intersections

President Paulsen: "Silence in the face of evil is complicity in what is wrong"

Yeah, he said that! But that's not all he said. Go and read it for yourself at Adventist News Network. Thanks to Bonnie Dwyer who pointed this out to me.

For the first time in my ministry I wish I was at the General Conference to be a part of the conversation that happened there yesterday. It was a meeting of the Council on Evangelism and Witness. Here are a few choice quotes from the article...

The conduct of church members within the community is either a "confirmation or a denial of our faith," Paulsen said, adding that "silence can be as much a failure as speaking the wrong words."

"The faith we have is not best explained by academics or theologians. Our faith finds its most compelling expression in the everyday words and actions of Christians in their communities."

People should see Adventists as peacemakers, but not people who dodge defending the rights of others, Paulsen said, noting the church's failure to respond to the Rwandan genocide. "Silence in the face of evil is complicity in what is wrong," he said. "Let us speak from the pulpit and show from our actions that we oppose anything that instills hatred or inflames violence."

This is the kind of leadership many of us are waiting for. When you are the the primary leader of the church, to a certain degree you get to set the agenda. If Elder Paulsen hadn't brought these issues to the Council in his remarks, my guess is that they would not have been discussed. It so refreshing to have our world president say, "Here is what we're going to talk about..." and have it be something that connects with the real world outside the stained glass windows.

This is not the only "prophetic speech" we've heard from Elder Paulsen in recent days. In a recent article in Adventist World entitled, "Clear Thinking About Military Service," Paulsen reaffirmed the church's stand on non-noncombatantcy. Those of us that have been trying to rekindle a conversation about nonviolence have observed that it has been a long time since we've had a statement like this.

You can read the whole article here. It's not too earth shattering, but I'm sure a few people found it offensive. This piece was much blogged about a week or so ago. In connection with today's story at ANN, there is new reason for hope!

Listening to Our Community

This Saturday afternoon our church is doing something truly wonderful. As I previously reported, we received a $10,000 grant from the Office of Community Beautification (part of the City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works). This grant is to produce an art mural on the enormous and unattractive wall of our church that faces the freeway (and attracts taggers).

So, this Saturday afternoon we are hosting a Community Input Workshop which will bring together various parts of our neighborhood. After gathering around tables and discussing the nature and character of our neighborhood with the artist, we will gather around tables for food. After the food, one of our church members, Melinda Rice, is putting on a concert of classical and modern music (she is a professional violinist and my daughter's violin teacher).

You can read the press release we sent out last week, here.

One of the interesting things to come out of this is a conversation about what our role is, as a church, in the neighborhood. Some cannot get over the fact that our mural will not be explicitly religious. Some are curious whether the artist is Christian. Here's what I wrote in the church bulletin this past week.

One of the questions you'll hear people around the Hollywood Church ask a lot is some version of, “"What is God up to in our neighborhood and how can we join Him?”" It a basic recognition that God is present in our neighborhoods. It is a question that changes our vision - the way we look at our community – and how we think about engaging with our community.

One of the goals at our church is to always be imagining ways in which we, as God's people, are sent. Too often the church default mode of operation is to think about how we can get people to come to us. This is the principle behind much of what is called “church growth.” What we are concerned with in Hollywood is how God is calling and sending us to be present in the neighborhoods “where he intends to go”.

One funny side story is that someone in my denominational office wanted to feature what we're doing and gleaned some info off our website. Here's part of what they published

The project's purpose is to add value to the community, foster conversations in the community about Adventist values and vision for the neighborhood.

We never said anything about fostering conversations about Adventist values and vision. He added that. It's just so far outside the norm for churches to foster conversations about the community's values that the only thing we can possibly imagine is fostering conversations about what we want to talk about.

Our real goal is to see if we can discern what God is doing among the people of our neighborhood.

Barack Obama at LA Trade Tech College

This morning I volunteered at a Town Hall Meeting at LA Trade Technical College in downtown Los Angeles. It's the first time I've actually hear Senator Obama in person. It was just electric. All the opening speakers were invoking history and JFK and MLK and talking about a turning point in history. There were probably 1,500 people all together. Because it is a community college there was a heavy representation of young people. And I have to tell you, there were people of all kinds - every major ethnic group, all ages, professions, working class, students, women and men, teachers, hotel workers....

