Trying to Hear

Give More

2011-12-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

**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

2011-05-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

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.

The Messianic Secret

2011-05-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today my covenant group started reading the Gospel According to Mark. We've covenanted together to each read the same passage each day (we just finished Acts). I don't know if I'll continue blogging about my reading, but I felt like it today.

In the opening passage of Mark, we already see what scholars have called the 'Messianic Secret' in which Jesus seems to want to keep his tru identity as the Son of God/God Incarnate a secret. I this chapter we see this at least three times: twice with unclean spirits being told to keep silent because they know who Jesus is, and once when Jesus heals a leper. Here's an example:

Mark 1:21-28 NIV

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!" "Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!" The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, "What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him." News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

This is interesting, and if I remember correctly, even the wisest of biblical scholars puzzle a little at this 'secretiveness.' After all, Jesus goes around teaching and performing miracles as a public witness of his identity as the revelation of God. And, he sends out disciples to proclaim the good news. And, Mark's account begins saying this book is the good news of Jesus - showing who he is and what he means for the world. So why does Jesus silent the unclean spirits and tell the healed leper to tell no one?

I don't know. But what if part of it is that, while bringing healing and wholeness is an essential part of the character of God revealed in Jesus, he wants to avoid compelling people to believe in him because of some sort of emotional manipulation? He wants them (and us) to see the truth of his life and teaching and believe because of them, not miracles and signs and things that let ourr emotions lead.

What do you think?

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On Preaching on Maundy Thursday

2011-04-21T10:17:00.001-07:00

Remembeing Oscar Romero: "To try to preach without referring to the history one preaches in is not to preach the gospel. Many would like a preaching so spiritualistic that it leaves sinners unbothered and does not term idolaters those who kneel before money and power. A preaching that says nothing of the sinful environment in which the gospel is reflected upon is not the gospel."

"Christianity is a radical challenge to the status quo." "Everyone's an atheist when it comes to some god." (the Rev. Chuck Peek)

Maundy Thursdsay tells us we can know the true God of love. We can serve like Jesus modeled and mandated.

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Responding to "Why Jesus?"

2011-04-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

United Methodist Bishop William Willimon has written a book, which I've not read, and now he's blogging about it - or from it, technically.

In recent weeks, pastor and author Rob Bell has been catching a lot of press about his new book Love Wins. In it (I'm in the midst of reading it), he puts re-articulates an old theological position that God's love and grace are so big that God makes space for all people to be drawn into relationship with God (some might say, "be saved"). I talked about this idea with my small group this past week and it was a very interesting conversation. With some, there was a concern that if God had the intention of "saving" every person, why did God need Jesus? I had mostly left this conversation behind until I read Bishop Willimon's recent post answering part of the question, "Why Jesus?"

Here's a teaser from the last paragraph of Bishop Willimon's post:

Some people think of the cross of Christ as our way to get to be with God in heaven when we die. Surprisingly, the gospels portray the cross first as God’s way to get heaven to earth now. When Jesus breathed his last and died on the cross, Matthew says that the curtain in the temple – the veil that separated heaven from earth at the high altar, sinful people from righteous God -- was mysteriously ripped in two.[viii] Who slashed the curtain? It was as if in one last, dramatic, wrenching act of self-sacrifice, God ripped the veil of separation between earth and heaven. Now Israel need not gather on the Day of Atonement (the day of “at-one-ment” with God), stand before the temple, give over their sins to the priest who pulled back the curtain, entered the temple’s holiest place, and offered their sins to God. The curtain was ripped asunder. Now we could get to God because God had gotten to us. On the cross, Jesus had somehow done something decisive about the distance between us and God.

Sin and Bones

2011-04-04T20:41:00.001-07:00

An interesting quote I came upon tonight: "In the Talmud, one of the rabbis suggests that our iniquities are engraved into our bones, and indelible, telltale moral record of how we conducted ourselves through the lives that were given to us" (Kelton Cobb in Feasting on the Word for Ezekiel 37:1-14).

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NE-KS Transition Webcast

2011-03-29T00:06:00.000-07:00

Something that has taken up a good bit of my time, and led me to parts of the world I'd never been (Kansas, generally), is the Nebraska-Kansas Transition Team.

We recently participated in a webcast. Check out the recorded version here.

Big Daddy Weave and Others Concert in Omaha

2011-03-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

St. Andrews UMC in Omaha, NE is hosting a concert that should be amazing April 29th.

I just thought you might like to know. Buy tickets here.

UM Missions and Pop Culture Collide - Positively

2011-03-28T23:45:00.002-07:00

I just read about this and thought it was interesting.

The rapper Lil' John, who is a contestant on reality TV's "Celebrity Apprentice" recently won a challenge on the show. As a result, his chosen mission, the United Methodist Children's Home of the North Georgia Annual Conference.

Check out the whole story.

UM Missions and Pop Culture Collide - Positively

2011-03-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

Being Thirsty and Dried Out

2011-03-27T12:01:00.001-07:00

I heard a sermon this morning based on Jn 4:5-42 called 'The Fountain and Living Water.' Overall, it was a challenging and inspiring word, but one phrase stuck out to me.

I preached a sermon that dealt with thirst this morning based on Gen. 17:1-7. I took it as assumed that we are sometimes thirsty like the people in the wilderness. In the sermon this afternoon, the preacher asked, "What dries us out and causes us to be thirsty?" It is obvious but it stuck out to me, perhaps because i didn't even think about it. The preacher said sin dries us out. Brokenness dries us out. Doubt and searching without finding dries us out. So, from the John passage, we hear the good news that Jesus is the living water to quench our sin-born thirst.

The other intersting thing I heard this afternoon is compared to the song "Peace Like a River" that says, "I've goy joy like a fountain..." The preacher this afternoon used this image of a fountain, but not as something we have. The fountain of living is something we're filled with, and something that we are: God makes us vessels of Christ's living water for the world.
It's

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Two Interesting Thoughts

2011-03-18T22:25:00.001-07:00

This weekend I am participating in some regular meetings of leadership in our Annual Conference. The assigned reading was "God's Renewed Creation: a Call of the Council of Bishops of the UMC to Hope and Action for God's Good Creation."

Two thoughts not specifically applied to the local church have me thinking about the church. One is from the aforementioned document: "We cannot help the world until we change our own way of being in it." The second is what a District Superintendent said paraphrased here: "We cannot just change the structures and then keep doing the same things as we have always done them."

Neither of these things are especially earth shattering in their wisdom, but they strike me today. Does having a discipleship plan matter at the local church if all meetings and minisrty activity is done the same way? Does change really occur in the actual practice of being the church if we are not first changed at the core?

And this mention of "the core" reminds me of something the Bishop said, again paraphrased: "We have to do the core work (of worship, study, discipling) in order for any of the other great ministry and mission to happen." I have taken significant liberties with this last quote, but the phrase "core work" was used in the general context of the conversation. It reminds me of when I ran track ages ago. The coach always made us do sit ups. I never quite bought it, bit he was probably right: in order for you to be strong enough to run and compete, you had to have a strong core.

It was also suggested that maybe we should all just focus on one measureable piece of core work, worship participation, and that if we do this well, we might see the fruit of being transformed and empowered for other great ministry. Could the person who suggested this be right?

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Online Bible Study from the UMC

2011-03-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

United Methodist Communications is offering an online Bible study during Lent (starting March 14th). Here's the info. I've never participated in something like this, but it sounds very interesting. If anyone wants to participate let me know.

Nebraska United Methodists and Immigration Reform

2011-03-01T13:31:00.001-08:00

Below is a press release sent out across the sate today.

United Methodists weigh in on immigration, LB48 debate

Public witness through banners at Nebraska Conference headquarters in Lincoln

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Those who drive by the Nebraska United Methodist Conference's headquarters at 3333 Landmark Circle in northwest Lincoln will notice two large blue banners on display, one in English and one in Spanish. They read "God's Love Has No Borders! Immigration reform must be just."

Bishop Ann B. Sherer-Simpson, the Immigration Task Force and Common Table of the Nebraska Conference United Methodist Church are speaking out on behalf of vulnerable persons in our state.

In the words of Sherer-Simpson, "There is a clear biblical injunction to care for the widow, the orphan, the sojourner, the stranger in our midst that is repeated over and over in the biblical record. The marginalized, the poor, the victims of poverty, war and circumstances beyond their control are the ones about whom God is most concerned. God cares for the vulnerable among us and calls on us to be God's own people caring for, defending and partnering with the vulnerable among us."

She continued, "The experience of many in Arizona is that a bill, such as LB48 which is being proposed, makes the vulnerable more vulnerable. If we judge whether persons are legal residents because of their nationality or language or country of origin, we are making whole classes of persons more vulnerable. We are tearing the fabric of our common life. I urge us to reject this legislation and to ask our senators and representatives in Washington to frame appropriate and just legislation, reforming our current national immigration policy."

Similar banners are on display at places of worship throughout Lincoln. Before putting banners on their property, Aldersgate United Methodist Church spent four Sundays studying, discussing and worshiping around the theme of biblical justice and how that informs the conversation about immigration.

For more information on the work of the Immigration Task Force of the Nebraska United Methodist Conference, visitwww.umcneb.org/RTMJ.

Egypt, Youth, Jesus, and Pacifism

2011-02-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

I happened upon a blog post by Brian Kirk tonight.

Pastor Kirk poses some challenging questions about what youth (and adults) can and might learn from the recent events in Egypt in which a non-violent protest eventually led to its head of state stepping down.

Here are some of Kirk's comments, but really, you should just click the link above and check it out in its entirety:

I wonder what the events in Egypt might tell us about the power of non-violence to transform the human tendency to use coercive power. What I really wonder: might this example of the truth of non-violence be dangerous for our youth?

Think about it. What happens if teens discover that the pacifist life of Jesus that we often idealize and couch in metaphors turns out to be an actual possibility for a way to be in the world? The question of non-violence has never been an easy one for the Christian Church. Our history together has often been bloody and there are events of the Church's past that we'd just as soon forget. Historians assure us that the earliest followers of the way of Jesus were a pacifist movement, though that quickly changed as the Church became institutionalized and gained political power. Our teens today are probably much more familiar with the institutional Church that tends to see war as a necessary way to fight evil in the world rather than the Church that followed a Jewish peasant who was willing to go to his death rather than raise a fist in violent resistance. In many ways, the American church seems to have resigned itself to the notion that non-violence sounds good in principle but all too often feels it has to fight fire with fire.

