Connecting our Conversations
Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.
Connecting our Conversations
Matthew 25 Series: Why Matthew 25 and What is Intersectionality?
In the first episode of the Matthew 25 series, Rev. Dr. Shannan Vance-Ocampo and Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall explore the essence of being a Matthew 25 church, highlighting the call for deeper engagement within faith communities to address systemic injustices.
This conversation dives into the intersections of ministry, community needs, the vital importance of embodying Jesus’ teachings and much more:
• Acknowledging the role of intersectionality in ministry
• The church's historical commitment to community engagement
• Exploring the collective identity of faith and discipleship
Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall is the Deputy Executive Director of Vision and Innovation of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Prior to that he served as the Executive Presbyter(EP) for Presbytery of the Northwest Coast. A Ruling Elder, Corey grew up in the Dakotas and graduated from the University of Oregon He earned a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from the University of Minnesota and is an ICF credentialed leadership coach.
Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.Connecting our Conversations is hosted by the Presbytery of Southern New England, a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This is our space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us deepen discipleship.
Well, hello everyone. This is Shannon Van Socampo I use she and her pronouns and I serve as the General Presbyter of the Presbytery of Southern New England, and this is Connecting Our Conversations, our podcast space for conversations that push the edges of our faith and help us to deepen discipleship. The Presbytery of Southern New England is a regional governing body in the Presbyterian Church, usa. During the months of January and February of 2025, we are doing a special podcast series on being a Matthew 25 Presbytery. You are hearing this podcast while I am away on sabbatical.
Speaker 1:I wanted to leave something behind for the Presbytery that would be a ministry resource for all of you. We are a Matthew 25 Presbytery and so this work is at the heart of our ministry. In addition to this podcast, our Presbytery meetings and gatherings in 2025 are also planned to focus around Matthew 25 themes and offer resources around the Presbytery as well. This podcast series is going to explore behind being a Matthew 25 church, including a conversation about what intersectionality is and why it is at the heart of this ministry. So today we're going to be talking to my good friend, dr Corey Schwacher-Hall, who is the Deputy Executive Director. We're all changing our titles these days Corey. Deputy Executive Director of the new Unifying Agency of the Presbyterian Church USA. So welcome, corey, to this podcast.
Speaker 2:Shannon, and it's nice to be with you and all our fabulous people. Disciples of the Presbytery of Southern New England. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So I love to start out with introductions, and so, corey, I'd like to just give you a moment or two to tell everyone who you are, introduce yourself in whatever way makes sense for you, that's great Well.
Speaker 2:As you mentioned, I'm serving was serving with the Presbyterian Mission Agency, now the Interim Unifying Agency of the PCUSA. I've been doing this for just over two years and prior to that I was serving, similar to you, as a Presbytery leader, presbytery executive, in the Presbytery of the Northwest Coast so the very west, further west part of the country than you, the very west, further west part of the country than you, and I live in the greater Seattle area. I live in a suburb just northeast of Seattle with my spouse, adrienne, and we have two fabulous daughters, one of whom just got married last month, which was a very big celebration that you celebrated with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw the pictures. It looked like a lot of fun. I know you took a bunch of time off around it to be with her, so congratulations on this step in family life, right? So just some other introductory information. So tell us what you do as the Deputy Executive Director. So tell us what you do as the deputy executive director, sort of what your portfolio of ministry work looks like at the National Church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, of course, because everything is changing, it's always evolving and so you know, if you interview me next month it may be different, but what I have been doing is being engaged in some of the unifying dimensions of work. I work with our communications ministry, so we have a fabulous director, Rick Jones, but I get to work with Rick as he helps direct the communications ministry. I have been part of helping to foster the ministry of innovation in our denominational life and working mostly with mid councils and as they by mid councils, we meanterians and Synods as they seek to become innovative in ministry. And I also have been blessed to work with our Center for Repair of Historic Harm and the director of that center that has emerged over the last couple of years. His name is Jermaine Ross-Alem and he would be a great person to interview on your podcast.
