“I love the chance to remind them that Christ’s love is not just contained in their home sanctuary, but that it is waiting in any place they worship, connecting them with Christians around the world.”
Katie Styrt
Lenten Reflections on the Confession of Belhar
Love binds us together.
Binds us to Christians.
Binds us to all God’s family.
Love experienced in worship.
Love experienced in daily life
as we offer each moment to God.
Love binds us to people in the United States
who struggle with racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism,
and related, intersecting systems.
Love binds us to girls in Guatemala who died and were injured
in a fire at a shelter where they were locked in.
Love binds us to Shiite pilgrims killed and injured
in bombs in Damascus.
Love binds us
and brings tears
and inspires anger.
May love move me to act.
This Lenten season I am using a new resource to explore the Belhar Confession: Lenten Reflections on the Confession of Belhar, edited by Kerri N. Allen and Donald K. McKim. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in which I serve as a teaching elder (pastor), added the Confession of Belhar to our Book of Confessions in 2016. This confession came from the Dutch Reformed Mission Church during its historic struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
See you along the Trail.
“We deliberately and intentionally practice giving ourselves to one another because we realize we belong to each other. We need each other. We are inextricably tied together. We pursue this unity like a brutal physical regimen. It is not something we come by perfectly, all at once. It is terribly messy, awkward, and fully human. In many ways, it brings out our deepest insecurities and vulnerabilities if we are doing it faithfully and hopefully.”
“We are blessed saints by God. Bound in God’s grace, we live within God’s mercy. In God’s mercy, we need to build up instead of tear down. We show God’s mercy to each other through forgiveness. Lent reminds us of the important role forgiveness plays in unity. To forgive others is crucial in situations of conflict, as is accepting forgiveness offered to us. Mercy and forgiveness are essential.”
“I love that we Presbyterians have embraced the Belhar Confession. With it we confess the global evil which is also our particularly American evil. We claim our hope that in the church, Jesus Christ’s reconciling work has reconciled us with God and and with one another.”
dia Peak.
Along the Graybeard Trail 