I am grateful for two events in the last two weeks. The first is the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the decision of Judge Walker Vaughn’s striking down the constitutionality of Prop 8. I believe that we are closer to the day restoring Marriage Equality to California, and we once again may marry all couples at MCC in the Valley. The second is Washington State’s decision for legalizing same-sex marriage. The Marriage Equality movement is gaining momentum. I want to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. that I have a dream that one day soon in our lives we will have full marriage equality for all US citizens.
This week Rev. Joe and I along with Roberta Robles, our lay delegate, will be in Las Vegas for a Southern California and Nevada MCC Network Meeting. Megan More will preach this Sunday. I ask you to hold her in prayer because on the following Saturday, February 25th, Megan will undergo her ordination interview. We look forward to the end of her six year journey towards ordination as an MCC clergy.

Wednesday, Feb. 22 is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Ashes will be distributed at noon and 6 PM in brief services, though you may receive them individually throughout the day from 10 AM until 6 PM.

I have the pleasure to announce that the Honorable and the Reverend Victoria Kolakowski, Superior Court Judge of Alameda County, CA and MCC Clergy, will be preaching at MCC in the Valley on Sunday, February 26th at our 10:30 Morning Worship Service. Victoria is the first Transsexual Woman Judge in the United States. She also is an ordained MCC clergy who has contributed articles to my co-edited books — Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible and Our Families, Our Values: Snapshots of Queer Kinship. Come and hear Rev. Victoria Kolakowski preach at MCC in the Valley.

In addition, on Feb. 23rd, I and others from MCC in the Valley and MCCLA will participate in a protest at the Federal Building with a broad coalition of interfaith clergy for Federal Legislation on Climate Change. Watch the video on YouTube: Faith Rally at the Federal Building for Climate Legislation.

Keep the rally in your prayers, for the participants hope that we can jumpstart faith communities to rally for Earth Care. This is, in our knowledge, the first Interfaith Rally and Protest against the Climate Changes that will impact us all.

Little Lord Fauntleroy is the first children’s novel written by English playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was serialized with pictures and became very popular in England. It was made into a movie in 1936 and 1980. The 1980 version starred Alec Guiness and Rickie Schroeder.

A musical adaptation and reading of the play – titled Fauntleroy – will take place at MCC in the Valley Saturday, March 3rd at 8 PM. It is open to the congregation and the public. There will be a love offering donation taken up. The play is written by Kathleen Fitzpatrick; music by Eric Jacobson; lyrics by Eric Jacobson and Kathleen Fitzpatrick. Roseanne Hill will be one of the vocalists and readers.

Please note that our Celebration of the Life of Steve Robitaille is delayed one week allowing for family travel. It will be held Sunday, March 11th at 1:30 PM.

Come and join us for worship this Sunday and enjoy the expansion of our meditation garden.

Peace,

Rev. Bob

This Sunday California Interfaith Power and Light has asked churches to preach on Global Warming. In addition, Dr. Michael Zimmermann, founder of the Clergy letter project, has designated this Sunday “Evolutionary Sunday.” Over a thousand churches in California and in the United States will preach on some aspect of Religion & Evolutionary Science and/or Global Warming. It is amazing how many churches fear science and evolution or even refuse to hear any scientific data on Global Warming.

Here is what scientists are saying about Global Warming:

* Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced. The emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, are creating a layer of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that acts like a blanket, trapping heat.

* Climate destabilization is underway in the United States. This is contributing to rising temperatures and chaotic weather.

* Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase. Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health.

* Climate change will stress water resources. Water supply and demand is already altered and will continue to change. Dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter.

* Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged. Increased heat, pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes will pose adaptation challenges for crop and livestock production. Plant reproduction will also be affected.

* Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge. Many U.S. coastal areas are at increasing risk of erosion and flooding.

* Threats to human health will increase. Health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects.

* Climate change is happening, but the extent of the impact depends on choices we make today. The impacts of climate change during this century and beyond will be far greater and more rapid if global warming pollution continues to grow rapidly compared to scenarios in which concentrations grow more slowly.

Galileo underwent a trial 500 years ago for heresy that the earth rotated around the Sun. He argued that God reveals truth in two books: The Bible and the Book of Nature. My sermon this Sunday is entitled “God So Loved the World…” The Bible and Science are not opposed to one another; they compliment one another and enrich our understanding of God’s presence in human lives and in Nature.

After service, you have the option to join us in sending postcards to Senators Boxer and Feinstein, urging them to resist efforts to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency. All people deserve clean air and a safe climate.

