New Experiences - New Learning

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on my experiences in Grand Island.  I came here beginning my first appointment as a full-time pastor.  At each turn during these four years, I have been thrust into new experiences: preaching weekly, administrative leadership, regular pastoral visits to the hospital and elsewhere, and many more.  Most recently, we’ve stepped together into unknown and uncharted areas in developing the UM4GI Parish, its staffing, and its collaborative ministries.  Beyond these, I’ve gotten a taste of church administration from the secretary’s desk.  And of course, we’ve welcomed two children of our own, a friend, and a foreign exchange student into our home—which we’ve never shared with anyone before this.

Thinking about all these new experiences, I am surprised by how much I’ve learned about myself, about others, and about the way things work in the world.  I am a different person, spouse, and pastor than I was.  Each experience has shaped and influenced who I am.  While new experiences have  often come with at least some anxiety and stress, I am thankful for them because of the things I’ve have learned through them.  And this makes me wonder, “What things have you learned about     yourself, the life of faith, and the ways of the world in recent weeks or months?

I suppose the relationship between new experiences and new learning is why I value things like camp and mission trips: this summer, I’m leading or helping with two camps and leading a youth mission trip with Pastor Bob and interns Albert and Kathryn.  When we go to camp or participate in mission experiences, we are challenged by the new experiences they present.  And through these experiences, we have the opportunity to learn valuable lessons. 

In light of this, I challenge you to seek out new experiences through which you too will learn new things: start a new hobby, join a Bible study, help with a volunteer agency in the community, offer your leadership through the church.  You choose.  Happy learning.  I’d love to hear about it.  

Give More

Up to this point, Advent Conspiracy has been challenging, but not so challenging.  Worship fully.  Spend less.  Check (mostly).  Sure, I could worship more fully in my life, finding ways to let my life be an act of praise for God.  Sure, I could spend less on stuff that really isn't important and instead buy things that are meaningful for both the recipient and their makers.

We live in the midst of a torn economic culture.  While we talk about consumerism, we also talk about extreme thrift, reusing, and coupon-cutting.  Spending less isn't exactly foreign to most of us.  But giving more: now here is where I feel especially challenged.  If I am not redirecting toward others the fruits of spending less, am I really worshiping Jesus as fully as I can?  Or, am I just hoarding for a time when I feel we can afford spending more?

I read a reader-testimonial in a recent issue of Redbook that got me thinking about this.  Without any reference to God, Jesus, or the church, a family shared about their experience during the recent economic downturn.  The woman wrote about how her family was as poor as its ever been, but that they're actually happier.  They've participated in spending less on a fairly extreme scale.  They're making things themselves that they normally bought and they've cut many non-essentials from their budgets.  But in the midst of this cutting, she wrote that they'd given more money away than ever before.  They gave to help others who needed clean drinking water, and those who needed medical care after natural disasters.

That Redbook woman, and Advent Conspiracy (and Jesus, really) have challenged me.  The conspiracy, the effort to celebrate the fact that God came to dwell among us as a human, isn't just that we play at being counter-cultural and stick it to the retailers who aren't locals.  The conspiracy is taking hold of the old maxim that it's truly better to give than to receive, and then to blow the doors off of giving - to give with a fervor and love that can only be outdone by the love God showed the world by taking on flesh in Jesus.

Advent Conspiracy: Spend Less

This week's theme challenges our financial practices during the big gift-buying season. "Spend less," they say. The obvious questions might be, "Less than who?" and "Less than when?" I have no prescriptions, but I think they're probably right: worshipping Jesus during Advent might just require us to seriously examine and possibly change our spending habits.

We need to do this, not because buying gifts for loved ones is wrong, or that the amount is biblically prescribed. We need to examine our spending as an antidote to the powerful spend-happy culture we live in.

Here's what convinced me of this: I was driving by the church with our three-year-old the past week. He pointed to the outdoor nativity and said, "Baby Jesus."

I told him, "No, not yet. We put Baby Jesus out on Christmas Eve."

"Why?" he says, in the way toddlers do.

"Because that's what Christmas is for: we celebrate the birth of Jesus."

"Why?" he says again.

Not having a good answer, I threw it back at him, "What do you think we celebrate at Christmas?"

Without missing a beat, he says, "Toys!" and "Santa!"

This was surprising because we haven't made a big deal of gift-giving at Christmas (especially toys - we're a book and PJs house) and Santa doesn't even come to our house. We don't have TV so there aren't any commercials and he only goes to pre-school for two mornings a week.

Where did he get the message that Christmas was about toys and Santa? Our culture is much stronger than I realized.

And one way I hope to counteract this in my own home is by spending less. We're planning to make some cinnamon/applesauce ornaments as gifts, now. We'll examine what we buy, who we buy it from, and who made it (and we'll do so in a way that we can engage our kids in) - because relationships through purchases matter too.

