seeking goodness:renew2012

Seeking Goodness:Shaping Congregations For The Common Good Sean Palmer

twitter: @seanpalmerwww.thepalmerperspective.com

“We’ve Gotta Do Something About This.”

“I’m Fine Without You.”

PRIMARILY A PREACHERSEEKING GOODNESS: CONGREGATIONS FOR THE COMMON GOOD

PRIMARILY A PREACHERSEEKING GOODNESS: CONGREGATIONS FOR THE COMMON GOOD

IN SEPTEMBER 1954, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. ARRIVED IN MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, TO ASSUME THE PASTORATE OF

DEXTER AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH. HE BROUGHT WITH HIM A SMALL CACHE OF SERMONS WHICH HE HAD ALREADY PREACHED

IN HIS FATHER'S CHURCH IN ATLANTA AND IN THE PULPITS OF BLACK CONGREGATIONS IN THE GREATER BOSTON AREA WHILE A

GRADUATE STUDENT AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY.

IN MONTGOMERY, HE POLISHED THESE SERMONS AND, BY SEVERAL ACCOUNTS, WORKED VERY HARD AT PRODUCING AND MEMORIZING NEW MANUSCRIPTS, WHICH HE PREACHED TO AN

APPRECIATIVE IF NOT ENTHUSIASTIC CHURCH THAT WAS USUALLY ABOUT ONE-HALF TO TWO-THIRDS FILLED. THE WORD

AROUND MONTGOMERY ON THE YOUNG REVEREND KING WAS THAT HE WAS A "GOOD BUT NOT GREAT" PREACHER

WITHIN A YEAR, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. WAS THE RECOGNIZED LEADER OF ONE OF THE MOST CREATIVE LOCAL BLACK PROTESTS OF THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY AND WITHIN ANOTHER YEAR AN INTERNATIONAL CELEBRITY AND THE SUBJECT OF A COVER STORY IN TIME MAGAZINE.

EVERYTHING IN HIS LIFE HAD CHANGED DRAMATICALLY SAVE ONE THING: HE CONTINUED TO PREACH IN LOCAL CHURCHES. THE SERMONS THAT

ORIGINATED IN HIS OWN PULPIT HE REPEATED HUNDREDS OF TIMES IN CHURCHES ALL OVER THE LAND.

MUCH OF THE MATERIAL IN HIS SERMONS HE TRANSPOSED TO ADDRESSES AND MASS-MEETING SPEECHES, WHICH HE CONSIDERED AN EXTENSION OF

HIS PULPIT MINISTRY. KING WAS A PARISH PASTOR WHO, LIKE ALL PREACHERS, WORRIED ABOUT WHERE HIS NEXT SERMON WAS COMING

FROM AS HE SOUGHT TO EVANGELIZE THE MEMBERS OF HIS OWN CONGREGATION; AND HE WAS A PREACHER TO THE NATION, WHOSE ONE UNCEASING, PERIPATETIC SERMON REAWAKENED A PEOPLE TO ITS OWN

IDENTITY AND ULTIMATELY TRANSFORMED THE CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SOCIO-POLITICAL STRUCTURES OF AMERICA.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. WAS A PRODUCT OF THE BLACK CHURCH AND MAINTAINED A PASTORATE THROUGHOUT HIS ADULT LIFE. HE INCREASINGLY

CAME TO EXPLAIN HIS PUBLIC POSITIONS AND ACTIONS AS THOSE OF A "BAPTIST PREACHER IN THE BLACK CHURCH."

-- RICHARD LISCHER, DUKE DIVINITY SCHOOL

A PREACHERSEEKING GOODNESS: CONGREGATIONS FOR THE COMMON GOOD

Preacher-To-Preacher

Preacher-To-Preacher“...I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.” - Letter From A Birmingham Jail, MLK, Jr.

SEEKING GOODNESS:SHAPING CONGREGATIONS FOR THE COMMON GOOD

CHURCHES & CHURCH LEADERSNO LONGER SEE THEMSELVES &

THEIR CHURCHES AS

CIVIC LEADERS

Merging the HorizonsChurch & Community Together

Traditional Reaction #1Criticize

Traditional Reaction #2Copy

Traditional Reaction #3Control

Traditional Reaction #4Consume

Traditional Reaction #5Create & Care

Caring As Exiles

Caring As ExilesChristianity is the only religion that exist for the sake of its non-adherents. - Dallas Willard

A Word to Exiles

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.

A Word to Exiles

Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.

A Word to Exiles

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

- Jeremiah 29. 4-7

Caring As Exiles

I rejoiced with those who said to me,"Let us go to the house of the Lord."

Our feet are standingin your gates, Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is built like a citythat is closely compacted together.

That is where the tribes go up—the tribes of the Lord—to praise the name of the Lord

Psalm 122

There stand the thrones for judgment,the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:"May those who love you be secure.

May there be peace within your wallsand security within your citadels."

For the sake of my family and friends,I will say, "Peace be within you."

Psalm 122

“...IF THE CITY PROSPERS, YOU PROSPER.”SEEKING THE GOODNESS OF THE CITY

A Framework For Civic Engagement

The Question You Want Answered:

The Question You Want Answered:If you were to go to church somewhere, which

church would it be?

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unabashedly Seek Intellectuals & Creatives

“He was a preacher who could hoop Kierkegaard.” - Rev. Joseph Lowery on Martin Luther King, Jr.

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unleash & Untether

Creating “Society Rooms” to care about what congregants care about.

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

• Peninsula Clergy Network

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

• Peninsula Clergy Network✦ Suicide Prevention

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

• Peninsula Clergy Network✦ Suicide Prevention✦ Healthy Eating

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

• Peninsula Clergy Network✦ Suicide Prevention✦ Healthy Eating✦ Disaster

Preparedness

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

• Peninsula Clergy Network✦ Suicide Prevention✦ Healthy Eating✦ Disaster

Preparedness✦ Education

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Congregations For The Common Good - How?

Unlimited Partnerships

• Street Church, RWC✦ Weekly Street

Feeding✦ Clothing & Blankets✦ Job Skills & Search✦ Connection &

Leverage w/ Gov’t

Unabashedly Seek Intellectuals & Creatives

Unleash & Untether Congregants

Unlimited Partnerships

"Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

-- Letter to Diognetus

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