Come and listen how “God So Loves the World…”

Blessings,

Rev. Bob

We are still in the Season of Epiphany; soon Lent will be with us. The church in following the cycle of readings for the year uses the Gospel of Mark. I want to share the photo below with you.

Mark’s Gospel has its own particular stress in retelling the story of Jesus. Mark wants to emphasize the cost of discipleship. Everyone now and during the time when Mark composed his gospel have their own ideas about what it means to follow Christ. And those ideas are usually strange at best and off base as the photo cartoon emphasizes.  Following Christ does not mean becoming a fan on Twitter or any other social network. That is not a put-down of social networks, only the realization of the limits of social networks.  Social networks are useful to inform and connect people together.

Mark understands the cost of discipleship by looking to the example of Jesus and his commitment to bring the message of God’s kingdom to his society that all were welcomed into God’s hospitality, love, and forgiveness without any conditions. Mark is particularly hard on the disciples for the failure to understand that following Christ is not an easy matter or a profit to be gained; there is cost to bringing the good news to people. There will be hardship, death as in the example of John the Baptist, disappointments in disciples turning away because of wealth in the story of the rich young man, and his own intimate circle of disciples. Judas will betray Jesus; Peter will deny him three times. All of the male disciples, except one, will flee from the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is arrested by the Temple police.

The example of the suffering Jesus is the central example of discipleship-his following God at all costs, even death on the cross. While Christ requires nothing except our openness to grace, there is an expectation of those that are called to discipleship to be willing to sacrifice for the sake of God’s reign. Jesus understood that God’s reign is the ultimate transformation of our social network, and ultimately all social networks dedicated to God’s values of love, compassion, peace-making, forgiveness, feeding the poor, and healing the wounds of this world.

As we approach Lent, there will be an announcement of a Lenten Bible Study on  Mark’s Gospel on Thursdays before spiritual practices. This will allow you to study Mark’s Gospel in a little more depth, as well as to see how you can deepen your following Christ this time of Lent.

On Sunday, Rev. Joe will be preaching on one of the first healings in Mark’s Gospel, 1:29-39. It is part of the first day of Jesus’ ministry when he came out of the wilderness. Come and join us for our worship of God and hear the word of God.

Blessings,

Rev. Bob

Greetings!

This Sunday I finish my sermon series on envisioning MCCV as a spiritual community of faith with Luke 13:10-13, the healing of the crippled woman. Last week I spoke about the cornerstone of MCCV as church: our extending God’s hospitality at table. There are not many churches that practice an open community table. Churches place conditions on access just as particular holiness groups at Jesus’ time placed exclusions around the table and the Temple.

There was a clash of theologies between Jesus and the holiness groups of his time. Many followed Leviticus “Be holy as your God is holy.” (Lev. 11:45) It was the basis of the Jewish purity codes and the exclusion of impure people and people with suspect purity statuses.

Jesus stood against this holiness code with his reframing the theology: “Be compassionate as your Abba God is compassionate.” (Luke 6:36) Jesus challenged the exclusive politics of holiness with his politics of compassion. I use the word “politics” since it expresses a way of religious life and behaviors that had cultural and political implications. Jesus preached that we should not imitate the holiness of God, rather we should imitate the compassion of God.

Compassion was the cornerstone of Jesus’ table hospitality and extending God’s hospitality to sinners, prostitutes, tax collections, and the throw-away peoples of his time. Compassion was the basis of his practice of an open table. Compassion was the core value of Jesus’ ministry and his later community.

For many, Jesus is the prophet of compassion. There have been other religious leaders and prophets who spoke for compassion throughout the ages. Karen Armstrong, a famous religious author and author of Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, wrote a Charter of Compassion. It is the following statement.

Charter of Compassion
 
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others-even our enemies-is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women
~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion
~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures
~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity
~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings — even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

I strongly believe that compassion is another word for God’s grace working in the world through people. If you can accept the principle of compassion, I invite you to sign on the Charter. http://charterforcompassion.org/site/

Christians should follow Christ in imitating Abba God’s compassionate care, for then walls break down and people relate as God intended us to relate.

Come and be part of our retreat this Saturday from 9:30 AM -1:30 PM.

God’s compassion be with you,

Rev. Bob

These next two weeks I will preach a sermon series on envisioning the mission of the church during this season of Epiphany, the manifestation of the ministry of Jesus Christ. It involves two simple yet complex virtues in Christianity:Hospitality and Compassion. These are the two characteristic expressions through which we can come to understand the mission of Jesus and his communication of God’s love to us. Both words are synonymous with our notions of grace.

