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eNewsletter 28 June 02 |
Chi Rho Connection ************************* Contents:
1. Adam's Birthday Celebration! -------------------------------------------------- Welcome once again to the Chi Rho Connection, the electronic newsletter of Chi Rho Press. Thank you for passing this Chi Rho Connection on to others. To join our list, send an e-mail message to
ChiRhoPress-subscribe@yahoo.com. Direct all other e-mail to Adam@ChiRhoPress.com. See the end of this eNewsletter for a complete list of e-mail addresses at ChiRhoPress.com. -------------------------------------------------- 1.
Adam's Birthday Celebration! -------------------------------------------------- 2. E-mail Bag -------------------------------------------------- 3. FYI: Privacy Policy -------------------------------------------------- 4. Featured Book: Come Home! -------------------------------------------------- 5. Two Brothers A Parable -------------------------------------------------- 6. Adam's Last Word --------------------------------------------------
We are glad you are partners in ministry with us here at Chi Rho Press. We are eager for your comments, your suggestions, your assistance with selling our books, and your own purchases! And of course, we covet your prayers for this ministry. Grace and peace, Adam DeBaugh, Director
--------------------------- If you've received our Chi Rho Connection as a result of the good offices of someone passing it along to you (which we certainly encourage) and would like to receive it directly from us, please follow the directions at the end of our Connection to subscribe. Copyright 2002, Chi Rho Press, Inc. ****************************************** SUBSCRIBE: ChiRhoPress-subscribe@yahoogroups.com R. Adam DeBaugh, Director, Adam@ChiRhoPress.com. Visit the Chi Rho Press Website http://www.ChiRhoPress.com
Vol. III, No. 11
28 June 02
2. E-mail Bag
3. FYI: Privacy Policy
4. Featured Book: Come Home!
5. Two Brothers A Parable
6. Adam's Last Word
James 3:17
Please visit our Web site at http://www.chirhopress.com to see our entire lines of books, handouts, tchochkas, and stained glass.
If you would like to help celebrate or to honor Adam on his birthday, the board and staff of Chi Rho Press invite you to make a contribution to this ministry in Adam's honor.
All contributions are fully tax deductible. May we suggest a $55.00 contribution in honor of Adam's 55 years?
Just send your check or money order, made out to Chi Rho Press with the notation, 'Adam's Birthday' in the memo line, to Chi Rho Press, P.O. Box 7864, Gaithersburg, MD 20898.
Or make your birthday gift on line at http://www.chirhopress.com/sponsor.html.
All contributions in honor of Adam's birthday will be used for the ministry of Chi Rho Press.
Adam and Chi Rho Press Friends,
This week's meditation and prayer spoke directly to my own personal condition and was such a blessing to me. God uses you in wonderful and healing ways. Blessings on your continuing ministry to us and, by extension, to the whole people of God. Richard
Many thanks, Richard. It is affirmations like this that keep us involved in this ministry. We are especially pleased that this week's Reflection spoke so directly to your heart.
The Chi Rho Reflections are sent to our subscribers at the beginning of each week and includes a selection from that week's meditations from 'The Road to Emmaus,' a book of daily Gospel readings and devotions written by and the LGBT community of faith.
'The Road to Emmaus,' is available on our web site at http://www.chirhopress.com/products/devotionals.html and is available at a reduced price of $9.95 each ($7.50 each for six or more copies), plus shipping and handling.
ChiRhoPress.com is the only owner of the information collected from visitors to our Web site. We never sell, share, or rent this information to others in any way except for our own in-house use. Chi Rho Press collects information from our users at several different points on our Web site through a counter service and at the shopping cart order form.
None of the information gathered from these sources will be passed on to any secondary sources. We hope to provide an enjoyable and secure environment for our visitors, and strive to maintain an enforced plan for dealing with privacy. If you feel that our site is not abiding by the stated privacy policy, please e-mail us at privacyplan@ChiRhoPress.com. If at any times changes to this policy are made, they will be duly noted to the public.
Utmost care is taken to maintain the privacy of the shoppers who patronize our on-line store, send us e-mail, and/or are on our mailing lists. This includes the subscribers to our electronic newsletter, the Chi Rho Connection and the Chi Rho Reflection. It is our strict policy not to share, rent, or sell such data to anyone under any circumstances.
Our extensive mailing list of names, addresses, telephonenumbers, and e-mail addresses is simply not for sale and is not given to anyone!
In addition, when our customers make purchases on our Web site using their credit cards, our shopping cart manager, Americart, strips the 16-digit number after confirming the success of the credit card charge and before sending us the order. This means that if you place an order with the Chi Rho Press Web site using your credit card, no one at the Press will see or know your credit card number. The only information we receive is your name, shipping address, the type of card you used (VISA, Mastercard, Discover/Novus, or American Express) and the expiration date on your card.
When we take credit card information either in person, using our cool card swiper, or over the phone, by mail, or e-mail, our policy is to destroy the credit card number after successful billing. We do not keep your credit card numbers on file anywhere.
Just FYI.
