Reflecting on "The Most Loving Place in Town"

In January, the adult Sunday School began studying the book, “The Most Loving Place in Town.” This book, written as a story, acknowledges that churches – for all their talk about love: loving God and loving one another – often have a very difficult time actually living that love out. Churches, sadly, are often not experienced as loving places at all. The book invites and challenges the reader to consider the question, “How might we live into that possibility of being the most loving place in town?”

This book was selected by the adult Sunday School committee as a way to open up conversation about being community together. One of the goals of the committee for 2012-2013 is to deepen and strengthen the sense and practice of community at CCUMC.

We give great thanks to Steve Chan for facilitating the class.
Below are reflections by those who participated in the class, including Steve.

Steve Chan - What I learned was that I am not a very loving person. I also learned that we all must look in the mirror and take an inventory of where we fall short of doing what pleases God. I learned that to love God means that we must love one another. Lastly I learned how it is impossible for me to be the most loving person without allowing the Holy Spirit to work and to focus on God, who loved us unconditionally. To close, we all need to help each other in the journey to make CCUMC the most loving place in town.

Michelle Lu – The Most Loving Place in Town is one of my favorite books. When I first read it, I asked myself, can a church be the most loving place in town? When I think of a church community, my mind is always saying, "Oh a church should be a loving place, right?" Although this book demonstrates that a church is not always the most loving place in town, it discusses the process that a church can go through to become it. In the end, I have hope for the church because of the people. I would definitely say our church is a loving church because of the people. I feel our church has loving people and that is what makes the church a loving place. We're being loving by caring for others and sacrificing little things to help people. You know at times, not everyone can be loving or sacrificial, but it takes time for that to grow.

Ben Wong – I appreciated that the book was very accessible, which enabled everyone to get into the Sunday discussions easily. One new concept was the different stages of introducing change from an organizational leadership standpoint. The hard part for me is receiving criticism without getting defensive about my efforts to move CCUMC in the right direction. Much of it is setting aside my ego. I'd like the church to continue to take the surrounding neighborhood seriously - if we are to really make inroads towards being the "most loving place in town". As a tight-knit community within, do people in Chinatown know us as loving people? We know that our sidewalk outreach and nursery/after school programs are noticed and seen as positive things by the general public. How do we take the next step in being seen as more than simply supporters of good causes and providers of social services, but additionally as folks who want to care for Chinatown residents on a person-to-person level?