Speaker 1:I already interviewed him a few weeks ago, oh good news. He's one of our weeks coming up. So folks listening to this week number one, you're in for a treat very soon down the line. It's fantastic. Yeah, jermaine's great Good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a little bit about what I do.
Speaker 1:That office is doing really incredible work in the life of our church and you know you got to experience a lot of that firsthand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was. It's been fun. I mean, I just rotated off being on the PMA board at the General Assembly about six months ago, but it was. You know, I think one of my highlights of being on the board was working on the reorganization of the mission agency that will now flow into the unified agency and setting up some new offices, like this Office of Innovation and the Office for Repair of Historical Harms, and being on the board to provide that support for those offices and pointing the way into some new frames of ministry for the larger church. It's been enlivening to be part of that.
Speaker 1:So I'm glad you're here, corey, to be working on these pieces. Thanks, thank you. Yeah, so I thought, since we're, you know, starting this podcast series about Matthew 25, of course, everybody's read Matthew 25, very famous part of scripture but I thought I'd give you a chance, corey, just to say what does Matthew 25 mean to you as a person, as a disciple? What does it feel like for you as a passage of scripture as you think about ministry in the larger church? What speaks to you about this piece of scripture as you think about ministry in the larger church? Like what speaks to you about this, this piece of of scripture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thanks for asking there's so, I mean, scripture is so rich.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that I think has been really important to me about this is in the.
Speaker 2:I think most often when people think about this chapter, they probably first comes to mind the you know verses 31 through 46 when you know Jesus is saying, hey, I'm looking at, I'm looking at you all and as, as countries, as people, as nations he uses in that phrase I'm looking at this and I'm making some choices about what has been faithful, what really is someone who is honoring me.
Speaker 2:And in so many of those, so many of those examples and those circumstances, he lifts up very incarnate, very earthy, very person to person kinds of engagements and saying, and you know, like I was in prison and you visited me, you know, all of those examples are very personal and incarnate manifestations of an interaction that have systemic. They have a much bigger sort of systemic, structural impact because, you know, we have created discipleship that cares about that and that's one of the most profound aspects of this is that the way in which we develop, our habits of life and discipleship have broader, communal, systemic and structural impact about, is about recognizing structural and systemic impact of racism, of poverty, of climate change, of, you know, of heteropatriarchy, et cetera, and at one of the hearts of it has been this notion of congregational vitality and new worshiping community vitality and ways in which, you know, people grow, ways in which people build and grow their discipleship, and so, anyway, that portion of this particular passage has been most meaningful to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know we're recording this podcast in November of 2024. And uh, earlier this week I uh was at our Stony Point center at a gathering put on by the vital congregations and the thousand and one ministry offices. Um and uh, I'd said yes to this back in September, like two months ago, because we have a new worshiping community in our presbytery that is focused primarily on the Latino community and also on ministering within the Latino community in a fully inclusive way, so really also centering the queer community alongside the Latino community, and so they had mentioned they were going and they asked if I would come with them and I said sure, of course, I'll be there with you, and it was really an amazing event on Monday. I wish everyone could have been there with me on Monday, because the trainers you know from one you know, because the trainers you know from your office, a part of your office went through four areas of ministry that are essential to immigrants and new worshiping communities and walking alongside others in ways to build them up right, and that's really a very rootedness in Matthew 25, I think as well, and as I was sitting there listening, these were immigrants and also new worshiping communities focused on immigrants from sort of across the eastern seaboard, sort of Atlanta, up to New York City area, and so there were multiple presentations made and discussions about other ministries, and what I noticed in all of these ministries was just incredible and deep attentiveness to community and to what was happening in that local community.
