Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Here is the link to the video that I mention in today’s worship – a piece called Easter is Coming – from Karoline Lewis, one of my favorite scholars on the Gospel of John. Be sure to watch it all the way through to the end or you won’t see what she does with this, it’s worth it!
The PDF’s for the other elements of today’s service are included below…
MBW1995-Liturgy-for-Advent-and-Palm-SundayPublished on // Written by Christy Clore
Our liturgy for this morning can be downloaded in its entirety so that you can join in the prayer and song today.
MBW1995LENT1One of my Moravian colleagues serving an Anglican congregation in Edmonton kindly shared her recording of the Godly Play Story – The Mystery of Easter – to accompany this week’s worship.
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Based on recommendations that we have received from the Provincial Elders Conference and guidelines from our community leaders, the Joint Board has made the difficult decision to suspend all in person gatherings or activities of our congregation throughout the month of April. We know this is incredibly difficult due to the many beloved traditions of this season in our congregation. We make this decision out of a love for each of you and all those in our larger community. We know this to be the best decision for the health, safety, and well-being of all.
We will continue to offer electronic worship options, including a series of Holy Week Readings services and both an Easter Dawn Service and an Easter Morning Worship.
These will be available via the church website –www.kernersvillemoravian.org
or you can see them on the Kernersville Moravian Facebook Page.
Unfortunately, we need to ask that families refrain from cleaning and dressing the graves of their loved ones in God’s Acre this Easter. This is a major gathering every year throughout those days leading up to Easter. To take appropriate precautions this year, we ask you to hold off on doing this at this time for everyone’s health and safety.
The church office will be minimally staffed between 8am – 12noon on weekdays, but the phone will be always be answered on weekdays between 8am – 5pm. We encourage you to use the postal mail for contributions and tithes during this time. Any mail that we receive or any contributions that are dropped off (in the golden box just inside the Cherry Street entry doors) will be picked up and placed under fire-safe lock and key in the church office daily around 5pm.
We want you to know that you can always find someone on the other end of the phone line here at the church during our usual office hours. Please, if you need a friendly voice to connect with during this time, take us up on this. Jen will be happy to talk with you and she can help you to connect with me if you need to do so.
While I will be working primarily from home during this time, I will still be creating our worship opportunities and seeking to connect with those who have expressed needs. Bear with me if sometimes I cannot answer immediately, but given time I will follow up.
We thank you for your understanding.
In Christ’s deep and abiding peace,
Pastor Christy
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In recent days, we’ve all been wondering what next and how much more is going to be impacted by Covid-19 precautions. We hope you are being wise and choosing to do those things out in the world that must be done while limiting extra physical contact when it is possible. I know this feels strange and in some cases almost impossible.
At this point, please remember that all worship and congregational activities being held at the church are suspended until further notice through the end of March. Along with the closure of schools, as per our usual weather policy, all events are canceled. As soon as we have more information and decisions about the month of April, we will begin sharing them with you.
For many of you, I know you can’t imagine just calling each other instead of dropping in for a visit. Or you simply don’t consider yourselves tech savvy enough to engage in technology. Maybe you don’t think you’re hurting anything to keep on doing your usual routines. Or maybe you’ve already found yourselves hunkered down whether you want to or not – with kids trying to figure out new ways of experiencing school via technology.
Here at church, we’ve been trying to figure out ways to offer encouragement toward different ways of connecting during this time. These are ones that don’t push us to ignore or neglect the important recommendations about our entire society working together to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
Even without technology:
With technology:
What’s happening with Worship?
Each Sunday we will make a new E-Worship piece available that includes music, prayers, and a sermon. I know this isn’t the same, but it is a way for you to connect and to feel that you are a part of something bigger even from your home.
For those who request it, we will begin sending out a weekly mailing with printed copies of some of the worship materials we will use in the E-Worship posts.
What’s happening with Giving?
We invite you to remember that our sharing of our tithes and offerings is a part of our worship of God. Just because we can’t gather together doesn’t mean that we can’t choose one of several ways to make these gifts of our selves and our resources during this time.
How can we give?
The easiest and most impactful ways for you to contribute to the church right now are:
We discourage folks dropping by the church for now, but as long as we are able to maintain regular office hours, we will try to do so. We will have a drop box available for checks to be left in and all contributions will be secured. We do continue to have an online giving option, but we remind you that there is a credit card processing fee that comes out of credit card transactions that are made.
What can we do?
Maybe you can pick up additional shelf stable food items during your grocery run and stop by the Blessing Box by the Activity Building to drop some things off for others in need.
What’s happening with Pastoral Care?
