UCC

I thought it was interesting that there are only 2 sacraments, and that communion is open to everyone, obviously two big differences from Catholicism. The fact that the Bible is inspired by God, but is open to individual interpretation with the help of a clergy member, is similar to Presbyterianism.
I also found it interesting, as Carla and Meghan pointed out in class, that there are some paradoxes in the stances of the United Church of Christ. For one, their main mantra seemed to be to not “play God,” and they say that any killing is wrong (which explains their opposition to the death penalty), but at the same time they have a pro-choice stance on abortion, even though they say that life begins at conception. Along with the “killing is wrong” stance, they are completely opposed to any war, but are ambiguous as to what should be done in cases in which genocide is occurring, such as with the holocaust.
The UCC reminded me of Presbyterianism in that they are interested in human dignity, in charity and justice; they are concerned with “the least of these,” and I would certainly say that Presbyterians are as well. They seem to match up in their stances on current social issues, such as pro-comprehensive reform in immigration and pro-choice on abortion.
I feel that the main difference between Presbyterianism and the UCC is that the Presbyterian Church puts more emphasis on institution and the universality of Church teaching and interpretation of that Bible, whereas the UCC puts more emphasis on the individual local congregations. In other words, the Presbyterian Church is closer to Catholicism than the UCC because of its universality.

For starters, the historical background between the First Presbyterian Church and the Lutheran Church in America is similar in that both are of German origin. The idea of the different Lutheran denominations as “open systems” is certainly comparable from what I’ve seen at First Presbyterian, as they both try as much as possible to interact with their surrounding environments. In fact, Pastor Achtemeier at First Presbyterian chose to keep the church located where it is rather than move to a new location, even though most people that attend the church are not part of the surrounding community; she did this to continue to try to make connections with the community. Also, (obviously) the ordination of women is practiced at First Presbyterian, as it is in certain Lutheran denominations. In general, the Lutheran propensity for doing service parallels the efforts that I’ve seen from First Presbyterian.
One difference between the two is the emphasis that some Lutheran denominations put on the "terrors of the Law." I’ve seen that Pastor Achtemeier is certainly much more concerned with mercy than with justice. For example, she gives people money for food or gas when they come to her door asking for help, and she expressed discontent when a DJ at one of the Church events played “Beer for my horses,” a song emphasizing justice and punishment.

Service site aims

The primary focus of Joe and I remains to help the Church make connections with the neighborhood, and right now we’re trying to do that by attempting to reestablish the Downtown Dubuque Christian Outreach, or else start a new association that can get our parishes working together. We feel that with each parish trying to reach out and build a community with the citizens of the Washington neighborhood, it would help if there were a sense of community among the parishes themselves. Working together and coordinating their efforts, they would be much better able to reach out to the members of the community.
When the Downtown Dubuque Christian Outreach was dissolved, there was about $1,200 in the treasury, and now Pastor Achtemeier is sitting on that money and wants to get rid of it. This of course is a good problem to have, and it would be a nice resource to be able to use once we resurrect the old alliance between the parishes. On October 19, Joe and I plan to go to the mission/stewardship community meeting to talk more about this with Pastor Achtemeier and others.
When I met last week with Pastor Achtemeier and she was talking about different ideas for connecting with the community, something she mentioned in passing, but that I thought was a very good idea, was setting up some kind of tutoring program. At Salsas the other night we talked about this, and about how Dana Livingston is involved in the Dubuque Multicultural Center, which has a tutoring program. I plan to meet with him in the next couple days to talk about how we could get 1st Presbyterian and some other parishes involved in this tutoring as well.
The main reason that I like the idea of tutoring so much is because we would be able to reach out to kids born into an environment that isn’t conducive to success—starting with success in school—and help them to do better in school, ultimately (hopefully) improving their chances of pulling themselves out of the low-class or impoverished situation into which they’ve been born. This to me is even better and more productive than soup kitchens because it does something to help bring about the end of a person’s poverty, rather than treat the symptoms of poverty. It goes back to the old saying: give someone a fish, they’ll eat for a day; teach someone to fish, they’ll eat for a lifetime.

Catholic social teaching and community

If I were giving a brief talk on Catholic social teaching to my service site, I would emphasize the importance of community. The main goal of social work is attaining the common good, and working together as a community for the good of the community. As Himes points out, God in and of himself is a community of three persons, according to the Christian understanding. Himes says that we as humans are made in the image of this Trinitarian God, and thus are naturally social beings. We are created to join in the experience of loving communion, and he alludes that community is natural and necessary if persons are to achieve their full stature.

I would present this understanding of the importance of community to my parish in trying to convince them to form a community with other parishes in order to better carry out God's work and benefit the neighborhood as a whole.

A passage I might read to go along with my message:
"Individuals, though centers of freedom and individual responsibility, are not solitary beings. In their inmost nature human beings are social and can neither live nor attain their fulll potential buy themselves. Thus the interdependence characteristic of our modern age is rooted in and finds fulfillment in the very nature of the person." (Gaudium et Spes)

I think that this is a very good passage because it emphasizes how essential sociality is to humanity, how it is in the very essence of a human. It confirms that working together is the right way not only to attain one's full individual potential, but also the universal common good.