Speaker 1:What were the basic needs and how do we show up to meet basic needs, which is what that last piece of Matthew 25, right, you know really looks at. You know, I was in prison, I was hungry, I was naked, you know sort of basic needs. And one of the things, I was listening to a podcast while driving down there and it was talking about this loneliness epidemic that we're having in the United States and we think about it that it it started manifesting itself, this loneliness among people, during the pandemic, but the podcast actually reminded me that the surgeon general declared a loneliness epidemic as a medical epidemic in the United States.
Speaker 2:Public health crisis.
Speaker 1:Public health crisis in 2015, five years before the pandemic right, and so this has been going on for a long time. And so when we dig deep I think you know what you're talking about into these sort of basics of ministry, we're really addressing these things that are going on in all of our communities and when people are seen, and when people are seen with their whole self, that's when ministry really happens and ministries really grow and thrive. We have another church in our press tree that welcomed 10 new members on this past Sunday thrive. We have another church in our presbytery that welcomed 10 new members on this past Sunday. I was looking through the social media feeds of some of our churches the day after, because I always do that on Mondays to see what happened in whatever church I wasn't in, you know, on that Sunday. And this church is just, you know, growing like a weed in our presbytery and it's exciting to see and 10 new members.
Speaker 1:And I talked to their pastor Tuesday this week and I said tell me about these 10 new members? And she said well, it's so funny. We had a new members class and we only had nine people who were going to join the church and when I called. We got to that part of the worship service and I said it's time to call the new people up to join the church. She said another person just came up and said I want to join today. And she said I had this moment where I thought, oh, but you weren't in the new members class and I thought, well, that doesn't matter. And so we had 10 new members, not nine new members, and so you know, but that church is showing up in to really meet people where they are. They're doing all sorts of healing ministries, they're doing anti-racism work. They're really digging in and fruitfulness is happening as a result of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's another dimension of this. I think that's worth lifting up. You know, often when we read a passage like that, the people who are the readers think of themselves, can not always think of themselves as the one who does the visiting of one who is sick, or the one who does the clothing of one who needs clothing, you know, in those metaphors but I also think Jesus is calling us to a deeper understanding that this is a communal property are in deep need of being a part of a community when we are sick, when we are friendless, when we are lonely to, you know, be part of that. So my hope is that relationship and compassion, that we are all in those positions at some point and in need of and want to be a part of a community that manifests that kind of connection in the world. And that's one of the things that most excites me about being the church is that we can manifest that with each other.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, we're always. At some point we're going to be the giver and at some point we're going to be the receiver, right, and sometimes in the same moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you just never know the other. You know, matthew 25 is sort of like three movements in a pretty big passage of scripture and that first part is about you know the bridesmaids and keeping watch, paying attention, which I think is a really important piece of ministry paying attention, noticing what's going on around you, of ministry paying attention, noticing what's going on around you, keeping watch for the movement of the Holy Spirit, right. And then there's that piece about you know what is it? The man who gives the talents to his slaves.
