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| Accountability | Brad's Blog Mid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on2/1/2012 1:58 PM | |
| In the last couple of days, I have heard the word accountability used a lot. For a lot of people it is a scary word, conjuring up visions of an overseer or a boss looking over our shoulder to make sure we are doing things correctly. I have heard it in terms of our political process. For example, when someone says that an office holder needs to be accountable to the people. I have heard it in terms of business. Such as when a board of directors or an officer of a company must be held accountable to the stockholders. I have heard it used in legal proceedings. For instance, when a guilty party must be held accountable for their crimes.
It’s an important word, accountability. It implies that there are consequences to our actions, and so, it’s good to have someone holding someone else accountable to make sure that the consequences are not bad ones. I have heard it used as a pejorative when someone says, “Well, they’re accountable to no one but themselves,” implying that they don’t c ... |  | |
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| | Civility | | Brad's Blog
| By Brad Miller on1/25/2012 12:35 PM | |
| I like to joke that after 15 years away from my role as professor of Political Science that I am now “in recovery.” We are firmly in that period of time I used to refer as “the silly season” where candidates stake their claims and do their best to court voters. But things have changed over the years. It is no longer the “silly season” but in my mind has become “the ugly season”. The news from various campaigns is full of candidates belittling the other candidate’s motives, actions and character. I wait to hear concrete plans for policy and practice and I hear nothing but sniping. Our governing bodies seem to have lost the ability to compromise or to work together to find solutions to problems, thereby sending a message loud and clear that WHO is right is more important than WHAT is right. And it makes me more than a little bit sad and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t worry me a bit, too.
A lot of this was on my mind this morning as I heard the latest campaign news, the rehas ... | | |
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| | Sunday January 22, 2012 "I Believe in God..." Genesis 1:1-31a | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on1/23/2012 11:46 AM | |
| I believe in God.
Not a real shocking statement, is it? After all, I am a Christian minister, and it is kind of assumed, isn’t it? That assumption is a two edged sword, though. While it can be rightly assumed that I believe in God, there is still the question that lingers for many, including many Christians.. That question is “Why do I believe?” And that is a question that believers have wrestled with for centuries.
Over the course of the next three Sundays I want to explore one of the great statements of faith of orthodox Christianity, The Apostles Creed. If you turn to page 359 in your hymnals you will see something called “The Apostolic Affirmation of Faith”, which is the Disciple way of saying, “The Apostles Creed.” By tradition, The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a non-creedal church, which means we have no creed or confession that we hold up as a “test of membership.” For us, acceptance of Jesus as the Christ is our only “test of member ... | | |
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| | A Grateful Life | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on1/23/2012 11:45 AM | |
| A friend of mine once said, “There is nothing quite so OVER, as Christmas!” She was right. We spend all of Advent leading up to Christmas. All around us the anticipation builds and the excitement reaches a fever pitch. The day comes, we celebrate, we praise God, we gather with family and friends, and then it’s over. Really, really, over.
Well, at least that’s what it feels like.
What we too often celebrate as the culmination of a busy season of plans and waiting, really should be celebrated as the beginning of a wondrous time of awe. Because the events of Christmas are nothing short of awe inspiring, but in and of itself, the birth of Christ is simply the start of things. It sends a signal to each and every one of us that God so loved the world that God became incarnate, fully human and fully divine, so that we might come into personal relationship with our creator and live full lives as children of God.
So, the next step is complete ... | | |
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| | Thankful | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on1/12/2012 10:04 AM | |
| My friend Dick Mitchell has been going through a tough time lately. He awoke one day about 2 months ago unable to use his legs. Since that time, he has been tested, undergone major back surgery, been diagnosed with metatstic lung cancer (which had traveled to his back), begun intensive rehabilitation to regain the use of his legs, and prepared to begin raditation treatment and chemotherapy. All of this while he and his wife Linda do their “snowbird” thing in Texas. Dick has been on our prayer list and I hope you will continue to keep both Dick and Linda in your prayers.
But here’s the thing: Dick has kept several of his friends updated via e-mails and in every single one he has found a way to thank God for everything he has been given. As feeling began to return to his legs and slowly but surely it seems that he will walk again, he thanked God for therapists and healing. As he came out of back surgery, he thanked God for the skilled hands of gifted surgeons. As the cancer was dia ... | | |
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| | Sunday December 25, 2011 "Singing a New Song, Again" Psalm 98 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on1/4/2012 9:55 AM | |
| What’s your favorite Christmas song?
