Our members Chris Djuric, who works a lot of farmers’ markets, and Sarah Stegner, former executive chef at the Ritz Carlton who is now co-owner and chef of the Prairie Grass Café in Northbrook, saw beyond my limited vision. “Let’s serve a gourmet breakfast and invite the whole community of Evanston to come to breakfast—and […]
Archives for February 2015
Structures of Mission and Ministry Leadership
All baptized Christians are called by virtue of their baptismal covenant to live a lifelong ministry of Word and Service. The Word is the grounding for all that we do, and all expressions of Christian life begin with our self-understanding as servants of all. As a practical matter, however, it has been good and necessary […]
Who Owns the Bible?
Who Owns the Bible? Toward the Recovery of a Christian Hermeneutic by Karl Donfried (Crossroad: 2006) Originally presented at St. Luke Lutheran Church (Belmont), Chicago, December 2007 Who owns the Bible? I will begin with three quotes, which in different ways lead to Donfried’s answer. A. The Church. B. The Church. C. The Church. Maintaining […]
Teen Sex, Urban Ministry, and Missio Passiva
Each Wednesday during Lent, the churches of the Metro Chicago Synod’s south conference gathered for a meal, song, prayer, and a frank moderated discussion of issues of sexuality facing our churches and communities. As an intern this year at Bethel-Imani Lutheran Church in Englewood, it has been my responsibility to attend and participate along with […]
On the Receiving End of the Ministry of Healing
Over the past several years I have had plenty of opportunity to think about disease, pain, suffering, medical science, and faith. Afflicted by colon cancer, I had a colectomy on August 26, 2006. I received a chemotherapy protocol that lasted almost a year, during which I experienced dry mouth, nausea, and rashes and lost hair, […]
Justice
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. (Rev. 21:1) The November gathering of the Chicago Council of Religious Leaders convened at St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church at the north end of Lakeshore Drive. While we were there, I spent some time […]
Commemoration of September 11, 2001: A Homily
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him for us all, how will He not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one […]
The Limits of Faith and the Limits of Politics
In the end, the religiously-charged presidential campaign that many expected never materialized. The economy sidelined the marquee social issues of years past, a relatively secular Republican nominee kept personal faith largely out of discussion, a fiery black church’s theology was addressed in terms of race, and a fiery pre-millennial dispensationalist church was addressed, if at […]
San Esteben Martir
The Rev. Antonio Cabello is pastor of San Esteben Martir (St. Stephen the Martyr), ELCA, 225 S. Kennedy Drive (IL Route 25), a congregation of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod located in the northwest suburb of Carpentersville, Illinois. The people of God at San Esteben gather for the Holy Eucharist on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. in […]
The Celebration of Hispanic/Latino Liturgical and Cultural Festivals as Opportunities for Evangelism
The date was Wednesday, December 12, 2001. I will never forget the day. I was an intern at Trinity Lutheran Church in Canton, Ohio, helping to develop the Hispanic ministry that eventually became a mission congregation of the ELCA. Around 11:30 a.m. a couple walked into our office narthex with a dozen roses. I knew […]
The Time Has Come
Commending The Task Force Ebenezer Lutheran Church (at Foster and Paulina in Chicago) has been a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) congregation since 1993. This was a congregational decision to welcome gay and lesbian persons into the full life of the church. By 1997 the congregation felt a need to explore the blessing of same-gender relationships. […]
The Proposed Social Statement on Human Sexuality Needs a Worldview
I fear that joining together the Policy Recommendations regarding the ordination of persons living in same-sex relationships with the proposed social statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” is eclipsing detailed discussion of the proposed social statement. Homosexuality has become the tail that wags the sexual dog. Yet the number of social issues related to human […]
A Response to “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” (HSGT) and “Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies” (RRMP)
I am simply a parish pastor. I do not claim to be an expert in the history of the Reformation. I have not specialized in Ethics and Social Development. I am a survivor of the free-love ’60s and the repressed ’80s. I bear within my own being a conflict concerning the primary emphases of both […]
Questions for Critics of the Statement and Recommendations
No one should envy the task of producing official prose for the ELCA. As the holy fathers of Nicaea would no doubt testify, the drive to create or preserve consensus is no friend to language or theology. The proposed social statement on sexuality and the policy recommendations are the object of legitimate criticism and discontent, […]
Delight, Design and Destiny: Toward a Doxological Ethics of Sexuality
The cosmetic separation of ethics from doxology is a frequent problem when Christians take human response and action as the starting point in determining how they are to live. The proposed ELCA Social Statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” is not unusual in this approach, but such a move determines the misguided course of the […]
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