This week’s sermon is entitled God’s Hospitality: Open Table, Open Church. At the first MCC service ever in 1968, Rev. Troy Perry invited all in attendance to the communion table. It has been a central worship practice and theological insight into the ministry of Jesus. Every Sunday, I or other celebrants make an open invitation to the communion table: “Everyone is welcome at God’s table. You do not need to be a member of this church, or any church, or even a Christian; you are welcome to this table as a beloved child of God.”

MCC, to my knowledge, was the first denomination to practice an open table. Many churches practice a closed table, placing ecclesial or doctrinal or ethical conditions on access to the communion table. Many LGBTIQ folks have been excluded from the communion table by various churches. Troy Perry revived a central practice from the ministry of Jesus: Jesus’ indiscriminate practices of hospitality and welcoming people from all walks of life to table. He had women, tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, the poor, the ill, outcasts – the throw-away people of his society – along with the rich and pious. He welcomed everyone in the name of God and extended the hospitality of God to them all. Hospitality is the central feature of church. It is the welcome at the table of strangers, visitors, and members.

One of my favorite quotes by author Christine Pohl expresses what Jesus intended in passing the ministry of hospitality on to his followers: “Seeing Jesus in every guest reduces the inclination to calculate the importance of one guest over another. Every person deserves the most gracious and generous welcome possible.” And I would add that our mission as a church is to practice an open table of welcome, to welcome people to God’s hospitality. Hospitality is another name for grace and salvation. When Jesus comes to the house of Zacchaeus, he becomes the host and welcomes the tax collector into God’s hospitality: “Today, salvation has come to your house.”

Join us this Sunday and make it your practice to see Jesus in each guest and member, and remember we are all family at God’s table.

Blessings,

Rev. Bob

We celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday this Sunday – his actual birthday, the day before the national holiday is observed. It was a year ago that the assassination attempt on Congressional Representative Gabriel Giffords, the murder of six innocent people, and the wounding of nearly a dozen more people took place in Tucson.

For many years, I have thought that the real original sin was not the eating of some forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, but the sin of Cain who murdered his brother Abel. The mark of Cain has genetically and culturally conditioned human behavior. The original sin that marks humanity is our fall to violence. We carry the mark of Cain in our souls, and humans fall too easily into creating cultures of violence. Christians can be more violent than many people of other faiths.

How do we stop violence? I will make a suggestion on how we can hear the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Violence will come to an end only when we first end our own personal violence. Here is a meditation exercise you can use each morning: Every morning take a few moments in the shower or sit by yourself. Take the time to silence yourself for a couple moments in the presence of God. Breathe in the spirit of God’s peace, and imagine being with God. Listen to God and God’s word of calming and peace. God invites you to still the anger, resentments, and burdens which pull you away from yourself and God. God invites you to share in a life of love. Visualize our exchange of peace on Sunday when you turn to your neighbor and extend God’s peace. Accept Shalom, the peace given to you by God, and return it to your neighbors. Now visualize extending this peace to others.

If you start your day with this meditation, it will help you reclaim your identity as a peacemaker and a child of God.

I want to note that on Thursday, January 19th at 7:30 PM we will hold our monthly Taize Service; then on Friday, January 20th at 7:30 PM will be our Potluck Dinner and Movie. We will screen The Big Gay Musical, a musical parody of an anti-gay Christian couple trying to convert their nephew to “heterosexuality.” Come and laugh with us.

Join us this Sunday as we continue to explore the peacemaking of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and The Beloved Community. Our clergy intern Megan More will be preaching.

Peace,

Rev. Bob

We transfer the feast of Epiphany, celebrated on January 6, to this Sunday. It is too wonderful a story from Matthew 2: 1-12 to miss. Matthew mentions that Magi – priests or religious sages from Persia – came following the star. Matthew does not number the Magi as three, for later Christian tradition arrived at the number three from the list of gifts: frankincense, myrrh, and gold presented to the newborn infant. Later 5th – 8th century traditions gave the Magi names: Melchior (a Babylonia scholar), Caspar (a Gandharvan sage), and Balthasar (an Arabian sage). Caspar has been derived from a corruption of Gondophores from the Acts of Thomas. Gondophores was an Indo-Scythian and Buddhist King of Gandhara (now Pakistan). Later Christian traditions read correctly the intent of the story in Matthew’s Gospel to bring out the universal event of the birth of Christ for all humanity and all religions. It reminds us of the need to discover the universal significance of the birth of Christ. It’s also a reminder of the need for Christians to be attentive to the joyous mystery that is birth of Immanuel, God’s embodiment in Christ.