Truly inspiring!!!

Hollywood Church awarded a $10,000 grant

Our church got some great news this week. In mid-October we submitted a 32-page grant application to the City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works. Every year the city gives out approximately $800,000 in 90 or so grants for community beautification projects being spearheaded by neighborhood groups, businesses and others (click here to learn more about the Community Beautification Grant).

Our project, called Crossroads @ HOLLYWOOD, is a public art mural that will go on the west facing wall of our property that overlooks the freeway. You can see in the picture below that the wall is currently an eyesore and a magnet for graffiti.

The idea for this project came from one of my church members, has been discussed around the church for more than a year and grew to this point in the context of one of our Missional Action Teams. This particular MAT was charged with the challenge of understanding and designing an experiment around the question, "How can we imagine ourselves as God’s missionary people sent to be the presence of Christ amidst the people in our neighborhood?" So, yes, this mural will beautify our wall and be a deterrent to graffiti. But it's real purpose is to foster conversations in the community about who we are, what we value and who we are hoping to become, as a community.

Because we are being funded, in part, by the City of Los Angeles, the mural cannot be explicity religious. This is a plus for us and really challenges our MAT to consider what it would mean to enter our community as listeners, looking for signs of God's kingdom and then using our wall as a "canvas" to paint the hope that our community has for its future and its role in the life of the people who live and work here. Rather than using our wall as a "billboard" to market our brand of religion and blare our message at people as they go buy, our dream is for the art that will grace this wall to be a genuinely public creation and a reflection of our shared life.

In order to facilitate this, the team will be running a series of design input workshops with a special focus on getting input and involvement from our Community Partners as well as the wider community. The artist - ManOne - will then take all that input and design a mural which will eventually be approved by the Department of Cultural Affairs and be painted on our wall by May of this year!

To see a rendering of how the wall will look when it is complete, please visit the About page on the Crossroads @ HOLLYWOOD website.

Meeting with the Mayor

On Monday afternoon I met the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa in his office. It was an interesting meeting, full of anticipation and a little comedy. I was part of a 10-person delegation from LA Voice. The meeting was set up through Helmi Hiserich, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, with whom we have a good relationship from her days at the Hollywood office of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). I was one of three clergy in the group of ten. My friend, fellow Hollywood Adventist Church member and church board member, Mireya Pena, chaired the meeting and did a remarkable job. I was so impressed!

Our subject was affordable housing, which we have been working on for over a year, in different ways. The Mayor has a signficant speech coming up on October 17 in which he is presenting his strategy for addressing Los Angeles' housing crisis. So, our visit was time to follow up our 1,000+ person strong Town Hall and to preceed the Mayor's Housing Summit speech. I'll spare everyone the policy details (if you're interested I'm happy to tell you about it), but the meeting itself was interesting.

At first we were escorted to a small-ish conference room in the Mayor's wing of City Hall. Then, a few minutes later, the Mayor's policy advisor on housing came in to tell us there was a change. We would be meeting in the Mayor's office. We had introductions all around and Mireya began the meeting by explaining quickly who we were and that she would be facilitating the meeting. Well, that didn't go over too well with the Mayor, until he realized that he had confused us with another community organizing group in Los Angeles. After that confusion was clarified we had a very friendly and frank conversation in which he seemed to confide in us some of his challenges in getting his housing policy through City Council. All in all it was a very positive meeting in which Mayor Villaraigosa vowed to work with us to move important policy through City Council, such as permanent funding source for the HOusing Trust Fund, which will fund the production of new affordable housing units, as well as demanding that the Planning Department enforce an existing law to drastically reduce condo conversions and demolitions, which are destorying the cities existing affordable housing stock.

Oh wait, I said I wouldn't get into policy. Sorry about that. On Thursday, several from our church will go to a "Housing Forum" meeting in Hollywood in which the Mayor's staff will be listening to the communities concerns about the housing crisis. Then, on October 17, we'll see what the Mayor says about this plan.

I've met a few powerful people in my life: the Mayor of Philadelphia, several members of the US Congress and the State Legislature, but none compare to this meeting. Mayor Villaraigosa is definitely a powerful person and it was a significant moment for me to sit in a room with him and have such a frank, heart-to-heart conversation.