Speaker 1:That part has always sort of challenged me because it, you know, the slave master in this passage is, you know, aggressive and really nasty and mean to one of his slaves, right, yeah, in all of the passage, and the things he says are just, you know everything terrible that we would think about. You know someone who enslaves other people, but, but the slave also, the person who's enslaved, also like is clear. Like he says I see you, I see what kind of person you are, I see how terrible you are, and like names it and it gets said in scripture like the truth of of the slave master and the truth of his terribleness, and so, uh, I I appreciate that too in Matthew 25, that there's this I knew that you are a hard man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's this truth telling you know, I knew you are a hard man, you know, and I knew you would you know, steal. You know? So often in history the words of those who are oppressed get written out of history. But the words of an oppressed person is in the middle of the scripture passage and is being told in its truthfulness, even though I'm sure it made the slave master even angrier. Right to have someone who's enslaved standing up to him and saying, hey, I see you. I see you for your evil, right. So I like those movements in Matthew 25 of like, keep watch, tell the truth, focus on the least of these. It's an interesting sort of movement through the whole of the chapter. I always think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very compelling and thank you for that. And you know we often think of it as three different stories, but for you to think of it as a whole, you know, is pretty compelling. A church that I had served in a previous incarnation of service that said, in our life together we are a Matthew 25 and a Matthew 28 congregation holding these things together. And I'm compelled, when you go to Matthew 28, which is it's it's an inspiring passage. But when you go to Matthew 28, what you hear Jesus saying to the disciples is do all that I taught you, which is which is kind of pointing back to this section. It's like, if you're, if you're going to follow me, this is what I was teaching you. I mean, this is the last chapter of Matthew before sort of the series of events that eventually lead to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, but this is like the passage of Matthew's 20. Pay attention, because this is my last teaching before I'm going down this road and I find that pretty compelling too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's at the end of the. It's at the end of the chapter, right, we know it comes at the end of the chapters in the Gospels. They start at the beginning and they go, go through the, through the end, and we know what happens there, right at the beginning and they go through the end. And we know what happens there, right. And I think these are good pieces to start the new year with as well, because the new year is always about intention setting and reorientation and for us, in our own discipleship and the life of our communities, our congregations, that intentionality of resetting a new year around the ministry of Jesus is so important as we go into a new year. And I think you know, especially for those who'll be listening as we start 2025, right. So it's going to. You know, rootedness in the way of Jesus is really what all of this is getting at the work around Matthew 25. How do we root ourselves in the way of Jesus? So one of the pieces around Matthew 25, right is that you know it's. You know Matthew 25 was started in 2016 by the General Assembly, responding to an overture that came out of a couple of presbyteries, and the overture talks about creating cycles of engagement in the church, in our ministry, so reviewing our ministry into cycles of engagement, and it talks about ministry that's rooted in ministry to the least of these and that addresses major issues facing our world, which, you know. 2016 is not that long ago and it also feels like eons ago, right, uh, but cause, so much has happened since 2016. Uh, but, uh, uh, you know the these basic pieces around um a ministry that is focused on the primary issues around uh, care of those who are in poverty, prioritizing the voices of the voiceless, addressing the issue of climate change and the degradation of God's first gift to us in the creation, the good and beautiful creation, and then also addressing issues around violence and militarism. You know that these things separate us from the way of Jesus.
Speaker 1:So, as the denomination sort of pulled this apart and created the work you know, kind of took the overture and then designed it into a ministry work plan. Right, it got designed into three major focuses congregational vitality, addressing issues of poverty, addressing issues of racism and how that those things you know again pull us away from the way of Jesus. And then these intersecting areas around looking at issues of militarism, violence, issues around the climate crisis and then around gender justice and heteropatriarchy. So you've been, you know, in the thick of it, corey working. Can you talk about what this focus on intersectionality means for ministry and how that shows up, and what are good practices around intersectionality in ministry?
Speaker 2:Well, well, let me just kind of share a quick story. If you would, or started to become part of our colloquial vocabulary really back in the 90s Kimberly Krenschoff sort of is recognized as a key person who coined it. That said and this comes back to what we were just talking about before, there are individuals and communities that are experiencing not shalom but injustice, that are experiencing oppression, that are experiencing not having access to the things like you know me, a middle class heterosexual white guy, may have more access to and ease with than many other communities and individuals would have. And when we look at that, when we look at why that's happening, there can become several different, both social and personal influences. Forces that make that true and I think that's what she and others were pointing at is that there are issues of a person's race and their background, there are issues of a person's economic status and what that means. There are that where they live in the world, that, that, that where they live in the world. You know all of these pieces that when, if, when you look at that one individual or that one community, you have to understand those larger forces that are at work that prevent wholeness, well-being, shalom and shalomification in that person's life or in that community's life, and so wanting to help us in our discipleship, grow more attuned and aware to those bigger forces that give shape to this condition, rather than the easy thing is oh, look at that individual and shouldn't we have sympathy for that person because they're in a? No, there's actually, in most cases there are sets of conditions that make an individual's or community's situation as it is, and so the reason why I'm saying that is in part because take one simple example of I shouldn't say simple, but an example one of my favorite social enterprises that's happening in the church is in our colleagues Presbyterian Newcastle Presbytery. It's a thing called the Kitchen Collective. So I'm sharing this to describe some of these intersections.
