CCC Blog

“Faces at the Cross – Small Group Opportunity”

There were many faces in the crowd that witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus.  Many of them are well known.  Of course, there was Judas (who betrayed),  Peter (who denied) and Pilate (who washed his hands).  But there were many others as well.  Lesser known, perhaps, and more likely to be “lost in the crowd.”  As we journey through the season of Lent at Central, toward the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday, we will look at some of these faces and be invited to see ourselves in each.  And throughout, we will be reminded that through each of those faces – as through our own – the face of God shines.

Feb 18 Introduction – The Face of God

Feb 25 The Crowds (who exalted Jesus one day and cheered for his

Crucifixion the next)

Mar 4 Simon of Cyrene (who carried Jesus’ cross with him)

Mar 11 Roman Centurion (who confessed Jesus as he died)

Mar 18 Two Thieves (who were crucified alongside Jesus)

Mar 25 Many women (who stayed near Jesus as he died)

Each of the Faces at the Cross of Jesus’ crucifixion represents a story.  A story so important, each was chosen to be part of the story of salvation as it was written through the life, death and  resurrection of Jesus. During our Lenten sermon series, we will be exploring those stories in greater detail.  

In that same spirit of storytelling, we are inviting you to be part of a Storytelling Small Group experience.  Each week, three (3) small groups will be led by different leaders but all will be covering the same material.  Participants will be a given a “storytelling prompt” ahead of time, based on the story we’ll be emphasizing in worship that week, and in the small group will share a story from their own life.  We believe that stories are sacred, for God dwells in the stories that define us.  And we believe there is transforming power in stories, both to unite us and change us.  Moreover, we believe that there are more stories within us than we probably realize and the goal of this small group experience is to put us in touch with those stories. 

Sunday, February 25 4:00 p.m.

All small group participants are asked to attend an opening orientation session

Tuesdays    1:00 p.m. Rm 240    Don Martin           (2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/27)

Tuesdays    4:00 p.m. Café    Scott Woolridge   (2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/27)

Thursdays  5:30 p.m. Café    Tina Miller       (3/1, 3/8, 3/15, 3/22, 3/29)

At the opening orientation session, we will hand out the storytelling prompts for each week.  But here’s a sample of what a prompt looks like: 

Week 1 – Theme: the Crowds who welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday and turned on him 5 days later

Minister’s Article Continued on Page 3….

Describe a time in your life when you “turned on a dime…”

Tell us about a time in your life when you “followed the crowd…”

Hope you can be part of this Lenten experience. Sign up in the Welcome Center for the small group of your choosing!!! 

Blessings – Michael

“In the Last Five Years…”

A lot has happened in my life in the last five years.  Since January 2013, in my immediate family alone, we have laid to rest two grandparents; witnessed my mother experience a health setback; moved homes within Decatur and changed high schools for one of our children.  Five years ago, I was blissfully running and exercising without complications with two years of continual back pain still two years off in the future.  And yoga, currently a twice a week discipline, was         another two years off in the future beyond that.   In the last five years, we have sold one car and purchased another one.  I started wearing glasses and had knee surgery as well.  Five years ago, our daughter had not yet begun to play soccer or volleyball.  Our youngest son had not started playing the piano and cello.  And our oldest son was six inches shorter than I (and not six inches taller)!!

Perhaps the changes in each of your lives over that same time span mirrors those in my own.  There may be ups and downs in your past when you look back over the last half-decade; additions and subtractions; changes of all kinds.  If so, they also mirror the changes in our church.  In the last five years we have undergone a significant renovation to our Friendship Center and West Entrance.  We’ve remodeled the Flewelling Chapel. We changed the times of our traditional worship services and started a contemporary one.  In January 2013, I had been in my position less than one year and none of the following people – Tina, Ashely, Yvonne, David, Vernon, Andrew, Lora, and Melissa – were on staff yet.  In the last five years we have baptized over 25 people and dedicated over 12 infants and children.  Yet we have also laid to rest over 50 members and  witnessed a dozen more moving away to warmer climates.

I share this exercise with you for two reasons.  First, as we said in worship on Sunday (basing our message on Psalm 48), the love of God is steadfast amid all of the changes of life.  Even though the conditions of our lives may change over time, the ever-present love of God never will.

Moreover, did you know that it has been five years since we last had a pictorial directory of our church compiled?  A lot has changed in our church family since then, as we noted above, as has the technology of church pictorial directories.  One goal we have for 2018 is to create an updated one. 

To that end, Kevin Miller (of the Public Relations department), Mike Munos (congregational president) and myself are looking to put together a team of people willing to work on this project with us.  Bear in mind, those on the team will not do all the work on this pictorial directory.  There will likely be many    other volunteers we’ll bring in along the way for very specific roles.  But for the time being, we’d like to find out who’s interested.  Over the next two weeks we will be putting the team together.  If you are interested in serving in this regard, please feel free to: 1) call the church office (428-4336); or 2) email  ; or 3) email me directly ( ) and let us know of your interest.  We’d love to have you help us on this important project. 

Blessings – Michael

“Opening the Door”

This past Sunday our theme in worship was hospitality and we focused on Hebrews 13:2 – “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  At the close of the sermon I told a  story from the Benedictine tradition about the need to open the door every time there’s a knock on the other side, for we never know when it might be Christ himself showing up for a visit. 

