Feeding our Bodies and Our Souls

This morning, Bryan and I attended worship at Irvine Congregational Church. I chose this church because Fred Plummer, the President of the Center for Progressive Christianity (of which the La Verne Church of the Brethren is an affiliate), was the founding pastor there. When I looked at their website I learned that on September 12 their church passed around a Qur'an in a way of recognizing the Muslims as their neighbors. That was the same weekend that Terry Jones, a pastor in Florida, threatened to burn copies of the Qur'an. I was impressed with their reaction as a church.

This church expects visitors. There are four parking spaces marked specifically for visitors. There were two greeters who shook our hands as we walked through the front door. The leader did an excellent job of welcoming visitors and telling us how welcome she felt when she first came to this church. But only three people spoke to us while we were there: the lay person in charge of greeting visitors, another visitor and the pastor. Genuine hospitality is so very important to how welcome you feel when visiting a congregation for the first time.

The sermon was amazing. The text was from Luke and it was the story of the ten lepers Jesus healed and the one who returned to thank him. The pastor, Paul Tellstrom, spoke of the connection between that story and the bullying that is happening to gay teens today. He called us to be proactive against hate speech. He told us to speak truth to power and referred to religious groups who used this specific time to speak against homosexuality. His sermon was passionate and compelling and relevant to today. The congregation responded to his sermon with loud applause. Bryan and I were moved beyond words. As soon as the sermon was over the congregation stood and moved across the aisles toward each other, holding hands and singing, "Alleluia." It was beautiful. The benediction was loving and challenging.

Bryan and I went out to lunch afterwards. Through yelp.com I found a vegan restaurant down the street. One of the benefits of having vegetarian sons is that we have learned the joy and flavor of fresh vegetables and ingredients. We ate amazing food, sipped lavender lemonade and tried to share how deeply affected we were by the sermon. To hear someone take the gospel and speak truth to power through it was so inspiring. It made me want to stand up and speak out and love more...and isn't that what it should be all about anyway.