The Church and Those Under 30

2011-02-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

A friend guided me to this site and the article, "What Do Millenials Want? Not the Church." It's based on a recent Pew report specifically focused on those under 30.

I'm barely in this category and totally not who the report is talking about, but I know a lot of people who are. They don't go to church, but many of them note that they once went to church. Many also say they believe in God - to some extent.

Tonight, I don't have many answers or other thoughts - just questions. I had coffee with another young adult this week and we shared many of questions about how the specific church I serve can be a community of and for young adults, a community in which young adults (as well as other generations) can explore their faith, worship, grow in the knowledge and love of God, and serve others. In short, we talked about how young adults can find in church a place of connection: connection to God, to others, to a greater meaning and purpose in life.

The article is a good starting point for understanding who we're talking about, but it doesn't go very far. However, I do like the implications it mentions regarding the Pew report:

IMPLICATION: The Millennials walking into your church are less likely to be familiar with Christianity and its norms. Periodically take the time to explain all the things that lifelong churchgoers take for granted. Why we have an offering, why the singing usually goes before the talk, why the singing is called “worship” and why the talk is called a “message.” The Christian phrases that sound trite to you may be brand new to much of your Millennial audience.

The group to watch is the “Religious Unaffiliated.” These are Millennials who believe faith is important and are even fans of religion (saying that it’s “somewhat” or “very” important in their lives). They comprise nearly one out of ten Millennials, but don’t have a church home. They’re likely to be filtering through your church, checking things out, and looking for a reason to plug in.

What’s your value proposition to that Religious Unaffiliated Millennial? Why should they hang around your church?

Frodo and Following Jesus

2011-02-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me a link via Facebook to another pastor's blog. In the post in question, he [Matthew Johnson] was commenting on a recent company's Super Bowl commercial. Those comments were interesting and passionate, but what caught me was the end of the post:

Each day that goes by, I more and more convinced that Jesus has turned me into a lunatic. Stark raving mad. I care about things now that have nothing to do with me, about people I will never meet, about places I will never go and about issues I will never solve. But I still care. A lot. It is changing the way I live and work. Even as a pastor. It is changing the way I move and where I'm moving. It changes what I do with my time, and what value I place upon it. I care. I care so much that many people don’t know what to say to me anymore. They just don’t see the world that I do, I say to myself - justifying the barriers with them that are erected via the rubble of those that grace tore down.
I often wish I could be blissfully ignorant again. I often pray that I scales could grow back on my eyes and that amnesia would lobotomize the Jesus part of my brain. I want to care about 50% off sales without wondering who made the clothes. I want to eat food without wondering where it came from and what impact it had on the land which grew and processed it. I want to care only about myself, to put my family first, to go to sports contests and pray that God would allow my team to win, to believe it is God’s will for me to be happy and have all the crap I want and not apologize for it. I want to, but I’m beginning to think that is impossible. I’m being rewired; assimilated into a collective Spirit that I cannot escape from even in death.
I worry that I might become like Frodo - too different - and unable to ever live in the places I love and with the people I love because of it. And then I think it may have already happened.

His allusion is to Frodo Baggins of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In it, Frodo is called to a life-changing, death-defying mission that changes his life. He had never been out of his homeland. He'd never been part of something so risky or dangerous. After his epic journey, he eventually has to withdraw from his community (eventually to another land).

Johnson's passion is undeniable, and I think he's more or less right. Follow Jesus changes us. At the end of this coming Sunday's gospel passage (Mt. 5:38-48) Jesus tells the multitudes surrounding him that they are to "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." What a change that is. Certainly, following Jesus changes us. The Spirit continually works in and on us. We start to care about the things and people God cares about, and inversely, less about ourselves, our stuff, and our lives. This can have a devastating effect on relationships.

But, while I see the connection to Frodo Baggins, I don't think it's completely right. God's goal in or transformation as Jesus-followers is not that we become so different from others that we must exile ourselves, as Frodo did. God's purpose is that our transformation might be as yeast for dough - an agent of transformation for others. I don't suspect Johnson intends anything different, but it's a good reminder that, as Jesus said elsewhere, "A prophet is not accepted in his own town." Perhaps some of us are called to be so starkly different as to incite questions and debates before moving on. Others of us are called to be "in our town" so-to-speak, with others. The challenge then is how to hold being in town in tension with the other-worldly nature of witnessing to the kingdom of God. Perhaps in this tension is where the yeast works.

Tithing from Bishop Ann Sherer Simpson

2011-02-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

This is the present Bishop of the Nebraska Annual Conference of the UMC speaking on tithing (which is giving a tenth of one's income to the ministry of Christ through the church).

I got to thinking of it as I was preparing my sermon on Isaiah 58 (the mind does work in interesting ways). Isaiah's not talking about tithing at all, but a phrase popped out at me that relates a little. Through Isaiah, God challenges God's people to "spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry" (Is 58.10, NIV).

Spend ourselves. That's interesting language that takes on a financial tone. The challenge I find in this, is that perhaps Isaiah's oracle from God doesn't deal much with tithing as it's practiced (or not practiced) in many of our churches. Sadly, an inadequate portion of most church budgets is spent in behalf of the hungry. Of course, Mission Shares (apportionments) can be considered, in part, to be spent in behalf of the hungry. But much of local church budgets is dominated by facilities and staffing. So then, the challenge for churches and church leaders, is how to spend its facilities and staff in behalf of the hungry. That's an odd phrase, but said in another way, our challenge is in finding ways to use the things we churches spend most of our money on - facilities and staff - in behalf of the hungry. I suspect this looks like much more than offering weekly worship services.

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Acts of Religious Piety

2011-02-02T23:02:00.000-08:00

This week I'm preparing to preach on Isaiah 58:1-12. A number of Bible versions I've read entitle this section as having something to do with "True Worship." In it, Isaiah bears God's message to the people of Judah after they've returned from exile. While the passage does deal with worship and fasting, the problem God sees in the people's worship and fasting is that it is disconnected from the rest of their daily lives; furthermore, the piety they show in worship and fasting is contrasted by their oppression of others and failure to serve those in need.

I'm still working on the sermon and what all this means for me and the people where I serve, which you may see if a manuscript comes out (but not if it's only notes or an outline). However, as I was researching, a line stuck out at me. Carol J Dempsey writes about this passage in Feasting on the Word,

The theological point [of the passage] is clear: acts of religious piety as private acts of devotion are meaningless when they are divorced from acts of justice and righteousness.

On first glance, I took Ms. Dempsey at her word and read on, but it stuck with me. I'm not sure I can argue with her based on Isaiah. I'm not sure I want to, theologically at least. In Christ, we have the blessed gift of being invited into God's kingdom-building work on earth as in heaven.

I suppose what is hard to swallow is the starkness of Dempsey's words, as though Isaiah's weren't already enough: private acts of devotion and piety are meaningless if unaccompanied by acts of justice. Meaningless. I'd like to offer some self-justification, but I'm not sure I've any ground to stand on.

Dempsey (and Isaiah? and God??) challenge me. They lead me to wonder about this coming Sunday when this text will be read and proclaimed. To take it to the extreme, they make me wonder about feasting around the Lord's table this coming Sunday. If we merely share in the Eucharist, sing our last song, and go to brunch, have we made Communion meaningless by privatizing it and divorcing it from righting the wrongs of a broken world and soothing its aches? That's a hard thing to write or think - that Communion could ever be meaningless. It couldn't be... could it? May God make it not so.

Returning to the Blog

2011-01-31T13:57:00.000-08:00

I make no apologies. It has been over two months since I last posted anything here, for which I was called out at a recent meeting. I'll offer two points of explanation for my absence before giving you link to something I've been thinking about recently.

Why I've not been blogging:

I'm not sure if this is a good reason or not, but I primarily stopped blogging because I have been feeling like it didn't make any difference, that it didn't matter whether or not I blogged at all. I began this blog as a means for communicating with the people I am appointed to serve: sermons, ponderings, other things I've written, and/or reflections of the life of faith based on what's happening in the news, in the world, and/or across the UM connection. As a medium of communication, I didn't feel like this blog was contextually appropriate - that is, I don't think anyone's reading it, which I suspected because there are few comments. That I was called out on not blogging means that at least someone is. So, I think I may try to reengage in this practice (and perhaps find other ways to direct people to the blog).
The primary thing I had been posting was sermon manuscripts. I am continually trying to grow as a preacher and for the last two months, I've been preaching primarily from notes or outlines, which don't convey much when posted to the blog. So, I didn't post anything.

With that explanation done, here's one thing I've been thinking about lately: immigration. Last Thursday as I was returning from renewal leave, I stopped in Lincoln for Unity Rally for the Good Life organized by Nebraska Appleseed. This rally was held to oppose Legislative Bill #48, which is an immigration-related bill similar to that passed last year in Arizona. Instead, rally participants advocate immigration law reforms that honor the humanity of us all, treat one another with justice, and help to foster a sense of unity as people of the United States of America. Bishop Ann Sherer-Simpson prepared remarks which were read in her absence (she's in Africa), which you can read here.

Brood of Vipers - Who, Me?

2010-12-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

Last week's sermon dealt with Matthew 3:1-12, which includes John calling the Pharisees and Sadducees, who had traveled to the wilderness to see John baptizing repentant sinners, a "brood of vipers."

Here's what Steve Woolley says about this passage. See his entire post here.

I think that these words are intended to come crashing through the ages right into our own hearts and minds. They are about us.

Our casual identity as Christians can too often take the form of regular church attendance, pledging and maybe even engagement in bible study or some worthy project, but without any connection to daily living in other areas. On the other hand, we can also be tempted to confuse faith with an overly compulsive obsession in the rituals of worship. As did the Pharisees and Sadducees, we come to Jesus seeking his company and lingering on his words. We come for the comfort and consolation of Jesus meek and mild and get a tongue lashing for not bearing fruit worthy of repentance. Wow! Who wants that? Is it possible we should actually pay attention this time? Or maybe we could just hurry to the manger to adore the little baby who demands nothing more than his mother’s milk and a clean diaper.

Stanley Hauerwas on Recapturing Advent

2010-12-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting video called, "Recapture Advent."

I love this line: "Advent is the recovery of how to live in a world of impatience as a patient people."

May we, this Advent, remember well and step faithfully in the way of Christ.