It was Albert Einstein who said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” And it is that mystery, that wonder, that capacity to dream that we celebrate through the story of the sages at Epiphany. What are you doing in this New Year to foster an attentiveness to mystery? Come and listen how you might foster a joyous attentiveness to the profound mystery of God in Jesus.

On Saturday, January 28 from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM, we will be holding a Resource Planning Workshop. This is a training day for Board, Pastoral Team, Staff, Music Team, and active ministry members. The focus will be building up the economic and church infrastructure to resource our growth and development as a church. All folks active in the life of the church are strongly encouraged to attend.

If you are reading this message and don’t have a church home, I personally invite you to visit us at A Church Alive – MCC in the Valley. We are a small, yet powerful and green community of faith that loves God and extends God’s inclusive love to all people.

Perhaps you are reading this and used to attend MCC in the Valley, but have been absent for awhile. I want you to know that we miss you and would love to see you at a Sunday worship to simply embrace you and let you know that we have been praying for you. The church is only strengthened by your unique gifts and blessed by your energy. You can personally email ANY prayer request: revdrbobshoregoss@mccinthevalley.com .

Come and join us to celebrate Epiphany.

Blessings this New Year,

Rev. Bob

As we approach Christmas this week, I want to quote a scene from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, ” I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carolwas published in 1843, and his classic story has been made into a number of movie versions and musicals. The above scene makes me cringe when I read it in the book or see it on the screen. A similar scene is being played out almost on a daily basis in the halls of government and among corporate boards and on the streets of our cities by Christians.

During my life, I have never witnessed so much economic and social turmoil in our country-with record home foreclosures, 14 million Americans unemployed, and half of the middle class living under the poverty line.

Today, social conservatives echo the words of Scrooge with a callousness that pains every bone in my body. This Christmas I ask you to pray for social conservatives to remember that more than 2000 years ago Divine Love incarnated in a human baby delivered by Mary in a barn. The barn had no furniture, and the baby was laid in a manger, a food trough for animals.

The family within which Divine Love was born did not reflect traditional religious family values, for there were a lot of rumors and gossip about the paternity of the child that Miriam carried in her womb. Nor were they part of the 1%, for the family was part of the 99% at the low end of the poverty scale of Jewish peasants.

God chose to be born as an outsider and within a poor family to signify God’s preferential option for the 99%. God reaches out to the outcast woman, the endangered child, the poor, the disabled and the ill, and the outsider. The unwed woman was the God-bearer. Divine Love entered into a human a child, part of the 99%, and this event of incarnation signifies that Incarnate Love demonstrates how loveable and important the 99% are. In your prayers, this Christmas look into the eyes of the 99%, a homeless person on the streets, your neighbors, and see the Christ child. This is the Christ for whom the social conservatives make cutbacks and create toil and economic misery.

Now back to Scrooge. Dickens’ story is about the conversion of a greedy, materialistic man who has cut his spirit off from his humanity and the incarnated child. We can pray this Christmas for social conservatives and remind them of Dickens’ words to us and themselves:

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it aside.

May the true Spirit of Christmas, the Incarnated Divine Love-the Christ-haunt your homes pleasantly and remind you that the Christ child is alive among the 99%. Remind our Christian social conservatives that Divine Love is the most important thing humans have to remember.

Merry Christ-mas,

Rev. Bob

Our oceans are dying, our air changing, dramatic climatic events are more common, and our forests and grasslands are turning into deserts. From fish and plants to wildlife to human beings, we are harming the Earth that sustains us. The recent climate conference in Durban, South Africa admitted that global warming gases are now the highest on record.

This Advent we have an opportunity to give the Earth a Christmas gift by joining the local Sierra Club and LA Business Council in their campaign to end our city’s dependency on two coal plants – one in Arizona and the other in Utah.Coal plants are the worst offenders for carbon gas emissions which result in climate change.I ask you to join myself and the staff at MCC in the Valley in sending a message to the LA Mayor, City Council, and the Department of Water and Power supporting the Clean LA Solar Program. On the economic side, it will result in 16,000 jobs and two billion dollars in private investment in the city.It is a win-win solution for us during this time of economic recession and will reduce our usage of coal.

Go to the website: http://www.cleanlasolar.com/ Fill out the information on the right; an email will be sent to the Mayor, City Council, and Department of Water and Power. A number of my students at CSUN have already sent emails. Take the time and give the Earth a Christmas gift, for this is the season of new life and hope. Your voices are important.This may be one of the most important actions you take for the Earth, humanity, and life itself. Please take the time. The L.A. Business Council believes that the City Council will adopt a version of the bill which will place 75MW at first. This can be scaled up in the future.