I know this spending and gift-giving thing is a matter of personal preference and cultural habits, but I've begun to question for myself if I can say I worship Jesus and then spend money without thinking. It gets harder and harder. But we haven't felt any less full of Christmas cheer (and in fact are less stressed). And, our families haven't been upset that we didn't buy them some piece of mostly junk they didn't need. And we can spend more money on gifts that have relationships built in, like fair trade items and local crafts.

"That which we desire becomes that which we worship" (Advent Conspiracy). May we worship the one born in stable well.

Advent Conspiracy: Worship Fully

**This post is part of a series of posts interacting with Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?**

Each year Advent brings another opportunity to worship Jesus in the miracle of his Incarnation, when God revealed himself to people in a new way.  Nearly every character who encounters the infant King in the Advent story has the same response: worship.  Their worship sprang from deep places of the heart that were touched for the first time by God-in -the-flesh.  Such worship challenges old beliefs about God and what it means to be present with him. (Advent Conspiracy, 35)

For most all of us, Christmas (and the season leading up to it called "Advent") is almost singularly focused on one thing: the birth of Jesus (unless you're a bit geeky about church tradition and the Christian calendar -  but I'm in a small group there).  Rightly, we wrap a lot of meaning up in with baby Jesus in his swaddling clothes, among which are the following:

• He's the Savior of the world (says Mary's song in Luke 1, and the big verse from John 3);
• He's the one who will switch everything around, making the last first and the first last (Mary's song again);
• He's God in flesh (John 1) - which means God is with us and we can see God with our eyes, sort of.

I've found Advent Conspiracy challenging because it has basically led me to question for myself: "Okay, if I believe all this about Jesus, then how does everything I typically do to celebrate Advent and Christmas fit with it?"  Said in a different way for all of us, "Do the things you do to celebrate Advent and Christmas, the things you busy yourself with now, do they correspond (do they fit) with what you believe about Jesus?"

I don't think there can be much finger-pointing here.  We as individuals and families (and maybe as friends or groups of families), we'll have to determine this for ourselves.  It may mean we have to take a hard look in the mirror.  It may mean we have to rethink our budgets or Christmas lists, or even our gift lists.

What it will definitely mean is that we will worship.  The Christmas story, when we truly focus on it, impels us to worship God - a God who would take on flesh in order to draw all Creation to Godself.  Mary worshipped when she found out she was pregnant and what that would mean.  Joseph worshipped (well...sort of...after he almost ditched Mary).  The shepherds and angels worshipped in the fields and surrounding the birthplace.  And eventually, the Magi (wisemen/three kings) worshipped Jesus and brought him kingly gifts.  And in order to worship fully, we may need to make some new priorities - for our time, our money, and our schedules.

Being Cultivated by God

Sermon for 5.15.11 - 4th Lord's Day of Easter

Today is the third week in a five-week series on five practices that are essential parts of fruitful Christian living , based on the works of United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase. Many of us are reading Forty Days for Fruitful Living (today’s Day 21). The five practices are Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity. It’s through developing these practices that we make space for God’s grace in our lives, which enables us to live fruitful lives that share God’s grace. As a church, these five practices structure Faith’s plan for discipleship in its mission to “love into the kingdom all God’s children through intentional discipleship, worship, and service.” Today, we focus on Intentional Faith Development.

If Radical Hospitality is about saying, “Yes” to God, and Passionate Worship is about loving God in return (and thereby being transformed), then Intentional Faith Development is the set of practices through which we present ourselves to God with the purpose of growing and changing. What is clear throughout Schnase’s work with the Five Practices is that as humans, and specifically as followers of Christ, we are called to grow and change, and that growth in God’s grace requires intentional practices: like becoming an athlete or musician, we must continually practice in order to grow and change; or, like the family needing to visit an elderly aunt, who needed more intentionality to share love well. We treaded lightly around these themes of change, practice, and intentionality last week when we looked at how God changes us little by little through the practice of worship week after week and year after year.

The Apostle Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, assumes the need for change in the passage read today. Just before our passage began, he says that he wants to know Christ, to be made righteous by God’s grace, and live into the resurrection through Jesus. Then he opens today’s passage saying, “Not that I’ve already…reached [this] goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (v.12). Paul assumes a progression in life from sinfulness to holiness, from separation from God to intimate connection to God. This idea of pressing on suggests intentionality: Paul is doing things to come closer to God’s goal for him. He’s inviting God to change him.

Yet, let’s be honest here. How many of us like change? How many of you got up this morning and readied yourselves for worship saying, Boy, I wonder how God is going to change me today? Now, I personally like change and find it exciting, but I recognize that I’m not in the majority here. I suspect there are many here who do not like change. I suspect there are also many here who think, I don’t need to change. Honestly, sometimes it’s easier to convince ourselves that we’re just fine how we are and that God is done changing us.