Advent Love

2010-12-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

Sermon for 12.5.10 - Second Lord's Day of Advent.

Matthew 3:1-12

First, below is the video from United Methodist Communications that illustrates a piece of the love God shares with creation through Christ.

Advent Hope

2010-11-27T22:42:00.000-08:00

After a long hiatus, I thought it was time to be better about getting sermons and other things up on the blog.

Here's the sermon for November 28, 2010 - The First Lord's Day of Advent

Advent is the beginning of the Christian year, but it's at the end of the secular calendar. What this means is that we're especially caught in the middle between remembering the past and looking forward to the future. In Advent, we remember the first Christmas and how God came into the world in human form in the baby Jesus. And we look forward in Advent to the day when Jesus, called the Son of Man, will come again in glory and bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. This is what we hope for when we shout and sing, “Hosanna in the highest” – “Save us, we pray!” The culmination of this Advent remembering and envisioning is the hope that next year will be different – that next year, Jesus will bring the kingdom in full.

Jesus bringing the kingdom in full is the big focus of Christian hope; however, we also have smaller forms of this hope that are no less important. We hope that, if not the kingdom in full, then at least a little more of it: a little more love, a little more forgiveness, a little more transformation, and a little less war, brokenness and tears. And in this hope, I am especially reminded how much we need the gift of hope, which God offers us in Christ’s birth.

A story I heard recently reminds me of just how much we need hope. I just heard that a friend of a friend’s husband died. He was in his mid-thirties. He leaves behind a wife and a toddler. They thought he had the flu, but the doctors were wrong. When they finally figured out what was causing his sickness, it was too late. What killed him was a totally curable disease – totally. And now his family is searching for meaning, for hope, and for a way forward. I cannot imagine the sense of loss, pain, and despair this family must be going through, and at a time when our culture suggests we should be so happy and joy-filled. And how many others – our friends, our neighbors – are suffering under the weight of similar tragedies or mourning that the holidays only exacerbate? Or, what about the Kenyan girl named Purity in the video we just saw, who was orphaned by AIDS. For such people, it may be a huge challenge just to hope that next year will be different: more love, less pain, more grace, less fear.

And Jesus’ disciples had similar hopes, which Jesus speaks to in a strange way in our reading for today from the Gospel of Matthew. Before the events of today’s reading, Matthew recounts Jesus’ triumphal entry into the Jerusalem. The people shout, “Hosanna – Lord, save us, we pray!” Then Jesus cleanses the Temple, throwing out the moneychangers and others. And then Matthew recounts many scenes of Jesus teaching about faithful living, and concluding with a lesson about the coming destruction of the Temple and his absence from them.

³⁶"But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven's angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows. ^37-39"The Arrival of the Son of Man will take place in times like Noah's. Before the great flood everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ark. They knew nothing—until the flood hit and swept everything away.

^39-44"The Son of Man's Arrival will be like that: Two men will be working in the field—one will be taken, one left behind; two women will be grinding at the mill—one will be taken, one left behind. So stay awake, alert. You have no idea what day your Master will show up. But you do know this: You know that if the homeowner had known what time of night the burglar would arrive, he would have been there with his dogs to prevent the break-in. Be vigilant just like that. You have no idea when the Son of Man is going to show up. (MSG)

Think for a moment about what the disciples must have been thinking through all of this. Up to this point, they had a certain vision about what would take place. They were with the Messiah, God’s chosen one, who would overthrow the Roman Empire and return Israel to its glory days. They probably hoped that next year there’d be no emperor or occupation – that the reign of God's people would begin. Jesus telling them he was going to leave and then return after a bunch of bad things happened crushed their hopes. They were probably getting a little scared about Jesus being gone and wondering what life would be like for them. Further, he told them just before this that they’d be persecuted for being associated with him. Their hopes for next year were certainly looking a little bit misinformed.

And in today’s reading, Jesus doesn't puff up their emotions. It’s not a Hallmark card meant to build up their hope. He assumes their hope. He takes hope as a constant, for the content of their hope, and ours, is constant. Our hope is that God’s answer to the brokenness of the world is the Son, born as the baby Jesus, who has, once and for all, broken the chains of sin and death and made a way for all of creation to be in relationship with God. This is their hope, it is our hope, and it does not change. In Christ, we hope that next year will be different, will be the year of the kingdom’s coming in full.

Instead of restating this message of hope, Jesus gives the disciples directions for the journey in between now and then. He gives them a seemingly simple charge: “Keep Awake.” He assures them that the coming of the Son of Man will be as unexpected as the floods in the time of Noah. Indeed, it will be so unexpected that people will be caught in the midst of daily activities – harvesting and grinding grain. So what are we to do until that unexpected day? We are to keep awake; we are to be ready. And in this, what we have to carry us through is hope, hope in Christ, who lived and died and rose again so that we might live. So what does such hope look like? How do we keep hope going?

There are two images that Jesus uses that are helpful when thinking about hope. In the next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells another parable about being ready. In it, he uses the image of an oil lamp, similar in function to our oil candles. To burn, they need oil. Some in the parable brought extra. Some did not. Jesus says, Be like the ones who brought extra oil. Be ready. In this, what we can see is that to keep hope burning, especially in the midst of tragedy, sorrow, and brokenness, we must have intentional practices to sustain us.

And this, ties to the second image Jesus uses. He likens having hope to staying awake. How many of you have ever tried to stay up late, especially if you were waiting up for someone? May it was when you were kids at a sleepover. What happened when you tried to stay awake? I always fell asleep. When I was successful in staying awake, I did it by keeping myself busy. To stay awake, to maintain hope, to keep the fires of hope burning, we have to keep active. And for us in the season of Advent, this activity can take many shapes.

Advent was once a season much like Lent in which people added disciplines to their life in an effort to open themselves more to God’s grace. What if we spent these four weeks of Advent developing new practices through which God could fill us with ever more hope? For my part, I’m going to start fasting weekly again – on Thursdays. What is it for you? Do you pray at all? Could you pray more? What about devoting five minutes when you wake and before you go to sleep to pray for God’s guidance, just as a start. What about gift giving? This is a season in which our world goes crazy over ads, and sales, and packages. What if we spent as much time pondering the needs of our neighbors as we do the gifts we’re searching for, for our family members, many of which won’t be that useful or necessary anyway? What if, instead of gifts at all, we give time – time to our friends and family, time to those in need, time to God in prayer, study, and service? Or, what if we give gifts in the form of charitable donations and tithes – to the Global AIDS Fund, to Heifer International, to UMCOR, to the church? After all, we give gifts in honor of the gift of hope we’ve received in Christ. How best can we honor God for that gift?

Through these sorts of practices and others, God fills us with hope that we might indeed be ready for that day when Jesus comes again in glory. And as we are filled with hope, we also have the opportunity to participate with God in bringing hope to others. We can see that in the video about ZOE Ministry in Kenya. And, if you’d like to read two other stories about sharing hope especially related to HIV-AIDS and United Methodists in our area, please take one of these handouts – the stories of Pastor Marta Wheeler (Giltner/Phillips) and Bill Black.

Whether it’s by ringing bells for the Salvation Army, or sending money, or giving gifts to those in need, or spending time with the lonely, we can share God’s hope this Advent season. And as we do, as we keep awake through staying spiritually and physically active, we will find that next year truly will be different, because we will have been instruments of spreading God’s hope – hope of the kingdom, hope of a day without suffering, hope of life with God.

Prayer

2010-10-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've just finished a three-week sermon series on prayer, though you don't know it because I haven't posted my outlines or manuscripts (soon, hopefully).

In the meantime, prayer seems to come up in my life from all directions right now. I just read Ann Voskamp's blog post - Prayer: Why We Struggle and How Not To - which someone had emailed me some time ago. I often find this woman's work to be very inspired and beautiful.

She mentions fixed-time prayer, or praying the hours. You can find more information on this here.

And, perhaps you need, like I do, Nike's "just do it" answer that Ann gives so well. Why do we fail to pray, she asks? Her conclusion is that it's idolatry: we fail to pray because we fall into patterns of life that create idols out of our selves, we live as though our stuff, our interest, our things, our schedules are most important. That's a hard judgment. It seems hard for Ann to make. It seems hard for me to read and then restate. And yet, is there truth in it?

United Methodist Hispanic Ministries

2010-09-02T22:15:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Kansas, the Spanish Boot Camp Center of the Midwest!

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS WARMING OUR HEARTS!

We are emboldened to act in obedience – believing there is SOMETHING MORE…

On August 24-26, in Wichita, KS the first ever –

“HISPANIC-SPICED AND UNITED METHODIST

PASSIONED BOOT CAMP FOR NEW CHURCH

PLANTERS” was celebrated by 32 participants, from 7

different UM conferences. Facilitators Leo and Carmen

Rodríguez, from the “Griffith Coaching Network” led the group

in 11 dynamic, interactive sessions teaching essential

principles for new church starts in the United Methodist

context of Hispanic Ministry.

A powerful Spirit of hope and enthusiasm was present among the

group as they envisioned the future of their respective ministries. A

number of inspirational testimonies were received from persons who

have experienced success in church planting. Some common

messages from God that “rang out” to the group were; 1) “a great

sacrifice will be required of you in order to see this vision fulfilled”,

2) “do not think you have arrived – there is much to learn and do”,

3) “you are not alone in your work”.

The conferences of; Nebraska, Kansas East and Kansas West

served as hosts in this historical event, and were joined by

participants from the Rocky Mountain, Northwest Texas, Texas and

Florida Conferences. Indeed a special bond and sense of team-work

was formed among all participants which crossed conference

boundaries. They emphatically demonstrated the importance of any

work in Hispanic Ministry that conferences employ in the future,

being done in collaboration with one another. Together, facilitators

and participants discovered a greater sense of purpose and calling

for their work of; establishing new Hispanic/Latino congregations

and re-evangelizing our nation for Christ.

A special thanks to Senior Pastor Jeff Gannon and staff at Chapel Hill UMC! Not only did they

go above and beyond with radical hospitality, they did so from a common passion to plant new

churches that reflect the diverse communities they exist to serve!

¡Bendiciones de Cristo!

-- Blessings of Christ!

Ecclesiastes 4:9 (The Message)

“It's better to have a partner than go it alone.

Share the work, share the wealth.

And if one falls down, the other helps,

But if there's no one to help, tough!”

