Writing from Cleveland, where the UCC Writer's Group meets today. I'm on the tail-end of a trip that had me in North Carolina the last four days. I was with the 4,500 member Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, speaking to their College of Elders and at their Leadership Retreat. Preached to what must have been about 2,000 - 3,000 people yesterday at two services, with those two being simulcast into the church gym for the "Celebration Service." While the congregation faces challenges, they are doing great work in faith formation, outreach, and just being the church. As I've noted before, the culture of the Presbyterian Church in the southeast is a "thick" culture unlike anything in the United Church of Christ these days.
 

While there I drew sermon material from what, for me at least, is an unaccustomed source, The Wall Street Journal, and the February 6 column of Peggy Noonan, "Question Time Is Not the Answer." Writing with fierce passion, she notes that politicians of both parties "though they know they shouldn't, even though they're each composed of individuals who know what time it is, even though they know we are in an extraordinary if extended moment . . . continue to go through the daily motions, fund raising, vote counting, making ads with demon sheep, blasting out the latest gaffe of the other team. Our political professionals cheapen everything they touch because they are burying themselves in daily urgencies in order to dodge and avoid the big picture."
 

I found in that and the rest of her article a powerful depiction of the nature and reality of sin, which is more than a wrong act here or there. Sin is a power, a dominion, and there is a sense in which we are caught and cannot free ourselves. So the political paralysis and games-playing are "Exhibit A" of the power of Sin, and as usual its not the down and outs but the people at the center of power and prestige. The same phenomenon is evident in too many churches and denominations. In a time of great urgency going on with business as usual dodging and avoiding the big picture.
 

Interestingly, on the same day as Noonan's piece (February 6) New York Times columnist Bob Herbert also used the same metaphor of "what time is it?" in describing the failure of our leaders and political system to come to grips with economic structural problems and lacking "the sense of urgency needed to address them." "Time Is Running Out," was Herbert's column title. Of course, Jesus asked the leaders of his day why they did not seem to know, really, what time it is.
 

In my own Saturday column at crosscut.com "Planet Forgive Me for I Have Flown, Frequently," I considered the matter of carbon offsets and a new United Church of Canada website for calculating your carbon footprint and making a donation to support "greening of the buildings of various faith communities." That interesting site is at http://offsets.greeningsacredspaces.org/ 
 

This week I teach a preaching class on Thursday, lead a congregational retreat for University Christian Church (Seattle) on Friday and Saturday, and then head to Montreal for the early part of next week to speak at the Presbyterian College there and at McGill. You can see why I need those carbon offsets! Grace and peace to you all.
 

"What Pastors Can Learn from Obama" is the title of a piece I wrote last week for Theolog, the on-line site of The Christian Century magazine. Both the State of the Union and events following (the encounter with the Republican caucas) made me think of the pastor who has been on the job a year or so. Both parties (pastor and congregation; President and electorate) have a more realistic appraisal of the situation.
 

The electorate is getting over, as it should, messianic expectations for the President; the President is realizing he has to focus clearly on the issues/ needs that are most urgent, among the welter of "important" and "urgent" matters. Setting priorities is a tough challenge, but an essential task for leaders, be they pastors or Presidents. You can't do everything.
 

David Brooks (NYT) had a great January 26, 2010 column, "The Populist Addiction" last week. Here's Brooks: ". . . Populism and elitism seem different, but they are really mirror images of one another. They both assume a country fundamentally divided. They both describe politics as a class struggle between the enlightened and the corrupt, the pure and the betrayers." It's the creation of us/ them to rally the troops and fire the partisans.
 

This "populist addiction" has its counterpart in the church. People often divide the church and world into the righteous and the unrighteous, the sinners and the saints. In both settings (church and politics) resort to the us/ them has lost site of the great contribution of Christian theology and, in particular, Paul: that sin is a power or dominion, that it is universal, that none are righteous, that all stand in need of grace, and that we are therefore in this together.
 

I noted here recently that increasingly what I write is for on-line outlets. My weekend piece for crosscut.com was titled, "No Leaders Please, We're Sensitive Seattlites," and can be picked up by clicking on http://crosscut.com/2010/01/29/politics-government/19553/
 

Also this week a piece of mine on the importance of mission/ purpose for churches will appear on the Faith and Leadership blog of Duke Divinity School Center for Leadership. Enter "Faith and Leadership Duke" on your search engine to get that.
 

The Festival of Preaching Northwest received a surge of registrations last week as our "early bird" registration period ended. The surge included a group of 20 seminarians from the Atlanta-based Fund for Thelogical Education. Will be great to have that group here for the Festival.
 

This weekend I am at Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina for a leadership retreat and to preach. On Friday night I'll speak to their "College of Elders," which is itself 300 people (the church has 4,500 members). They grow 'em big down there in the southeast. I was at the same church to speak in 2004. Then I asked church folk what they thought about their Senator and (at that time) Presidential aspirant, John Edwards. They were clearly unenthusiastic, and I guess right on that one.
 

Wherever you are this week, home or away, hope its great one. Blessings,