As always, I am listening. Give me a call in the church office. Call or text my cell phone (and understand if I don’t answer or respond immediately, give me time). You can ask for it through the church office, if you don’t already have it. For now, we will continue to keep the church office open from 8am – 5pm on Monday through Friday. But we will not be able to remain open if we become a hub of activity (and escape), so only essential functions should be happening onsite, please.
If you have a need, even if it is just a voice on the other end of the phone, please call us and let us know what it is. If you are under age 65, in good health, and willing to assist members that have a need let us know that too. We will be working to connect willing callers or helpers during this time with those who need an errand run or just a regular phone call to check on you.
Psalm 139:7 reminds us, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your right hand shall hold me fast.”
Even in the midst of different routines and patterns, even away from our familiar worship spaces, God is still with us. Breathe that message in during these days. Remember that we have embedded in our tradition times when our ancestors worshipped in house churches and lived deeply in this knowledge that God is always with us even when everything else seems to have changed. Breathe God in as you watch the rebirthing of Spring out your windows or during time on your porch — and worship.
In Christ’s deep and abiding peace,
Pastor Christy
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Sunday Morning Edit: You can access our digital at-home worship opportunity by clicking here.
Dear Brothers and Sisters of Kernersville Moravian Church,
We have been closely tracking the developments of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and listening to recommendations being made at the state and local levels for preserving the health and safety of all people in our communities. On Thursday, March the 12th, the Provincial Elders conference shared their recommendation that our congregations consider suspending worship services and other large group gatherings through the end of March. Their recommendation comes alongside of the similar recommendations from a number of our denominational partners that were issued yesterday and are in keeping with messages coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS).
Our faith and our church community are vital parts of navigating challenging times, especially times like these when we are uncertain about what to expect. Our Joint Board has agreed that suspending our scheduled Sunday Worship Services, Sunday School, Lenten Wednesday Meals & Worship gatherings for the remainder of the month of March (March 15-31), in keeping with the recommendation of our denomination, is the wisest course of action at this time. Given what we are seeing worldwide about the effects of this virus, taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus by limiting our physical interactions with one another may be the most impactful choice we can make to keep everyone in our community as safe as possible during this time. By taking simple steps to limit our physical contact with each other, we can prevent those who only experience mild symptoms from unknowingly transmitting this virus to others who are at much higher risk of serious illness.
Gathering for worship remains central to our community life together, but we believe this is the most responsible decision we can make by joining with many other congregations and community organizations in seeking to slow the spread of this virus and protect our whole community from harm resulting from it. Here are the ways that we will be adapting to this decision in the intermediate time:
We are still living into this decision and there will be ongoing updates in coming days. For now, here are the additional cancelations or suspensions of activity you should be mindful of:
When in doubt, call the church office first and we will advise you about what is or isn’t happening and answer your questions. We will continue to keep our typical office hours on Monday – Friday from 8am – 5pm.
Help us get this word out quickly by reaching out to those who do not have email access or lack web savvy and update them about what is happening.
Remember Jesus’ words, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be among them.” He did not say this needed to happen in a church building, or whether we had to be seeing each other face to face in-person. Let’s find creative ways to be present to each other during this time – tuning into worship via the internet, calling and connecting with each other by phone or social media, and being mindful of the needs of others.
In Christ’s deep and abiding peace,
Pastor Christy
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Wait, aren’t we supposed to be in the wilderness with Jesus? That might be more what you’d expect to find me reflecting on as we begin a Lenten journey, but… the lectionary actually offers us two texts that ask us to consider where our focus is. Yes, there is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, the typical text with which to begin our Lenten journeys. But there is also the temptation in the garden of Genesis that is another wilderness journey.
In Jesus’ wilderness, his focus always points back to God. He trusts God will provide, so he doesn’t need the offer of food. He doesn’t feel the need to test God’s care and he doesn’t crave power. Jesus’ temptation and stance is unique – it’s about who Jesus is meant to be. His focus is all on God – what God is calling him to be, what God offers that nothing else can. But our wildernesses usually look a bit more like the wilderness of Genesis and that tree in the center of the garden. But which tree is in the center of that garden? In Genesis 2:9, there are 2 trees – the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But when we get to the temptation for the humans living in the garden in 3:3, we have a singular tree. What happened to the other one? Oh wait, God asked them not of eat of only one of those trees, the good & evil one. The fruit of the other is fine, the fruit from the tree of life. The focus is only on the one that is forbidden.
So the question comes to mind, what’s in the middle of your garden on this wilderness ramble we’re embarking on? God was in the middle of Jesus’ garden. But where is your focus, what consumes it? That’s what’s in the middle of your garden. Is your focus, the place where you center your garden, where you mean for it to be? Could this be a season to re-center yourself?
