Christ Church Is Alive! Let Christians Sing!

The rumors on the diocesan street about Christ Church, Las Vegas are all about division and decline. All I know is what I see.

Yesterday, at Christ Church, there were close to 60 people in attendance at the 7:45 a.m. service. Granted, that does not pack such a big worship space. But it was a lot of people for 7:45 a.m. under any circumstances. They are nearly two years deep into an interim period and numbers always go down during interim periods regardless of how well loved the interim may be. So I was surprised and impressed by the early service.

I missed the Spanish Mass at 9:30 because I was socializing with the good people of CCLV in the parish hall, now served by its remodeled kitchen. I talked with a number of folks, but mostly with two young adults, one of whom I had confirmed last year, the other of whom is a 2 L at the Boyd School of Law, UNLV. Yes, there are young adults and college students at Christ Church.

At the principal service, I lost count of how many teenagers we confirmed. All I can say for sure is that it was a most impressive group – by far the largest group of confirmands I have had this year at an English speaking service. There were also 2 adult confirmands – one of whom was young adult, specifically another UNLV student. There were also four teens from the Latino congregation at St. Luke’s. Hurray for St. Luke’s too. But most of the youth were Christ Church kids. Let me add, they were strong in spirit as well as numbers. They were engaged, intelligent, and attentive when I met with them before the service. They had clearly been blessed with good Christian formation.

I don’t’ know the attendance number, but the church looked about ¾ full to me. It was a crowd! Yes, they were there for confirmations – or a lot of them were – but that counts. It was a mighty impressive turnout of engaged people who sang out and said the prayers with gusto. And another thing: they were, as they always have been, a diverse lot by any standard. There were black, white, brown, and Asian people. There were folks who looked well to do, folks who looked poor, and folks in between. This congregation looked considerably more like the city in which it resides than most Episcopal congregations.

If you are in Nevada, you have heard about the controversial new organ. In my experience, saying “controversial” and “new” about a church organ is redundant. Any new organ is controversial, and the better the organ the more controversial it is. The Christ Church organ, the largest in Nevada and certainly one of the best, is inevitably controversial. But the voluntaries before and after worship were magnificent. At the principal service, the congregation staid in place for the postlude, spell bound by the music, then broke into spontaneous applause.

“When in our music God is glorified
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried
Alleluia! Alleluia!”
Hymnal, 420.

How much is that worth? How much is it worth multiplied by the long life of a tracker organ which will inspire souls for generation after generation?

Then at 5:00 Linda and I joined the Latino congregation for a Fiesta in the parish hall. It was absolutely packed. The food was delicious and the people were warm hearted. This group has been worshiping together for only 9 months but already the feel of community is emerging. Wondering how the Anglos are taking it? Several Anglos took me aside in the morning to say, “Thank you for sending us Fr. Bernardo.” Some described their own new spiritual experience and joy from worshiping with the Latino congregation. Even though they did not speak Spanish, they got it. They understood at the heart level.

Then came the evening Eucharist. I’d say the church was about 4/5 full. We baptized and celebrated children’s communions. Again I could not keep track of the initiation rites. More than in the morning. Now here’s what struck me. We were not baptizing babies. We were mostly baptizing teens and pre-teens. Latino families whose children have not been baptized long before this age have definitely been alienated from the church. We are not moving people from one church to another. We are bringing people from unchurched and estranged lives into the fold. I wish you could have seen the faces of these young people – joyful, devout, sincere. They were not going through the motions, not just doing what was expected of them at a certain age. It was ritual marking new commitment to Jesus.

This Latino congregation along with Latinos from All Saints’ and St. Luke’s are the heart of Latino support for the Las Vegas Interfaith community organizing effort. Anglo clergy from Christ Church are joining the struggle to make the Valley into a place where we know and care about each other. Of course, Christ Church continues to be the core of our urban ministries to the homeless and now to the new poor of the present recession.

They are doing all this during an interim period, during a recession, and in the aftermath of a traumatic conflict two years ago. This congregation is resilient, inspired, and inspiring. I give thanks to God for their witness.

