MINISTERS AND MARRIAGE --- NOT THAT COMPLICATED (#21 blogging through the articles of religion)

Article XXI - Of the Marriage of Ministers

The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage; therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness.

What the Bible says about ministers and marriage and sex is pretty simple.  What the church has practiced regarding ministers, marriage, and sex--- well that’s complicated.

Official Catholic doctrine says that clerical celibacy isn’t an official Catholic doctrine.  It isn’t a doctrine.  It is a discipline.  A doctrine is an objective Biblical truth, a command or mandate from God.  A discipline is a habit, a series of personal activities intended to help internalize an objective truth.  Doctrine should lead to discipline.  Disciplines should never create to doctrine.

Jesus said that men ought to always pray and not faint.  That’s doctrine.  To internalized the doctrine of prayer, I pray while taking my morning walk.  The doctrine led me to make the morning  prayer walk a discipline that works for me.  If I issued a pastoral edict requiring members of my congregation to walk no less than 2 miles every morning while reciting the Lord’s Prayer, I would be creating a doctrine based on my personal discipline.  That might not work for everybody, but they’d still try it because they’d think that God wanted them to do what I did.

The Apostle Paul abstained from marriage as an act of discipline to keep him focused on the work of God.  Over time Catholicism made the mistake of requiring that same discipline of all its priests. They took a discipline and turned it into a doctrine.

The Church made the ministers-marriage-sex thing more complicated than it should’ve been.

The Bible says that Jesus wasn’t married but that Peter, the leader of the apostles and Jesus best friend, was. (Matthew 8: 14).  We also know that at least one of the first deacons, Phillip, was married and had 4 daughters who were each called to the prophetic ministry (Acts 21: 8, 9). From the beginning of the church that Jesus built marriage and family were perfectly compatible with every level of ordained ministry.  Of course, preferences varied.

The Apostle Paul was a lifelong bachelor.  “It is good for a man not to touch a woman,” Paul wrote at the beginning of 1 Corinthians chapter 7.  But in the rest of the chapter, he made it clear that celibacy was his personal preference. 

Oh, and it’s worth emphasizing ----really worth it ----  that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the virgin Paul declared that faithful marital sex is  gooooodddd!

Let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. (1 Corinthians 7: 2-4)

Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled (Hebrews 13: 4)

For the first 300 years or so of the Christian era, it was that simple; but then the church became an institution.  In the Roman Catholic Church the age of apostles gave way to the age of professional theologians.  The church became a tightly organized hierarchy with massive political and economic interests, and the simplicity of Scripture became ----- complicated

(Read the timeline under A Brief History of Celibacy in the Catholic Church .)

Based on the arguments of highly esteemed theologians, popes issued decrees encouraging and requiring unmarried priests to remain unmarried and married priests to stop having sex with their wives.  Today, Catholic priests make a vow/ promise of celibacy, but there are exceptions, like the Episcopal priests who were married with children but wanted to converted to Catholicism after their church embraced homosexual unions.  In 1980, the pope created a special Pastoral Provision so they could be ordained without giving up marriage or sex.  (Read Father Jonathan Duncan’s story.)

The Catholic Church defends clerical celibacy like a doctrine, but makes exceptions to it because it’s not doctrine; it’s discipline.

Like I said, complicated.

The Methodist church came out of the Church of England which broke from the Catholic church.  The 25 Methodist Articles of Religion derive from the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican  Chruch(Church of England).  Methodist doctrine on marriage is a throwback to way back before we made it all so complicated. 

Ministers can get married, be married, or not.  A married ministers can (and should) have sex with his/her own spouse.   

The discipline required is the discipline of faithfulness to the marriage vow.  Celibacy is for before marriage or by mutual agreement between man and wife. 

Basically:  No marriage, no sex.  Marriage, lots of sex.

Simple.

And sacred.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

#Awordtothewise

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

"KILLING JESUS" #20, Blogging through the Articles of Religion

Article XX - Of the One Oblation of Christ,

                                                          Finished upon the Cross

The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction

for all the sins of the whole world,

both original and actual;

and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone.