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
We’ve arrived at this last Sunday of Epiphany, the Sunday when we are annually reminded of the moment that a handful of the disciples are witness to a change in Jesus’ appearance. This change in Jesus’ appearance on that mountain top was about more than simply looking different, it was about recognizing something fundamental in his character and being. It was seeing God reflected in him.
As we also happen to be lifting up the ministry of our preschool program this week, it also seemed fitting to pair this transfiguration text against another moment when Jesus is asking the disciples to transform their own way of being. Jesus invites the disciples, after listening to two of them argue about who was the greatest along a journey, to consider who is really the greatest and how that should transform their entire conversation.
It can be far too easy to hear of Jesus’ transfigured appearance and the mystical experience on the mountaintop and have Matthew 17 feel like something unique to Jesus being who he is. But what if we are all invited to be transfigured as he is? To have our appearance visibly alter in ways that are obvious to others, to be shaped into ones who can reveal God in the world. Our journey of transformation sometimes asks us to see ourselves clearly first – to recognize how our outward ways of being would be seen by another. Not am I dressed well-enough, am I presentable, but instead what message does our demeanor send. How are our actions speaking louder than our words?
Are we being visibly transformed by our relationship with God?
Or are we stuck at what is already comfortable for us?
Do we not really want to be pushed toward a new place?
How could we enter into a transfiguration transformation of our own?
Join us on Sunday!
Pastor Christy
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
We pick back up with the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5 this week and we hear metaphors for the ways we are asked to magnify God’s presence in the world. We hear about salt and light, and then there are the implications of an intensification of the commandments just given through the beatitudes that Jesus seems to be suggesting. What does it mean for us to magnify God?
Think about it, a magnifying glass doesn’t just make the text appear bigger – that’s only the technical change. The more important change, the adaptation that the magnifying glass offers to us, is that it enables us to see differently. The magnification intensifies and in doing so makes something we might have overlooked become more plain to see.
Jesus is making a point here. That it is incredibly important to really understand what God is asking of us in the beatitudes. Not that we just need to make adherence to the law a bigger part of our faith. Jesus isn’t throwing away any of the Old Testament, but he is raising a question about the ways that faithful people may have focused on certain aspects to the exclusion of others. The beatitudes should bring us up short for the ways that we still turn away and neglect to join in the work with and for those who seek peace, who need mercy, those who are hungry, thirsty, or struggling. We focus on changing those who we want to be more like us.
We make the same mistakes that Jesus is highlighting in this sermon. Instead of our being mutually transformed into beloved community, as this sermon asks us to be, we focus on (and enlarge) differences that can separate us. Join us on Sunday, as I continue to unpack the sort of magnifiers we are asked to be in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
– Pastor Christy
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
What if the message of Advent hope, Christmas joy, and the journeying that marks Epiphany is an annual invitation for us to reawaken to our own journeys with God? Does your hope and realized joy lead you into a renewed commitment to journeying with God, to going forward on the often unfamiliar paths God invites us to follow?
It seems relatively easy to fall into those few weeks of hope and preparation as we make ready for our family and friend gatherings of Christmas. But most of us have known seasons when it has been hard to muster the energy such hopefulness requires. When making arrangements and decorating all feels a bit too much for a brief joy. As the hope of God revealed among us, that hopeful task asks for so much more of us than this routine of acknowledging others and in choosing gifts to tangibly demonstrate our care. The hope that Advent calls us to cultivate isn’t one that just happens. It is instead a durable and deep hope founded on our trust in God – not on what we can do ourselves or even what we alone want to see happen.
If all the stars align, we find great joy in the time spent with people we care about in our celebration of Christmas. But there’s always an “if”. Illness invades, our schedules crash up against others, and our hopes in the build up to Christmas are not fully realized. But the joy of the shepherds, the joy of the magi arriving after a long journey, wasn’t built on expectations. It was built on the joy that comes from unexpected discovery. Something that deserved their attention has drawn them and they don’t know what to expect. Theirs is a joy of unexpected delight in what God is doing. Theirs is a joy in the wonders that God provides. Their joy dawns from being present to what is happening in those moments.
And then there is the return journey of the magi and the journey to Egypt that their visit launches for Mary, Joseph, and the toddler Jesus that we celebrate in Epiphany. They all go home by another way. They have lived in their hope, they have discovered a deep joy, and now they depart into the unknown as God leads them. How are you being invited to awaken to the path God is calling you to see opening before you? How might there be a path that God is opening that will lead you home by another way, not sticking to what you know already or returning to your usual routine as you put away Christmas?