Interfaith Relational Power For The Common Good

The Episcopal Church is involved in interfaith broad based community organizing in Reno and the Las Vegas Valley. Our efforts are really quite simple, but people have a hard time grasping it. This is such a different approach to our common life that it is like speaking a foreign language. It isn't starting with a divisive issue and gathing the people who agree to fight with the other side. Interfaith organizing believes relationships and knowledge lead to a different kind of power -- relational power to heal society instead of dominating power for win-lose controversies. It is a different way of being a people together. The statment below is how I explained our goals to a meeting of Las Vegas Valley Interfaith attended by 254 people from 72 different churches, mosques, and synagogues two weeks ago.

From what Charles Redmond has told you
of our accomplishments so far,
you can see we are here to do something new
– something different.
We are here to change things at a deeper level than usual.

Usually when we set out to do some public good, we start with an issue.
People who care about the same issue
get together, take a stand, win or lose, then go home and forget it.
Relationships have not been formed.
People have connected to causes, not each other.
The basic pattern of fragmented, broken community has not been changed.

This is different.
Instead of starting with issues, we start with people.
We are forming a network of relationships
among Las Vegas Valley people who ordinarily
would not know each other.
I have new friends here I would not have known
and my life is already the better for it.
We intentionally cross the lines of race, religion, and politics.
We are Muslims and Catholics, Methodists and Jews.
We are Democrats, Republicans, Greens, and Independents.
We are black, white, brown, and Asian.

We are knitting together this diverse community
by hearing each others’ stories.
We are learning together how our government,
our economy, and our schools work
so we can make them work better.

We have no ideology except grass roots democracy
– common people taking responsibility for our common life
– and working for our common good.
We will stand shoulder to shoulder to meet the issues of this decade,
and we will still be standing shoulder to shoulder
in the next decade when new issues arise.
Divided, we are too politically weak to make our voices heard.

But together, we can make a difference
in the foreclosure crisis, the decline of our schools,
the plight of families in which a member is undocumented.

This Organization has a broad but clear purpose
– a better life for families.
Our Valley is not yet a family friendly place.
We have children in Las Vegas growing up
-- some on the streets; some in rent-by-the-week motels
-- children without a sliver of a chance.
We are an international hub of human trafficking.
Young lives are being derailed by gangs.
Tonight, you have heard some of the stories
about how life goes wrong here
for children, youth, and the elderly.

But together we can make this Valley blossom
for all our families and all our faiths --
just as broad based community organizations have done in Phoenix,
Tucson, San Antonio, San Diego, Nasville, Charlotte, New Orleans.
Las Vegas is next.

This big job takes broad-based, long term commitment.
To be stable and strong, we have to stand on our own feet.
We have to be self-supporting and self-sustaining.
That means we need the churches, mosques, and synagogues
to sign on, to commit both time and money,
just like we expect the people in our congregations
to sign on and commit.

We all have other pressing demands on our time and our budget.
But you have heard the stories and there are countless more.
What are these lives worth to us?
What are the children, the elderly,
and ordinary families worth?
What is it worth to set our Valley free to flourish?

Churches, mosques, and synagogues cannot change this Valley
if we remain divided -- feeding a hungry person here,
speaking out on a particular issue there.
But together, we can be a formidable force for the common good –
built to last, uniting people of all races and faiths as friends.

Sojourner Dream Of Grace

After giving a sermon on the spiritual journey at St. Stephen’s yesterday, I flew back to Henderson and had the most beautiful, healing dream I can remember. I was moving to Nevada. Much of the journey was on foot and I would stop in small towns along the way. The beauty of the dream was the kind and gracious way several people helped me. I feel like a new person today.

In waking life, the road was hard last year, to say the least, and the hardness has continued to weigh on me until now. My dream was a channel of grace and peace.

We are all on a path, often not of our choosing. We would prefer to stay in Abram’s home, Ur; or in Jerusalem, like the apostles who did not leap into fulfilling The Great Commission, but instead set up shop in Jerusalem until driven out by persecution. One way or another, we are all on the road, pushed out of our nest. I don’t know where the road leads. The song says it, does it not? “I know not where the road may lead . . . . (only that) I walk the King’s Highway.” But regardless of the destination, grace happens when people are kind to us at the way stations.

Perhaps that is the wisdom embedded in the spiritual practice enjoined by the law of Moses to welcome the alien and shelter the sojourner, remembering that we are sojourners ourselves. As we go about being the Church, we might do well to think less on sustaining our institutions, to think more about the literal and spiritual sojourners around us, and find ways to extend a bit of consolation.