Speaker 2:So the Kitchen Collective was a first started as a Methodist church. Chelsea Snyder, by the way, if you want to connect with her, is a key leader for the Kitchen Collective Started with a Methodist church who said you know, as a church we have this really fabulous commercial kitchen that we use twice a week. There's another hundred odd hours that this could be used outside of this and I wonder if somebody else could use it. So, and what happened from that is that there were people in the community who wanted to develop new businesses. Who wanted to whether it's a food truck or a bakery or some kind of food service, and this was their way of generating economic income and contributing to the community. Or people who were not white, they were African-American or Indian-American or others that wanted to get into this business. But the system creates a bar that we're investing in the capital to have access to commercial grade facilities that would allow this business to actually function in that whole system is too high for a community to jump over. And so what the church did was to say, hey, look what we got, we could make this available to others. Say, hey, look what we got, we could make this available to others. And what that did was to create a systemic interruption in the way that the economy of this place was set up, so that, you know, a person who wanted to make falafel available to a broad community could do that. The church made it possible. They created this relationship.
Speaker 2:Soon that Methodist church turned into that Methodist church and ate food entrepreneurs. And then the Presbyterians jumped in. So you know, the Presbyterian church did the same thing. They did that with another set of food entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:Last time I talked with Chelsea. She said, even though we've got three churches that are making their kitchens available for all of these entrepreneurs, she said we still have 28 businesses on the waiting list wanting to do this. And that was an innovation of an individual congregation saying we got something we could share with others. But part of you see, that's an individual act of saying, hey, we got something we could share with others. But part of you see, that's an individual act of saying, hey, we got something we could share with somebody else. But it has a systemic interruption in an economy for a community, especially for many of these communities who come from communities who don't have access to that kind of capital. That could happen and to begin to be able to see that these communities' race, immigration and background is connected to the economy and how the economy is set up to allow some to be in and some to be out. And the church has a way of reading that and taking an individual act that actually has systemic consequences.
Speaker 1:I think reading that intersectionally is really useful and I realized that was you know, a church shows up in the community. Because they paid attention, you know, getting back to that first piece of Matthew 25. They paid attention to their community, they saw something that was going on. They were in conversation with someone and found out about this and said, oh, we have a way to meet that need, we have a way to be in partnership. And it's not about us, and it's not for our growth, and it's not for we're giving this away. You know, we're doing it in complete humility, selflessness, service. Right, we're not doing this to do what we need to do, but I bet those congregations, their vitality grew yeah exactly One of the things that we see Fascinating.
Speaker 1:And also created partnership, probably between those congregations. Like I loved when I served in Albany Presbyterian, the downtown churches in Albany had a like a little organization that they ran called Focus Churches, and I'm sure Focus stood for something, but it was ecumenical again. But what they said was oh, we have all this poverty going on in the downtown corridor of the city of Albany Homelessness, food insecurity, need to do literacy programs with children and there's no way one congregation can tackle all that stuff on their own. And so you know it's the, it's, you know the Presbyterians and the Methodists and the Baptists and the Episcopalians and it's, it's a whole group of them, uh, doing this work, uh, together in community, uh, for a community impact.
Speaker 1:My home church that I grew up in was involved in Family Promise, which is a ministry that still continues with homeless families, and we did all sorts of ministry and it was interfaith.