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
One of my regular “go-to” exegetical blogs offered an intriguing wondering question this week on the Matthew 3:1-12 text. “I wonder who baptized John.”
It’s easy sometimes to sit where we sit and venerate the inspiration of God in the life of John and other prophets. God had a special connection with these folks, right? They aren’t like us. God was guiding them and they were going where God led. Only they were creating new understandings of where God was leading, not just for themselves, but where God was leading the faithful community through them. They were both being discipled themselves and discipling others.
We have a tendency in life to stick with what we already know, rather than slowing down enough to listen and observe how we might be led to new understandings. As John baptizes others, and eventually Jesus, in waters of repentance, he has an understanding that something even more transformative than what he is doing will come to pass. He is imagining that future that God is bringing into being. But he is doing so while also living into the new thing he is doing himself. John was working out a new ritual, inspired by God, but still needing discernment and time to understand what this new thing meant. You have to wonder how God may have been at work in others who John encountered along his own journey to this understanding.
If we remember that prophets are among the great cloud of witnesses, both as disciples who followed and as those who discipled others, then what might that mean for each of us? We’re the earthen vessels of God’s goodness, capable of being connected just as John was. What should that mean about how open you are to the inspiration of God?
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Isaiah 2:5, the prophetic oracle as we journey into Advent, prompts us to walk in the light of the Lord together. But for us to walk in this light, the light needs its natural opposite of darkness to accompany it. Not to be in opposition to the light, as we so often assume and attach those sorts of connotations to it, but because the light and the darkness are complementary parts of a larger whole. Think for a moment about what we hear in Genesis, darkness, and light, water, and land are separated from each other but remain as linked pairs that offer different aspects of a larger whole. And John begins his Gospel drawing from this sense of the beginning of all things,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)
God is present in the darkness and the light for all of the time, God creates out of this darkness. Our lives depend on a cycle of light and darkness. We need our times of resting and being re-created in the darkness of sleep and our times of rising in the light to do the daily work of living. The light of God allows us to see and to trust in this creative darkness to inspire and refill us for our days. How do you need to trust more in what might be discovered in the richness and inspiration of God’s darkness?
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
This last Sunday in the Church year is known as Christ the King Sunday and in each of the 3 years of the lectionary cycle we encounter different readings that highlight the uniquenesses of Jesus’ kingship. In this year of the cycle we read Luke 23:33-43, the passage at the cruxifixction of Jesus when one criminal recognizes Jesus’ innocence and asks to be remembered. This criminal carries an awareness of his own brokenness into this moment and through his own awareness, his own ability to see who is truly before him, recognizes the unique sort of king that Jesus is.
Sometimes our ability to see, to really bring awareness and compassion to our encounters, requires us to start looking for something first in order for us to see it when we encounter it. We hear about grandeur, power, and strength in much of scripture and so we often look for the presence of God in more powerful forms of those characteristics. But what if, as we see in this text, the God we are looking for in traditionally kingly ways shows up in a grandeur that is more focused on the beauty of rich and authentic relationship and presence. What if the power that God shows is a power that seeks to share and empower others instead of to wield authority over others. What if the strength that God demonstrates is the strength to stand alongside of others in the midst of brokenness instead of strength that lifts us beyond the troubles of daily living. What if we need to be reminded to look for this sort of kingship that Jesus shows us on the cross and to live it out with each other as we begin another year in Christ?
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
This week we encounter Isaiah 65:17-25, where the prophet brings the word of the Lord, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; …be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.” This scripture and many others like it remind us of the ways that God is always making new. And we need these reminders that God is always engaged in this creative endeavor, this work of making new again and again, because we all know how hard it is to embrace newness and change. Yet our God is a God of new things, of constant creation, and invites us to be fully invested, even rejoicing, in the possibilities of participating in this. We are invited to be stewards, the caretakers, of God’s creative force lived out in the world. Maybe that feels overwhelming. I think we often feel that we are “only” small parts of God’s larger story, that God’s activity is more directed toward us. But what if we begin to think of the ways that God’s story comes into being through us? That God’s kingdom newness is birthed through our ability to be stewards carrying God’s shalom – God’s peace, love, and just action – in every encounter we might have.
in peace,
Pastor Christy
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
What does it mean for us to hear throughout scripture that God is with us? For Moravians, this is part of what our celebration of the Chief Eldership of Christ is about. Christ is the Chief Elder who sits among us in every Board or committee meeting, in every classroom, in every small group that gathers. Christ sits at all the tables and gatherings of life with us. This is the uniquely Moravian perspective on the immanence of God, the promise God that is present to us in the world.How should this knowledge that Christ sits among us in our conversations shape more clearly, or even transform, our ways of being with and for one another? How should it be impacting everything we undertake together?This week we’ll be dropping in for the oracle of God that Haggai delivers in Haggai 1:15b-2:9, where we hear about the work of rebuilding the Temple out of its ruins. Haggai offers the word of the Lord to the people, “Take courage,” he says, “for I am with you.”
