Gospel Table
November 13, 2011
Welcome Table
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table
Yes, I'm gonna sit at the welcome table
One of these days, hallelujah
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table
Gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days!
When our family gathers we always seem to end up sitting together at the table; probably yours too.
So, too, worshipping communities. Today we will end up at tables eating spaghetti. But more than the food, we will talk, laugh, visit, fellowship and catch up with the lives of each other.
When we have an annual meeting for the church, we first gather at table. When we mark an anniversary, when we welcome a new pastor, when we embark on a common effort such as a building project, when we gather after a funeral, at all of these moments we gather as a community around a table.
When we mark high holy days we gather at the Lord’s Table for communion – Christmas, Holy Thursday, All Saints Day-Totenfest. These are formal liturgical events, but they too are rooted in the image of a meal.
These meals are not only concrete events at which obtain nourishment; physical, social, and spiritual, but they are events symbolic of our identity as the people of God. They evoke memories of previous occasions and meals, and they pre-figure the culmination of our life with God.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. O what a foretaste of glory divine!
The scripture is filled with accounts of meals.
As we move toward the heavenly banquet that the scripture foretells we are called to fashion our community of faith in ways that emulate that which is to come.
I believe that as we seek to live out and live into this vision we are engaged in the most important activity taking place on the planet today.
We cannot do better than living into this vision; and the church, this church, offers a chance for people like you and me to make a difference for good with the stewardship of our time, talent, gifts, service and visionary imagination. Living into this vision offers the opportunity to join on the side of God and the angels to bring this vision of a heavenly banquet into being.
Amen and amen.
On Friday, November 11, at the Church of Peace, Pam Hauman of the Child Abuse Council of the Quad Cities provided a training session for those of us mandated by law as reporters of suspected child abuse. We met for breakfast, and then had our two hour training session. When we scheduled this event several months ago we had no idea how timely this topic would be this week!
Several members of the Church of Peace United Church of Christ enjoyed coffee with residents of Friendship Manor this morning, October 18, 2011. This fellowship time was organized by our Parish Nurses, Mary Oelschlaeger and Nancy Olsen.
We gathered at 10 am for coffee and delicious coffee cakes.
There was a brief time of speaking when Carla McGreevey read about coffee cups and the coffee that fills them. The coffee itself is like the gift of life that God gives. The cups are our efforts to distinguish ourselves from others. What we really enjoy is the coffee.
On Sunday, Epimaque of the Light Mission Pentecostal Church (LMPC) told me that he had the week off from work and that he would bring a group by the church on Tuesday to help out. Well, today he came by and was joined by members of the church. They said they wanted to help because they appreciate the hospitality.
Two fellows joined Ed Johnson in the kitchen to help prepare lunch for the children from the neighborhood and from the Intersession program.
One of the women from the church helped out with the childcare program on the third floor that is provided for the infants and toddlers of the ELL adult students. She and her baby fit right in.
Another fellow helped by cleaning windows in the church. A constant need.
And most helped in the garden, raking downed leaves and picking up trash that gets lodged in the little nooks and crannies around the big church campus.
The Rock Island School District #41 is on its fall break and the Church of Peace United Church of Christ decided to continue the Family Literacy Program that takes place at the church. So with help from the Doris and Victor Day Foundation and United Way of the Quad Cities we are providing English as a Second Language instruction for adults, a daycare program for the young children of these adult learners, and for the inter-session time, a reading focused program for the elementary age children of these adult learners. The church is a busy place with programming on all three floors!
On our first day we had 27 in the elementary age group, 21 in the daycare, and over 40 adult learners pursuing their study of the English language.
Finally, because school is not in session the church is able to provide breakfast and lunch to the students through the Illinois State Board of Education nutrition program. With children bussed down from the Academy we had over 125 folks enjoying lunch yesterday. We had to set up extra tables and chairs in the fellowship hall!
On a recent Tuesday I arrived a little later that my usual time and was unable to park in my regular spot in the parking lot. I counted seventeen cars! I count that a good problem. Lots going on at the church even on a Tuesday morning. The Church of Peace has become a seven day a week church.
On Saturday, October 1, a group of walkers from the Church of Peace participated in an event sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill that took place at Schweibert Park in Rock Island. From Left to right we are Ernie Colclasure, Mary Oelschlaeger, Molly McGreevey, George Oelschlaeger, Rebecca Swartz, Nancy McConnell, Tom McGreevey and Michael Swartz. This walk raises money for services to mentally ill persons, and also helps combat the stigma that is sometimes associated with these diseases. Nancy Olson, one of the parish nurses at the church helped coordinate our team.
Attendance at our press conference was a little sparse this morning - I think the press was engaged with President Obama out at Atkinson, Illinois. But our turn out of community leaders was impressive and representative of the wide base of support we are getting for the Transportation Equity Summit at Bethel Wesley United Methodist Church in Moline tomorrow night - August 18 at 6:30 pm.
Here is Pastor Geenen outlining the principles of the Transportation Equity Agreement we are asking community groups and government leaders to affirm.
There has been a lot of activity at the church this summer. One of the touching efforts was the water safety instruction provided by LuAnn McCracken of the Army Corps of Engineers to the families in the Summer Family Literacy program here at the church. She came to teach the group on Monday, July 25.
Following the tragic death of Michen Niyubahwe on the July 4th weekend in the Mississippi River there has been a great desire to provide timely information to the population of refugees and new immigrants who live at Century Woods here in Rock Island. Folks need to know that our local rivers are dangerous. Since families were already coming together here at the church for learning English, summer fun, food and recreation, this was a good place to start.
