The efforts of many people have, under God's guidance, made the United Parish what it is today. People come into the congregation and bring special interests and energy. I like what we've become. Here are three qualities I especially affirm.
The first: freedom. In July of 1973, I was being interviewed
to become the Organizing Pastor of this Church. As the
interview began to conclude, I asked Jim Fickland, the
Executive of The Presbytery, What are the parameters of what
we can do at the United Parish; what do you expect of us?
I've
always remembered his answer, You can do whatever you want to
do as long as it's Christian.
I took the plane with my wife
back to Illinois and said, That's just remarkable; we can do
whatever we want as long as it's Christian!
I cannot tell you
how much that statement meant to me. You and this group of
people here, whatever you decide, you can do, and you'll have
our blessing.
I said to myself, This is unprecedented!
Here are denominations which every month are going to send
us a check to help us pay our bills. If you added up through
1979 the amount this Church was given by the denominations to
get started, in today's dollars it would be about a half a
million. They gave that money to us, and their only requirement
was that we do what's Christian
. That's like a blank check.
There is something in me which very much gravitated toward that
freedom. I would frequently go to denominational meetings and
feel a tremendous burden. They are giving us so much trust; we
dare not let them down.
I'm telling you, all the options were
open. We could have become anything in God's creation that we
felt God wanted us to be.
Freedom is something I savor very much for the individual
members of this congregation as well. Members of this
congregation are free to do, say, or believe whatever they find
is an expression of their making Jesus Christ the center of
their lives. We are all at different places in our faith
journey. We are not a congregation that says, You're not
really a Christian, because you don't believe exactly as I do.
There are some who would say that ice cream comes in only one
flavor, and if you don't like, say, raspberry ice cream, you're
not really a Christian. I say, It's all ice cream! Sure, there
are boundaries regarding what one can believe and still claim
to be a Christian. Yet, within those boundaries there has
always been in Christianity substantial variation. We affirm
one another at different points in our faith journey. Such
affirmation does not mean indifference. It means that we trust
people and how God is variously working in our lives.
Now the second point: acceptance. We are not a congregation
that talks behind people's backs. We are a congregation in
which, if there is an in
group and an out
group, I haven't
discovered them yet. You can be as much a part of this church
if you come for two months as if you've been here twenty years.
We respect privacy, but we care. We are not intrusive in the
lives of others. We are a congregation of acceptance. I think
that goes along with the freedom. The worst thing I can imagine
would be if the congregation had little groups that talked
about one another in a negative way. Doesn't happen!
A third quality I like about this church: an affirmation of the life of the mind. It is okay to ask questions, to think about our faith, to question our faith. The United Parish of Bowie is not a place where we have to check our brains at the door. We affirm the life of the mind as well as the life of feeling and doing.
We've had ice cream first. Now, we get to the meat and potatoes, which I'll go over very quickly because we know it so well. The purpose that we share with all churches is to follow Jesus Christ: to have Christ be the center of our individual and corporate lives; to serve Christ in the community and in other places. Also, we are called to persuade others to follow Jesus Christ. That's why we have outreach and education. We don't want to be a content group that is inward-looking; we reach out to share the faith with others in the community and beyond.
I've mentioned three reasons why I like this Church. There are other reasons, of course. Yet three are prominent in my mind: freedom, acceptance of one another as people in process with God, and an affirmation of the life of the mind. On a deeper level I like the fact that we clearly affirm that Jesus Christ is the center of life, and we seek to share that faith with any who will listen.
The foregoing is based on a sermon given on June 2, 2002 by Pastor Carl Bickel to mark the 25th year of organization as a church.
© 2002 Carl O. Bickel
