MBCC Blog

Help . . . why is it so hard to ask for?

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Greetings all.  I trust folks are doing well.  I am blogging from Montreat, North Carolina where I am on a three week blended vacation and moderator travel trip. 

Yeah . . . we'll see how that goes ;-)

In any case, I was thinking this week, as I scrambled to get some things done before I left, that I have a hard time asking for help . . . and I am pretty sure I am not alone.

In our culture of independence and self sufficiency, asking for help has got to be one of the most difficult things to do today.  Sure, we have friends, family and church community, but for some reason when it really gets down to it, we too often try to handle all of life's burdens on our own.

Dear Body of Christ, "Cut it out!"

Churches throughout scripture remind us that at the core of our being and living as the Body of Christ, we are to care for one another as well as the stranger.  Sure, sometimes this may turn into ONLY caring for ourselves, but too often I think we sometimes forget HOW to care for ourselves at all.

Now as I said,  I am not one to talk.  As much as anyone, I like to do things on my own, muscle through struggle and plant the flag at the top of the accomplishment mountain as much as the next person, but that is not what we are to be about.  Sure, we each follow God in our lives, but sometimes - more than we would like to admit - we can and shouldn't try to take everything on ourselves.  When we do, we will fail and in the process may do more damage than good.

So . . . as put together as we may sometimes want to seem at MBCC, sometimes we need to ask for help: help with the physical, the emotional and the spiritual parts of our life.

So, if you need some help.  Please ask. Your community will respond.  That's a big ol' reason we are here.

Have a great week!

Art Walk and Jerry Day

Here are a couple of events that you may want to check out in the neighborhood!

District 11 Artwalk

One night FREE family event

Host:

John Avalos and D11 leaders

Date	Friday, July 31, 2009
Time:	6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location:	District 11 - Mission Street near Onondaga

Phone:	4155546976
Email:	AvalosStaff@sfgov.org

My office, in conjunction with Intersection for the Arts, Out of Site Youth Arts Center, Mamá Art Cafe, The Geneva Car Barn and Power House, and local community members are presenting this special one-night free family event along the Mission Street Commercial Corridor in the Excelsior. The Art Walk is geared towards encouraging families to enjoy an evening in the district through three different art shows – one showcasing adult artists, the second highlighting teen performances and youth art, and a third interactive family art project for toddlers and young children. Come enjoy the beautiful art by District 11 artists, and support local businesses.

• Art Show featuring the works of Nancy Hom, Jesse Aguirre & Matt Christenson - 4754 Mission Street
• Teen Performances and exhibitions by members the Out of Site Youth Arts Center, Youth Speaks, City Arts and Tech High School, and the Mission YMCA Teen Top Chef Program - 4802 Mission Street
• Children's activities with Tree Frog Treks - 4767 Mission Street
• One-Night-Mural project led by Andrea Hassiba – various locations

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2nd, 2009
Noon to 6:00pm :: Doors open at 11:00am
THE JERRY GARCIA AMPHITHEATER
45 John F. Shelley Drive, San Francisco
Jerry Day Website

"Jerry Day is a civic and cultural event that celebrates one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time and San Francisco native son - Jerry Garcia. This event captures the true spirit of Jerry Garcia as we celebrate his legacy, the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, and recognize his Excelsior roots. By uniting the diverse communities of San Francisco through Jerry's music, we are creating something extraordinary for Jerry's childhood neighborhood - the Excelsior District, McLaren Park, and the City and County of San Francisco."

"Happy Jerry Day to all!"  - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom

We walked! And we raised money for a great cause!

A big "thank you" to all of you who participated in yesterday's AIDS Walk San Francisco!  Many of you were sponsors or team members, and this helped us make a difference in the fight against AIDS, despite the challenging economy.  Congratulations for doing a great job!  I would also like to express a special word of thanks to Arnold Lee and Ricky Choi for getting up very, very early on Sunday morning to set up our BBQ grill before the crowds arrived.  Those of you who were able to participate in our post-walk BBQ noticed that we were assigned a great location this year, and the weather cooperated.  I am grateful that we had at least nine churches participated on our team this year.