In His Service,

Corey Daniel Godbey

Hispanic Ministry – Kansas West Conference

cordangod@gmail.com -- cell: 620-255-6893

Faith Thoughts Upon Expecting a Birth

2010-08-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

"Thought #65" Great Expectations: 101 Thoughts for the New Mom is a quote from poet William Wordsworth:

Not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.

As I read those words, I remembered a statement by St. Augustine of Hippo who said in Confessions,

God you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.

As we await the birth of the second child God will charge us to nurture and raise, these thoughts are truthful realities. God is, indeed, our home, our rest, and the one in whom we are created to live. The challenge then of parenting, and of leadership in the church, is to create an environment in which children and adults can recognize these truths themselves.

In this, I wonder again about the relationship of teaching and discipling. In some sense, perhaps these two could also be called "instruction" and "mentoring." Where do they overlap? Where do they separate? As I think back upon my own Sunday School experience, I think there was a great deal of teaching with very little mentoring or discipling. Of course, mentoring did happen along the way, yet I don't know that it was in any intentional or methodical way. That being said, it seems like what our youth, our children, and our adults need is both instruction and mentoring, both pursued in an intentional, methodical way. And in this, I wonder one final question: how does a congregation shift from an instruction-centered emphasis to that of a balanced instruction-and-mentoring emphasis?

Fruitful: Being Who God Made Us

2010-08-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

Sermon for 8.22.10 - 13th Lord's Day After Pentecost

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Three weeks ago we began a series of sermons focusing on God’s graciousness and God’s expectation that we be fruitful people who share God’s love through works of justice and holy living. Here’s a quick recap of who we’ve seen God to be in recent weeks. In Hosea 11, we saw God depicted as a loving parent whose children (Israel, and us) have turned away. Yet, God still waits with open arms ready to receive God’s children when they turn back to God. In Isaiah 1, we saw how God made a legal case against the people of Judah (and us), accusing them of being unfaithful to God, failing to do justice, and ignoring the way of holiness. Still, God promises to transform us, making our crimson sins like white snow. In Isaiah 5, last week, we saw God depicted as a Vineyard Owner who planted choice vines and expected an excellent harvest. We are those vines, but instead of yielding good grapes, we bore God wild grapes, grapes that are separate, loose, and unfit for wine.

With these things in mind, it should be clear to us that God expects something of Creation: God created us and expects us to be fruitful, to live lives that bear fruit. For those of us who have spent even a little time in churches, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. And what’s more, we, who believe in and love God, want to live in ways that are pleasing to God. Sometimes, we talk about fruit as our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Often, we talk about fruit in terms of transforming lives or making disciples. And in all this, there’s an obvious desire: we genuinely want to be fruitful. However, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah in the chapters following today’s reading recount that we, with all of God’s people, are frequently unfruitful. We have failed to be as fruitful as God desires. Sometimes we’ve even run away from God, not wanting to do what we know is good or just: like refusing to help those who call out in hunger and need, as I did to people seeking handouts in recent weeks; or from our decreased membership and worship attendance we can see that something is not quite as it should be in terms of fruitfully making disciples of Jesus.

This is our reality as good church people and followers of Jesus. No, we’re not as faithful or fruitful as we know God desires us to be, BUT we do share in God’s desire to bear good fruit, to make disciples, and to love into the kingdom all God’s children – we do. So why then do we struggle with fruitfulness? Today’s reading, in which God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, suggests a few answers to this question, as well as a way toward greater fruitfulness and a fuller relationship with God.

Later in life, God instructed the prophet Jeremiah to write down all that God had told him about God’s people (Jer36.2). And so, today, we hear God’s initial words through Jeremiah. They are familiar and heartwarming words, perhaps the best-known words of Jeremiah. Many of us probably hear these words of God as words to us: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” – set you apart (v.5a). It’s comforting to know that God has always known and cared for us. Yet, it’s the next phrase that catches Jeremiah’s attention: “I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (v.5b). It’s this phrase that prompts Jeremiah’s quick excuse: “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (v.6). It’s as though he’s saying, God, you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m too young for this and I don’t have right skills. At this, we see that Jeremiah was afraid. He found no comfort in God’s initial word of intimacy. He was afraid of being called, afraid of being set apart to proclaim God’s word to the nations, afraid of being called to fruitfulness. He was afraid, because he thought he was inadequate – too young and not a good speaker.

Ah…afraid of being called to fruitfulness; we can relate to that, and it’s these similar fears that limit our fruitfulness for God. We can sum it up like this: God calls us to be fruitful, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ and love into the kingdom all God’s children (Faith’s mission), but we feel, at least at times, inadequate for God’s mission.

Here are two examples from my life. Maybe you can relate to them. First, in my middle years of college, when I first started sensing that God was calling me to be a pastor, I didn’t really want to admit it or accept it. Honestly, I was afraid. And one of the things I was afraid of was of people like you. I’d protest to God: God, how can I be a pastor to people twice my age, or even three times my age? I thought I was too young to be seen as pastor, too young to be taken seriously.

The second example is something more recent. The mission of Faith is to love into the kingdom all God’s children and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. That’s the fruitfulness God calls us to. It’s clear to me, and should be to all of us, that in order for Faith to be fruitful in the future requires that it’s fruitful in its calling now. That is, if this congregation is going to exist to love into the kingdom all God’s children in the year 2030, then we have to be bringing new people into relationship with God and loving into the kingdom God’s children today. As the pastor appointed to serve Grand Island through this congregation, I am especially called to bear fruit in this way – to offer God’s invitation to others, to draw new people into relationship with God in Christ, to make disciples, and to love into the kingdom all God’s children. And once in a while, like Jeremiah, I question if God called the right person: How can I bring new people to you? Where do I meet them? What if I don’t have the gifts necessary to draw others to you? Are you sure you’ve got the right person here?

I share these stories specifically because I suspect that it’s not so uncommon to feel inadequate and mistakenly called. Yet, the reality is that God does call each and every one of us to be in ministry, to be witnesses of God’s kingdom, and to be bearers of God’s love, grace, and justice for the world. To be called by God to bear fruit in the form of making disciples and loving others into the kingdom is, at the same time, both a glorious invitation and a daunting challenge.

Yet, to these struggles and fears, God’s call of Jeremiah is a strong and hopeful message. No sooner could Jeremiah utter his excuses of inferiority and inadequacy than God offered a reassuring rebuke: “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you” (v.8). And this helps us hear God’s first words to Jeremiah for what they are: as reassurance that calms our fears of inadequacy.

Jeremiah felt mistakenly called and inadequate. So too may we feel mistakenly called and inadequate, but this passage bears God’s reassuring message to Jeremiah and to us. It’s as though God says, Don’t be silly. You’re just who I need. God can say this because God knows us fully. God knows Jeremiah and has called the right person, and God knows us too. Before our birth, God had already set us apart for the special work of spreading God’s love and making disciples. God has tailor-made us for the mission of sharing God’s love. What is more, beyond knowing us intimately, God assures Jeremiah and all whom God calls, of God’s continued presence. Finally, in case the promise of God’s presence wasn’t reassuring enough, God continued to give Jeremiah courage by reaching out and putting God’s words in Jeremiah’s mouth. God equipped the one whom God called, which is true still today: God doesn’t call the equipped; God equips the called to be fruitful and faithful.

Now, this message must have been reassuring enough for Jeremiah because the verses following today’s reading recount Jeremiah stepping into his role as God’s prophet. However, perhaps there are some here who are not quite as reassured. That’s okay, after all, God has given us quite a charge – to make disciples of Jesus and love into the kingdom all God’s children. Perhaps what you’re thinking is, If only God would have given me a sign that what God said to Jeremiah was true. Just give me a sign, and then I’ll trust you and get busy with this disciple-making-, loving-into-the-kingdom- thing.

I don’t blame you a bit, and God knew that there would be people who would need such signs (remember: “Before I formed you…I knew you”). For those of us who need signs as assurance that God has called us and also equipped us, God gives us a powerful reminder in the waters of Baptism. In baptism the congregation celebrates the reality that God has always been about the work of drawing creation into closer relationship with God: from the very beginning of creation that there might be someone else to receive God’s love; in saving Noah from the flood and the Israelites from Egypt; and in freeing us all from slavery to sin and death through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. In baptism, the Holy Spirit pours over us with the water as the preacher calls us by our first names. This is no accident. In this act, it is God also calling us by name and saying, I have created you for good works. I know all about you. I cleanse you of all sin. I fill you with my Spirit that you might continue to grow in faithfulness and love. You are my sons and daughters, whom I will always love. You are my dear child, whom I adore, and with whom I will always be.

Need a sign? Need reassurance to calm your fears so that you can be faithful and fruitful? Here’s your sign: this water, this font. When you see water, when you bathe, when you drink, remember that God has said to you as to Jeremiah, Before I formed you, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart for the mission of loving into the kingdom all God’s children and making disciples of Jesus. Don’t worry. Don’t doubt that you can do it. I created you for this work, and I will be with you. You will be fruitful and faithful, for I have put my word in your mouth and my Spirit fills your body. Go, therefore, and be fruitful. Go, and make disciples. Go, and love into the kingdom all my children. You’ve nothing to fear.

United Methodists Address Mosque Conflicts - UMC.org

2010-08-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a little while since I posted a piece on connectional joy and this article caught my attention. Read it and see what you think.

United Methodists address mosque conflicts - UMC.org

I hear a strong beat of hope in this article, even in the midst of turmoil and heartache. I also hear in it a strong challenge to engage in interreligious dialogue and relationships. This is especially challenging to me, because I know the changing cultural landscape of the community in which I live has been difficult to deal with for many here.

And in this, I hear the protests of good and faithful Christians in my community: but how do I engage with people I don't know, who don't speak English well, and who don't seem to want to engage with me? These are challenging questions that come up whenever talk turns to our neighbors from other lands. I'm not sure of the answers, except to say that perhaps the burden of making the first step in relationship rests on someone and it might as well be me (us). As I write that, a line from a familiar hymn comes to mind: "let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me" ("Let There Be Peace on Earth," Sy Miller and Jill Jackson, United Methodist Hymnal, 431). I would like someone else to take the first step in crossing boundaries and building relationships. I would like the awkwardness to be breached by another. But I don't know that that is what I'm called to, or what we Christians living as the witness to God's kingdom are called to.

