Archive for the ‘News’ Category

The September issue of the Faith Herald is now online.

Dear Members and Friends,

Heat getting to you? I hope you have AC and maybe a handy fan, too. Even better, may you be able to pay your bills and see a doctor when needed without sickening debts resulting.

A note from Justice and Witness Ministries (your UCC support $$$ at work for interests we share) reminds us that Medicare celebrated its 45th birthday on July 30th and Social Security will celebrate its 75th anniversary on August 14th. Both of these programs have proven to be among the most successful social programs in our nation’s history, without which the poverty rates for seniors would be 47% instead of 10%.

JPANet tells us further: Unfortunately, they both face the threat of being vastly cut or dismantled as a method for reducing our federal deficit, a move that could threaten the health and welfare of many older Americans. It is unjust to balance the budget on the backs of our poor and elderly.

We can do something. They encourage us to send a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and let them know that you are opposed to any recommendations that will cut or dismantle our social safety net—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. You could have a look at their website for more information: http://act.ucc.org/site/MessageViewer/

We can also wonder about how our own needs are being met or not. As much as Faith Church is devoted to Missions and Justice, we sometimes just are overwhelmed with our own problems. And maybe these problems are aggravated by money concerns (too little for too many demands or requests) and health concerns (diet, exercise, sleep, pills, supplements, doctors’ Rx). As your pastor I want to be available to respond our own concerns as well as the neighborhood’s. I can understand if you wish I’d devote more attention to our needs here at Faith and lighten up on the whole world’s.

We feel our common struggles very individually but we all float in the same waters of human need, struggle to access resources to meet those needs, and experience frustrations adapting our “reasonable” expectations to realities. One need is to feel like we matter, we’re worth something. One resource is to do something to meet a need—whatever our gift may be. Having tried to do something who among us does not then need to adjust our expectations about how others will accept our way of meeting that need to the realities of how others actually do (or do not) accept what we offer?

Well, here we are at 2401 Drew Street on a Sunday morning, each bringing a hunger and thirst for good news to assuage our pain; each realizing we are blessed in some ways and need to bless others, each seeking a Presence and praying for a Spirit. The Holy One who created us all, loves each one of us uniquely. Justice is the form love takes. Peace is the outcome of just love. We are fortunate to have each other. I want to be part of your comfort, support and nurture during this time of transition. God’s purpose is working itself out among us.

God bless.
Pastor Robert

The abrupt firing of a faithful government worker, mean-spirited “reporting” that is scandalous but without accountability or personal responsibility, the blaze of opposing views–these aspects of the culture wars get to me. Do they get to you? We all know the Our Father, Lord’s Prayer. Most churches pray it Sunday by Sunday. However, sometimes the prayer below is what I “hear”. What about you?

Our Judge, who logs against us all our sins,
you threaten us with holy Hell.
Crush the heart of heaven within us.
Make us all winners like you.
Give us what we want each day.
Waterboard our enemies so they can’t waterboard us.
Make us tough as nails,
and free us from liberalism.
May we perfectly fear, hate and war against all you despise
until we reign victoriously with you forever. Amen.

Dismayed,
Pastor Robert

Maybe you are a first time visitor or maybe a member. It is so natural for us to want results from what we do–or else why bother? The great American mystic Thomas Merton had some insights to pass on to a young activist. Activists especially wants results, and get impatient with anything less. However, Merton describes a process which is hard work without instead prescribing an outcome which is bound to be frustrating and disappointing.

As I see it, the outline for not being enslaved to results is:
1) start with discerning what matters most–the reality of personal relationships;
2) think about how you are going about doing what you think matters most– it’s crucially important;
3) allow the love of God to use you as you understand that love by faith;
4) be alive, really alive, not dominated by causes or myths or ideologies.
5) Finally, trust that God will make something good of our loving, trusting lives even if you don’t see it.

Here’s what he wrote (copied from a publication of Fellowship of Reconciliation as quoted in a chapter by Jim Forest, “Thomas Merton: Prophet in the Belly of a Paradox (Paulist Press, NY)

“DO NOT DEPEND on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the truth of the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for a idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.

You are fed up with words, and I don’t blame you. I am nauseated by them sometimes. I am also, to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with cause. This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand what I mean. It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it. And then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to make the meaning be there again by magic. Going through this kind of reaction helps you to guard against this. Your system is complaining of too much verbalizing, and it is right.

