Reconciling Sunday

Worship Service
Sunday, May 3, at 10:15 a.m.

Join Christ Church as we celebrate our 3rd Anniversary of becoming a Reconciling Congregation. We will affirm the full inclusion of our LGBT members & friends, with special musical guests the Denver Women’s Chorus and special guest preacher Rev. Malcolm Himschoot.

Rev. Malcolm Himschoot completed his undergraduate study at Amherst College and then went on to get his Masters of Divinity from Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

Malcolm was ordained into the United Church of Christ in 2004, serving an inner-city ecumenical ministry in Denver. He also served as Associate Minister for Outreach at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota for a period of time. In addition, he served as interim Open and Affirming Coordinator for the United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns, during an important period of transition for the program.

Malcolm's work is focused on the transformation and wholeness of Christian communities across society’s dividing lines. Over the course of his final two years in seminary he took part in filming the documentary Call Me Malcolm where he openly discussed his transition from female to male along with his personal faith journey. In conjunction with that film, he has spoken at churches, colleges, and universities around the country.

Malcolm and his partner Mariah welcomed twins into their family in January 2008. While Malcolm has now shifted much of his time towards fathering his children, he continues to do occasional presentations on transgender concerns.

(M)OTHER play

Friday, May 1
5:30—8:30 p.m.

Christ Church United Methodist and The Gathering Place invites you to an inspirational performance of Beth Osnes’ show, (M)OTHER, exploring how to get the people of one nation to authentically care about the children of other nations. The show is an intimate, funny and provocative look at one mother’s personal transformation, moving from concern to action on behalf of the world’s children.

(M)OTHER is accompanied by a workshop — a rehearsal for activism — where each mother will gain vocal confidence and strength, declare her most passionate concern facing the world’s children and devise an attainable plan for action based on that concern.

United Methodist Women: May 2009

UMW Mission Team will meet on Monday, May 4, at 7:00 p.m. in the Adult Study Room #203.

VIBE Circle will meet on Monday, May 18, at 7:00 p.m. in the Adult Study Room #203. All women of Christ Church are welcome to attend.

Upcoming events:

• UMW will be hosting the Sunday School Teacher Appreciation Brunch May 17 at 9:00 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall.
• We are planning a trip to The Gathering Place on Friday, June 12, at 2:30 p.m. Please check the Sunday bulletins for further info. This trip is designed to help educate UMW members and/or other interested church members regarding the function and purpose of the Gathering Place (a mission UMW supports).
• The Annual Summer Brunch is still in the planning phases. We plan to set a definite date after hearing what the date for the church picnic will be. This year’s Summer Brunch will be held at Carla Schwartzkopf’s house—thanks Carla!

—Sheryl Byers

Christ Church Visionaries

CCV (Christ Church Visionaries) will be gathering May 12, 6:00 p.m. at the church. CCV is a newly developed group resulting from the Christ Church Vision Quest weekend. All friends and members of Christ Church are invited and encouraged to attend as we work to “Create what isn’t & improve what is!” Due to the meeting time, feel free to “brown bag” it.

Theology Corner: May 2009

The Dangers of Reticence

In the beginning I thought, if economists were morally responsible, they would occasionally stay quiet. They tell the public that the recession is partly caused by public pessimism. Then, it seems, they say everything they can to make the public feel economically pessimistic.

Why, in the interests of keeping their diagnosis from contributing to the disease, could economists not just, please, for awhile, stifle their pessimism . . . like, practice the great, under-rated virtue of omission?

But how can we say this without contradicting ourselves? We have already criticized economists for not telling us something (that the bubble would soon burst). Can we now criticize them for telling us something?

Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov titled his autobiography Speak, Memory. Economists ought to write a candid, running biography of the U.S. economy, titling it, Speak, Economy--and they ought to let the economy do just that day after day, without allowing it to stay silent about anything.

Economists have much at stake. The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote, "According to World Bank estimates, the global economic crisis will cause an additional 22 children to die per hour, throughout all of 2009"--and he added that the World Bank admitted it might be twice that. All economists were largely in the dark, but some thought they saw this coming and said too little. Others hardly tried to see what was coming, and they said almost nothing. Either way, governments and businesspeople lacked the truth they needed to stop this slaying of children--and most economists were, at least, slightly implicated.

Theologians also have much at stake, as they prepare us for the next great spiritual recession (triggered, perhaps, by a new disregard for personal meaning and for a basis for that meaning). Perhaps we should demand that they be less reticent about what has happened and what might happen.

For example, they tell us that, because God acts in history, some good things happen that would not otherwise happen, because we alone could never make them happen. There must be at work everywhere a Good that is not our own good--a "Good not our own," as one theologian put it. But very bad things also happen, such as 22 innocent children dying every hour. But here theologians switch their logic, saying that God does not act in the history of calamity, leaving only humans and nature to blame--omitting that, perhaps, because God acts in history, some bad things happen that would not otherwise happen. Theologians, it appears, may be selectively silent about the moral status of the powers they call divine.

Yes, theologians see only through a fog, and economists have fogs of their own. Neither, perhaps, is careful enough to provide a complete picture, which is to say that both are too often silent. Important things are foggy enough as it is, so that staying silent only makes things worse.

We may be better equipped to take care of ourselves if we recognize that we live in a world whose Depth, or Ultimate Power, as Ernest Hemingway and many others have said, may not be entirely fair. We might perform better if we knew that the divine fields of force may be great at creation and redemption but only so-so at morality.

— William Dean, Theologian in Residence

Men's Breakfast photos!

Easter Egg Hunt 2009

Christ Church Children's Choir

The Christ Church Children's Choir singing on Easter Sunday morning!

All kids are invited to sing in our choir. Rehearsals are held every Sunday morning during the 10:15 a.m. worship service, following the Children's Moment.