New Zion Baptist Church Christian Education Workshop Department of Missions Division Dr. a=Tatterd DEN a Sd “New Zion Baptist lei _ Dr. Bruce Davis, Sr. - Pastor 293) Lincoln Avenue Osa 392-2211 E-Mail: aed aLe com | aes ty oye eee Fax: 801- 392-3433 Website: newzionut.com (c) 2010. CONTENTS 1. WOMEN’S SOCIETIES ~~ GOSPEL MISSION as SALVATION WW CO GOSPEL MISSION as WITNESS DW GOSPEL MISSION as OBEDIENCE NY GOSPEL MISSION as MISSION or MOVEMENT THE CALL to BALANCE and CENTEREDNESS So ee me ww PRESIDING OFFICES THE BONDAGE of STEREOTYPES: SUSIE HOMEMAKER and SUPERWOMAN 1] Myth |: Susie Homemaker 12 Myth 2: Superwoman 14 9. AND the HEROJS... 10. ORPAH and US 19 WOMEN’S SOCIETIES Nowadays there is a tendency to divide these into groups and circles--each with its own president and secretary and treasurer, of about twenty members each. Their work embraces missions, charity, evangelism and education. These different groups hold a joint meeting monthly. PRESIDING OFFICES It is the duty of the presiding officer to call the members to order at the proper time; to announce the business in its order; to receive and submit all motions presented by the members; put to vote all questions regularly moved, and announce the result; to enforce the observance of order in debate, and decorum at all times among the members; to receive and announce communications: to authenticate by his signature, when necessary, the acts and proceeding of the assembly; to inform the assembly on a point of order or practice, when necessary, or when referred to for the purpose; to name committees, when directed in a particular case, or when it is made a part of his general duty by a rule; and in general, to represent and stand for the assembly, declaring its will, and in all things obeying implicitly its commands. In case of the absence of the chairman, the vice-president shall preside, and if there be no vice-president, a temporary presiding officer should be elected by the assembly, the secretary conducting the proceedings meantime. The presiding officer should always rise to state a motion, or to put a question to the assembly; should give the closest attention to the speaker, remembering that only one subject BREESE ER REE E ER E EERE BEE can be before the assembly at once; and when in doubt as to his manner of proceeding, should remember that the great purpose of all rules and form, 1s to facilitate and not obstruct business. NOTES: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES GOSPEL MISSION as MISSION or MOVEMENT The world of the New Testament is not some abstract entity. It is not “human nature” or humanity viewed as the “human species” or the earth viewed as a “planet” or “created matter.” The world of the New Testament refers to concrete persons. When it tells us that Jesus came into the world, it means that “to his own he came, yet his own did not accept him” (John 1:11). “His own” are first and foremost the Jews: the people of Nazareth and Judea, the priests and the scribes, and many others. The reference is always to concrete human beings, for the Word came to talk to them. Each of them will be addressed and summoned, and the drama of salvation takes place in that process. It has nothing to do with any disembodied heaven so dear to the Gnostic mysteries. Jesus Christ comes to establish an encounter with each individual person, and everything else revolves around that fact. Death and resurrection, the Father and the Spirit, the sacraments and Christian doctrines: All focus around the concrete act of encounter. In concrete form the encounters described in the Gospels are an analogy of what is going on in the depths of each human individual. Jesus comes to address his message to Peter, John, and Andrew--to all the Peters, Johns, and Andrews of history. The words “coming,” “going,” and “sending” refer to this concrete act of summoning human beings in the midst of the human world. SBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE The apostles are missionaries, people sent out. The title does not refer to actual journeys (which can be included under the heading of the Gospel missio n), not to some abstract application of the mystery of salvation. It applies to them because in their activities they serve the cause of Christ’s summons to human beings. The mission of the apostles is not the repetition of Christ’s mission, nor is it a numerically different one; it remains imbedded within Christ’s own missio n as his tool for appealing to human beings. The content, import, and underlying norm of the mission entrusted to Christians is the mission of Jesus himself. It ever remains an instrument of his mission, in the sense that it is a participation in that missio n. It is the mission of Jesus Christ that makes apostolic acts what they are. Salvation is accomplished at the moment when a person truly has an encounter with Jesus Christ. At that point Jesus tells the person that his faith has saved him. Salvation is not at all like the Gnostic mysteries. It is an awakening of freedom . and love by the Spirit and the summons of Jesus. But this act has a long history, embracing all the tragic and comic episodes of human history. First of all, the envoy of Christ enters another’s world, the world of an “other.” Each person constitutes a universe. All people defend their own autonomy and react to external stimuli by rejecting, selecting, and transforming. What makes interpersonal communication difficult is precisely the fact that all indivi dual persons judge perceived data by their own criteria and interpret everyt hing in terms of their own world view, interests, and plans. