I struggle with the concept of being responsible. I have never lacked at being the responsible one in many situations. My OCD tendencies and leadership style tend to suit me being the responsible person in situations. However, when it comes to life I find that I tend to let my responsible self dominate the rest of my life. If you think of a person being made of a variety of parts that could be seen as individual people that all sit in a circle. As whole they make you up and should work to keep you in balance. There's the lover, fighter, career person, responsible person, the higher self, the inner critic, so on and so on. It is easy to get out of balance in this group. One person will tend to come to the fore front and for me right now it's the responsible one. While not always a bad thing to be responsible, when that is your dominate mode of operation balance is lost. The whole self loses touch with the things that ground and refresh a person. They lose sight of the joy in creation. It's hard not to think about the future without thinking about being responsible in a society where it seems like the future is uncertain. Jobs, financial situations are changing and you don't want to find yourself "screwed over" in the future. If you've ever been in a situation where you were upside down on bills you tend to work to keep yourself from having that happen again. It seems like the responsible thing to do but at what cost? That's where I find myself. Struggling with doing the things to keep me from going backwards but at the same time not going forward. It's not easy to admit because that would mean I'm not all with it and how irresponsible would that be??? Here's to praying and learning that my responsible self needs to take a back seat to other parts of me.
For years now, I have heard in preaching and clergy circles about being political in sermons; the good, the bad and those who state that church shouldn’t be political. There are workshops, books, and podcasts talking about politics in the church with a variety of opinions. What do people mean when they make the statement that the church shouldn’t be political? The IRS has the most say about the rules for the separation of church and state/politics. If your church wants to be tax exempt, there are rules: don’t endorse any candidate or party, if you allow one party to use your space, other political parties also must be allowed to use the space, etc. The UCC’s general counsel, Heather Kimmell, has a webinar on this topic if you’d like to hear a more detailed explanation which can be found on the UCC’s YouTube channel. Churches have gotten “creative” in how to get around this, often partnering with another non-profit group to give support to a particular group. The UCC is proud to claim...
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