God's Vineyard

2010-08-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

Sermon for 8.15.10 - 12th Lord's Day After Pentecost

Isaiah 5:1-7

Intro Series:

- God’s gracious character: it’s who God is.

- What it means to be fruitful people of God.

Isaiah’s Parable:

- Last week we read from Isaiah 1, in which he introduced God’s case against the people of Judah and Jerusalem: they had turned away from God and turned away from being who they were called to be – those who seek righteousness and justice.

o In the space between chapter one and today’s reading in chapter five, Isaiah continues to proclaim God’s word of judgment against the people for their sinfulness.

o Those listening to Isaiah through these four chapters have heard a lot of bad news about the destruction of their homes and their lives.

o Isaiah must have known that it’s difficult for people to hear bad news upon bad news, so he begins in what seems to be a different tone. In chapter five, Isaiah begins a parable – a story told to convey truth.

- “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard….”

o This is a traditional line familiar to Isaiah’s audience.

§ At the wine harvest, there’d be a “Song of the Vineyard” in which a woman, speaking of herself, would sing of her love for her beloved, the vineyard owner.

o Isaiah takes this familiar line to help show the people the relationship between God and the people of God.

§ “Let me tell you a story to show you what I mean…” so to speak...

- There once was a vineyard owner, my beloved.

o He did everything that an excellent vineyard owner could do to insure an excellent harvest.

§ Fertile hill

§ Cleared of stones and tilled

§ Choice vines – the best, from seeds or cuttings of great plants.

§ Watchtower in the center for protection and overseeing, as well a hedge for protection.

§ A wine vat in its midst, to use for the harvest.

o He expected and made every preparation to receive an excellent harvest. What does that look like?

- An Excellent Harvest is a time of celebration, joy, and blessing.

o Grape Stomping.

o It was a party. That’s the way they once did it all over the world (7,000 yrs), until 20^th Century laws outlawed it due to sanitary concerns.

- “He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (v2c).

o It’s like the vineyard owner comes out to inspect the crop, expecting to find that all his hard work has paid off, only to find these wild grapes growing from the choice vines he planted.

§ He says, I expected great grapes, and I got these stinking things (another translation of the term used).

o Do you see the difference?

§ Tightly bunched grapes that look full and ripe, versus…

§ Vines of loose, separated grapes.

The Vineyard Owner’s Case: Voice Shift – It’s the Vineyard Owner Speaking

- “And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard” (Is.5:3).

o What more could I have done?

o Why did it yield these stinking things, wild grapes?

- “And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard” (v.5).

o I’ve had it.

o No more hedge or wall for protection.

o It will fend for itself and be overgrown.

Isaiah Interprets the Parable

- “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!” (v.7).

- Justice and Righteousness is always God’s expectation of the people, and it’s always what prophets preach.

o Injustice here:

§ Greed and Selfishness

§ 5:8 – Criticizes the people for joining “house to house” and “field to field,” thereby crowding out smaller farmers and peasants. This made them little more than slaves with no legal recourse, since the ones who controlled the courts were the very same land owners.

§ They increased poverty, rather than caring for the poor.

The Church is God’s Vineyard Too

- God’s case against the vineyard, whether the people of Judah or the Church, is that they were planted for Fruitfulness, but they bore “Wild Grapes” instead of an excellent harvest.

- How has the Church produced “wild grapes” instead of an excellent harvest?

- What fruit does God expect of the Church?

- United Methodist Church – Bearing Good or Wild Grapes?

o Membership and worship decline (for 50 yrs)

§ Membership peaked between the 1960s and 1970s.

§ Average weekly worship attendance has dropped every year since 1968.

§ The percentage of the US population that is United Methodist has dropped every year since the 1960s from 6.5% to 2.6%.

§ We’re closing more churches than we’re opening.

§ And we receive fewer and fewer members by profession of faith.

§ These statistics point to the fact that we are much more like wild grapes than tightly bunched good grapes.

- What God Expects of the Church: Disciples

- UMC Mission: “Make Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World”

o It doesn’t say, “Make members of churches…”

o Yet, those with long memories in Grand Island know about churches with HUGELY inflated membership numbers through the years.

§ If you met the pastor in the street and gave him your name, you were a member.

§ But how does that make disciples?

o Making members is easy, at least in terms of names on rolls.

o Making disciples is harder and takes more time and energy.

§ It’s the difference between…Teaching about God and following God, and focusing on journeying together in a way of life.

· Membership Focus: “A member supports Christ’s ministry by her prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness” and

· Discipleship Focus: “Follow me as I follow Christ. We’ll become like Christ in the process, and God will transform the world through me and you.”

How Do We Bear Good Fruit? The Way Back to Fruitfulness:

- The prophets of the Bible had one basic message: You’ve gone the wrong way away from God and the ways of God. Turn back to God and God will receive you!

- How do we turn back to God? How do we become fruitful again?

o Look at the grapes again.

§ Grapes can’t change from wild to good, but by God’s grace, we can be transformed.

o The way?

§ It’s in the difference between the grapes. To be fruitful is to be tightly clumped together for a specific purpose.

§ For the grapes, that purpose is being awesome to eat and make juice and wine from.

§ For we Christians in the Church, God’s purpose is that we are formed together in a community that spreads God’s love, grace, and justice to others.

- How to become Fruitful: We Draw Together.

o Part of this is drawing together around a common sense of mission.

§ The work of the Discipleship Plan Team.

§ This church needs a clear, articulate Discipleship Plan that we can all look at and agree to.

§ We’ll see it, we’ll read it, and we’ll grow to each be able to say, “This is what we at Faith United Methodist are about: we’re about Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Justice, and Extravagant Generosity.”

§ And then we’ll each be able to say to the grocery store clerk, “And this is what that means…Come and see for yourself.”

- Part of this drawing together is changing the way we live, about having a changed heart and mind about what it means to be the Church.

o It goes against the culture of thinking that being a Christian is a Sunday thing.

§ That’s like wild grapes: decent grapes for critters but separated and too sparse to make anything of.

o Instead, we embrace and live into the reality that following Christ is something we do every day of our lives alongside others by the grace of God.

§ To be fruitful is to be together with one another. The good grapes are bunched together, and together, they’re able to be made into wine, juice, and jam. Bunched together, we can be a blessing to others.

God Welcomes Us Back and Transforms Us into Fruitful People

- I know that in Isaiah 5 the prophet bears God’s exasperated word to the people: I’ve had it with these wild grapes and unfruitful vines! I’m done with them.

- Yet, this is still a love song. That God leads Isaiah to sing it and proclaim this message of judgment to the people shows that God is far from giving up on the people.

- Further, we have seen in recent weeks that God is like a parent who is always ready to receive God’s children, even when they’ve chosen to live estranged from God.

- Further still, in last week’s reading, which Isaiah’s hearers would have remembered, God promises to transform their sinfulness into holiness, to make their sin-filled, crimson lives holy and clean like snow.

- The parable of God’s vineyard shows us, without a doubt that God expects the Church, and all God’s people, to be fruitful, yet it also shows us that God is always ready to receive us and transform us into that which God created us to be.

The Case of God vs. God’s People

2010-08-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sermon for 8.8.10 - 11th Lord's Day After Pentecost

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Last week we read from Hosea 11 and were reminded about God’s graciousness, which Hosea described as being like a parent always seeking to welcome back children who have gone astray. We also pondered ways that we, like the people of Israel, turn away from God. This week, and for the next three weeks, we’ll continue to look closely at God’s graciousness in spite of our sinfulness, and how God’s grace enables us to be fruitful and faithful children of God.

With this in mind, let us turn to the opening chapter of the prophet Isaiah. In verse 18, God offers an invitation to the people of Judah, to whom Isaiah is a prophet. God says, “Come now, let us argue it out.” To me, this entire chapter sounds like a legal battle in which God makes a case against the people of Judah, and all who follow in their footsteps. So, as we consider God’s message from Isaiah I invite you to imagine you’re sitting not so much in a church as in a courtroom with opposing counsels ready to make their opening arguments.

From the second verse of chapter one, God is making God’s case, calling to the heavens and earth to serve as witnesses: “Hear, O heavens, and listen O earth; for the LORD has spoken: I reared children and brought them up but they have rebelled against me” (v.2). Indeed, this rebellion is so serious that God refers to the people of Judah as “rulers of Sodom” and “people of Gomorrah” in verse 10. Now, I probably don’t need to remind you that Sodom and Gomorrah were cities famous for their wickedness (see Gen18-19). To be lumped together with these cities was a terrible insult and judgment against Judah and its capital, Jerusalem.

I. From these opening accusations, God turns on the heat, directed squarely at Judah’s worship practices. “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough…” of your burnt offerings, blood offerings, and incense (v.11). Indeed, God considers their worship practices to be nothing more than trampling God’s courts and tells them to give it up: “[Bringing] offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. […] I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me” (v.12b-14).

From all this, it sounds like God’s case is about worship particularly, as though the people of Judah are doing something wrong in the ritual acts. But verses 15-17 get at the true heart of God’s case against Judah: they have bloody hands, which makes their worship untruthful. They are dirtied with sin and injustice. They do evil, avoid good, ignore the oppressed, and fail to defend the orphans and widows. This is why God refers to the people as Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 10, for, according to Ezekiel 16:49, the guilt of these cities was that “[they] had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” This is why God turns from prosecution to recommendations for right conduct. “Wash yourselves,” God says, “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (v.16-17). The heart of God’s case isn’t a technical critique of Judah’s worship practices, it’s that God sees and knows that the people are not being faithful. They’ve turned away from God and the life God called them to. As a result, their worship is tainted, indeed, God doesn’t even consider it true worship.

Were this an actual legal case, the defendant, Judah, would have an opportunity at this point to make a rebuttal or a counter-argument in hopes of proving its innocence. Yet, Isaiah doesn’t record one here, probably because there’s no case to be made. After all, the one bringing the case is God, the Holy One of Israel and Creator of All That Is. Instead of searching for opposing arguments and justifications, as we read this text and hear God’s case against Judah and Jerusalem, we ought to hear God’s case against Judah for what it truly is: this is God’s case against an unfaithful and fallen creation – God’s case against us.

