Dear Caldwell,
our budget for renewal in 2022
One word – wow!
You believe in our renewal in the Lord … and you’re invested in it.
After Celebration Sunday, we are at 85% of the goal for the 2022 church operating budget. So far, 100 of you (households and individuals) have made a pledge toward what you believe God will do for, with and through us in the year to come. It’s as strong a position as we’ve been in thus far in any of my 15 years here at Caldwell.
Wow. Thank you … and thanks be to our God of provision, abundance, call and renewal!
We’ve still got a ways to go and a gap to close – so we hope those who haven’t had a chance to make a pledge to the Lord through Caldwell will still do so. Why not join in by clicking here to pledge online on our website (safe and secure) or just write an email to Rick Rogers in the church office at rrogers@caldwellpresby.org.
Every pledge is a joy to our Lord, regardless of size. Every pledge matters. And it’s about so much more than just dollars and cents. Every pledge will be translated into spirited and uplifting worship services and Sunday school classes, book groups and anti-racist learning opportunities, parade entry fees and meals for the hungry, learning for our children and warmth and cool in our new Community Hall. And that’s just a summary of how your pledge flows through Caldwell into the hearts, minds, spirits, stomachs and hands of those who need a helping hand and who want to walk in “the way.”
Let’s keep up the momentum!
You’ve got your own visions, too
On Sunday, we invited you to write down what God is opening your eyes to see for Caldwell and for yourself. Your answers are life-giving and life-inspiring. Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing a few at a time so you can savor each one, beginning with those below.
As with Bartimaeus of Jericho, whom we talked about Sunday, each of you is shouting to be heard by Jesus. You are shouting to be noticed, to be seen and to lift up your dreams and intentions to follow Jesus, as old Bartimaeus did. As with the children of Israel centuries earlier, whose shouts to God brought down the dividing walls of Jericho, you are shouting with your voices and your pledges as voices of love and justice in a divided and hurting world.
Thanks to all who shared their visions. We’ve got plenty to do together.
Dangerous Dialogues with our friend Rev. Greg Jarrell
Rev.s Greg and Helms Jarrell and their teen sons are close to the heart of our faith community, in large part because of how they are always teaching and always shining a light where it is needed. This Thursday, at 7 p.m., Union Presbyterian Seminary presents Greg in an online talk about his newest work. It’s a great element in our journey toward anti-racism. Read a description below and click here to join.
How do churches come to occupy the spaces they inhabit? What ought we do when those spaces are contested places, places of injustice and political violence? In “Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Making (and Taking) of Neighborhoods”, Charlotte minister and theologian Greg Jarrell will unpack the history of how white churches from multiple theological perspectives interacted with Urban Renewal projects in Charlotte. What were the stories they were telling themselves? How do those stories still operate, in the ongoing waves of settler-colonialism still displacing Black communities in urban neighborhoods around the country? Sponsored by Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Center for Social Justice & Reconciliation.
Let’s Be the “Hands and Feet” This Friday
Chef Randy is in his kitchen again this week> Well, The Third Place kitchen. That means he’s cooking meals for 60-plus people at McCreesh Place again and he will need help Friday afternoon to pack and deliver the meals. It’s a great way to share community, contribute an hour so of your time and know that you are helping make a difference. If you can help, let me know and come to The Third Place this Friday at 3 p.m.
In Closing
In all of these ways, our shouts for love and justice, our pledges to respond to God’s grace with tithes and offerings, our constant learning and growing and our sharing what we have with new friends, we bear witness to an alternative way of living. It is living not as the world would have it but as the Lord would have it be in the world. We might not put the Apostle Paul at the top of a list of those who lift up that alternative vision prophetically, but he did in all sorts of ways. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the chance to lead workshops for the Presbytery leadership on race and faith and came across this scripture in this week’s preparation. It’s from Eugene Peterson’s down-the-middle translation of the Biblical Greek.
I see each of you in his words, as you use your own voices to bear witness to living as taught and demonstrated through Christ in life, death and the ultimate renewal of us all.
The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. – 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
Thanks for reaching for all the tools the Lord offers us in this work at Caldwell.
In Christ,
John