Our Pastor

 

"Every Day Is A New Chance For Resurrection!"

~ Pastor Allen V. Harris

Check out Pastor Allen's New Blog

which will soon take the place of "From The Pastor" and "Sermons" pages!

http://nearwestclevepastor.wordpress.com/

 

"From The Pastor"       What I'm Reading       Favorite Links     

           Study/Renewal

check out my facebook page at www.facebook.com

 

When & How To Reach Me:

 

Office Hours: 

     Mondays 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. (Staff Meeting is at 9:30 a.m.)

     Tuesdays 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

     Wednesdays 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.

     Thursdays 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

 

Call the church office at all times to either speak with me or to leave a message: 216-781-8232

E-Mail me at: PastorAllen@FranklinCircleChurch.org.  I am great about reading my e-mail several times a day.  (But PLEASE do not subscribe me to any e-mail lists!)

 

A Little About Me:

 

Allen Harris is the Pastor of Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Cleveland, Ohio.  He was called as a Redevelopment Pastor to the historic, diverse, urban congregation in the spring of 2001 in hopes of helping the congregation to reclaim a clear sense of its identity and to renew its mission to the community.  In April of 2004 the Region of Ohio and the congregation affirmed the work Allen and the congregation had done to revitalize the church and they called him to continue to be their Pastor.

 

Rev. Harris moved to Cleveland from New York city with his partner of 18 years, the Rev. Craig Hoffman, in 2000 after a 10 year pastorate at Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan.  Allen was privileged to serve as Associate to the Rev. John Wade Payne for nine of those ten years.  While serving as Associate Pastor at Park Avenue Christian Rev. Harris was ordained into ministry on Pentecost Sunday, 1991.

 

[For a brief reference to Rev. Harris in a New York Times article, click HERE!  For a Prayer For The Family Rev. Harris wrote, click HERE!]

 

In his ministry at Park Avenue Christian Church Rev. Harris spent time studying and developing skills in working with multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, economically-diverse congregations.  He also served for almost ten years as the Developer for the  Open & Affirming Ministries Program of the Gay, Lesbian, and Affirming Disciples Alliance He continues to use all of these skills at Franklin Circle Christian Church.

 

[Rev. Harris has several liturgies included in the book, Shaping Sanctuary: Proclaiming God's Grace in an Inclusive Church.  For ordering information, click on the image to the right.]

 

 

 

Rev. Harris was born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico.  He received his B.S. in Religious Education at Phillips University, Enid, Oklahoma and his M.Div., with a concentration in Religious Education, from Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, in Ft. Worth, Texas.  While at Brite he served for over three years as Assistant to the Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Grapevine, Texas under the mentorship of Rev. Eleanor Cozad Cherryholmes.  He has authored articles in several journals, including DisciplesWorld, Homily, and Open Hands.  He and his partner have been remodeling a historic 1880's "folk Victorian" home using environmentally-friendly and sustainable techniques and building materials.

 

Currently, Rev. Harris is on the Community Advisory Board of Lutheran Hospital.  Within the Christian Church of Ohio (Disciples of Christ) he is honored to serve as Co-Director of Advance Conference, with the Rev. Margot Connor.  He was also elected in the summer of 2006 as an at-large member of the Adult Conference Planning Committee.

 

He has previously served on several non-profit and denominational boards, including Interfaith Partners In Action of Cleveland (InterAct Cleveland) where he served as Board President; the General Board of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) where he served on both the Administrative Committee and on the Executive Committee.  He is a proud graduate of the Neighborhood Leadership Institute (Class 17).

 

 

 

 

 

Writing letters to Public Officials on issues of public policy is not only a right and responsibility of every citizen, but an important part of a person of faith's stewardship of God's resources.  Click on the letter icon to the right to read some of Pastor Allen's recent personal letters to government officials.

 

 

Pastor Allen was invited to write for the DisciplesWorld magazine.

 Read his article here!

 

 

 

And just in case you think he takes himself too seriously...

 

click on the video still above to see him on Holy Humor Sunday!

 

 

 

Pastor Allen's Places/People of Inspiration include...

 

 

NPR: Religion

http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1016
 

Weekly I explore the intersection between religion and society in our nation and world, with stories from Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other award-winning National Public Radio programs.  I invite you to either go to this website and hear an individual story, the past week's stories, or do what I do and sign up for Podcasts.

 

 

On Being, with Krista Tippett

http://being.publicradio.org/

On Being is a spacious conversation — and an evolving media space — about the big questions at the center of human life, from the boldest new science of the human brain to the most ancient traditions of the human spirit. The program began as an occasional series on Minnesota Public Radio in 1999, then became a monthly national program in September 2001, and launched as a weekly program titled Speaking of Faith in the summer of 2003.

On Being is heard on a growing number of public radio stations in the U.S. — 240 and counting — and globally via Internet and podcast. In 2008, the program was awarded the highest honors in both broadcasting and electronic media — our first Peabody and our second Webby Award. Being is the only public radio program in the U.S. to achieve this distinction.

Krista envisioned a program that would draw out the intellectual and spiritual content of religion that should nourish our common life, but that is often obscured precisely when religion enters the news. Our sustained growth as a show has also been nurtured by a cultural shift that seeks conversation, shared life, and problem-solving within and across religious traditions and across categories of belief and non-belief. On Being has both responded and contributed to a growing acknowledgement that there are basic questions of meaning that pertain to the entire human experience. The particular dramas and dynamics of the 21st century — ecological, political, cultural, technological, and economic — are bringing this into relief.