II. In this, it might be tempting to think that God’s case against us has something to do with our specific worship practices: Oh, they didn’t just sing that song again! or Who asked them to pray like that?! Yet, to focus on the specific parts of our worship practices misses the point. God, in Isaiah, is not critiquing our worship practices so much as God is calling us to account for the ways we have at times failed to connect what we say we are in worship with who we are in the rest of our lives. In the words of musician Matt Papa, God is calling us to “stop going to church and start being the Church,” which he writes in reference to his song, “To the Least of These.” The chorus of that song sings boldly, “I will love you Lord with all my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength. And so I’ll love the ones you love. Now I’m taking up my cross for you, obeying your commands. I want my worship to be true, ‘cause when I’m loving them, I’m loving you.”

God’s case against us is the same as God’s case against the people of Judah, which we are reminded of in our communal confession, which we so often say in worship (UMH, 8): “We confess that we have not loved you with our whole hearts. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy.” What does this confession mean? What does it mean that God accuses us, and that we, in confessing, readily admit to having bloody hands, so to speak? In pondering these questions, it’s not at all helpful for one in the pulpit to point out a list of sins and ways we have fallen short. Instead, I’ll share two stories.

The first story is about caring for widows. Throughout middle school and high school I mowed lawns. One woman I mowed for was named Blanche. At the time, I thought she was the crotchety-est, grumpiest old woman who had ever lived. She was nagging. She was mean. I dreaded her phone calls. Even my mom grew to dread her calls. She didn’t water much, so as the summers wore on, I’d mow more and more infrequently, which aggravated her desire for consistency. But had I really cared for Blanche, I would have known that what it really did was leave her alone that much longer between mowings. She was lonely. This should have been especially clear from the way she always compared me to the last person who had mowed her lawn. She told me how he always came to do odd jobs for her and seemed to always be doing little things for her. He was around. Looking back, with all her incessant nagging, griping, and comparisons to the other guy, it’s easy to see she was just crying out for attention and company. Yet, I only let those things build up a wall between us. I mowed for her and got out as quickly as possible after she signed my timesheet, saving my time to spend with other customers who were nicer and friendlier.

The second story is about justice. While in seminary I met some Northwestern University students who had gone on a mission experience in Guatemala the year before. They shared about getting to know independent coffee farmers, whose crops were sold to Fair Trade organizations, and about other coffee growers who sold their crops to major coffee producers in North America.

One major difference between the two small coffee growers is the way they grow their coffee. Large, American coffee companies profit from buying the most product for the lowest cost. This encourages the farmers to grow as much coffee as possible by cutting down rainforests to make room for more plants and using lots of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which cause significant pollution. On the other hand, those selling to Fair Trade organizations are required to emphasize stewardship and conservation. If they’re not organic, they’re at least using alternative forms of fertilizer. They typically value shade-grown coffee, which eliminates deforestation and creates vital habitat for native bird populations.

The other big difference between the two small coffee farmers has to do with how much they’re paid and the sense of value and ownership that results. Those selling to large corporations are paid significantly less than those selling to Fair Trade organizations. This is largely due to the increased amount of people involved, all getting their cut of the profits. Let’s start backwards with each of us buying a similar cup of coffee for a similar price. If I buy coffee in plastic tubs, my money is divided between the coffee distributor, the coffee company, the U.S. broker, the processor/exporter, and the purchaser who buys the coffee from the farmer. Whereas, if I buy my Fair Trade coffee from Marise at cost, I pay the Fair Trade company, who pays the farmer co-operative in Guatemala, who pays the farmer. In all this, the point is raising one farmer’s standard of living and sense of ownership over his work, or supporting a system that treats coffee growers as little more than slaves or indentured servants without any sense of pride in his work. For me, purchasing Fair Trade coffee is a very small step that reminds me of God’s call to care for others and creation through the purchases I make.

III. Hopefully, these two examples will help us all to think about ways that we are complicit in systems that oppress others unjustly, or ways that we fail to care for others in our midst. What we must see is that the case God makes against Judah is the same case God makes against us. If our daily living does not reflect who we believe we are called to be while in worship, our worship is untruthful. Yet, just as God’s case against us is the same, so too is God’s word of grace the same for us this day as it was for the people of Judah.

After making God’s case in verses 10-17, God switches roles in the courtroom scene and takes the seat of judge and arbiter, the one who decides the case. God says, “[Though] your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (v18). As we heard last week from Hosea, God is still willing to take God’s sinful children back into God’s home. This is true for the people of Judah and it’s true for us today. God, as judge, says there’s still a way to live into the fullness of life with God. God will transform our sinfulness and disobedience into faithfulness that we might be empowered to do good, avoid evil, and share God’s grace and justice to others.

God challenges God’s people of every age to live in ways that ring true with their worship. God’s offer is still on the table. Though God has leveled an airtight case against Judah, and against all of Creation, God stands as judge ready to commute the sentence and instead work transformation in the lives of God’s people. We don’t have to feel guilty about sinfulness. We don’t have to continue pleading for mercy. Mercy is already offered; grace is already here. God simply calls us to live in ways that God created us to be, ways in which worship and justice go hand in hand. God graciously forgives us so that we can live faithfully, seeking justice, doing good, avoiding evil, and standing up for those who are beaten down.

Parenting and Disciple-Making

2010-08-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

On my desk I have one of those little flip-easel books called Great Expectations: 101 Thoughts for the New Mom. I don't know how it made it to my desk rather than my wife's, but in that, I digress.

In procrastinating other work tonight I read Thought #36 by Dean Inge: "The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he is born." And my first thought is..."OH MAN, I shouldn't have procrastinated on this one!" Well, in all honesty, that was my second thought, coming after, "This says something about parenting and discipleship."

Earlier tonight I had the joy of watching the church's Vacation Bible School program, after which I attempted to invite the children's parents into further relationship with me, with the church, and with God. I think I utterly failed at making that invitation. Who knew it could be so hard to talk to a crowd of parents and grandparents with a large group of kids on the chancel anxious for cookies and ice cream? Anyway, what I wanted to say to the adults is that the best hope for raising children who are well-adjusted, faithful children is to be models of who we know God desires them to become.

I am firmly convinced of this truth and Dean Inge seems to be getting at the same thing. While we often focus our energy on providing the best programs, teachers, activities, and schools for our children, the most important thing for raising children well seems to be surrounding them with people who model well who we want them to become. I'm sure there are many children who grow up to be fine adults even while lacking such adult figures in their lives. Yet, here, I don't think the exception is the rule.

This makes me wonder about the North American church's method of disciple-making and child rearing. Is Sunday School what makes faithful disciples? I'm not sure. Certainly, it can play a role. But maybe, it's Sunday School teachers who make the bigger difference. A few recent testimonies during a celebration of the church's heritage seem to confirm this. No one stood and said they remembered the lessons of childhood Sunday School sixty years ago; however, many stood and named Sunday School teachers as powerful influences in their lives as Christians, influences that have continued to impact the way they live and worship.

Instead of whatever vague invitation to let the church help them raise their children I mustered amidst the cookie-lust, what I should have said is this:

Come, and follow Christ with me in the church.

Come, and show your children that true life is about growing in Christ-likeness through intentional prayer, fellowship, service, worship, and study.

Come, and together God will form us into the mentors, models, and parents our children need to become faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

May God forgive me for being unable to say what ought to have been said. And may God lead the adults I spoke to tonight to hear the truth that God was trying to speak through this broken vessel.

God: The Loving Parent

2010-08-01T21:44:00.001-07:00

Sermon for August 1, 2010 - 10th Lord's Day After Pentecost
Hosea 11:1-11

Intro: Parent in anguish over disobedient, unfaithful, even intentionally absent child.

- Image: going through picture books, or seeing pictures of the absent loved one on the walls.

o Remembering the parenting, the upbringing, the love, the promise. And feeling the pain of the child’s absence.

TiB: This anguish is God’s anguish expressed in Hosea.

- God remembers bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt and promising to be their one, true God.

o But the people turned away and toward other gods (Baals).

o This happened in Israel.

- But God remembers being a nurturing parent.

o Teaching them to walk

o Taking them up in God’s arms

o Healing them

o Leading them with kindness and love.

o Lifting them to God’s cheeks.

o Bending down to them and feeding them.

- But the people turned away. In fact ran away.

o They also turned to other protectors – not God of Israel, but Assyrian, Aram, and Egypt.

o Changes of alliances: first Aram, then Assyria, then Egypt when they broke from Assyria and needed protection from them.

o And threat of hostile takeover and destruction is looming. Aram has already been destroyed by Assyria.

- The people call to God, but not out of true faithfulness. And so God doesn’t raise them up. (v.7).

- God, as parent continues to call out to God’s children, but they continue to turn away.

TiW: Doesn’t God still anguish at us and at our world when we turn away?

- God is still the one who brought us out of slavery to sin and death (we say in our prayers of Great Thanksgiving and remember at Baptisms).

o But we too turn away from God.

o But it was difficult for the people of Israel to see where they were turning away from God – that’s why there were prophets to help people remain faithful or return to faithfulness when their errors were made apparent.

o So too is it difficult to see as we do it, the everyday ways that we turn away from God.

- Here are a few ways I notice easy temptations to turn away from God. These are ones I struggle with. Maybe you’ll relate to them.

o Absence of intentional, discipleship accountability groups.

§ Methodism was founded on them. Disciples were formed and made holier through them. But it’s a challenge to make these relationships or commit to them these days.

§ And in their place, we turn to relationships that offer no accountability. In fact, we shun accountability at all, under the guise of decorum, saying, “It’s impolite to bring up another’s shortcomings.”

o Absence of Daily prayer and Scripture reading.

§ In theory, the importance of daily prayer and scripture reading practices would seem like a no-brainer for Christians.

· Growing more like Christ, becoming more godly, requires that we spend time with God and getting to know what God is like. This, we do through prayer and scripture study.

§ Instead, it truly is all too easy to find anything else to fill our lives with. We let prayer and scripture slip one day, in favor of a quicker path out the door in the morning. Then we cut another day for a bit more time relaxing with family. Before long, we realize we’re not praying with God at all, not communing with God, not reading, not learning, not growing in Christ-likeness.

§ And the same could be said for the practice of corporate worship. Most everyone I talk to who is or was a member of a church but isn’t attending worship says something like, “We just got out of the habit.”

§ We find other things to fill our time and spend our energy on. But it is turning away nonetheless.

- The prophet’s message to the people of Israel was, “WHOA! You’ve strayed from the path and are worshipping other gods. Turn back to God!”

o Today, the prophet’s message must still be heard as truth: we have turned from God and toward ourselves in ways both little and big, but in ways that eventually will lead us completely away from God.

