clanging symbol

New Year's Letter 2010

2009-12-31T08:37:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2010

Dear MCC Friends:

New Year’s Day brings with it the opportunity to pause and reflect on the year that has passed, and to claim the promise and opportunity of the year to come. The Advent and Christmas holidays, coming as they do to crown the old year with a season of celebration, pave the way for us to make resolution to move forward in faith in the New Year.

The Board and Staff of MCC Hartford encourage you to attend a Congregational Forum on Sunday, January 24th, at 12 Noon, to hear their reports on the year 2009 and to set our goal for 2010.

Those financial, programmatic, and logistical reports will be available at the forum, and online and in the church thereafter. This letter is meant to invite you to save the date, and to provoke your thinking and praying leading up to our gathering.

You will remember our goal for 2009 – To Grow the Church in Spirit, in Numbers, in Witness, and in Love. You may wish to ask yourself some of these questions:

§ Has 2009 been in fact a year of growth for the church?

§ Has it been a year of growth for you?

§ To what extent has the church been an instrument of your spiritual growth?

§ To what extent have you participated in helping the church grow?

Have you witnessed growth in others, and have you witnessed others doing growth work in and for the church?

As the Senior Pastor of MCC Hartford, I am trying to promote a culture of Appreciation among us. It is always possible, but in my experience rarely productive, to focus on what is lacking in ourselves or in others. It is always tempting to give in to a spirit of complaint. What I believe is helpful is a focus on the gifts and strengths we possess, and the possibilities we have for work and witness. Gratitude, admiration, and positive reception—these are some synonyms for appreciation.

An Advent custom I was reminded of recently is that of making a bed for the newborn Christ. A manger is prepared and clean straw is supplied. At the end of each day, members of the household are invited to place a piece of straw into the manger for every good deed they have witnessed, every good word spoken in their hearing. The goal during the four weeks of preparation for Christmas is to produce a thick, deep, soft, warm bed for the Baby Jesus. A focus on appreciating the good in those around us encourages the good in us. And I believe that when we do good and promote the good in each other and in our community, we are literally and truly making a place for the living Christ in our midst. A church so focused cannot help but be a place of growth.

2009 brought with it events and persons to appreciate and opportunities for growth. Not every one was recognized, not every one was seized, but many were. My expectation for 2010 is to do better. The Congregational Forum on January 24th is one way for us to make a beginning.

In Christ’s Peace,

George A. Chien, Senior Pastor, MCC Hartford

come, o come, emmanuel!

2009-12-10T11:48:00.001-08:00

I created this art in 2005 for Advent & Christmas.

God Shines Forth

2009-12-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

I created this image for the tenth anniversary of my ministry here at MCC Hartford.

"Tender Mercy"

2009-12-06T05:16:00.000-08:00

A Christmas Message from the Pastor

2009-12-06T05:14:00.000-08:00

December 5, 2009

A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE PASTOR

Dear MCC Friends:

Greetings to you in this holy season! May it be a time of peace and of peace making! May peace prevail on earth! And as we prepare for and celebrate the Nativity, my most sincere prayer is that the peace of Christ be born anew in your hearts and in mine.

In Luke's gospel, we read these words in the Canticle of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79):

78 By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

As the wheel of the year turns through the season of winter, Christians for generations have kindled the light of the Advent candles. The days shorten and the sun sinks lower in the southern skies, but the festal lights grow brighter with longing and anticipation. Advent is the season of hope. We recall that this present darkness, this age of violence, war, inhumanity, is passing away. We affirm the new age of peace and freedom that God has inaugurated in Christ and brings closer to fulfillment through our offering of ourselves to the work of God's commonwealth-creating truly human community where all are welcomed and affirmed, building bridges of understanding as we tear down barriers of hate, and loudly, persistently proclaiming the song the angels sang over the hills of Bethlehem:

"Peace on earth, good will to all!"

At the top of this posting is a flier of our MCC Advent, Christmas and Epiphany events. I hope you will be able to join in some if not all of them. Through the observance of the Sundays of Advent, we walk the circle of hope, peace, joy, and love. On Christmas Eve we find again our spiritual center in the newborn Christ, the Word-made-flesh, God-with-us, Emmanuel. On December 20th, we observe the Winter Solstice with the singing of many Christmas carols and our Congregational Christmas Pageant. We will also bless the kristingles, share in holiday refreshments, and take a special offering to support the feeding programs of Center City Churches. On December 27th we will celebrate Kwanzaa. And on the 31st we will observe Watchnight, gathering to pray in the New Year, giving thanks for the blessings of 2009 and seeing new and even greater blessings in 2010. Clyde and Scott have invited us to their home in East Hartford on Saturday, January 2, for a holiday fundraising dinner to support the church. January 3rd, Three Kings Day, is our Epiphany celebration. All these are events to which I hope you will invite your friends, neighbors, and family, and so widen the circle of blessing, spreading the good news of God's all-embracing love more far and wide.

