her forehead for days!

"So I said, 'Sister. I give up. What’s going on with the green blob?'

And she looked up at me and said, 'I’m a CHILD OF GOD, mom.' She pointed to her forehead and said, 'My green is to Remember. So I can be brave.'

You guys. She’s marking herself. She’s recreating Ash Wednesday every morning. She’s making herself a SACRAMENT, which is an outward reminder of an invisible truth. Every morning she’s saying to herself and the world: I’m GOD’S. SO I CAN BE BRAVE.'"

YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD.  REMEMBER.  AND BE BRAVE!

In Christ,
Pastor Amy

FOR WHOLE BLOG, CLICK HERE 

Last evening, I said to my husband, "I am in a kerfuffle (an agitated state)."  Why am I in a kerfuffle?  Oh, there are so many reasons to be in a kerfuffle!  

Personal reasons:  
(I know, these things are small potatoes, but they are small potatoes that agitate me!)
*Our house is in disarray because we are painting and rearranging rooms and it is taking FOREVER for us to do the work ourselves.  Meanwhile, we limp along as if we had just moved into our house.
*My daughter is competing in a national dance competition next week and we are feeling the strain of preparing and anticipating.  Although there will be fun things to do, it is, after all, a COMPETITION, at which all of her hard work and our investment (money and time) will be JUDGED, and neither she nor I are as laid-back as we appear!
*My husband is working a lot to pay for our daughter's dancing.  He is tired and a bit worn out.
*Oh, and then there's the general house maintenance that we often do not have time or energy to do that confronts us whenever we are at home!

World reasons:
*It has become all too apparent that racism is alive and well in our country and that people's lives are at stake every day because of it.
*It has become all too apparent that other types of prejudices are alive and well in our country.  While on vacation last week, my sister's friend was the victim of veiled threats to his physical well-being due to the fact that he is gay.  The way he was treated was a reminder to me that minorities are at risk in so many ways, and that the majority has no real understanding of this most of the time.
*Russia:  need I say more?
*China's economy
*Climate change
*I'm sure there are more things that I am not thinking of at the moment.  Just listen to the radio or read the news and you will find plenty of reasons!

Yes, I have been in a kerfuffle.  BUT, this morning, while I was out walking, I started to pray.  I prayed for people, my dog (injured leg not healing), situations, places -- many things.  Then I began to sing, in my head, the hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul," the first stanza of which states, "When peace, like a river, attendeth my way/When sorrows like sea billows roll/Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say/It is well, it is well with my soul."   TO HEAR THE HYMN AND LEARN THE MOVING STORY BEHIND IT, CLICK HERE.

SO MANY reasons to be agitated -- and, yet, my faith tells me to be assured that it is well with my soul.  This, I think, is the peace that passes understanding that only God can give:  The peace that is present even in the midst of troubles.  It is the peace that is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  It is present to us ANY TIME and ALL THE TIME.  WE JUST HAVE TO CHOOSE IT!

So, today, this morning, I am choosing PEACE, because God has already chosen me and I have chosen God, and I TRUST God -- I trust that God can work in and through and with anyone and anything -- and I TRUST that those who love God will work to actively love the world and its people despite the sin and evil with which we are confronted -- and, truth be told, in which we are complicit by merely being alive -- every day.  And I trust these things because the GOSPEL tells me that LOVE WINS -- and I believe it!  Do you?

In Christ
Pastor Amy

This coming Sunday, May 31, is Trinity Sunday.  In honor of the Trinity, I present to you a beautiful prayer attributed to St. Patrick, in which he invokes the love and power of the Trinity.  The first stanza of St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer follows:

"I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One, and One in Three."

You can read the whole prayer here.