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE Missionaries do not belong to the universe of their interlocutors. They are not foreseen or expected beforehand, and so they have no place in the latter’s scheme of things. them. Plans have already been made, and missionaries are not covered by Time has already been allotted, and there is none left for what the missionaries propose. That alone would explain why so many doors are shut to them. And if it should happen that provision has been made for the message of the missionaries and that it does fit into the scheme of the interlocutors, then there is reason to fear that the message of the missionaries is not the message of Jesus Christ but rather a reflection of the interlocutors’ own world--in which case the latter see themselves reflected in the object proposed and do not really have any objection to it. The priority of the Gospel mission means that it always remains more important than the work of administering already established groups, indeed that such groups cease to be legitimate when they tend to paralyze the mission effort. When the Church becomes an integral part of some given culture or society, then it becomes the instrument of human beings rather than the instrument of God. NOTES: GOSPEL MISSION as OBEDIENCE The Gospel mission makes no sense at all unless there is constant submission to the one who has sent out the missionary. It is expected of missionaries that they will keep listening to and assimilating what Jesus Christ 1s saying to human beings, that they will continue to pay heed to the divine word that seeks to touch the inner depths of human beings and bring to life the new person. discourse. That divine word does not find expression as such in dry It finds expression in real life, in human gestures that can somehow be more than human--or fully human, if you prefer. not a one-shot process. situation. Learning the divine message is We must keep listening and learning in each particular Christ does not speak to each individual in exactly the same way. The pace of conversation, the points stressed, and the arrangement of content differ from one individual to the next. Living in total obedience to the Spirit does not mean trying to get an authoritative seal of approval stamped on the things that we would be doing anyway because they suited our aspirations and perhaps even our convenience. That kind of obedience is a virtue only for functionaries and mercenaries. Obedience to the Spirit means that we constantly refer and relate our initiatives to the Spirit. GOSPEL MISSION as SALVATION First of all salvation is something new, a happening, a new reality in the world. What exactly is this reality? In other words, what is the conten t of salvation? Salvation is also an action. What sort of action is it? Finally salvat ion is something lived by the person who is saved. other purpose. The mission of Jesus Christ had no He became man so that all mi ght truly be human in him. Salvat ion is intended to make sure that human beings will truly be human in the fullest sense of the word. We had lost our humanity, had somehow ceased to be truly human. The evil lay in us, and salvation would represent our liberation from all that prevented us from being truly human. And what is it that preven ts us from being truly human? It is we ourselves. If human beings are to be truly human, then we must be liberated from the evil that lies within us. Evil is rooted in the abuse of human will power whereby some latch hold of an opportunity to dominate others, and in the cowardice of those who are willing to put up with all forms of injustice. The object of the Gospel message is to teach us how to be authen tic human beings. The objective of salvation is to make sure that we will be human beings in the fullest sense of the word. It soon becomes evident that we find our full humanity at the end of a long process, and this process is what we call salvat ion. EEEESEREEEREEEEEEESEEEE GOSPEL MISSION as WITNESS In recent years church theology has become aware of the excessively private character that Christianity has taken on since the end of the Middle Ages, and particularly over the past hundred years. There has been a strong reaction against this tendency, and it is growing day by day. The fact is that the message of the Bible is thoroughly social and political. The word of God in the Old and New Testaments is uttered in the marketplace as well as in the depths of an individual’s conscience. Jesus spoke out in the open where the Jews of his day walked and congregated. He proclaimed his message along the byways, in the streets of cities and towns, and in the Temple (which was the great meeting place of the Jewish nation). He spoke openly before the authorities of his day in every field: before the religious scholars, the priests and elders, and the Roman rulers. He did not keep his message a confidential secret between himself and certain select groups buried anonymously among the masses. BEEEEEEREEEEESEEEEES THE CALL to BALANCE and CENTEREDNESS Watching my children grow up, I have always been amazed at the joy they’ve experienced