What is it that makes Christmas songs so special?
Why is it that we sing songs during worship, or any time for that matter?
Songs are a way of telling the story of whatever moment we might be in. There are songs in my life that can take me back to a specific point in time. When I hear those songs, sights, feelings, even smells come back to me. Do you have any like that?
Let me ask you this: if you have any of those, are they songs that bring back good times or bad?
For me, I can’t think of too many songs that point to bad things…most of my “song memory” is solidly in the good. “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” is one of those for me…as are most Beatle songs.
But let’s turn the tables just a little bit: are there events or situations that simply need a song? For me, a bright, sunny day with Carol, is one of those times…years ago, before we wer ... | | |
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| | Sharing Our Gifts | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on12/21/2011 10:56 AM | |
| Without a doubt, the best gifts I have ever been given have not come in a wrapped package or gift bag. This is not to say that good things don’t come in packages or gift bags! It’s just that the best gifts have been intangibles that have been shared with me. And that word “shared” is very important here. A warm smile, a enveloping hug, a strong shoulder to lean on, a kind word, wise advice, the simple presence of someone who cares about me. You see, when those kinds of gifts are given away, it does nothing to diminish the giver, in fact, I think it strengthens the giver as much as it does the receiver. For me, that is the very definition of sharing – when we give of the gifts that we have been given.
One of the ways we at BCC have been gifted beyond measure is through the sharing of the musical talent of so many. All who attend worship at BCC, be it in our sanctuary or in our alternative services in the fellowship hall, have been richly blessed by those gifted singers and musicia ... | | |
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| | Gifting and Re-Gifting | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on12/15/2011 4:47 PM | |
| As we prepare for Christmas, we are acutely aware that this is the gift giving season. We look for the perfect gift for family and friends; we reach out to total strangers by putting money in the red kettle outside Wal-Mart or buying presents for the “Angel Tree” kids. We invite people into our homes, and visit in others homes, always bringing something to share. Lots of us use this time to sit down at the end of the year and decide how much we can contribute to our favorite charities, knowing that they are in the ‘giving’ business all year long.
What sometimes gets overlooked in all this is that fact that the season of Advent is designed to help us to prepare for the celebration of the birth of the Christ child, and to help us focus on what that means. And at the heart of what it means is that we have been given the most wonderful gift we could ever imagine: a savior! And like all good gifts, the gift that God offers us in the form of the baby born in Bethlehem is one that delight ... | | |
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| | In the Spirit | | Brad's BlogMid-Week Missive | By Brad Miller on12/7/2011 2:28 PM | |
| Oh, the weather outside is frightful…it’s enough to dampen your Christmas spirit!
It is sometimes hard to get into the Christmas spirit and stay there. Just because we are in the anticipatory season of Advent, doesn’t mean that the rest of our obligations stop. In fact, if anything, they ratchet up this time of year. Almost every job out there has some “end of year” component that plops some big task on us and the “end of the year” donation requests fill our mailboxes. Add to the “end of the year” stress is the fact that we are buying Christmas presents, going to Christmas parties, planning Christmas pageants, attending special concerts and plays.
And then, to have to deal with this grey and drizzly weather, well, it’s almost too much! Almost. When we look past the busyness of our calendars, we realize that everything we do during this Christmas season is good stuff. The celebration with friends and family, the support of worthy causes that seek to make ... | | |
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| | Sunday December 4, 2011 "Are We There Yet?" Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8 | | Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons | By Brad Miller on12/7/2011 2:25 PM | |
| “Are we there yet?”
If you are a parent, you probably have heard those words before. If you were ever a kid, you probably uttered those words at some point. It is universal question usually asked when someone is tired, bored and wanting to get on with something.
When I hear this question, I am taken to a very specific time and place in my life. It is the end of the school year, in fact, the last day of school. At the Isaac Crary Elementary School in Detroit, we always had only a half day on the last day of school. We got our report cards and were ushered into the glory of summer. And summer for me meant getting out of Detroit and heading to Camp Conely, the summer camp my parents ran in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As the morning wore on, I could barely sit still, I was so excited. I knew that when the bell rang, and we were released from our state ordered incarceration, the summer would begin. But it wasn’t there yet. It was going to take a 7 hour drive ... | | |
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