- Yet, the even greater message of Hosea’s specific prophecy is that God is gracious, compassionate, and waiting for the children of God to turn back to God. God still remembers being the one who nurtures us, guides us, and provides for us.

GiB and World:

- God’s internal monologue – a glimpse into the heart and character of God.

o ^“8How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.”

o That is, God is asking, How can I give you up? How can I let this destruction happen, even though you’ve been unfaithful and turned away from me? How can I make you like Admah and Zeboiim, cities destined for destruction like Sodom and Gomorrah?

o God is asking these questions through the prophet, though God already knows the answers. He’s asking them in a way that allows all the people to overhear, so to speak, so that we can come to realize a little more clearly who God is.

- God answers God’s own question: I won’t. I will not act on anger, even though they deserve to be punished for being unfaithful. I can’t, because I am God. I’m not a mortal who is whipped around by emotions and who holds grudges like a mortal. I am God…the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to wrath.

o Sometimes people talk about God as two separate gods: the angry God and the loving God. But it’s not so. The God revealed in Scripture and in Christ is one God.

o God is God, and every bit of God is gracious and loving, even while still being angry at the unfaithfulness of the children of God.

- “They shall go after the LORD, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west. They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the LORD” (v.10-11).

o What a promise! In spite of unfaithfulness and turning away from God, God still promises to bring all God’s children home together.

o And when this future day happens in full, it will come with such loudness and clarity that all will recognize God’s voice and the true direction of life.

Mission:

- Hosea’s prophecy and vision into God’s character and memory doesn’t say any of this hinges on us. God’s graciousness doesn’t depend on Israel’s or our own repentance and turn to God.

- God is gracious and compassionate. God is not wrathful. We don’t manipulate God into being gracious. That’s just who God is.

- But when God roars in our midst, when prophets and preachers proclaim God’s graciousness, all of creation turns and runs to God.

- It’s like the image of the child, whom God taught to walk.

o Knowing he’s done wrong and gone far from his parent, he comes running back into the open arms of God, ready to be scooped up again and loved on.

o And he does so trembling for he knows he’s been unfaithful. And yet he runs all the same.

- So too, must we run. Not as a way of convincing God to pick us up, but as a response to God’s promise that God will always pick us up, hug us close, and whisper, It’s okay. You’re home now. Mama loves you.

Celebrating God's Activity at Faith UMC

2010-08-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

This is an outline of my testimony during worship on July 25, 2010. I began by saying that it was much more testimony than it was sermon, since it didn't deal much with any of the scriptures read. It was during a service with extra singing and congregational testimonies, which we called "Songs and Stories of God's Activity."

Background:

In the last week of our sermon, prayer, and conversation series, I asked a question that got many of us thinking during the conversation. We were talking about extravagant generosity and how it’s a response of the heart and will to what God is doing in our midst. So I asked, essentially, “How have we seen God active in our lives through the life and ministry of Faith United Methodist Church?”

- The tables didn’t exactly buzz with conversation, but each table was able to think of ways they had seen God active in the life of Faith and had experienced God’s grace.

- But, as Karleen Beckman noted, almost all of the things people noted about experiencing God’s grace and seeing God at work were things of the past – sometimes the distant past.

- Others agreed or nodded silently, recognizing that this was a problem in the life of our congregation.

- We, as those in Christ, have experienced God’s grace, but it’s not just a past-tense thing. God is always active in our midst. Sometimes, for many reasons, we just lose sight of God’s activity, or our God-vision seems to get out of whack.

- This is a serious spiritual problem that affects everything about our lives as the church.

o Without being able to see and name God’s activity, our worship grows flat and heartless.

o With flat and heartless worship, visitors don’t bother coming back.

o Without visitors and newly committed disciples, we lose the opportunity to grow from new relationships of disciple-making and the experiences of others.

o Without disciple-making, we get stuck in a rut of doing the same things with a little less passion and zeal than when our faith was on fire.

o And as we get stuck in the ruts, our life as the church becomes stagnant. We further lose sight of God’s activity. And we eventually find that there’s no one left to turn out the lights for the last time.

- Yet, while being able to see and celebrate God’s activity is a spiritual ailment, it’s not so difficult to overcome. The remedy for decreased God-vision involves at least two easy steps:

o 1) we look at life more closely, pleading with God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear; and

o 2) we get to celebrating all that we can see, so that others can see God too.

Read together Psalm 85 (pg 806)

Let’s Get to Celebrating God’s Activity in the Present Life of Faith UMC

- Congregational Conversations

- Daily Prayers

- Women of Faith – small group meeting on Monday nights (see Sharon S. or Dee)

- Young Mom’s Group – meeting every other Tuesday (see Susan Albers or Sarah Fowler)

- Discipleship Plan Team

- Faith Sewers making quilts for the Habitat house; making bags for school kits; and making hospital gowns for children.

- Habitat House

- The women who made food for the Habitat builders.

- Layla Ford saying “God, we know you love us.”

- Pablo, Bruce, Sharon, Jim, Garry, Keith, and others who made the screen happen – a vision for proclaiming the gospel in multiple media formats so people with different needs can participate in worship.

- Doyle leading prayers.

- The women who make funeral dinners for families regardless of church affiliation.

- The memorials used for the screen, for the Emmanuel Church reunion, and the coffee pots.

- The fix-it people who work behind the scenes to make everything happen here – the projector stand, plumbing, the A/C and heat, the sprinklers and lawn, and the painted walls.

- Ministerio de Fe – enabling Faith to reach out further into the community to people we don’t have the gifts and resources to proclaim the gospel to; challenging the prejudices of our upbringing; and opening our eyes to the lives of others in our community and around the world.

- The Confirmands and new members – and their mentors/sponsors.

- Anniversaries – how many have been married over 25 years in this congregation?

Wrapping it Up:

- Rejoicing in God’s activity, and sharing the good news of God’s grace in our lives is what we’re called to do as Christians.

o Sharing stories of God’s activity and worshipping God for it is how we grow spiritually and how we draw others into relationship with God in Christ.

o This is what being followers of Christ means.

- But to share the stories and rejoice in God’s activity requires that we can see God, and this ability is cultivated through intentional practices of looking for God.

o This is why Paul urges Christians of Colossae, and all later readers of his letter, saying, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col.2:6-7).

o To be “rooted and built up in him” is to spend intentional time in prayer and Bible study, daily.

o Jesus continues with the importance of seeking God intentionally in our gospel reading saying, “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. […] If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lu 11:9, 13).

- God is at work in our midst, and we rejoice. Let us together commit to practices of prayer, study, and testimony that will enable us to see God more clearly, love God more dearly, and follow God more nearly.

‘Theology Pubs’ mix faith, fellowship - UMC.org

2010-07-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

‘Theology Pubs’ mix faith, fellowship - UMC.org

Here's an article about churches stepping outside their comfort zones, especially considering Methodism's historic position on alcohol. There may be some theological/ethical pros and cons, but it is at least intriguing.

What Extravagant Generosity Looks Like

2010-07-10T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sermon for 7.11.10 - 7th Lord's Day After Pentecost
Luke 10:25-37

Intro on the Series: Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations (Bishop Schnase)

We invite and welcome others into relationship with the church with Radical Hospitality because God has welcomed us. Through Passionate Worship, God transforms us and satisfies our hunger for relationship with God. Through Intentional Faith Development, God grows disciples in the setting of small groups to be ever more like Christ. Through Risk-Taking Mission and Service, God seeks to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven in our work, service, prayer, and relationships with those in need. And finally, today, we focus on how, in cultivating the practice of Extravagant Generosity, God transforms our hearts and minds, enables us to place God and following God first in our lives, and propels us into ever greater ministry in Christ.

Today’s passage from Luke – the Parable of the Good Samaritan – is a familiar one ripe with insights into Christian faith and living, including a powerful example of what it means to love God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves (Lu10.27). Bishop Schanse says that fruitful, growing, vibrant, and faithful churches practice Extravagant Generosity. What we must consider today is this: “Fine, Bishop. You’re right, but what does Extravagant Generosity look like?” And so, with this question in mind, let’s turn our attention to the parable itself, and what Jesus shows us about Extravagant Generosity through it.

The Good Samaritan’s Generosity

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one that most of us know. It’s so common that we have “Good Samaritan” laws to protect from lawsuits people who help others. A man going from Jerusalem, which suggests he’s a Jewish man, is attacked by robbers and left for dead on the dangerous road to Jericho. Separately, a priest and a Levite, both fellow Jews, saw the man heaped in the ditch (perhaps he was moaning) and gave him a wide berth as they passed on by. Why they didn’t stop, we don’t know. Some speculate that it was because they didn’t want to defile themselves with another’s blood, as directed by the Law. At the very least, they act in a way that is decidedly un-neighborly.

Then a Samaritan man sees the man left for dead in the ditch and comes to his aid. He’s moved by compassion for the other. By the man’s dress it’s likely that the Samaritan knew he was helping a Jewish man, but he didn’t let the centuries-long animosity between Jews and Samaritans stop him from seeing the man’s need and offering assistance. The Samaritan treats the man’s wounds, loads him on his own animal. He takes him into town and continues to care for him through the day and night at an inn. Then, he gives the innkeeper two denarii (probably about two-days’ wages for a laborer), instructing him to continue caring for him and assuring him that he’ll come back and repay the innkeeper for the man’s care beyond this amount.

Extravagant Generosity looks like the Samaritan caring for the Jewish victim. Simple generosity might have gone as far as to take what he had on him – the wine, oil, and bandages – to help the victim. It might even have gone as far as taking him to the innkeeper for help. But the Samaritan goes further, paying the innkeeper two days’ wages and promising more if the man’s care called for it. This is certainly an extravagant act of compassion and generosity. The Samaritan couldn’t have expected anything in return, any sort of repayment. In fact, it’s quite likely that he never expected to see the man again. He gave of himself and his resources for the benefit of another. He planted a seed knowing that he would not be the one who would reap the harvest and benefit from his sacrifice and generosity.

Why’d the Samaritan Do This?

As we read this passage, one of the questions I wondered was, “What’s the reason for his extravagant generosity?” Jesus doesn’t tell us that explicitly, but he seems to imply the reason. The Samaritan acts with extravagant generosity for another because he knows what it means to love God with all of his being and love his neighbor as himself. (A quick historical aside: traditionally, it’s believed that the Jewish and Samaritan people both claimed to worship the same God.)