Published on // Written by Christy Clore
Jesus is trying to share a set of core values with his disciples, these are like the building blocks for the ways Jesus is teaching us and his disciples to live out the law of love. How can this list of blessings and woes be the core values for a rule of life? How can they be building blocks for discipleship? Well maybe we need to hear them and hold them with fresh ears to the language that Jesus uses.
We generally hear the word “makarios” from the Greek translated as “blessed” or “happy”, but “unburdened” or “satisfied” are equally accurate translations. The word “ouai” from the Greek is usually translated here as “woe”, but it truly does not mean “cursed” or “unhappy”. A better sense of “ouai” might be expressed as “yikes” or “watch out”, it is a declaration intended as an attention getter or a way to emotionally impact our tendencies and direction. And we have to remember, in the perspective Luke offers us on Jesus, the reign of God is among you right now and it is available for you to participate in by the setting of your heart and mind and the actions of your mouth, hands, and feet.
If that’s the case, we are asked to reassess our lives, our actions and internal perspectives on the world that guide our actions, in light of these core values.
How are we being asked to actively reassess our lives? By looking at our lives alongside these core values. How do we live in relationship with God in ways that leave us unburdened? By creating these realities. How do we live in relationship with God in ways that don’t lead us to say, “Yikes, watch out!”? By catching ourselves when we are feeling a bit too satiated and comfortable.
The last segment of this passage backs up this more nuanced reading with its list of straightforward commands: love your enemies; do good to all, but especially those who meet you with hatred; bless those who curse you, pray for those who offer mistreatment; treat people in the same way that you want to be treated.
If these core values, the building blocks, are the recipes for living that help us to be present to God, then to come in ways that allow us to unburden ourselves with God and not need, yikes, reminders that we are straying too far away from God’s hope for us, then they can offer the structure we need. But the structure without something to help it hold together, becomes frail and fragile, easily torn apart and knocked over. For the bricks to hold together, some mortar is needed to bind us. And it is the cloud of witnesses that has the power to do this binding together through the years, through all the variations that life has presented us with. These core values, these beatitudes, only work when we are in deep, meaningful, and trusting relationships with each other. We can only come to God and be unburdened when we have each other to share the weights that we encounter in life. We can only be in solid relationship with God and one another, when we aren’t, yikes, watch out, too comfortable in our self-reliance and separateness.
How does adding the mortar, the relationships that bind us together in the cloud of witnesses, change what we can build?
Published on // Written by so2trythis_jt4kf1
The boxes have been moved in and I’ve begun to have a few initial conversations to help me orient myself to your congregation’s patterns and traditions. I look forward to meeting many more of you very soon, with my first Sunday coming up on October 20. I understand that a single service has been planned for that morning in the Sanctuary at 10:00 a.m. with a lunch to follow in the Fellowship Hall. As I prepare to join you, I thought a little information about what to expect as I arrive might be helpful.
For my work with congregations who are in transitional times, I prefer the term Transitional Pastor to Intentional Interim Pastor. Yes, I am coming to help you take an intentional look at aspects of your life together and help you listen for where God is calling you now and into your future. I am also coming to help you capture the wonderful and ripe opportunities that a time of transition presents congregational families. I come as a shepherd for this time of journey and so “Transitional Pastor” better fits that role of looking for the treasures waiting to be discovered or finding aspects of your life together that may feel as though they have been lost along the way.
To help me get started in our transitional journey together, one of the first things I want to do is spend some time in one on one conversations with as many of you as possible, these can be individual meetings or meetings with a couple or family grouping. I have worked with Jen to create a calendar of times when I am available for these conversations and I invite you to schedule a time during the day or evening that best suits you within that calendar. When you schedule a time, please also indicate if you’d like to meet with me in the church office, at your home, or over lunch, coffee, or dinner within the times I am offering. Please call or email Jen in the church office to schedule.
I will be setting out some open office hours soon and this is a time when I welcome drop in visits with me at the church. I will also likely set a drop by “office” hours time in one of the local spaces away from the church, so that you can catch me in a more informal setting if you’d like. (I’m open to suggestions of nice spots where I can set out my laptop, work, and have members easily join me for a conversation…)
In the grace and peace of Christ,
Pastor Christy
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“Those who have faith are children of Abraham.”
Galatians 3:7