The entire event attacted 25,000 walkers.  By now you may have seen the press release, announcing that the total amount raised this year is $3.5 million.  While is is unfortunately a decrease of around $900,000 from last year, it reflects the current state of the economy, and is in line with the pattern experienced by AIDS Walk New York a couple months ago.  We are thankful that the 25,000 were able to still raise this amount despite the local economy.  Rest assured that the 60 community orgnizizations will still be receiving their grants from the proceeds, as the shortfall will instead be deducted from the amount to be received by the SF AIDS Foundation.

We do not know yet how much our Presbyterian team raised this year, but I will post the results when I receive them.  In the meantime, it is still not to late to sponsor a walker!  www.aidswak.net/sanfran  LInk:  Sponsor a Walker   (If you have questions, email marc@missionbaycc.org to ask me!)  Thanks again for helping make yesterday a successful event!

Final AIDS Walk Plea - Now lets raise some duckets!

This Sunday we WALK!*

Yes . . . I said duckets AKA cashola, dinero, moola, benjamins . . . whatever you want to call it, the reason why we, the SF Presbyterians Fighting AIDS Team walks in the SF AIDS Walk every year is to help raise awareness about and funds  for AIDS research and the fight to find a cure.  So . . . if you are not able to walk, or even if you are, please consider sponsoring someone from the walk.

THREE WAYS YOU CAN GIVE

1) Sponsor yo' self:  No shame in giving money to your own efforts in this case.  Combine that with the offer below and wowie zowie, you are helping to raise some big dough!

2) Sponsor someone on the team:  Just click on the TEAM PAGE, find a walker and sponsor away.

3) Matching funds from MBCC:  MBCC budgeted some money to support our walkers.  There is about $350 that we would like to give in a matching plan sort of way.  Here is how you can turn that $350 into $1050!

• Walker must be a regular attendee of MBCC;
• Matching grants will be made $.50 on the dollar. A $50 donation would be matched with $25 up to $50 per donation.  So yes, if you get TWO donations of $100 you can get up to $50 in matching for each.
• Because there is no way to really know when each walker received their donation, in order to get this grant and to determine the order of distribution, you must post that your received a gift on this blog post.

Lastly . . . please come on out and joine the Crew before, during and after for fellowship.  This year we are in BOX #9  [MAP pdf] so the post-BBQ should be awesome.  IF you have more questions, please contact our organizer extrordinaire, Marc Jung and he can answer any and all SF AIDS WALK questions.

* Now when I say "we" I mean that in the royal sense because as it turns out, I am out traveling again in my role as Moderator.  I will miss the day very much, though not so much the 6:00am set up run ;-)

Forgot to register?

Well now it's unfortunately too late to earn a larger team table at next weekend's AIDS Walk San Francisco, and the Moderator of General Assembly will reluctantly be getting used to the idea that we will just have the same size team table again, as he kicks off his second year as Moderator with a disappointment.  Nevertheless, I do wish to express a special "thank you" to those of you who did register in time, so that we at least still have a team table similar to last year's to hold our post-walk BBQ.

For those of you who still haven't registered yet, please do so right away, because with 25,000 walkers at AIDS Walk San Francisco, the database will be frozen for much of next week in order to prepare rosters.  (The website listings are not the official rosters, so we would have to hand write in some names if you don't register now.)  So go over to www.aidswalk.net/sanfran --> register --> join a team --> join an existing team --> Presbyterians  and get your name in today!  Those of you who have already registered will get an email from Marc Jung, team leader, with a map and other information.  If you don't hear from me next week, contact marc@missionbaycc.org and I will follow up.

Politics of our faith and faith in our politics

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As many of you know, this week I am roaming the halls of Capitol Hill.  Part of my responsibility as moderator is to help to give voice and presence to our denomination's public policy statements on both national and global scales, so that's what I am doing!