As I was pondering this idea of change and our reluctance to change, God showed me something while I was preparing my garden. I think I mostly garden because I love fresh cucumbers. So, I planted cucumber seeds in hope that they will grow into cucumber plants that will eventually fill my belly with cucumbers. But we don’t get to cucumbers right away. First, there’s cleaning up the garden plot and cultivating, then the growth of vines and flowers, and finally, with the intentional care of weeding and watering we get cucumbers. Each stage of growth is growth by definition: the first sprouts, the vines, the flowers, and finally the cucumbers. The ultimate purpose for all that growth, though, is the end result of produce for eating. But, the first thing that had to happen was cultivating – breaking up the soil and preparing it for growth.

Our lives are not unlike those cucumber plants. God created us to be fruitful. The fruit God desires to grow in our lives is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal5.22). But, we cannot jump right to the fruitfulness. Things have to happen first. We have to be cultivated, broken up and prepared, for fruitful growth and change. We have to be changed. And eventually, with much care, weeding and watering, we will begin to bear fruit. Sometimes that fruit is just the growth: vines that prevent other weeds from growing, or flowers that add color to the garden. But eventually, the fruit is the ultimate fruit of sharing God’s grace with others in a way that provides sustenance for ourselves and others.

If we are like cucumber plants, created to bear fruit, then the question for us today is, “In what setting does transformation and growth happen? In what setting and through what practices does God most cultivate us?”

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrew Christians shows us the setting through which God cultivates us: living in intentional community with others. He invites the community of Hebrew Christians to “draw near to God” through spurring “one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together…but encouraging one another…” (v.22a, 24-25a). What the writer of Hebrews knows is that it is through regularly meeting together with other Christians we grow more fruitful and closer to God.

The practice of Intentional Faith Development is founded upon this idea of meeting together with others regularly for growth. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, knew this when he organized early Methodist societies into small groups so people could “watch after one another in love” (Schnase, 71). Many in this congregation have found participating in a regular a small group to be a very fruitful practice. Perhaps it’s a Sunday School class, or the Mom’s Bible Study on Tuesdays, or the women’s Monday night study. Maybe it has been the United Methodist Women or Men’s groups. Or, maybe you haven’t found a group, or you once had a group but now do not.

What seems to be clear from the Hebrews passage is that meeting together regularly in small groups is a vital and essential practice for Christian living and growth. To be fruitful, to grow, we must present ourselves to God through small groups to be cultivated, weeded, watered, and encouraged. Paul echoes the importance of relationships for growth when he tells the Philippians to “join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us” (v.17). Through small groups and intentional relationships, we learn from others how to follow God more fully. If we choose to live in isolation, we have few examples to help us grow and no one to watch over us in love. Further, by attempting to live out our faiths in isolation, we rob others of the benefit of our experience, insight, and faith as examples.

Participating in a small group might sound scary, but it’s not really. You don’t have to be a spiritual saint or Bible expert to participate or start one. You just have to have a desire to grow closer to God and become more fruitful. God will provide all that’s needed. God transforms us through small groups. All we have to do is keep showing up and presenting ourselves to God to be cultivated. God cultivates us as soil for growth. God transforms us for fruitful living.

It’s like Paul says, we must press on toward the goal. When Paul says, “press on” what he’s saying is that he’s making intentional decisions to follow God and pursue God’s goals for him in Christ. He is “straining toward what is ahead” (v.13). Maybe you’re like me and you keep a calendar of everything you have to do for the day or week. If so, you could think about intentional faith development as keeping an appointment with Jesus. Through a small group studies, prayer groups, or regular service activity groups, we keep an appointment with Jesus so that God can continue to grow, change, and transform us.

It’s like my cucumbers. I have little hope of them growing and bearing fruit if I don’t keep a regular appointment with them that involves watering, weeding, and perhaps fertilizing. If I don’t do these things, I don’t give the plants anything to work with, to grow from. The same is true for our faith lives. If we have no plans or intentional practices for growth in relationship with God, we’re not giving God much to work with.

But God gives us all we need to grow closer to God and to live fruitful lives. God has given us the church – a community of faithful people formed for the sole purpose of helping people grow closer to God, live fruitfully, and experience the grace of God. Through the waters of baptism, God has claimed us as God’s own, and through our relationships, especially in small groups, God transforms us so that we can draw close to God. The Letter to the Hebrews encourages us saying that we have assurance that we can draw near to God because Jesus has drawn near to us and is always faithful in his promise to be present with us. Jesus connects us to God, and the way we grow in that connection is through intentional practices with other people. God cultivates our hearts and souls through intentional practices, so that we can draw close to God and live fruitfully.

Finally, Paul says in Philippians that we can make righteousness, fruitfulness, and connection with God our goal because Jesus has made us his own. Jesus has claimed us through our baptisms, and through his baptism, life, death, and resurrection. Therefore, we can live into Jesus’ goal of fruitfulness and connection to God. God enables us to grow and be fruitful. God transforms us for fruitful living. And the setting through which God most cultivates us for fruitfulness is small groups. If you're currently participating in a small group for the purpose of spurring each other on in love, keep up the good work. If you're interested in joining or starting a group, I'd be glad to help you. For God is waiting for the invitation, the appointment to begin more actively cultivating you for fruitfulness.