[Oe List ...] February witness

[cdzoll at comcast.net]

I think I'm scheduled for next week, but we are planning a So.Cal trip that might interfere. Lois has been dealing with "Why We Come" (meaning to church) and when asked to preach recently I found myself returning again to the HRN paper that we just used part of in RS-1. The first two parts of the paper are why most people come, but after briefly mentioning those 2 portions, I dug in again to the "pioneer" aspect. I've never really thought of myself as a pioneer although just going to that "weird" corporate community in that ghetto in Chicago was pretty unusual. I remember also a few years back writing an article for Monday Morning (Presbyterian minister's publication) mentioning the Niebuhr paper as something most clergy had probably never seen and offering to send same to anyone requesting one. I think I received 180+ requests! Then this past month Lois and I were part of the San Francisco presbytery discussion and vote to ordain a blind, homosexual woman who has been in the process of trying to become ordained for 23 years! (Think of the man by the pool). We were successful (by a vote of 167-151) to move the process along so that she could come before the Presbytery for examination. That made me think of being a pioneer. And then I thought back over my life and career and thought I've been part of the recognition of women as clergy in the church, and part of the acceptance of black leadership in this country and in the church (I was in Jackson, Miss. in 1964) so I guess, indeed, my life has been in the "pioneering" mode. I know most of my colleagues have long ago relegated the church to the historical part of their life, but along with the inspiration of Marcus Borg and Bishop John Shelby Spong, I labor on. Both of them (Borg and Spong) will be in Santa Rosa at the Jesus Seminar next month and I will be there cheering them on. God speed to all who soldier on in the pioneering mode. David Zollars

The Zollars family became aware of JWM and the Christian Faith & Life Community back in '60-61 while David was still in seminary at Union in NYC, vested the Evanston religious house in 1964, attended a Pastor's conference with JWM in El Salvador in 1965, joined the Order after summer '66 and stayed involved through 1973 when as prior of the Sacramento House Lois' health and the "turn to the world" caused them to make a new decision and return to the pastorate. It wasn't really successful as most of the churches he encountered didn't want to be "pioneers." He retired from the ministry in about 1991.
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