While here I have attended the Faith Leaders Health Care Summit and have been talking with congressional members about travel restrictions to Cuba, Philippine religious worker persecution and the Employee Fair Choice Act. Needless to say this has been a great experience talking with public servants about issues that are important the myself and the church.

As you can imagine, there is great disagreement about the interaction of faith and politics.  What do we speak up for, if anything?  Should we even be speaking/lobbying at all?  All valid questions in this debate over what exactly does the separation of church and state means as people express their views grounded in their faith.

If you get a minutes, feel free to go over and visit my Moderator Blog for some lively conversation, but for the sake of this place, let me ask you to respond

• Should our faith impact our political involvement? Why or why not? 
• How have you chosen or NOT chosen to speak your faith in the political discourse of our day?
• What do you think is the most important message the church has to say to our political system?

So what do you think?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Three ways to get involved at MBCC

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Navigating the waters between having so much structure that we are confined and just enough structure to allow for movement is the instituional water that we drink here at MBCC.  Some struture is freeing and too much is oppressive.  So while we would like to have well-oiled church machinery that connects folks to the right ministry at the right moment, alas, it is just a couple of us trying to make sure the announcements get out, leadership is supported and there is bread for communion ;-)  Nah . . . it's not that bad, but we do understand that we need to find new and better ways to share the 411 in addition to the eZine, bulletin and various social media platforms.  In other words, we are trying to do better.

In the mean time, here are some ways for YOU to get involved here at MBCC!

FEED:  One of the things that I am most proud of, yet really had nothing to do with helping to get started or maintain here at MBCC, is the presence of the Excelsior Community Food Pantry.  Born out of the dreams of one of our small groups, this monthly food pantry now feeds over 150 families each month.  And while that may be a small portion of the need in our community and in the world, we at MBCC rejoice that we have helped to kick this off.  And now thanks to many folks from other churches, including our facility roommates, Ocean Avenue Presbyterian, we are helping to provide yet another glimpse of the grace of God in the world.  You can get involved in a few ways.  One, please consider donating to help purchase the food we give away.  It costs less than $2.00 to feed each family. Just get the money to MBCC marked with "Food Pantry" and it will be designated to the food pantry.   You can also stay up to date by joining the ECFP FACEBOOK GROUP or following on TWITTER.  If you would like more info, please contact foodpantry@missionbaycc.org.

CONNECT:  I do know this seems obvious, but one of the primary ways we connect as a community is through actually taking the time to connect in worship, over dinner and throughout the week.  Not only do I hope folks will do their best to attend our Sunday evening services on a regularly basis, but try to join a small group, connect with folks on twitter or facebook and then actually engage with one another.  All the ways that CAN connect does not always mean that we do.  I really do think there are some great folks involved here and hope you can take the time to get to know one another.

DREAM: One of the hopes of MBCC has always been to equip and support people for ministry in the world.  MBCC Leadership long ago gave up on the idea that we could simply tell folks what passions to follow, how to follow them and  . . . . they would somehow do as we said.  Sure, we can support and encourage, but the real ministry will must arise from the community.  So . . . if you have a dream for what can happen out of MBCC, please let us know.  Whatever it may be, international missions, a local youth program, financial support of some group, new crazy fellowship idea, let us know and we can talk.  Not everything will happen on our time, but we are committed to making sure there things to happen when God says it's time.  Seriously we mean it, if things are not happening as you would hope and expect, help us to get us there!

BONUS - Okay, so every year at the SF AIDS Walk - July 19, 2009 -  we try to qualify for a Large Team Table so our BBQ can fit.  And each year people show up without registering so we don't qualify.  So . . . what you can do is to join our team, Presbyterians Fighting AIDS, and help us qualify.  If you don't have the spare time to do so, simple send your eMail to me and I'll do it for you!  Can't get much easier than that.  We need about 40 more peeps to register in order to qualify.  And while you're at it, feel free to sponsor the team! Thanks and hope that you will JOIN THE TEAM!

That's it for now, please let me know if you have any questions and I'll see you on Sunday!
Bruce Twitter | eMail