True Christian community

I recognize this blog has been left derelict lately, but it seems a good place to share this, which will also end up on my Facebook profile.  It will not end up on my other blog, Pray Around The World, because it's not relevant, but I mention that as an excuse to get in a plug for it, because I've been devoting a lot of time to it and haven't yet seen what God plans to do with it.  I could use some traffic over there, is what I'm saying.

We toss around the word "friend" pretty loosely, and I was thinking last night that what I really treasure are true friends.  Another phrase I use too loosely is "Christian community," which tends to be a substitute for "church," "group of people I hang out with at Church," or "random people who will occasionally mention God separate from cursing."

But true Christian community is what I want and need, and true Christian community is made up of the truest of friends.

The Catholic writer and speaker Matthew Kelly talks about "The Best Version of Yourself."  In fact, he talks and writes about it A LOT.  He even registered the domain "theBestVersionofYourself.com," and if you have ever heard him speak or read his stuff (both of which are well worth your time), you have heard/read that phrase umpteen-gazillion times.  God wants us to be the best version of ourselves.  We are called to become the best version of ourselves.  The purpose of being here is to become the best version of ourselves.  You get the picture.  (N.B. Kelly is similar in many, but not all, ways to a secular speaker/author who deals in the same general message, Marcus Buckingham.  And not just because they both have funny accents.)

And he's right.  He's also right that a true friend is one who helps you become the best version of yourself.  And true Christian community is nothing more or less than a network of friends devoted to helping each other become the best versions of themselves.  But how?

Here are the elements I've identified as ones I'd like to find in friends and in Christian community to help me become the best version of myself.  They are also the things I feel most called to offer to others who are fully devoted to becoming the best versions of themselves.

1. Prayer.  True friends pray for each other.  I would love to be part of a Christian community in which every member prays for every other member every day.
2. Care.  True friends show concern for each other.  They check up on each other.  They help each other out when they see a need.
3. Share.  I can't become the best version of myself alone; I need to learn from others.  As I read and study the faith and learn from the lives of saints and sinners, I want to share what I've learned and soak in what my friends are learning.
4. Dare.  This is the area where most people fall short, or at least it's where I fall short and just about everyone I know does, too.  True friends dare each other to get better; they challenge each other not to settle for who they are today, or for what the easiest next step is.  They lovingly and prayerfully challenge their friends to reach for their goal.  Most people don't do this, because they don't want to come off as self-righteous, arrogant, or preachy.  A few people do this, but usually they do it without establishing the bonds that come from mutual prayer, sharing and caring (so they come off as self-righteous, arrogant and preachy).  But I believe you can thread that needle; the people closest to me, who I know want the best for me can challenge me that way, and I wish they'd do it more often.
5. Bear.  The flip side of daring friends to grow is bearing with their weaknesses and faults.  Christians get a bad rap for focusing on judging each others' sins instead of loving each other in spite of those sins, and, let's face it, the evidence to support that rap is pretty thick.  A true Christian community, a true friend, can bear with your faults, not by pretending they aren't there, but by loving you no less because of them.

The essential thread that runs through all these things (and doesn't remotely rhyme, by the way) is mutuality.  You can say you do all these things for a friend, but let's face it; if you don't make yourself as vulnerable as you want others to be, or if you see your friend as an object to be worked on rather than a fellow subject to accompany, all these things fall flat.

So there you go, in a pithy rhyming bundle: Prayer, Care, Share, Dare, Bear.  I would love to find a Christian community of friends who are whole-heartedly sold-out to a commitment to do those five things for each other.  Would you?

We've moved!

The "Pray Around The World" project has moved to p-a-t-w.blogspot.com but this blog may continue with news and thoughts on church, state and social media.

Fact-list for Paraguay

WCC

FIDES

CIA


(Wikipedia is pretty disappointing on this front, so I'm leaving them off.)

Uruguay fact-links

WCC

CIA

Wikipedia

FIDES - Most recent story appears to be about the theological virtue of the World Cup.  I didn't mention that 3 of the last 4 countries the WCC has prayed for were in the World Cup, and I think they are all advancing to the round of 16.  Just sayin'.

Argentina fact-links

WCC

News stories from FIDES on Argentina

A little bit in Wikipedia

And the granddaddy of them all, the CIA

What does the WCC think we should pray for

The World Council of Churches (link at the top of my blog) has a list of pray-fors for all three countries:

Intercessions

Give thanks for:

• Lay persons who participate in local communities of faith, church leaders who continue to nurture congregations, and instructors who educate and nurture pastors.
• Composers and poets who have brought new songs to the churches of these countries and to Christians all over the world.
• Bishops and pastors who take courageous stands on behalf of their people.

Pray for:

• Families and friends of those who were murdered or disappeared in Argentina and Uruguay.
• Guidance to those in the government of Paraguay as they work to remove corruption and bring justice to those who have abused power.
• Those who experience poverty and struggle for daily bread, who live without security, safety and shelter.
• Those who must live far from their families and homes in order to make a living and provide for their families.

Prayer

God of life, 
you put in human beings 
the imprint of your image and likeness 
and made us to participate with you in your creation. 
Forgive our incapacity to respect and protect life in all its forms. 

God of justice, 
you call us to travel this path 
which is the only route leading to true peace. 
Forgive our daily acts of injustice 
which condemn many, many persons to death 
     by hunger, exclusion and war, 
and lead us to the abyss of endless violence. 

God, incarnate in history, 
forgive us because we imprison you in our dogmas, 
limiting you to our religious institutions 
and crucifying you alongside the vulnerable of our time. 