on merry-go-rounds. These contraptions are no longer common on playgrounds today, probably due to the dangers they present, but my children loved them. The kids would hold on and push hard with their feet. As more children were attracted to the spinning and began pushing, the merry-goround would turn faster and the children’s laughter and squeals of delight would grow louder. | watched this activity in awe that they could spin and spin without a hint of nausea, while I, simply observing, could hardly contain my churning stomach. But there they would be, hanging onto this whirling device, leaning way out, their heads flung back, hair flying, enjoying the speed. After awhile, they would tire of the effort required to hang on and scoot toward the center where the force of the turning was lessened. As | began the inward exploration that always seems to launch my writing projects, I kept returning to these two contrasting images of the merry-go-round. The first was of my children holding on with all their might as the merry-go-round spun seemingly out of control. The second was of them moving to the center where the force decreased and their stability increased. Both images parallel the life experience of many of us. The many and varied commitments of our lives often spin us at a dizzying rate. We live at such a pace that we feel we are either about to be flung off the whirling merry-go-round altogether, or we teeter dangerously close to losing our 9 sense of balance. A friend whose husband was out of town on one of many business tips shared with me her sense of teetering. “Right now everything is under control,” she said, “but a feeling of dread lurks in the back of my mind. What if one of the kids gets sick? What if the car breaks down?” All of us, at one time or another, know the feeling of holding on with all our might while wishing for stability and balance. We need to find a center within, a place from which we can derive steadiness and equilibrium. As dizzy children move to the center of the merry-go-round where the force of spinning is less powerful, so we need to move to the center of ourselves where we can find strength and guidance to sort through the responsibilities that make up our lives. This article is a call to find that center. Through the process of inner contemplation, we have the potential to find for ourselves that restful part of the merry-go-round from which we can navigate the distracting forces of life. Kimberly Dunnam Reisman, Finding Balance in a World of Extremes THE BONDAGE of STEREOTYPES: SUSIE HOMEMAKER and SUPERWOMAN As we journey toward centeredness and the wholeness it can bring, we never all begin at the same place. Some of us may be searching for our center but have yet to entertain the notion that our center might be in Jesus Christ. Others may have a relationship with Christ but not yet made that relationship an integral part of their interior lives. Still others may have been following Christ for a long time and are looking for continued depth for their journey. Perhaps many of us are somewhere in-between. Regardless of where we begin our journey, however, each of us is bound to encounter obstacles to achieving centeredness. It is the nature of the spiritual process. These blocks can come both from within ourselves and from without; and while the details of our stories may be different, many of the obstacles are common to us all. I want to begin our journey together by focusing on some of the outer means that hinder us from moving toward a sense of centeredness. These are ways in which our culture, specifically American culture, works overtly and covertly to move us away from our center and toward the distraction of the superficial. While this is ERE EER EEEEE SEE E EERE EEE not a how-to-get-organized book, a great deal of what distracts us has to do with our responsibilities in the world and the expectations that world have for us. Because of this, it is impossible to work toward Christ-centeredness without spending at least some time discussing the issues of ordinary life—motherhood, careers, vocations, household responsibilities, and societal expectations. I want to begin by focusing on two specific myths that secular and religious culture offers us, which, if believed, hinder us from placing Christ at the center of our lives. I call these the myths of Susie Homemaker (you remember little Susie playing with her Easy-Bake Oven, don’t you?) and Superwoman. You will probably recognize these amazing women quickly. Myth 1: Susie Homemaker Professor, writer, and lecturer Mary Ellen Ashcroft often begins her workshops by asking the participants to make a list of at least twenty attributes of a “really good” woman. She has performed this experiment in dramatically different settings, from small, radical liberal arts colleges to gatherings of conservative Baptist women, and with women of all ages, denominations, and backgrounds. Over the years she has compiled a surprisingly homogenous description of this “really good” woman. This woman seems to live all over the country, is a member of almost every church, knows no economic boundary, and inhabits both the countryside and our cities. We all seem to know and love her. Who is she? I will let Ashcroft introduce her to you: 12 = = = ... She bakes for her kids’ lunches and for after-schoo] snacks . The smell of dinner is usually