Wherefore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit.

  

We keep killing Jesus.

In daily mass, Catholics believe they offer and receive Jesus as the sacrifice for their sins.  For them, eucharist (communion) isn’t just a symbolic or spiritual memorial.  It is the actual act of literally sacrificing Jesus, every day. 

But that’s not necessary.

The Bible very explicitly calls Jesus our Great High Priest  “who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” (Hebrews 7: 27)     

Jesus went to the cross just one time.  He died just one time “not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another… so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. (Hebrews 9:25, 28)

But we’re not satisfied with that.  Catholics , Protestants, Americans of every religious and unreligious bent: we keep killing Jesus, every day.

Jesus gave up the glory of Heaven and submitted to a life of service on Earth just to fulfill His Heavenly Father’s plan to bring salvation to mankind.  We, oh learn-ed Christians, then theologize about how the God of the Old Testamentwas  misogynistic, unjust, heartlessly genocidal, and irrelevant to New Testament followers of Jesus.

That’s Jesus Father.  His Father!  We’re killing Him.

Jesus said, “^ “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. ^  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.  (Matthew 5: 17, 18)

We say that the moral laws of the Old Testament have no bearing on people who follow Jesus.  We’re killing Him.

Jesus, the bringer of that grace, said, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5: 17-19)

We say that grace exempts us from the commandments. 

We call ourselves Christian.  We wax eloquent about the loving Jesus and loving like Jesus.  But we ignore everything Jesus actually said about love when His saying inconvenience our preferred lifestyles. 

Jesus said that LOVE means keeping the commandments.

^“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14: 15, 21)

We say love is ignoring those intolerant and archaic moral rules.

Jesus said that LOVE means caring about and caring for the less fortunate.

And the King will answer and say to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. … Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”  (Matthew 25: 490, 45)

Jesus said that His followers would be outside of the mainstream, not loved by the world, not applauded by the powerful majorities of the culture.    We… we want to be.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15: 19)

We the Church “crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” (Hebrews 6: 6)

We’re killing Him---- every day.  What the church should do--- not physically, but spiritually--- is go kill ourselves.  

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present YOUR bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12: 1) 

Instead of sacrificing the real Jesus on our liturgical, political, social, financial, and preferential altars; we should be making a daily sacrifice of OURSELVES.

When Paul and Peter (2 Corinthians 1:7; 1 Peter 4: 15) talked about partaking in Christ’s suffering, they didn’t mean consuming His transubstantiated body and blood. They meant engaging in the same kind of sanctified and sacrificial life that Jesus lived.

One time, just one time, Jesus took up His cross and gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.  If we love Him like we say we love Him, then we need to take up our crosses and give ourselves as a sacrifice in return.

If you’re conveniently arguing away the commandments that you can obey but you just don’t want to--- you’re killing Jesus.  Go kill your flesh instead.

If you’re standing on the prosperous promises of God while stepping over the holiness-pursuing conditions of those promises, you’re killing Him.  Go kill your selfish desires instead.

If you’re tithing and shouting, but neither serving nor sanctifying your life, you’re still killing Jesus.  Go kill your superficial religiosity instead.

If you think that your liberal or conservative political position on homosexuality, or abortion, or Obama, or the Confederate flag, or homeschools, or Muslims, or whatever is trending this week; if you think that SINGLE position is the ONLY thing that matters to God so you can violate His will on everything else---- Dude, go kill your old self.

Everyday you and I have to crucify our selves, to die a little more to what we wanted Jesus to be so we can live a little more the way Jesus wants us to be.

The daily sacrifice of Christ in Catholic mass is unnecessary.  The hourly sacrifices of Christ in mass media are unrighteous. The sacrifices of Christ in the churches whose doctrine declares that we no better is shameful.

Instead, I will offer Jesus the sacrifice of me.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2: 20)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

#Awordtothewise

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

"THEOLOGICAL BULIMIA" Article 14, blogging through the Articles of Religion.