If we build a relationship first, then learning new things together is possible. I am grateful to be in a place where we are building positive relationship with our new neighbors.
I have been here in Washington D C for a conference on Pioneering Healthier Communities, sponsored by the YMCA. Our presenter this morning was Marlene Schwartz, PhD, who is the Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Here organization has been in dialogue with fast food restaurants, including McDonalds, about making the "default setting" to children's meals more healthy. An interesting thing is that this morning in the Washington Post there was a full page ad, bought by McDonalds, telling how they have changed the basic Happy Meal to include less fat, less sodium and include fruit! This is exactly what our speaker and the Rudd Center has been advocating.
It is pretty hard to get adequate photos of a picnic for about 700 children. This I learned yesterday, July 15, at Lincoln Park in Rock Island. The event that gathered all these children was the last day celebration for the Rock Island Parks and Recreation summer program for children.
So groups arrived in busses from several programs:
Well, everyone enjoyed games in the park, a program on the stage and large inflatable toys that children can climb into. There was some coverage by the press and local television. The biggest single event was serving lunch to all these children, and some random folks in the park; grilled hot dogs, chips, watermelon, fruit cup, milk and scooped ice cream! While it was warm it was not too hot. Good day. 
For the elementary school age children enrolled in the Summer Family Literacy program at Church of Peace there is a big emphasis is on reading. So here are a group of summer readers in comfortable chairs in the lounge.
Today, July 5, marks the first day of the Summer Family Literacy Program here at the Church of Peace. We cooperate in a similar program during the school year along with other partners. This summer we are doing the program on our own for the month of July.
Three are a few differences. During the school year the program is for parents and their pre-school children together. During the summer we are also providing a class for the elementary school age children of these families. So it is pre-school on the third floor, elementary school age children in one classroom, at adults in two or three classrooms in the basement.
While it is our hope that the program will grow throughout the month we believe that this is a very good beginning.
Another difference during the summer time is that we will be able to provide a light breakfast and lunch daily for the participants.
Here is our cook, Ed Johnson, standing beside our brand new food warmer that was delivered this morning. The food warmer is not even yet out of its wrapping. This will be a wonderful improvement for our food service here at the church.
Clearly, we need a bike rack so that bicycles can be parked neatly and safely.
Monday, June 6, was the first day of the Summer Meals Program here at the Church of Peace United Church of Christ in Rock Island. It always begins a little slowly. We had about 16 children arrive for breakfast and over 30 children eat lunch. And in addition to the children who come to our church building for meals we deliver meals to various summer programs for children around Rock Island. And we have a satellite site this year at Hope United Church of Christ in Moline, Illinois, and they are delivering meals to similar programs in Moline. We estimate that we served over 600 children's meals per day in this our first week!This is particularly exciting when we consider our history. The first year we provided meals for children in the summer time was 2004; and we served 440 meals in the entire summer. Here is the history of the year and number of meals:
Please keep us in your prayers!
Yesterday, May 19, was the end of the school year for the Family Literacy Program here at the Church of Peace, with is part of Lights ON for Learning. This program is a collaboration with Rock Island School District #41, the Regional Office of Education, the Rock Island Public Library, Blackhawk College and the Church of Peace. It focuses on English language learning for parents of students in the Rock Island district, and also has a childcare program to look after the younger children of the adult learners while they are in class. It is a very positive and upbeat program.
This morning there was a meeting of the Transportation Equity Community Task Force of Quad Cities Interfaith here at the Church of Peace. Our organizer, Leslie Kilgannon, is the one in the pink top standing up. With the passenger rail service coming at least to Moline, and probably on to Iowa City, we here in the Quad Cities are in a good position to see that this major infrastructure development program also means workforce development and jobs for local people, minorities and others who are typically left out.
Last Saturday morning Nancy and I had breakfast with Ted and Lois Davies, who were the youth fellowship leaders for our group when I was in High School in Los Angeles. They were driving across the country and staying with family in Cedar Rapids. We met in Mount Vernon and had a wonderful visit. 
So I picked up the winter 2011 issue of The Crisis, which is the magazine of the NAACP off of my messy desk and was skimming through it. And I came to this page, and it seemed like a very good and very direct question. Did you go to church today?
Last Sunday afternoon, February 27, Nancy and I, along with the Chairman of the Board at Church of Peace, Paul Waytenick, attended the Community Day Celebration of the Religious Affairs Committee of the local NAACP Chapter. It was a good event; great music, fine preaching, and most important, a way to connect with a positive group of people providing leadership in our neighborhood in Rock Island. And we saw friends.
In February 2007 a group of United Church of Christ pastors was in Cuernavaca, Mexico to meet with the leadership team from a Mexican Civil Association (non-profit corporation) named INESIN. And who should we run into but Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, who was the instigator in setting up INESIN years before. The bishop had suggested to Rev. Paula Bidle, and her husband, Bud Moore, that it would be a good idea to help establish an ecumenical center where Catholics and Protestants could meet together to work on common issues. Bud and Paula were UCC missionaries in Chiapas at that time, and INESIN was a 12 year old reality in 2007.
Lo and behold, Bishop Ruiz was attending a dinner before the service at CCIDD, which is the center where we were meeting with our partners from INESIN. Small world. Here is Paula Bidle with Bishop Ruiz in the garden.
The United Church of Christ had been working in partnership with Bishop Ruiz and with the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas since the 1980s. This partnership was to aid the Guatemalan refugees who fled the scorched earth policy of the the Guatemalan military, and had fled north across the border into Mexico. The partnership helped provide material aid, medicine, and accompaniment for these refugees.