2009 has been indeed a year of many blessings. My deepest gratitude goes to God who has (still, to me, surprisingly) called and equipped me to this ministry among you. I also must thank my husband, Julio, and all the staff, board, members, and friends of the congregation, without whose love and support my ministry would be as "a noisy gong or a clanging symbol." From the beginning, and at the end, and everywhere along the way, it is LOVE that gives meaning to this and every season. I forget that at peril to my own soul. We all need to be reminded that love is the only gift that endures. We need each other to recall that divine Love whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

Emmanuel is the newborn's name-God is with us.

In the midst of the hectic hustle and bustle that the holiday season has become, please remember to find some time to pause and reflect on the goodness of God's love and on the blessing of friends and family (queer and straight) in your lives. In a time of war (and cultural warfare!) please take time to light a candle for peace, pray for peace, work for peace on earth, at home, and everywhere you go. In the midst of world-wide economic retrenchment, as the rich still grow richer and the poor grow even poorer, please recall that the best gifts carry no price tags and that feeding the hungry never goes out of style. In the midst of the media saturated noise and confusion of a culture ever more technologically interwoven, but increasingly lacking in heart-to-heart human encounter, please make time to join your family and friends of faith in worship.

Advent and Christmas prepare us to celebrate the coming of God into our human lives. At MCC Hartford we celebrate the height and depth and breadth of God's love. We affirm the goodness of our full humanity in its many God-given sexualities, genders, ethnicities and cultures. We rejoice in the blessings of our queer families and communities.

A Holy Advent, a very Merry Christmas, and a New Year of peace be yours!

In Christ's Service,

George A. Chien, Senior Pastor,
MCC Hartford

Thoughts About Our Space

2009-11-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

At the Annual Meeting of the Congregation of MCC Hartford on November 15^th, concerns were raised about rent (we are in the 3^rd year of our 5 year lease with the Church of the Good Shepherd, and our $1400 a month rent will rise to $1500 in June) – the question was raised regarding what we get for our money, and whether we shouldn’t rather be thinking about and planning toward the eventual purchase of a building of our own.

There are several things I consider true about our space:

It is true that rent is significant expense—but we should also remember that utilities are included, as is the maintenance of the parking lot and approaches to the building. In another space, or if we owned our own place, all these would be costs to us.

We pay about $5.60 per square foot for a space that includes our ample worship and fellowship areas, two offices, a kitchen, the library, and two restrooms. For this we have access 24-7, and the opportunity to rent or lend the space to community groups and individuals. Other commercial real estate in Hartford rents for as much as $15 to $18 per foot. In another location we could not afford nearly as much space as we have here.

Our space is genuinely beautiful, warm, and welcoming. Visitors comment on its spiritual and esthetic qualities. That is not an accident. We have invested many hours and some $40,000 worth of paid, donated, and volunteer labor in this place to bring out and enhance its native qualities and to make it our own.

We are friends with our landlords. We share weekly worship and bible study together, as well as joint special services through the year. We support each other’s mission and outreach projects, and enjoy each other’s fellowship. It is a rare privilege for any congregation to be received by another as equals, and even rarer for an MCC.

When we moved here from the old Community Center we intended to find a space that would serve us and accommodate our growth for at least 15 years. I believe this place will do that.

Does our space have limitations and inconveniences? Absolutely. And so would any other space we could afford.

I have also witnessed how the burdens and obligations of property ownership and building maintenance can sometime consume congregations to the point that their entire mission and purpose is reduced to the mechanics and fund-raising of keeping the PLACE going. That is not the future I hope for for MCC Hartford.

We are committed to the goal of growing the church in spirit, in numbers, in witness, and in love. I believe that this place remains the best location for now for us to work on that growth. I don’t believe that our growth yet is such that we could realistically take on buying or building. That time will come. But as it comes, I hope we will also continue to have prayer and conversation around all the ways to BE church, and to remember that, as the song says, “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is the people!”

2009-02-14T14:33:00.000-08:00

I drew these mandalas after a retreat at Easton Mountain.

A shaman told me he

could feel kundalini energy moving in my spine, so I drew the seven chakras, centered on the heart, with engergy flowing up and down.

I had a visionary experience there in meditation--I could see myself, everyone present, the earth around us, as though made of amythest, filled with crystal light. And the whole, everything, everyone, spoke these words "Infinite Compassion." I call it my "Third Eye Opening Experience." So I drew the sixth chakra with those words.

Welcome

2009-02-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

I created these images for church a few years ago.