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March 12, 2008                                                                                                                           VOLUME 60, NO. 11

HOLY WEEK AT NATIONAL AVENUE

Easter Egg Hunt - Saturday, March 15

There will be an Easter Egg Hunt at 10:00 a.m. on the front lawn for toddlers through 4^th graders. Fifth grade youth will help with this activity (please come earlier than 10:00). (Egg hunt will be canceled if it is raining at 9:00 a.m.)

All children are invited to meet in the narthex before the 10:45 a.m. service to partake in the Procession of the Palms. The Kids Chapel Choir will also be singing at the 10:45 a.m. worship service.

The evening will start with an All Church Dinner at 5:30 p.m. in Fellowship Hall. It will be a roasted brisket dinner and the cost will be $5 per person (children under ten eat for free). Please call the office with your reservations by Tuesday, March 18. Then at 7:00 p.m., the Maundy Thursday service will begin in the sanctuary. The members of the Pastor’s Class will be baptized during the service, communion shared, and the Chancel Choir will present "On the Passion of Christ" by David Williams.

There will not be a sunrise service this year nor will there be an Easter breakfast before services. The regular 8:15 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. services will be held.

Keynote Speaker: Rev. Colleen Carroll, Pastor of Community Christian Church in Camdenton

Music Leader: Rev. Emily Bowen, Associate Pastor of Brentwood Christian Church

This regional church retreat begins at the Rickman Center on Friday with registration at 4:30 p.m., dinner at 6:00 p.m., and concludes at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.

To register, visit www.olaccma.org/DWSpringRetreat.pdf

Gratefully, Donna & Ron Kinney

NACC is partnering with Drury University on the building of another Habitat for Humanity house. There is a sign-up sheet and more information about the project on a board in the church hallway outside the church office.

The Kids Chapel Choir will be singing at the 10:45 a.m. worship service this Sunday, March 16.

in the 21^st Century

by Paul Rauschenbush

The class meets at 9:30 a.m. in Fellowship Hall.

Newcomers are always welcome!

If you can do calligraphy and would like to help the church with baptism, wedding, and baby dedication certificates, please call the church office at 869-9176 and let us know.

INTERIM STEERING COMMITTEE REPORT

Snowstorms, ice on the roads, and other conflicts have prevented the Interim Steering Committee from meeting as often as scheduled. With all of our conflicting schedules, just getting the majority of us in one room seems like an accomplishment. Such dynamics also help explain why this work takes longer than we might like or think it should. Our meeting last week started by watching a training video, Once You Cross the Line, which is a follow-up to the movie Not in My Church.

These movies were made in the early nineties and don’t represent the height of Hollywood sophistication. Therefore, the actors and their dialogue sometimes come off as stilted and downright cheesy. But the content, viewed with the knowledge that similar scenarios have occurred more than once in our own church, is chilling. I don’t think anyone on the committee is able to watch without a physical reaction. For me, it is a familiar throb behind my eyes; I had the same headache during the July 8 board meeting.

One of the main concepts of this film is justice-making. We’ve heard this term tossed around quite a bit in the articles we’ve been reading and this film gave it definition. There are seven elements of justice-making and mending brokenness:

Speak the truth – give voice to the abuse.

Acknowledge the violation – hear the truth, name the abuse, and condemn it.

Respond compassionately to the victims – listen to and suffer with them.

Protect the vulnerable – take steps to prevent further abuse.

Call abusers to account – confront the abuser and impose negative consequences.

Make restitutions – make symbolic and material restitution for what was lost.

Provide vindication for victims – set victims free from the suffering caused by the

abuse. [from the clergy misconduct prevention training tape: Once You Cross the Line

by Marie M. Fortune, Jean Anton, Ann Downer, and Maria Gargiulo at the Center for the

Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence (1991)]

One very important concept made clear in this film is the idea that because of the shift of power between a pastor and a congregant, there is no such thing as meaningful consent. This is a hard truth and one that we on the committee have struggled with. We have come to realize though the primary ethics issue we are dealing with is not sex or even sexualized behavior which is certainly present and problematic. It is actually about the responsible use of power (or its abuse) by professionals in whom we place trust, sacred trust. It is not about sex; it is about power.

I am not speaking for the whole committee when I say this, but for me, serving on this committee is hard. I don’t like thinking about and discussing the abuses of power that we have let occur at our church. Sometimes, many times, I have a very strong urge to just stop. Let someone else clean this up, pick up the pieces, figure out what to do next.

But, I also have moments of inspiration and new resolve. This occurred recently when I was listening to my iPod. I subscribe to the This I Believe podcast which is an NPR program. I heard an essay that had been submitted by Susan Cooke Kittredge and was read by her called Mending. I listened to it more than once, amazed by the analogy she was making and how pertinent it is to our situation at NACC. Mending, she explains, is different than fixing. Fixing implies that you can’t tell something was ever broken. Mending stitches the tear back together, but doesn’t erase the original tear. It makes amends, but doesn’t forget. That is what we are trying to do, with our justice-making, in the steering committee and as a church. We are acknowledging what happened and trying to help healing take place and then, we are building from that place. We aren’t covering up what happened or forgetting what happened or pretending that it never happened.

Reverend Kittredge really says it so much better than I can. I encourage you to visit the website and listen to or read it for yourself: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18582136 (or go to npr.org, scroll down to the This I Believe link and choose the essay, I Believe in Mending).

As we move through the last days of Lent, through Holy Week, and towards Easter Sunday, I hope we can all take the time from our busy schedules to contemplate mending and hope and renewal. "When justice is made – all interests are served, [and] genuine healing can begin."

Jennifer Klein

Interim Steering Committee Members: Nancy Allen, Jeff Barber, Charrie Dixon, Tracy Greiner, Neil Guion, Craig Hacker, Jennifer Klein, Herb Knudsen, Karen McCully, Missy Riley, Gene Smith, Mark Stillwell, Brad Wadle, Jacque White, Jean White, Elaina Whitson