 

 

 

 

And, of course, my Chief Source of Inspiration (after God) is...

 

 

COFFEE!

Click on the photo or word above and read my Tribute to Coffee!

 

Pastor Allen Participated In Cathedral College Conference June 2 2-7

In early June 2007 Pastor Allen traveed to Washington, D.C. to participate with about 30 other clergy from around the country in an exciting continuing education event. From June 2 to 7, 2007 he was at a Cathedral College conference titled, "The City of God for American Cities: Reinventing the Urban Church." Key leaders were the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, recently retired Senior Pastor of The Riverside Church in New York City, the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, author and professor of religion at Piedmont College, and Douglass Bailey, founder and president of the Center for Urban Ministry, Inc., at Wake Forest University Divinity School.

Douglass M. Bailey      

(The Rev. Douglass Bailey (left), The Rev. James Forbes (center), and the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor (right)

Cities are the context for crisis and encouragement, division and healing isolation and community. At the center of the city is the urban church, an anchor of hope and a symbol of the city of God.  However, many city churches of all denominations are in search of inspiration and renewed mission.  This conference was a learning laboratory for building up the urban body of Christ. Participants will share the meaning of a compelling vocation to be urban clergy and urban congregations through study with nationally known keynote speakers, plenary discussion, Biblical reflection and pilgrimages to several of Washington’s imaginative ministries.  Past conference faculty have included Barbara Lundblad, Walter Brueggemann, Frank Thomas, Joanna Adams, and Marian Wright Edelman.

To find out more, go to:  http://www.cathedralcollege.org/pages/cnfrnc/conferenceSchdl7.shtml

 

 

Some Quotes That Inspire Me:

 

Quote attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero

 

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction

of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

o confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.

-- I had thought these were the words of Oscar Romero, and have quoted them extensively as such, but it appears that they may have been penned by Ken Untener. Whomever, wrote them, they are still worthy of meditation
 

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i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of

 

trees and a blue true dream of sky;

 

and for everything which is natural

which is infinite which is yes

 

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday;

this is the birth day of life and love

 

and wings: and of the gay great

happening illimitably earth)

 

how should tasting touching hearing

seeing breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

 

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 

e.e. cummings

[thanks to our friends at Findlay St. Christian Church in Seattle, WA for this poem!]

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The American writer, Willa Cather, once wrote:

"The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always."
 

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"Living On The Edge"

"Jesus can live on the edge because he lives from a center radiant with God's love for him and for all creation.  There his treasure lies, there his heart abides, from there the boundaries of his heart expand to transform every edge into a  potential center of God's untamed grace.  As the Spirit of God gradually conforms our hearts to the heart of Jesus, we begin to move away from centers of world and self to edges where God is doing a new thing."

+ John S. Mogabgab, Editor, Weavings: A Journal Of The Christian Spiritual Life, Volume XIII, Number 4, July/August 1998p. 3.

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Powerful Prayer Attributed To Sir Francis Drake:

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

attributed - Sir Francis Drake -1577

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Quote on Grace and Thanksgiving, by Rev. John Thomas

Saying a prayer before meals quietly or with others acknowledges that my life depends on God's bounty and on a host of people who grew, processed, distributed, prepared, and served the food that gives me nourishment and delight. Saying a prayer by a hospital bed admits that my health rests in God's love as well as the skills of scientists and physicians and nurses and a host of people who maintain these places of care. And, yes, even sending a thank-you note, as mothers perhaps instinctively knew, is far more than social convention, but an awareness that the best gifts and thus much of the joy of life are not things we can give ourselves but come from beyond us as an alluring expression of love, even an invitation to love. Each thank you becomes a way to practice gratitude so that more and more our lives are weaned away from the myth of entitlement and the arrogance and isolation of independence. Each thank you becomes a way to practice gratitude so that more and more our lives are shaped by the truth of our belonging to others, even to Christ.

The Rev. John Thomas
"Gratitude Is More Than Saying Thanks" for Day1
United Church of Christ Speaker
The Rev. John Thomas
October 10, 2004
19th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23)
Luke 17:11-19
http://www.day1.net/index.php5?view=transcripts&tid=359

The Rev. John Thomas is president and general minister of the United Church of Christ, headquartered in Cleveland, OH.

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Several Quotes On Gentleness:

Gentleness succeeds better than violence.
~ Jean de LaFontaine (1621 - 1695) French poet


Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.
~ Leo Buscaglia (1925 - 1998) US author, educator


There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.
~ Han Suyin (1917 - ____) Chinese writer, physician


True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to him who made us and to the common nature which we all share. It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and duty of man. It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle.
~ Hugh Blair


In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
~ Mohandas Gandhi


Many have been converted to God by the still small voice whom no wind, though it rose to a hurricane, no earthquake, though it rent the world to its centre, and no fire, though it licked up the forests, could ever move. A gentle word has done it. Sometimes that still small voice has come to us by apparently very, very inadequate means. It is astonishing what little things God will use when he pleases to do so. He wanted to soften the heart of that rough prophet Jonah, and he sent a worm and a gourd, and they did it. He would bring Peter to repentance, and he bade a cock to crow.
~ Charles Spurgeon, English Clergyman, from “God’s Gentle Power”

“I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.”
~ Lao Tzu (Chinese taoist Philosopher, founder of Taoism, wrote "Tao Te Ching" (also "The Book of the Way"). 600 BC-531 BC)
“No man or woman can be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being better for it and without someone being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.”
~ Phillips Brooks quotes (American Clergyman, 1835-1893)

“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”
~ Henry David Thoreau quotes (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862)