Article XIV - Of Purgatory

The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God.

The term purgatory comes out of Catholicism but the concept is older than Christianity.  Purgatory refers to a state and/or place after death where souls who are not quite good enough for Heaven (or not quite bad enough for Hell) can be purified, cleansed, and sanctified through suffering.  Once a soul has suffered enough he/she is ready to ascend into the presence of God. 

Methodists reject the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.  The editors of our Articles of Religion called the concept a fond thing.  That’s fond in the Shakespearean sense, meaning “simple, unwise, foolish.” 

Basically our church’s official stance is: Purgatory is a stupid.

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis imagined a junior demon named Wormwood who, frustrated that his attempts to corrupt his human charges were failing, sought advice from a senior demon named Screwtape.

Poor little Wormwood is all out of ideas. He says, “Screwtape, I give up. We can’t tell them there is no God and we can’t tell then there is no hell. What lie should we tell them?”

Screwtape says, “My dear Wormwood, just tell them there is no hurry.”

The doctrine of purgatory tells us, “There is no hurry.”

Which is an invitation to a mindset not just a doctrine: the mindset of theological bulimia.  Theological bulimia encourages us to binge on unrighteousness in this life and purge through suffering immediately after.   Purge-atory.

And many of us, non-Catholics included, have theological bulimia.  We hate our bodies, our lives, our material existence; but we love the taste of sin, its texture and flavor.   Yet, we don’t want to carry the weight of its wages around for all eternity.  (Heaven doesn’t make robes in that size.)  So we binge, justifying our gluttony for gluttony and the other sins with plans to crawl into the grave when we’re done and painfully expel our ugliness.  

Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually work that way. 

Remember that in the sacrificial system under the Old Testament law, atonement for sin was made through blood.  That is, through death.

And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)

Animal sacrifices weren't tortured, they were calmed and then killed because atonement for sin is comes through death, not through suffering.

If Jesus had accepted the beatings, and the whippings, and the insults, and the pain of crucifixion, but come down from the cross before He actually died, the plan of salvation would have failed.

For the wages of sin is DEATH---not suffering.

You can’t purge your sins by hurting yourself or by letting others hurt you.

The wages of sin is death.  So, the only way you could pay your way out of eternal Hell would be to die for yourself for eternity.  And eternal death  is the definition of Hell (Matthew 10: 28; Revelations 20: 14, 15).

 

Purging doesn’t work.

Think.  If suffering and pain in themselves produced holiness, then the victims of torture and atrocities on Earth would all be saints.  But we know that trauma is more likely to create demons than angels.

If there is a place in the afterlife where souls are tormented under the pretense that one day they’ll go to Heaven because they suffer, their hope is just another torment, and Purgatory is just another name for Hell.

By one offering He [Jesus] has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. (Hebrew 10:14)

Jesus gave up His life.  God who transcends time and eternity DIED a death of eternal and infinite mass and thereby covered all of the sin-debts of humanity past, present, and future.

And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.  (1 John 2:20)

We are saved from Hell and for Heaven when we accept Jesus and truly submit ourselves under His Lordship.  We don’t have to do any more to gain redemption.  We CAN’T do any more to gain redemption. 

Spiritual bulimia hides the true shape of redemption from our eyes.  We see only how ugly we must be to God. 

I’m too evil, too damaged.  I deserve to suffer.  I NEED TO suffer. 

We can’t see the beauty of the fullness and finality of Jesus’ sacrifice.  We see ourselves in the image of our sin, but God wants us to see that through the cross we are remade in the image of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3: 18).

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  (Colossians 1:15)

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

You don’t have to keep hurting yourself. 

All you have to do is receive Jesus, rest in Jesus, and reflect the image of Jesus.   Do that and you’ll stop binging.  Do that and you’ll stop punishing yourself with every sin you can shove down your life.  Do that and you break the cycle of binge-atory and purge-atory. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5: 16, 17)

You just need Jesus.

Anything else is, well let’s just call it a fond thing. 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

ARTICLE #11: EXTRA CREDIT?