…the big results are not in your hands or mine, but they suddenly happen, and we can share in them, but there is no point in building our lives on this personal satisfaction, which may be denied us and which after all is not that important.

The next step in the process is for you to see that your own thinking about what you are doing is crucially important. You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work, out of your work and your witness. You are using it, so to speak, to protect yourself against nothingness, annihilation. That is not the right use of your work. All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God’s love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it.

The great thing after all is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth; and we turn the best things into myths. If you can get free from the domination of causes and just serve Christ’s truth, you will be able to do more and will be less crushed by the inevitable disappointments. Because I see nothing whatever in sight but much disappointment, frustration, and confusion.

The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do his will, we will be helping in the process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand…

Enough of this…it is at least a gesture…I will keep you in my prayers. All the best, in Christ Tom”

So, the walk is what counts in this life. The destination? Well, that’s up to the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Now back to the trail. O by the way, “Happy trails to you until we meet again…..”

Pastor Robert

Added the Faith Herald Newsletter for July 2010. Read it Here.

New Church Leadership: There are a lot of changes the faithful endure. Ginger Hayes new church musician, an interim pastor – Robert Palin, office manager – Debbie Atchia, Marco Mark Larco – keeper of the property and facilities, Mollie Bucy – Moderator, Becky DeLay – Vice Moderator, Howard Reed – Treasurer, Helen Tulenko – Financial Secretary, Noleen Naude – Clerk and Sanet Blignaut – Bookkeeper are very capable church officers supported by a number of Teams that keep us moving and exercising our faith in paths that are promising and sources of blessing. In fact we all need each other more than ever to support our relatively new and thriving Thrift Shop, our mission to Wimauma, our regular worship services and the number of new small groups that are springing up.

New Small Group: The Trail Mixers meet at the home of Frank and Kathy Glenn beginning Sunday, June 6, at 7 p.m. The website will announce other opportunities for gathering.

Sunday Worship
Theme: There’s a Call for You
Text: Genesis 11:27-12:9
Message: “God’s Calling: Are You In?”

Pastor Robert Palin

New to the community? Want to know more about this remarkable gathering of the faithful? We’re Open and Affirming of all people, definitely including LGBTQ people, where the Spirit of God is always being uncovered because that’s the way we see God’s creation. Are you exploring your own faith and doubts? Here the openhearted and the brokenhearted meet to affirm the goodness of God’s creation and our role as caretakers one of another—and not just ourselves but looking out at the community and not ignoring the cries for healing in all kinds of ways. We definitely believe in the separation of Church and Hate and even beyond that we gather to weed the garden of our souls from the threatening excesses of pride, anger, lust, greed, sloth, envy, gluttony. We’re committed to good news rather than hypocritical judgments, to service more than to self-centeredness, to you and me together rather than to us and them divisively.

Well, that’s the new interim minister’s view, anyway. He can’t do the job without you. Hope you’ll come visit and see for yourselves.

Background information on Pastor Robert Palin.

The interim search committee of Faith UCC has called Pastor Robert Palin to be our interim minister during this time of transition in ministry. Robert or Pastor Robert, as he likes to be called, is married to Carol S. Palin. The Palins live in Dunedin after re-locating from Long Island to care for Carol’s parents. Their children and grandchildren live in New York. Robert served as settled minister for 11 years at a church in the Town of Riverhead, Long Island, NY. He has also served as interim minister in churches in NJ, MA, NY, PA, and FL. Faith is his 10th interim ministry. Before re-locating to Dunedin, Carol was a licensed realtor and paralegal. She grew up in Suffolk County, LI. Robert grew up in CT and graduated from Middlebury College (Vermont) with a major in American History; Union Theological Seminary in NYC with an M.Div.; and New York Theological Seminary also NYC, with a D.Min. A hobby Robert enjoys is playing classical piano music and accompanying singers. He likes reading Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Yorker, Christian Century, Marcus Borg, Walter Wink, Walter Brueggemann, Gandhi, commentaries on biblical texts (New Interpreter’s Bible in particular), using Google, Wikipedia, media to communicate and learn. Robert is here to help us all discern our future and move in that direction. As an interim he will not stay for the long haul (as a settled minister does) and this “time between” can be one of the most exciting and transformative in a church’s life. We move forward in faith in the direction of God’s beckoning and promises and blessings already made known and yet to be made known to us.

Added new photos in the Gallery for the 2010 Parade in St. Petersburg.

Added a News page to keep the congregation up to date on the latest developments.

Added the Newsletter for May and June.

All sermons have been removed until further notice.