The Descent of Man Art Exhibit
From a local writer about Sean Busher's The Descent of Man, an art exhibit which will is now on Wedgewood's property, and my response.
I'm a local writer and I'm working on a story about Sean Busher's Descent of Man project. Hope all is well. I interviewed Sean yesterday, and I just wanted to get your thoughts about why you felt it was important to show the exhibition at Wedgewood Church, and what kind of message do you hope it will send to people in the Charlotte area?
Exhibiting Sean Busher's The Descent of Man project is important to Wedgewood because we feel faith/Christianity/all religions must account for all scientific findings. Any theology which ignores science sticks its head in the sand and is deficient and dangerous. Christians who say "evolution is just a theory theory" are in denial. One Wedgewoodian is a retired microbiologist who likes to say "I've seen evolution occur in a matter of hours."
Science corrects itself through the scientific method. Theology, churches and Christians should be corrected with an honesty and integrity informed by science and a questioning faith.
Unfortunately, the church has, throughout much of its history, viewed science as an enemy and has been slow to adapt to science. Wedgewood seeks to set an example of a liberal, progressive, science-informed congregation.
Wedgewood also seeks to support artists like Sean Busher, artists who are gifted artists and artists who address social issues. Provocative art is important for the life of a society and should be transformative for the life of a congregation.
Unfortunately, the church, particularly the early church, the church during the Renaissance, have been hostile to art and artists. Artists, Wedgewood Church feels, help us see what we haven't seen and/or what we don't want to see.
Wedgewood Church has an art gallery. Half of our pieces are by homeless artists. We have several pieces by a very talented transgender/atheist artist. One of our art pieces is by a Lutheran gay woman who was defrocked because of her sexual orientation. Several Wedgewoodians are artists and have pieces in our gallery.
We hope the Charlotte community will be moved by the work of Sean Busher and other local artists like him.
Chris Ayers
Sean Busher, artist, at The Decsent of Man
Photos by Sean Busher
Drone photo by Pastor Chris
Peanut Butter Sandwiches for the Homeless
Ministry Opportunity this Sunday
Make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches for the homeless after worship this Sunday at Wedgewood Church (4800 Wedgewood Drive). Bring peanut butter, jelly, bread, and sandwich bags.
We also need someone to take sandwiches uptown and do the "sandwich walk" to distribute sandwiches to the homeless. The group meets at 3:00 at the County Services Building, 618 N College St. It's best to be right on time or a bit early. The route takes them up one block to Tryon, left on Tryon, a block or so past the big intersection at Trade and Tryon, and back down the other side of Tryon. There are several gathering spots along there where they stop for a few minutes. It's all very casual and friendly. The walk is usually completed by 4:30. The group doesn't walk if the weather is very inclement, but there are always places that need the food - last time that happened, we donated the sandwiches to Urban Ministries and they were happy to have them.
Contact Jet LeBlanc to volunteer for the walk.
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Consecration of Missions and 2016 Financial Pledges
This Sunday we will consecrate our mission activity and our financial pledges for our Mission Plan for 2016.
Thank you to Beverly Hester for leading our Homelessness Prevention Ministry Team and to Jet LeBlanc for organizing our Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich ministry. Thanks to everyone for changing the world.
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Fellowship Meal in November
We will NOT have our regularly scheduled (2nd Sunday of each month) fellowship meal this Sunday. However, we will have a celebratory Thanksgiving meal after worship on November 22.
Ham provided. Bring vegetables, salads and desserts, preferably bring two out the three categories so we have a wide selection of food. We want this to be a feast.
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Annual Church Meeting
Sunday, November 22, after worship
We will consider a motion from the Finance committee for our 2016 Mission Plan and a motion from the Nominating committee for church officers/committees. If you are a committee chairperson please submit to our moderator, Mia Manning-Osborn a written report (preferably no longer than a page) of your committee's activities during 2015. Be prepared to do a brief verbal report at the annual meeting.
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Wedgewood Online Discussion Forum
Arliss Whiteside has set up an online discussion forum on Wedgewood's website. Arliss, like many Wedgewoodians, is well-read and a deep thinker, including thoughts on re-thinking and re-doing church. Recently Arliss attended the John Dominic Crossan lectures at Myers Park Baptist and is going to post his notes on the forum.
About 10 years ago Pastor Chris started a Wedgewood online discussion forum. Only a few Wedgewoodians participated so the forum was taken offline. While it was online, though, Wedgewood set up a forum for people to ask Tony Burke, a Canadian (atheist) apocrypha scholar ( http://www.apocryphicity.ca/) questions. The idea was that while Wedgewood did not have the financial resources to fly in a scholar like Myers Park Baptist does each year we could pay a scholar to respond to our questions on our church discussion forum. In this case, Tony refused payment. All of which is to say our forum has great possibilities and thank you to Arliss for setting it up. I did share the following with Arliss:
a) I don't have time to be a forum administrator. Arliss has agreed to be the administrator.
b) We need to establish forum guidelines, including a guideline that it is OK to disagree, but not to be disagreeable. I've found that people can get snippy pretty quickly online. In the previous forum we found that to be true of Wedgewoodians interacting with Wedgewoodians and Wedgewoodians interacting with non-Wedgewoodians. (Although people had anonymous usermanes it wasn't difficult to identify people.)
c) Discussion forums get a lot of spam (which an administrator has to delete)
d) Discussion forums get inappropriate spam (porn links - which an administrator has to delete)
Enjoy and learn from the discussion forum. And thank Arliss for setting it up and being its administrator.
You can go to the forum by clicking the link below:
Wedgewood's website's index page also has a link to the forum. (I'm currently updating the website.)
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Syrian Refugee Ministry Team Meeting
Nov. 15, after worship
Coffee room, lower floor of sanctuary building
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Room In The Inn Volunteer Orientation
Sunday, November 15, after worship, Jim Rivers Hall
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