Throughout my ministry, people have always knocked on the door from time to time looking for assistance.  Usually they’re seeking financial assistance - help with a light bill, rent, gas, medicine but sometimes food as well.  Long ago I  copied Matthew 5:42 on a piece of paper - “give (something) to everyone who asks of you” – and kept it on my desk so that I would remember to make time for those knocks on the door and do my best to give “something” to them.  Sometimes that means directing them to MAX; or offering to pray with them.  And sometimes it is giving actual financial assistance. 

These drop-in visits are almost always an inconvenience.  I always have something I’m working on.  And the knocks on the door nearly always “disrupt” my schedule.  Even though I invite every single person who drops-in to join us for worship on Sunday, rarely in 20 years has this happened.  Moreover, some of the knocks on the door come from those who are somewhat regular. Persistently regular.  One woman comes to mind.  She came 5 or 6 times in one year. Sometimes the church I served gave her something, sometimes we didn’t.  But after a year of this happening, I sat down and I told her, “we can’t continue doing this.  Either you commit to becoming a member of the church and we can work with you on longer-term strategies – or we can’t help you in this way anymore.”  She said, “Yes, I understand.”  But she never came back.   

One day about 8 years ago, a man dropped in.  We sat in the office and he told me his situation.  He had a job lined up but wouldn’t get his first paycheck until after his rent was due.  He was trying to reconcile with his wife and children and having an apartment was an important part of this.  If he could just get $75, he could bridge the gap.  I talked with the landlord and verified the $75 deficit and decided to give him the “bridge grant” was looking for. 

A month later, he came back.  Of course I was in the middle of something and when I saw him I thought  “Oh no, not now.  I’m busy.  I just know he wants something else.  Didn’t I just tell him a month ago that $75 was all we had to offer at the time.  Why is he coming back?”  But I dragged myself up out of the chair and opened the door.  I was getting ready to offer my prepared speech about how we had just helped him and it was not our practice to give emergency grants more than once in a six-month period.  But before I could speak, he said,  “Pastor, I just wanted to come back and say thank you for the $75.  I was able to keep my apartment, I have a good job now, and my wife and kids have moved back in with me.”  Needless to say, I was surprised, but also inspired.  And thankful for the lesson he taught me about how the judgments we can make when there’s a knock at the door and how they are sometimes shattered when we answer it.

Blessings – Michael

“The Bread Which we Break…”

At the close of my column in last week’s newsletter, I stated that when it comes to communion how we distribute the elements is less important than that the elements are distributed such that “all are fed.”  Something similar can be said about the bread we eat in the communion meal.  There is no “right” kind of bread to serve, though individual congregations certainly have their preference.  Some serve thin wafers the size of a half dollar.  Others, like ours, offers smaller and harder pieces that more resemble pellets of bread. 

Our primary founder, Alexander Campbell, believed that something called “the fraction” was important during communion. This referred to the practice of serving people from one single loaf that was broken during the communion  service.  For instance, as the words of institution were being spoken (“and Jesus took the bread, blessed it, and broke it), the bread was actually broken at that moment.  Thereafter, participants would eat a small portion from that original bread broken in the service.  This practice of “fraction” (the bread broken into fractions) held theological significance for Campbell.  It represented the one body of Jesus Christ, “broken” in death on the cross.  Moreover, it simultaneously represented individual members becoming the one body of Christ (the church) through the sharing of one single faith in Jesus Christ.

I was not made aware of this theological significance as a child growing up in a Disciples of Christ congregation.  Rather it wasn’t until graduate school that I studied these matters more closely.  Yet my home church did practice “the    fraction” every week in worship, even without naming it as such.  Ours was a small church and members would take turns supplying the bread for the communion meal.  The bread was nearly always homemade and the bread baker’s name for that week was printed in the bulletin.  My sisters and I would eagerly open the bulletin upon coming to church to see whose turn it was to bring the communion bread.  I’m sure we were less than kind with our comments if it was a member who was known to bring an “obscure” bread choice (like rye or some kind of multi-grain option, which to a child’s taste buds, was not that appealing).

My mother, of course, took her turn.  Every Monday growing up, my mom baked bread.  Hers was a sourdough recipe that used a sourdough culture dating back to a woman from Kansas in the late 19^th century.  True story.  When my mom received the sample culture that forms the basis of sourdough bread, she received the story of its origin that went with it.  And the story stated that a woman began that culture, from which my mother’s was eventually spawned, in Kansas in the 1870s.  Every so often mom would “feed” the culture, sitting in a big glass jar in the back of the fridge and on Mondays she would take a small portion for that week’s batch of bread.  Mom always baked bread in the traditional rectangular-shaped pans, but there was one round pan that she only used for Sunday’s communion bread.  It was about half the size of a pie plate and I remember mom place that in a plastic bag, wrapping a twist tie around the end and setting in on top of the bible that she brought with her. 

Since I first began receiving communion as a baptized believer in my home  congregation, I have had all sorts of communion bread.  The same can of said of the three churches I have served as pastor.  And all these years later I continue to believe that was introduced to me at an early age.  It doesn’t matter what kind of bread is used, only that bread is used in worship.  For bread, in whatever form or shape it comes, has a way of connecting us historically, throughout time, to our ancestors, and laterally, to one another, who partake of that same bread with us.

Blessings – Michael