Over the next several months, I will focus this space on exploring our identity as NWYM Friends. A clear message communicated throughout the vision and long-range planning process emphasized our need to relearn and reclaim our identity as Christ-centered Friends. Together, we believe we have something significant to offer the world as we are faithful to our particular calling as Jesus’ people.

Several months ago, I tried to suggest that Friends have long confessed that we can both know and obey Jesus Christ. This, at least in my mind, is at the heart of our life and message and central to the shape and direction of our individual lives and communal witness.

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At Tigard Community Friends Church we’re learning a thing or two about love in community. It is being humbly taught to us by a small team in blue T-shirts. The Abba Java barista team is serving it up: iced or piping hot, regular or decaf, whole or nonfat. The group pairs the seemingly small acts of pouring espresso and steaming milk with gentle smiles and warm words. We often can’t help but smile ourselves over our steaming, aromatic mugs as we search for a place to sit and share a conversation. Our coffee is too hot to gulp, so we’re obliged to sip and communicate our lives and thoughts to each other, learning what it means to be friends.

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Here’s a question to ponder with me this April, historically a violent month. Are we Christians ensconced so comfortably in Empire America that we fail to recognize captivity within what we once considered our Promised Land? The Psalmist’s lament is a sobering word.

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