Letter To The April 21, 2007 Annual Meeting of the Metro Association
From Pastor Mark Lukens
Casting Our Nets: New Life for a New Century

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God your Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5:14-16

“I believe the message in the Bible is that God welcomes everyone, with no exceptions. It follows than an inclusive congregation is a faithful reflection of God's love. There is too much pain and destruction in the world caused by intolerance and hate. God's church must be the place where love and acceptance are found and from which they can spread.

It's a joy to be part of a loving community that welcomes everyone as they are whoever they are, without reservations.

Marjorie Parker,
(member Church of the Good Shepherd, UCC, Carbondale, Illinois)

There's something new and exciting going on at Bethany ! The Holy Spirit is working through us to bring a new dawn to our small-in-numbers-but large-spirit family of faith. Thanks in part to a new initiative of the New York Conference of the United Church of Christ and in part to the efforts of some of our own members, we are answering Christ's call to be fishers of people and casting our nets into the water seeking not simply to attract new members, but to be transformed in our own discipleship as we work together to follow Jesus' commandment to let the light of God's love that is so much of what this congregation is about, to shine in our neighborhood, in our community and maybe even our world with a new evangelism effort.

Of course the word “evangelism makes some of us a little nervous and probably rightly so. The idea of shoving tracts at people or pushing them to make doctrinal declarations under the threat of eternal damnation doesn't sit right. It's disrespectful, unloving and probably a blasphemous presumption and we recognize that Jesus calls us to display our faith by the way in which we live, in service, worship, mission and in loving community. That's exactly what Casting Your Nets is all about. It's about fulfilling the Great Commission precisely as the people we are called to be, in service, in worship, mission and blessed community.

On the weekend of January 27-28, Pastor Mark and Richard Eaves went on a retreat as part of the Casting Your Nets initiative in which we learned that fulfilling Christ's Great Commission to “make disciples of the nations” is not about embracing some new marketing strategy as much as it is about understanding who we are as a community of faith, what our gifts are, and how we can share them with those around us, many of whom are hungering for the light of Christ but whom we have somehow failed to reach. It's about looking at what we do and how we do it, removing the barriers we may have erected (without even realizing it) to God's people in our community. Just as importantly, it's about understanding who our neighbors are, what their needs are, and how we can serve them in Christ's name. At the same time, through the leadership of our Stewardship and Evangelism Committee, we have embarked on the Open and Affirming process; a process of congregational discernment that we hope will lead us to declare ourselves a congregation open and affirming of all God's people, especially of those whose sexual orientation has caused them to be unjustly excluded from Christ's church for far too long.

Like any transformation, like our faith itself, this one will require a lot of hard work, some courage, and above all, faith and trust that while Jesus is leading us into some previously uncharted waters, he will not abandon us, that the Holy Spirit is with us, that there will be struggles ahead, crosses to carry, and new life at the end of the road. We have a congregational retreat ahead here at Bethany , and we are being asked to send 5 lay people, people who are willing to work with me as servant leaders, to attend two more weekend retreats: one in late April and one in June. As the saying goes, “To believe is to care, to care is to do.” Right here on Long Island is a mission field composed of those who have never heard the Gospel, and perhaps even more of those who have been alienated or turned off by churches whose judgmental, unloving message and/or hypocritical behavior has betrayed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or has chased away those who need that Gospel the most.

There is no question that our preconceived notions, our tried and true ideas about just what “church” is, indeed our faith itself will be tested just as they were in the first century when Jesus called upon his people to see their faith, their lives and their relationships to God in new ways. When Jesus broke with the social taboos and prejudices of his day to honor women as equal to men, when he reached to the hated Samaritans, even to Roman pagans, he called upon his disciples to do the same, just as Paul did when he declared that “all are one in Christ Jesus.” People, though, even the first disciples, are uncomfortable with such inclusiveness. It is hard for us to find the courage to be as open as our faith calls us to be- to be the blessed community that Rev. King spoke of. Discipleship itself is journey toward that kind of openness, a journey of sacrifice, self-discovery, repentance and transformation that takes a faith deep enough to live with the tension of new and as yet uncharted waters. But it also a journey filled with the promise of new and unexpected blessings and new beginnings. Most importantly, we are making that journey together, hand in hand, the Holy Spirit leading us, Christ calling us forward. As we work together to discover and embrace the faithful and blessed community of Christ that we are, and to build on that, bring it forward to the church we can and will be, a true community of Christ.

In His Love,
Pastor Mark Lukens
Bethany Congregational, East Rockaway