Health Care Town Hall tonight

Tonight I will be chairing a Town Hall Meeting on Health Care issues in California. While the Governor has called a special legislative session to deal with this particular issue, our focus remains on making sure the children of California get covered by Jan 2008 - that means legislation AND funding.

Tonight we have Assembly Majority Leader, Karen Bass (47th District) join us, as well as representatives from the staffs of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Speaker Fabian Nunez.

This town hall is part of a series of Town Halls being conducted by the federations in PICO California on the issue of Children's Health.

A lot of these issues are coming to a head all at once. At the federal level we expect legislation on S-CHIP to reach President Bush's desk by early next week.

(Click image to enlarge)

How Walkable Is Your Neighborhood?

Thanks to LAist (who in turn, thanks LA Green Girl) for pointing out a real cool website called Walk Score. You put in your address and it will tell you how walkable your neighborhood is by measuring distances to the typical kinds of things we need - stores, schools, and other amenities.

My apartment got a 65 out of 100. Not too good, actually! We're a little stranded up on Los Feliz Blvd. but we do frequently walk to the coffee shops and restaurants which are only 1/3 mi. away.

I was surprised to discover that the Hollywood Adventist Church scored a 92, until I realized that this thing only measures proximity to shopping, basically (stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.). But walkability also includes things like quality of sidewalks, shade trees, safe crosswalks, and things like this. In other words, you might be close to that grocery store, but if the walk is dangerous you probably won't do it. For more on pedestrian friendly neighborhoods, click here.

So, go to Walk Score and input your address. Leave your walkability score in the comments and let's have a little friendly competition.

Marching and Praying for Economic Justice - UPDATED

NEW PICTURES AFTER THE JUMP

Last night I gathered with between 100 and 150 people from faith communities around Los Angeles at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church for a march and prayer vigil. This prayer vigil was in preparation for the big Town Hall meeting that we are holding on Monday, July 16 at 6:30 pm. If you can join us next Monday, please do! We need all the support we can get for this vitally important issue.

Nine members of the Hollywood Adventist Church came out to join the march. It was so inspiring to see a few of our members standing boldly for this cause. It really is an issue that effects us all. Hollywood is becoming a more attractive place to live, and as it does we are increasingly in need of affordable housing. Our faith-based conviction is that EVERYONE should be able to live together in the community. The service employees should be able to live, along with those they serve, in the communities where they work.

The text that we have chosen for this campaign is from Isaiah 65:21-22

They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

In our world today this is not a reality. For decades people labor so that someone else can benefit. The playing field is not level. There is not equal opportunity for all. Whereas my parents generation could buy a house for roughly 2 times their annual income, today it takes 10+ times my annual income to buy a house. There are apartments renting in Hollywood for nearly $2000 for a one bedroom. The new luxury apartments that are going up cost even more. We are holding our elected official accountable for solutions to this intractible problem that is only getting worse.

More photos after the jump (all taken by Christopher Chinn).

"The Spot" Opens with Great Fanfare

Today saw the fulfillment of a dream! I like days like this.

Elysabeth (my wife) has long dreamed of a) being a teacher, b) teaching art to children, c) opening an art center for children which both teaches art and features the children's work in gallery, and d) providing resources to children from the lower economic strata of our neighborhood that would usually only be available to the middle and upper class families.

The Spot does all of that. It's at least an amazing start toward these goals. Today, her summer camp opened on the Hollywood Adventist Church property with nearly 30 children enrolled. They provide a fun, safe and educational environment for kids 5-8 years old from 8 am to 6 pm. They are busy doing things like pottery, cooking, dance, and other arts and crafts, in addition to playing outside on our newly renovated play ground.

They are a staff of three (pictured here from left to right: Elysabeth; Jenny Stone, her partner; and Jackie Forge, Jenny's sister). It's so wonderful to see these kids running around, enjoying themselves, and learning new skills. It is a definite sign that summer has come.

If you live in the Hollywood area and want to join in the fun, drop Elysabeth an email at elysabethbell AT sbcglobal DOT net.

More photos after the jump...

LA River Ride photo

This is the free photo we were promised from the LA River Ride. I wrote about the River Ride here, but only had a small thumbnail photo. So, here's my Dad and me about 5-7 miles into a 70 mile ride. It was a beautiful day.