O God, strengthen us in our daily work for a world more just, 
accepting differences, built on diversity. 
Renew our commitment to peace with justice, 
a commitment which denounces the arrogance 
     of those who believe that they are powerful 
     and own the lives of all the rest. 
Give us a vision to banish violence in all its forms. 
Establish as the foundation of our lives, 
and the lives of our people, 
respect, equality, truth and justice.

(prayer text for 2007)

O God, Lord of the wind and the sea,
of the mountains and the valleys,
of the world and of the church:
in the midst of fear and insecurity
give us trust and hope in you. 

We live in a world
  where the gales of power
    blow strong enough to shake life itself,
      where from the arrogant and the interests of the powerful
        roll the waves of injustice and violence. 

We pray for those suffering
  because of their poverty, their ignorance,
    their limitations,
      because of their colour or status, social or sexual.
We think of your church sailing on a sea
where the waves of racism, militarism, sexism
and economic marginalization hurt human life. 

Take care of your church and put in it
  a sincere love for those who suffer,
  a clear vision of your will,
  healing, pastoral words for the needy,
  and a valiant, prophetic proclamation
  against those who create violence and pain. 

O God, rebuke the uncontrolled wind of terrorism and war.
Turn it towards peace and human development
so that in place of lies, truth is strengthened,
in place of weapons, there are schools for all children,
in place of luxury, the world adorns itself
  with bread for the hungry
and life blossoms everywhere. 

O God, Lord of the wind and the sea,
may your strong mercy calm the whole earth.
In the name of Jesus Christ.

© Bishop Aldo M. Etchegoyen, Evangelical, Methodist Church of Argentina.

A letter from Argentina

I've been away from my computer this week, so I've been unable to do much research about Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay; I'll try to catch up tonight, but I'll warn you, it will be quantity over quality.

I did e-mail the bishops' conferences of all three churches, and I finally got a reply!  I asked them what we should pray for, and they gave me a laundry list.  It's an interesting challenge for me - I'd like to be able to pick and choose what I pray for, but at the same time, one of the points here is to actually love the people of another country to find out who they are.  So here is what they asked for:

Mr. Jeff Johnson:

We have received your kind e-mail.

For Mons . Enrique Eguía Seguí´s indication, I say to you that currently the Catholic Church in Argentina

is praying for the following intentions:

- The decrease of poverty.

- The rejection of the project of gay marrige act which is now at the Congress.

- The rejection of any project of abortion act.

- The social peace.

- The unity of families.

- The fruitfulness of the labour of goverment authorities.

- To encourage a missionary style especially from the parish.

- To prioritize the pastoral missionary one from the catechizing of Christian initiation.

- To promote the missionary commitment towards a just society and responsible initiation christens.

- To recover the respect to the family and to the life in all his forms.

- To advance in the reconciliation between different social sectors and in the capacity of dialog.

- To encourage the formation of responsible citizens who construct a nation.

- To strengthen the republican institutions, the State and the organizations of the society.

- To improve the political system and the quality of the democracy.

- To guarantee the education and the work as keys of the integral development.

- To promote the federalism.

- To deepen the integration of the region.

We look forward to the success of your project.

Sincerely, 

Valeria Retondo

Secretaría Privada CEA

Brazil to an outsider

This is a process.  This week, I started by loading up on information from various sources, reading them over, and trying to take them all in.  I've also tried to e-mail a couple people in the Brazilian Catholic council of bishops, but they haven't responded (the fact that I don't write in Portugese only complicates things, I'm sure).  If I get a response about what to pray for, I'll post it.  In the meantime:

Brazil sounds like an amazing country with a great need for prayer.  On the one hand, it has a strong Christian tradition - of the 200 million or so Brazilians, 90% are Christian (including 73.6% Catholic; if I read it right, Brazil has more Catholics than any other country).  On the other hand, there are still many tribes of indigienous people in the Amazon who have never heard the gospel.  So we can pray for the spiritual awakening of those in the cities, who like America suffer from the softening of the Spirit that comes when membership in a religion is the cultural norm and acknowledging membership in the church doesn't necessarily translate into a relationship with God.  We can also pray for the success of missionaries being trained to take the gospel into the Amazon jungle.

I didn't know that Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world, both in size and in population.  It boasts one of the most promising economies in the developing world, although there are many poor including children who live and work on the streets or in shantytowns.  They also are challenged by issues that Floridians can relate to - one of their strengths is the beauty of their land, but development threatens to destroy that beauty, both by deforesting the Amazon and extinguishing unique animal species and by directly harming human life through land and water pollution and severe oil spills.  So praying for the leaders of the country in their stewardship of God's creation and care for each other also seems called for. 

Brazilian culture seems in some ways like American culture amplified.  Their Carnival sounds a lot like Mardi Gras, but bigger.  The cultural emphasis on superficial beauty is strong, as is the cocaine trade.  And they love their sports!  So we can pray that like Americans, Brazilians will recognize the superficiality of these things and the reach for the sure promise of lasting happiness that comes with focusing on what is truly important.

More on Brazil

Here's a story from FIDES on missionary efforts in the Amazon:

FIDES, a Catholic news agency devoted to missionary efforts, is a great resource in learning about the Church in different countries.  The Society for the Propagation of the Faith put me onto it.

Praying for Brazil: resources

Here's a link to the prayer intentions the WCC raises.

Here's a link to the CIA World Factbook page on Brazil

Here's a link to Wikipedia's entry on Roman Catholicism in Brazil

Here's a link to the CNBB - the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (unfortunately, I don't know any Portugese).