waiting around an hour or so before hubby comes in. Often concermed that there might not be enough, she cooks more than she needs to. After everyone is seated, she keeps scurrying around; making sure everyone has what they need. She’s the one who is usually waiting to pick up the kids in the van after school. But if she’s not the chauffeur, she prefers to ride. ... She keeps up on the family correspondence. She writes to her husband’s family as well as her own, and is in charge of inviting people over for dinner. She worries quite a lot about her weight. It would be bad if she put on too much and became unattractive to her husband. She exerc ises a bit to keep her weight down. She hates to keep people waiting. For her the feeling of Causing even the smallest inconvenience for someone is very hard. She apolo gizes a lot, as if even her existence is a nuisance. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Excuse me.” “I seem to be in the way.” “Can you see okay?” ...She is very sweet. She tries not to lose her temper. Just under the sweet exterior is an air of anxiety, of distraction. Where did I put that recipe? Where should I buy the pork chops? What if Joey has forgotten his homework? Should ] serve the salad before the main course or with it? I have met this woman. Haven’t you? You might think that the uniformity of our perceptions and the command they have over us devel oped because biblical teaching or another highly regarded authority created this perfec t woman. Certainly it would make more sense. Strangely enough, this isn’t the case. Susie arrived on the scene not in biblical times, but in the Victo rian era, and she’s been with us ever since. Television, movies, books, magazines, cartoons, and commercials have over the years enhanced Susie’s perfection and solidified her power Over us. BRR BEBE ERE RB SEE BPE BRB RB Myth 2: Superwoman While society continues to have strong messages for women about what they can and cannot do, we have more choices today than ever before. thank the Women’s Movement. For this we can As conflicted as we may feel about the movement’s current status, few of us would want to backtrack. Most of us take for granted that we can vote, that we can offer evidence in a court of law, that we have recourses for sexual harassment, or that we won’t be denied a higher education because of our gender. Whatever our political stance at the dawn of the twenty- first century, we owe a debt of gratitude to the courageous women who went before uS. As much as we have gained over the years, we must also admit that our lives are much more complicated as a result of the many choices we have available to us. Along with that complexity came a new untouchable role model: Superwoman. Where my mother’s generation had to contend with Susie Homemaker, this is the myth that haunts my generation. As with Susie, we strengthen our understanding of Superwoman, and thus our ability to confront her, when we look at the history that let to her creation. While I am not a social scientist, the myth of Superwoman appears to me to be a backlash against a backlash. First was the feminist rejection of the constraints of Susie Homemaker: as the fifties faded into the sixties and women heard the distant rumblings of the feminist movement, a great sigh of relief went up all over the country: / am a person—with hopes and disappointments and passions and abilities. And I am ready to express them all. 14 As exciting as this new concept appeared, as true as it felt to women everywhere, it quickly ran head-on into the reality of motherhood. the seventies saw home and family become dirty words. The dawn of Motherhood was viewed as capitulation to an Old World order. In this environment, many women rejected the roles of the past and headed off to the workplace. They entered the male- dominated world of work in droves and many excelled. Women began to move up the corporate ladder and for the first time experienced financial success independent of men. Yet more and more, women were placed between a rock and a hard place. Motherhood and the call of the “traditional life” were diamet rically opposed to the feminist commitment. The very nature of motherhood is the activity of caring for another, placing the needs of that other ahead of your Own. Feminism, in dramatic contrast, insisted on “attention being paid to the self, to the full humanity, wishes, desires, capacities of the self.” Despite this conflict, women continued to get married and have babies . The shrill rejection of men and children didn’t completely ring true in the everyday life of women outside the university walls. If the feminist movement was a backlash against the power of Susie Homemaker, then the myth of Super woman was a backlash against the all-or-nothing attitude of the feminist movement. Women in my generation absorbed the feminist message that they were capable and independent and able to pursue any career they chose. equal pay for equal work. children. We agreed with the need for But most of us still wanted to marry and to have We didn’t want to give up everything to pursue a career—we wante d it all. And precisely because of the feminist message of independence , we were confident that we could have it. 15 EB EB EE ES 5 Superwoman arrived to save us all from the burden of choice. We could be Susie Homemaker and a Liberated Woman at the same