 Article XI - Of Works of Supererogation

Voluntary works—besides, over and above God's commandments—which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly: When you have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants.

You know, when your teacher put bonus questions on the test or let you write essays and book reports for “extra credit”?  Well, jokes on you.  There’s no such thing as extra credit.

No matter how much “extra” work you did, you could never earn more for your final grade than the same 100 points possible for the students who didn’t do “extra” credit.  In fact, if a teacher sets up his/her grade book properly, the only way to get a 100 average is to do all of the regular assignments perfectly.  That so-called extra credit was really make-up work.  In the final grade, your extra points can’t earn you anything extra.    THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS EXTRA POINTS in a classroom.

No such thing as extra points in Heaven either.   

Way back in the day, the Roman Catholic Church began teaching the doctrine of supererogation. Supererogation is based on the (false) assumption that you can do enough good works to merit a place Heaven.  The idea of supererogation is that after you’d  earn enough spiritual brownie points to merit salvation, all the other good you did was credited as extra points of sanctification.

These extra points were like extra dollars in the bank. Priests and nuns, who went the extra mile with their vows of celibacy, and the officially recognized saints of the church, who were extra good and extra holy, all deposited extra good works into this account.  Add their deposits to the infinite merit of Jesus (which they believed was held in Heavenly escrow), and the Church had enough bonus points to issues extra credit to favored parishioners like a bank giving bonus checks to favored employees or a teacher gives extra credit to favored students.

Those extra bonus points are called indulgences.  You could buy an indulgence by making an extra-generous donation to the Catholic Church.   Get a big enough collection of indulgences, according to the Catholic doctrine, and you could redeem the points and buy your way out of Hell without even bothering with repentance.  You could even have indulgences allocated to a loved one who hadn’t been quite good enough to get into Heaven.  You heard it right, folks.  For the right price, you could pay somebody else’s way into Heaven.

It’s a very convenient system, especially if you’ve got money, like the wealthy European nobles who financed the building of cathedrals, or if you’re a powerful church that needs to finance the building of cathedrals all over Europe. 

Then came along the founders of the Protestant movement who saw a “small” problem with the Catholic doctrine of supererogation.  The problem is that supererogation IS TOTALLY MADE-UP AND THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS.    Supererogation is a myth.  There is not extra credit.

The Bible gives a least 4 reasons why we don’t do supererogation:

1.  We can’t be good enough.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 6: 23)

Salvation and grace are called gifts but scripture calls death our wages.  The only thing you, I, celibate clergy, and canonized saints have earned is the judgment of eternal death in Hell.  When we receive grace and salvation it’s because God gave us what we did not deserve.  

Job was such a good man that God called him “blameless” (Job 1); but even Job affirmed that it was impossible for him or anyone else to be demand grace on the basis of personal merit.

Then Job answered and said: “Truly I know it is so, But how can a man be righteous before God? If one wished to contend with Him, He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.”  (Job 9: 1-3)

In the New Testament, Paul, one of the officially recognized saints of the Roman Catholic Church, reiterated that  nobody is good enough, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

2. We can’t buy God’s grace. 

We can give financial offerings to the Lord through church and charity, but you can’t give one of God’s representatives a check and then demand a spiritual gift from Heaven when they cash it.  Just trying to do that ticks God off.   Just ask Simon the magician (Acts 8).

But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great,... And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money!  You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.” (Acts 8: 9-24)

Peter (whom Catholics call a saint and the first pope) didn’t grant Simon and indulgence, he hit Simon with a curse for having the blasphemous audacity to think he could purchase a spiritual gift like it was a pizza.  (Or whatever people ordered in the 1^st century.)

3. Works are not transferable.

Your works and your sin are between you and God.  Mine are between me and God.  When it’s time for judgment, we each individually mind our own business.

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. (Ezekiel 18: 20)

This Old Testament principle was always meant to apply to the New Testament Covenant of the church.  That’s why in Jeremiah 29, God restated the Mosaic principle of individual responsibility AND connected it to the prophesied new covenant.