'Come Home!' is perhaps Chris Glaser's best book. It is divided into five sections, each with five chapters. The five sections are entitled, 'Welcoming God's Acceptance,' 'Receiving Our Inheritance,' 'Discerning Our Call,' 'Making Our Witness,' and 'Declaring Our Vision.'
Bishop John Shelby Spong called 'Come Home!' 'powerful, sensitive, and provocative. . . . Glaser stands inside his own humanity as a gay male and hears the word of God through the Bible. Christians, gay and straight, needthis book if we are to be the body of Christ.'
This is a brilliant and important book by perhaps the best-known Gay Christian writer in the U.S. today.
The Rev. Carter Heyward called 'Come Home!' 'an enthusiastic compelling testimony to the power of faith in the lives of many gay and lesbian Christians.'
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott said, 'If courage, honesty, and insight are beautiful, then this is one beautiful book. . . . I rejoice that in this book all the gay men and lesbian women who have been robbed of their spirituality are issued an urgent invitation: Come home!'
'Come Home!' by Chris Glaser offers a vision of faith, hope, and affirmation inviting gay men and lesbians to come home to their spirituality through Christian faith and community. Order your copy today!
'Come Home!' is available for $19.95 each, $14.95 each for six or more copies, plus shipping and handling.
Once upon a time two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch. Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference, and finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.
One morning there was a knock on John's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. 'I'm looking for a few days work,' he said. 'Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with? Could I help you?'
'Yes,' said the older brother. 'I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That's my neighbor, in fact, it's my younger brother. Last week there was a meadow between us and he took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I'll go him one better. See that pile of lumber by the barn? I want you to build me a fence, an 8-foot fence, so I won't need to see his place or his face anymore.'
The carpenter said, 'I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the post-hole digger and I'll be able to do a job that pleases you.'
The older brother had to go to town, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing. About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had just finished his job.
The farmer's eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all. It was a bridge, a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work, handrails and all and the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming across, his hand outstretched. 'You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I've said and done.'
The two brothers stood at each end of the bridge, and then they met in the middle, taking each other's hand. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder.
'No, wait! Stay a few days. I've a lot of other projects for you,' said the older brother.
'I'd love to stay on,' the carpenter said, 'but I have many more bridges to build.'
This new finished window is the Communion Window (the first was the Holy Spirit Window). I am donating the designs and my labor to the church for these four windows and church members have contributed money to cover most of the cost of supplies (glass, copper foil, solder, and framing).
The Communion Window is especially poignant for me because Mr. Jim Plankenhorn endowed it in memory of his spouse, the late Rev. Larry Uhrig. Larry was a dear friend of mine and my pastor for a long time. He was pastor of MCC Washington, DC for many years and was one of MCC's best preachers.
Come visit Holy Redeemer MCC, at 4907 Niagara Road, Suite 102, College Park, MD 20740-1100; 301-982-5775, or visit their Website at http://www.holy-redeemer-mcc.org. See the windows, but more importantly visit a wonderful, loving, friendly, Christ-centered, and growing congregation. Our Pastor is the Rev. Clay Witt.
******
My body is falling apart! Three weeks ago I slipped on a manuscript I had cleverly left on the stairs while carrying a laundry basket down to the first floor. I fractured my coccyx, for which they can do nothing but give me meds for pain and inflammation. (No jokes, please, about my butt being in a sling!)
My birthday weekend was marred somewhat by a major toothache, for which more meds (a heavy-duty antibiotic and more pain meds) were prescribed. I had to miss a wonderful hike at Great Falls, organized by my friend Chris at Holy Redeemer MCC.
When I look in the mirror each morning, I notice that the gray in my hair is slowly winning the struggle to overtake the black. (sigh)
But, my dear friend Bill scolded me a few years ago when I complained about getting older. Living in the era of HIV, Bill said, gave us no right to complain about growing older. Considering all the talented, wonderful people who never got the chance to be 50, we should gratefully cherish every day, week, month, and year that passes. We should praise God that our aches,pains, little accidents, and even the gray hairs, and that they are not much worse or symptoms of a truly severe, life threatening illness.
Bill is right, of course, and I thank God daily for my life, my ministry, my work, and my health. And for the opportunity to live in a remarkable time in the life of our community.
And I thank God for you, our faithful readers. Thanks for being part of this ministry!
If you have questions, please write to Question@ChiRhoPress.com.
For comments and suggestions about this eNewsletter, please write Connection@ChiRhoPress.com.
To learn about our Guardian Angel Individual Sponsor Program, please write Angels@ChiRhoPress.com.
For all other correspondence, please write Adam@ChiRhoPress.com.
Our snail mail address is:
Chi Rho Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 7864
Gaithersburg, MD 20898
Our telephone and fax number is 301/926-1208.
Customers outside the U.S. and especially our Canadian friends can order using credit cards on our Web page or through our Canadian distributor, MAP Enterprises, Mary Ann Pearson, at her new Web page, http://www.christiangays.com.
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Kevin Stone Fries, Editor/Office Manager, Kevin@ChiRhoPress.com