MCCV received a green Oscar for work in energy advocacy. We are only starting a ministry for Earth Care and plan to expand solar energy to our neighborhood businesses and residences and to other faith communities.

I also encourage all our subscribers and friends to make a tax-deductible year-end donation to MCC in the Valley for our green initiative. We will expand our Earth Care ministry to other faith communities. So far we have recruited four faith communities to move to secure solar panels, including a Southern Baptist Church whose theology contrasts significantly with our own. Yet we share the same Earth that God has created for us all.

We will carry out our mission of God’s radical inclusive love to choose environmental care for the Earth and for all life on this planet. Our plans for a green initiative program are beginning to take shape and conversations have started with other organizations planning for the new year. We will call it Alive and Green. Consider sending a donation for our work, or go to our website: http://www.mccinthevalley.com/ and in the right column is a paypal button for credit card donations. Make a donation for the Earth and help MCCV’s green ministry expand.

In addition, I want to point to several fundraising activities during this Advent Season. Jerry and Art are collecting socks and stocking caps to give to the homeless in Bakersfield on Christmas Day. Bring them to church. We have also started our seventh annual toy drive for kids living with HIV in Los Angeles; in cooperation with Elves Enterprise (that has been collecting toys for kids living with HIV for distribution through the hospitals and centers for the last 25 years). The Bullet participates in our toy drive on the evening of December 16th. We need donations of items for both of these causes THIS Sunday, December 18th.

Join us for our Christmas Coffee House this Saturday, Dec. 17th at 7 PM – and bring friends. All are also invited to our annual Christmas Caroling at St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank on Tuesday evening, Dec. 20th from 7 to 8:30 PM.

Come and worship with us on this fourth Sunday of Advent when we learn that nothing is impossible with God.

Peace,
Rev. Bob

Our oceans are dying, our air changing, dramatic climatic events are more common, and our forests and grasslands turning to deserts. From fish and plants to wildlife to human beings, we are harming the Earth that sustains us. The climate in Durban South Africa admits that the global warming gases are the highest in record.

This Advent we have an opportunity to give the Earth a Christmas gift by joining the local Sierra Club and LA Business Council in their campaign to end the city’s dependency on two coal plants-one in Arizona and the other in Utah. Coal plants are the worst offenders for carbon gas admissions resulting in climate change. I ask you to join myself and the staff at MCC in the Valley in sending a message to the LA Mayor, City Council, and the Department of Water and Power supporting the Clean LA Solar Program. On the economic side, it will result in 16,000 jobs and 2 billion dollars in private investment in the city. It is a win-win solution for us during this time of economic recession and reduce our usage on coal.

Go to the website: http://www.cleanlasolar.com/ Fill out the information on the right; an email will be sent to the Mayor, City Council, and Department of Water and Power. A number of my students at CSUN sent emails today. Take the time and give the Earth a Christmas gift, for this is the season of new life and hope. Your voices are important. This may be one of the most important actions you take for the Earth, humanity, and life itself.

MCCV received a green Oscar for work in energy advocacy. We are only starting a ministry for Earth Care and plan to expand to our neighborhood businesses and residences and to other faith communities.

I also encourage all our subscribers and friends to make a year-end donation to MCC in the Valley. We will expand our Earth Care ministry to other faith communities. So far we have recruited four faith communities to move to secure solar panels, including a Southern Baptist Church whose theology contrasts significantly with our own. Yet we share the same Earth that God has created for us all.

We will carry out our mission of God’s radical inclusive love to choose environmental care for the Earth and for all life on this planet. Our plans for a green initiative program are beginning to take shape and conversations have started with other organizations planning for the new year. We will call it “Alive and Green”. Consider sending a donation for our work, or go to our website: http://www.mccinthevalley.com/ and in the right column is a paypal button for credit card donations. Make a donation for the Earth and help MCCV’s green ministry expand.

In addition, I want to point to several fundraising activities during this Advent Season. Jerry and Art are collecting socks and stocking caps to give to the homeless in Bakersfield on Christmas Day. Bring them to church. We have also started our seventh annual toy drive for kids living with HIV in Los Angeles; in cooperation with Elves Enterprise that has been collecting toys for kids living with HIV for distribution through the hospitals and centers for the last 25 years. The Bullet will be participating in our toy drive on the evening of December 16th.

May God’s blessings be with you this third Sunday of Advent.

Peace
Rev. Bob