But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah… (Jeremiah 31: 30-31)

4.  We already owe God EVERYTHING.

Jesus said:  “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 30-31)

ALL.  You can’t store up extra when you’re required to give ALL.

It is our duty to give God every good deed we’ve done, every good deed it’s possible for us to do, and all the good deeds we will never have a chance to do. 

Jesus broke it down for His disciples in Luke 17.  He sarcastically told them that expecting extra reward for serving God was like a household servant in the first century expecting his master to let him eat before he fixed the master’s supper.

“So likewise you when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ ” (Luke 17: 10)

We don’t get extra points for tithes, or love offerings, or sowing seeds, or whatever we’re calling money this week.  Technically, we already owe God 100%.

We don’t get bonus points for helping the less fortunate.  It is our duty to do unto the least of these as though we were doing it unto Jesus.  (Mark 25)

We don’t get extra credit for attending church regularly.  That’s our duty. (Hebrews 10:25)

There are no extra points for shouting, responding to the sermon, and praising God. Randomly pick 3 Psalms and you’ll see praise commanded in at least two of them.

In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17: 28).  There’s nothing extra left over from that.

One day I was trying to convince a young man to be more active in church life.  He said, “Rev.  I’m saved.  Ain’t that enough.  Do I get extra points for doing more stuff.”

I won’t tell you what I said back, but I wish I had said, “Sorry, but there are no supererogatory works.”

It’s not enough to get saved and just be saved. 

You’re not doing God a favor by showing up to church and Bible study and work in the community.

There’s no such thing as extra credit.   You’re just doing what you are supposed to do, anyway.

And honestly, we owe Him even more than that.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

NO NEW WHEELS, BUT A NEW MONTGOMERY CITY JAIL LITERACY MINISTRY

It's one thing to want to save the world.  That's reasonable.  It's another thing to try to reinvent the wheel.  That's unnecessary. 

As part of the continuing in-reach ministry to the Montgomery Municipal Jail, we will be bringing adult literacy classes to the local and federal inmates incarcerated there. Rather than unnecessarily reinventing a program from the ground up, we were blessed to connect with an existing program. 

All we need now is for you and/or the people you know to sign up to help.  The only requirements are that you be at least18 years old, responsible, literate, and able to pass a criminal background check.  Training starts March 23rd. 

Here are the details for training.  When you sign up, let them know that you want to participate in the Montgomery City Jail Literacy Program.

CENTRAL ALABAMA LAUBACH LITERACY COUNCIL

2048 WEST FAIRVIEW AVENUE

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA 36108-4198

264-1239

The Central Alabama Laubach Literacy (C. A. L. L.) Council is a nonprofit volunteer organization. We train adults to tutor other adults in basic reading, writing and spelling. C. A. L. L. began in 1985. Since that time we have served hundreds of adults in the Montgomery area who wanted to improve their basic reading skills.

If at all possible, we ask volunteers to make a commitment of one year. Once you have completed the tutor training workshop, you will be matched with an adult learner. Tutoring usually takes place twice a week for an hour-and-a-half each session. All materials will be provided for the tutor and adult learner.

The next workshop will be held:

Saturdays, March 23 & April 6, 2013
9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  BOTH DAYS

Participants must attend ALL SESSIONS to become certified.

This workshop is scheduled to be held at:

C.A.L.L.

St. Jude, 2048 W. Fairview Avenue, Montgomery, AL 36108

Note: Since the lunch period is half hour, we recommend that you bring a sack lunch.  And, the room can be cool, so bring a sweater.

So that we can adequately prepare for this workshop, complete the registration form and submit it to C. A. L. L., 2048 West Fairview Ave. Montgomery, AL 36108. For further information or to cancel your registration, please call the Adult Literacy Center at (334) 264-1239.

You may register at our website: www.laubachliteracyal.org

E-MAIL director@callmgm.org

Pre-registration is necessary.  We cannot accommodate walk-ins for this workshop.