Speaker 1:When I was growing up we did everything with the synagogue across the street from us and I remember that just making a huge impression on me when I was growing up at my home church that we don't, we didn't, address community issues on our own. We did them with our neighbors right across the street at the synagogue, right. So I, I love that that piece, and so sometimes maybe we think like intersectionality is some new thing that we have to do. But it's actually kind of like who we are if we go back and read the tape, right, I mean, my home church was doing intersectionality back in the 80s but they weren't calling it that. They were just like oh, we work with neighbors across the street right and so and I'm grateful also, you know, for the work of naming what you know intersectionality is and explaining it as well. That's also so important because these pieces help us grow in faithfulness. That's really important.
Speaker 2:And if you treat them as, if you treat these things as issues rather than as incarnate manifestations in the life of a person and community, then you can go on your own sort of intellectual project. That's interesting, but I think part of what being a disciple of Jesus means is that all of these things show up in incarnate manifestations in the life of people, and we're about people who want to create conditions that look more like shalom than that look like disparity and difficulty and inequity of access.
Speaker 1:Right right, right right. Creating community, community wellness creating thriving right, yes, go ahead, go ahead. One more thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so fun. I know one more thing, oh, it's so fun. So you know, I've I've shared with some others that I'm on a. I have a mission to add a new verb to the Oxford English dictionary, and the verb is shalomify. Because shalom is, you know, we, we think of it as a quality, or an adjective or a or a noun the presence of wholeness and right, relationship and well-being, beyond just our own individual piece and characteristic. But it's a communal quality. And so, you know, as we look at diminishing the forces of racism, diminishing the forces of economic disparity, diminishing the forces of heteropatriarchy and gender difference, it's diminishing these things we're building wholeness, well-being. And so, anyway, I, like the, I like you, want to write to our Oxford English Dictionary writers, maybe members of our country.
Speaker 1:Listening to this podcast will start a petition for your verb to go into the dictionary. I know you like to make up words, corey, so thank you for giving us one of your made up words on the podcast. Well, I just I know we're getting close to time here ending, and there's another podcast I listen to all the time. It's called Outrage and Optimism, and it's a really great podcast, great title, right. It's led by some folks who work at the United Nations, and Christina Figueres is one of the leads on it. She helped get the Paris Climate Accords over the finish line in 2015 with the United Nations. It has become, you know, one of our global targets on how we heal heal the earth, heal the creation and she wrote a book about their experience called the Future we Choose, and I loved how she wrote it because it's so. Now, I know she's not a Presbyterian, but it's very aligned with reformed theology. Right, that God acts and we respond. You know it's about our choices, of how we show up and respond to God's action in our worlds.
Speaker 1:I enjoy listening to the podcast and listening to what they're up to, but they have a closing question that I really like, and so I'm using it during this podcast series. I've stolen it from their podcast. But the question they ask people, of course, is off their title what are you outraged about and what are you optimistic about Now? Of course, their question is to people working in areas around the climate crisis, but a more nuanced or sort of calmer, perhaps Presbyterian, way of asking that question is like what's making you challenged in your work or optimistic, or where does total depravity show up? Or where's the Holy Spirit? So I'm just curious as I ask that question like where's the challenge and where's the blue sky right in the work and the ministry you do? On behalf of the PCUSA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. That's great. So I think that it's easier for me to talk about the blue sky. But that brings into view the challenge as they are supporting and engaging with their congregations, new worshiping communities and their leaders, the way in which there is a growing openness to building modes of engagement and support for people that are not just trying to do stronger, better, higher, louder what they've always done, just trying to do stronger, better, higher, louder what they've always done. So the, the, the openness to create and to create new pathways forward for folks. And the big challenge I think in that is that, as part of creating those new pathways forward, there's also saying goodbye to ways that have been and there's.