time! quickly latched on to this new myth. The American media Women’s magazines expanded their offerings to include guidelines for choosing the right day care, tips to help organize chaotic mornings when the whole family was trying to get off to school and work, fashion sections emphasizing wardrobes that could take you from home to work to evening, and articles on the value of “quality” time—as opposed to quantity of time—spent with children. Women (with a surprising amount of support from men) have embraced the ERE BEB EEE myth of Superwoman and have launched into exciting careers while continuing to hold down the fort at home. But again, this has not been without price. While a danger of the Susie Homemaker myth is that it limits women to only one outlet for self-expression, a danger of the Superwoman myth is that it assumes unlimited energy and resources in pursuing self-expression, personal growth, and fulfillment. The reality is quite the opposite. Actress Meg Ryan stated the situation succinctly in a comment to her business partner, “Being a working mother means that you are always disappointing somebody.” The truth is, our resources are never unlimited. While there are men who share with their wives the burden of juggling home life with a career, the more common reality is that Superwoman finds herself single-handedly working two full-time jobs--when her shift at her paying job ends, her shift at home begins. We ——— — ———————— BEEBE can’t be all things to all people. Somewhere along the line someone 1s going to get the short end of the stick; it may be us, it may be our families, or it may be our work. Meg Ryan was right: someone is going to be disappointed. We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that the pressure to be a Superwoman Is limited to married women with children. Homemaker, Superwoman is truly inclusive. Unlike Susie Unmarried women have often experienced their career climb to be a soul-draining experience that consumes precious time and blocks opportunities to develop healthy relationships. Single mothers know too well the limits that a twenty-four hour day can bring. And of course, poor women have always been struggling to be Superwomen, quietly juggling jobs and home for lack of any other choice. AND the HERO IS... | have always admired Ruth and her courage. I frequently look to her for inspiration when I have difficult decisions to make. Yet I believe we can learn from Orpah as well—that seemingly insignificant character that disappeared, never to be heard from again. I believe that Orpah made a good and a right decision. As admirable as Ruth’s choice was, Orpah’s decision was based on solid reasoning. In light of the lack of status and security widows experienced in those times, it made sense for Orpah to return to the security of the only family she had. It was a tremendous risk to go to Bethlehem as a foreigner with no guarantee that Naomi’s family would care for her. Orpah made a wise decision, but Orpah did not follow. followed Naomi. Ruth followed; she There is obvious tension between these two choices. There was no middle option. Our lives often feel the same way. We often feel that between two opposing choices, only one of them is right. Society and the church often encourage us to think that way. Just as our culture would have us believe various myths, it also would have us believe that there is only one “right” decision among many. All too often, the church, either directly or indirectly, supports this position. Ruth made the “right” choice; Orpah made the “wrong” one. If you don’t choose to be Ruth, the message from all the Ruths out there is that you are completely misguided. If you don’t choose to be Orpah, the message from all the Orpahs out there is exactly the same. I do not believe that God intended our lives to be made up of such extremes. The value we gain from the story of Ruth and Orpah is not that Ruth made the right choice and Orpah did not, but that both women made choices that were right for them individually. We don’t hear from Orpah again, but we can probably assume that after she returned home, she led a secure life. We know that Ruth went on to be an integral part of our salvation story. Both women made right choices, choices that were good enough for their individual circumstances and the plan of God for their lives. ORPAH and US Orpah understood “good enough.” She made a very difficult decision, one filled with the pain of separation and loss, but one that was good enough for her. As we look for a new framework on which to build the structure of our lives, a first step is to claim that for ourselves. The concept of “good enough” can provide a strong spoke for the wheel of our life, a spoke that leads from Christ at the center outward toward the many decisions and choices we face every day. This notion has countless applications. We all need to make choices that help us become “good enough” mothers, children, siblings, workers, volunteers, and friends. The “good enough” spoke moves us one step away from the Superwoman and Susie Homemaker myths that would confine and confuse us and one step closer to our center and to wholeness. It enables us to look at the choices that lay before us not from the world’s perspective of what is appropriate, but from our own insights about what is right for us. Orpah showed us the way. TAKING NOTES | TAKING NOTES