Speaker 2:I don't know that we are. You know, as a community, that we have gotten, that we have built our capacity to, in a healthy, faithful and holistic way, recognize well when a way of being or a congregation or a committee, or a part of our mission or ministry needs to conclude, needs to end, needs to be modified and needs to be honored in its completion. All of these things are all manifestations of the church, are not eternal. While you know, while you know, the gospel of Jesus Christ may have an eternal quality to it. The way in which it gets lived out is not eternal, and so these we're all in a life cycle and being able to do that well and healthfully, to say well, thank you, Thanks be to God for this ministry and what it's done and how it's developed, and allow it to conclude in a positive, faithful way and while at the same time welcoming new ways of being, new ways of being engaged, new communities of people, et cetera.
Speaker 2:I think creating that balance, that kind of ecosystem, is a pretty massive challenge and many of us like to operate in one or the other. And many of us like to operate in one or the other Right. But I think one of the blessings of being part of a presbytery is you get to see, you get to operate in a field of vision where you're seeing it both happen all the time. Right, there is newness and growth and new ways of being and new worshiping communities and new manifestations of the mission of God in the world, and there are ways in which endings need to happen well and faithfully and hopefully. And wow, that's a massive challenge, but that's part of what God is trying to call us to, not only through this passage, but just through life and ministry, is inhabiting the spirit, of inhabiting the slipstream of the Holy Spirit, if you will, to the best of our ability.
Speaker 2:And I know this isn't the particular scripture passage we were talking about today, but my favorite book of the Bible right now is the book of Acts, yeah, the book of Acts and the ways in which I mean you see it manifest, even a simple passage in Acts 16, you see, you know Paul and others going on an excursion that they thought was going to work the way it worked last time and it doesn't work. And even the Holy Spirit says no, don't do it, you're forbidden to do this. So they have to find a completely different way and when they do, they find a completely different leader that they would ever expect, and Lydia in Philippi, who becomes the founding pastor of that church in that region, and she's completely the unexpected person that would that would show up. So sometimes God is doing this. No, no, no, no, we're not doing that anymore to create a new way. And man, that's hard for us sometimes.
Speaker 1:Right Sorry, that was a lot of words no, no, no, god, closing one door so we can find the other door right in our ministry. And it is hard, and I always like to remind people. You know, we've been at this following Jesus thing for 2000 plus years at this point, right, and so think of all the manifestations of that. It's kind of hard to wrap your mind around. And and it's global right. So all the way people show up and engage in the way of Jesus in languages and in cultures that are not ours at all, that are so different. I had a. I still have it. It's a folder I my second call in ministry.
Speaker 1:I printed off all these images that I found on Google of people taking communion all over the world and we would hang them up all around the sanctuary on World Communion Sunday.
Speaker 1:And I mean they are so diverse.
Speaker 1:You know there's one of a military chaplain giving communion before a group of soldiers go off on a raid during the Vietnam War, and there's a woman on her deathbed who's emaciated and has cancer.
Speaker 1:And there's an Orthodox woman in Russia taking communion from a spoon, because it's given on a silver spoon, literally from the priest, the host, and you know a community of little children having first communion and the way we might see it in our churches and the idea what I wanted my church to see was we're part of a global church and a global representation of Jesus. Look at all the ways just communion shows up, like today, in the church and like it says, like open our mind, open our ways of seeing the way the worship of God and faithfulness to Jesus is showing up in this act of communion. Right, and I always I show it around, sometimes on World Communion Sunday, if I happen to be preaching, and it's always a good exercise for a church to remember that we're, you know, we're part of such a bigger project. Right, that visual image just tells it, tells it all, right, so so we leave everyone with those ideas.
Speaker 2:Way bigger than us.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, bigger than us as we start the new year. Corey, so grateful for you. Thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for being on the podcast and we're so grateful for the work you do in the larger church, the Matthew 25 ministry that we're all a part of as we orient ourselves in this new year, and thanks so much for being part of connecting our conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god bless you in this new year and God bless the Presbytery of Southern New England as you Shalomify the world, thanks be to.
Speaker 1:God, thank you. We will work on Shalomifying this.