So, why did the Samaritan act this way? Because he loved God and knew that loving God meant that he was called to love his neighbor as himself. The Samaritan was extravagantly generous because he knew God to be generous. God was the one who brought his people out of bondage in Egypt. God was the one who caused the rains to fall and the sun to shine. God was the one who spoke through the prophets and enabled the people to be in relationship with God and one another. God enabled the Samaritan to give of himself for the care of the Jewish victim as a response to God’s love for him, and for all people. And in the Samaritan’s care, the victim experienced the love of God.

What does Extravagant Generosity Look Like Today?

In thinking about Extravagant Generosity and the Good Samaritan, it’s easy to boil the parable down to a simple moral: when you see others in need, help them even if it costs you. While this might be a good moral, it’s still awfully vague. Bishop Schnase, in both the Five Practices book and the devotional Cultivating Fruitfulness, offers a story that takes the extravagant generosity of the Samaritan and places it closer to home.

Bishop Schnase tells this story. There was a long-time church member present for the celebration of his granddaughter’s baptism. A new family in church also celebrated the baptism of their son. After the service, both families were mingling around the front of the church taking pictures. At one point the grandfather offered to hold the child of the other family while the mother got something out of her bag. Other church members came by and commented on the grandfather holding the baby, to which he replied, “Oh, this one isn’t mine; I’m just holding him for a minute.”

The next morning the pastor received a phone call from this grandfather asking to meet with him right away. “Was he upset about something?” the pastor wondered. In a way, he was. When the grandfather came in, he told the pastor that he wanted to change his will to include the church and he wanted to know how to do that. Stunned, the pastor asked what brought about this decision. And this is what the grandfather said to the pastor, according to Bishop Schnase:

Yesterday I realized something while I was holding that other baby, the one from the family that just joined the church. I kept telling people that wasn’t my child, but then it dawned on me that it was part of my family, my church family, and that I have a responsibility for that little boy just like I have for my own granddaughter. I’ve been a member of this church for more than forty years, and in God’s eyes I’m a grandfather to more than just my own. I’ve taken care of my own children in my will, but I realized I also need to provide for the children of the church. So I want to divide my estate to leave a part to the church as if the church were one of my children. (107-108)

In conclusion, Bishop Schanse says, “Those who practice Extravagant Generosity have a God-given vision and faith to plant seeds for trees whose shade they will never see” (108). In this grandfather’s story, we can see the generosity of the Samaritan, and also the generosity of God. God enabled this man to give of himself so that others can experience God’s love.

What does Extravagant Generosity Look like for Us?

Extravagant Generosity like this is not something we do out of some sense of duty, but rather, it is a response to the needs of others out of gratefulness for what God has done for us. God enables us to give of ourselves – and especially with our money – so that others can experience God’s love. One of the ways that we have to participate in the ministry of Christ is by our offering. Each week, we have the joyous opportunity to give a portion of the money God has entrusted us with to be used for the ministry of Christ locally and globally.

The challenge is that God calls for us to tithe, to offer a tenth of whatever our income is, to the ministry of Christ, and to do so from the first-fruits, as opposed to whatever’s left over at the end of the month. Now, I know that tithing can be a challenge, but we’ve heard a testimony today of the way it has been a source of growth and joy for one family at Faith. If you’re not tithing now, I encourage you to think seriously about why not, and how God might be leading you to take steps toward tithing. You can go all in if you want, but I’d suggest starting with a smaller step if you have to. Figure out how much you give each week for the ministry of Christ now. Take that number and divide it by your weekly income and move the decimal over two spaces. That’s a percentage. Then, considering ways that you can increase your percentage of giving each year until you reach ten percent. Then see where else God might be leading you. Perhaps it’s to be like the grandfather and designate a portion of your estate to go to the ministry of Christ through the church. If so, I can certainly help you in that process. I am absolutely sure that Terry’s story is not one that he alone can tell. It can be all our stories. It is our story. Through the practice of Extravagant Generosity, through giving of ourselves like the Samaritan, God slowly changes our hearts and minds and opens us to greater faithfulness. God enables us to give of ourselves so that others, maybe years down the line even, can experience God’s grace.

Interfaith Relationships

2010-07-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of being United Methodist is that we are a connectional church that spans the globe. This enables us as a denomination to be in relationship and service with people from all over the world in ways that we could not as individual, local churches. The Nebraska Annual Conference calls this "Connectional Joy."

The difficult thing about connectional joy, or feeling connected to the larger body of the United Methodist Church is that it's all too easy to grow preoccupied with life in our local congregations. I realized this clearly recently when a member of the church I serve attended the ordination worship service at Annual Conference (in which I was ordained an elder). She told me afterwards that it was one of the biggest ways that she's experienced the joy of the United Methodist connection (and this is a very active and faithful woman and leader in the congregation). She mentioned that she saw the connection in the way there were lay people like herself, clergy, her own pastor, her district superintendent, and United Methodist Bishops all participating in worship together.

That experience has challenged me to share moments of connectional joy, ways of lifting up and celebrating Christ's ministry through our connections with other churches and people around the world. One way that I'm doing this is by receiving weekly news feeds in my email from the United Methodist News Service (click here to subscribe yourself).

Tonight, I read about the United Methodist Church's work with Muslims in America and elsewhere around the world. It was a very interesting and exciting article. It's thrilling to know that through our connection, we can lift up ways of seeing humanity in others different from ourselves, and together, that we can reach out in common service for others.

Bishop Willimon on Children's Sermons

2010-07-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

I can't say anything else right now on this. Bishop Willimon has said it all more graciously than I could hope to.

Sunday School

2010-07-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

As often happens on Thursday when I intend to read broadly for sermon preparation, I came across something wholly off-topic that caught my attention.

Today, it was Debra Bendis' article "Back to Sunday School?" In it, she shares a friend's lament about Sunday School that goes far deeper than curriculum or leaders. The truth is, which Bendis notes so well, is that there are so many things that vie for our time, energy, and commitment. In my visits with young families (and some not-so-young) I have seen and heard this firsthand.

There are many questions and answers seem to be in short supply sometimes, yet the overall question, which demands an answer is this: How do we as good Christian people live into the promises we make at children's baptisms to nurture, love, care for, lead, disciple, and guide to confession of faith for themselves?

This question gets at the root of Christ's mission in and for the world through the church. As such, it seems also to be an integral question to ask ourselves regularly.

And, on a slightly different note, but on the topic of Sunday School, I ran across this website of free Sunday School curriculum based on the liturgical year. http://storiesontheway.wordpress.com/ I haven't looked at it much, but it seemed interested and well-founded.

UM4GI

2010-07-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

Newsletter Article for July

Many of you have heard murmurings about a new group in the midst of United Methodists in Grand Island, a group called the GI-UM Strategy Task Force but more simply called UM4GI – United Methodists for Grand Island. This team has met twice, most recently with the Rev. Bill Selby as a consultant.

We started meeting at the invitation of the pastors because we believe we can be better pastors – and each congregation can be more faithful to Christ – together. This does not mean we must be one church; rather, it recognizes that we are already one United Methodist Church and three congregations in and for Grand Island.

Some of What We’ve Learned Thus Far:

Already, we’ve learned a great deal together, all with the hope that we can more faithfully be witnesses of Christ and the kingdom of God.

Our three churches face similar challenges in Christ’s ministry in a Grand Island that is quickly changing – and which has already changed much from the Grand Island of our memory.
Where we are is where we need to be.
The solution to our problems is within our midst.
The God of the good ole days is the same as the God of the new day (today).
We need more people involved in UM4GI if the team is going to have any part in helping our three churches be more faithful.

In this last learning, please hear an invitation: if you believe God has more work to do in Grand Island through the United Methodist Church, please consider being a part of UM4GI. The next meeting of UM4GI is Sunday, July 25^th at First UMC from 5:30 to 7:30. Please let your pastor know if you plan to attend so that we can plan to feed you.

Next Steps in the Conversation of UM4GI:

Three UM churches working together in this way is uncharted water for all of us. We’re relying on the Spirit’s guidance and wisdom as we seek ways to grow, change, and be faithful in Christ. These are a few of the next questions we hope to entertain:

What change do we want to see in the United Methodist witness for Christ in Grand Island?
How does UM4GI embody that change, and how do we lead our congregations?
What are the mission and vision of UM4GI?

For those interested in participating in the conversation, please contact your pastor. If you know someone you think is perfect for this ministry, please encourage him/her and direct your pastor to them. And please, above all, pray for God to be at work through the process of UM4GI, that we might all grow in the faith, love, and knowledge of God.

Devoting Ourselves to Prayer

2010-07-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

Newsletter Article for June (sorry I forgot to post it earlier).

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

In preparing for preaching in recent weeks, I noticed something I’ve not before: the Day of Pentecost is bookended by the followers of Jesus “devoting themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14). This is what they do in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension before the gift of the Holy Spirit for the church. This is what they do immediately after the Holy Spirit rushes in with divided tongues of fire and the gift of communicating the gospel to all gathered there. As I’ve read these passages, the lesson I’ve heard is that devoting ourselves to prayer is the proper response to something huge happening, and the practice that paves the way for something else huge to happen.

From June 7^th through July 11^th, Faith UMC will be devoting herself to prayer using Bishop Robert Schnase’s daily devotional Cultivating Fruitfulness. If you’ve ordered a book, please be sure to pick it up at the church office. If you’d like one but didn’t order one, there are a few extras in the office. In this way, you can each be praying and pondering the theme of the upcoming Sunday’s sermon (beginning on June 13^th). Further, please plan to stay at church until noon each week, because we’re organizing congregational conversations led by Pastor Matt and others (perhaps even a few “experts”).

Remembering the witness of Acts 2-3, we might ask, “So what has happened at Faith UMC that calls us to such devotion?” Answer: God continues to proclaim life in our midst in the Son through the Spirit, and God is inspiring hope and joy that is slowly casting out fear.

Again, remembering that the disciples’ devotion to prayer led to something big, we might also ask, “So what is God going to do in our midst at Faith as a result of this praying?” Answer: I don’t know, but I’m sure it will be for the glory of God and the building up of the Body of Christ for the transformation of the world.

As a congregation, we are devoting ourselves to daily prayer on common themes because we believe that God has already acted mightily in our midst, and that God will graciously respond to such devotion. Through this series of prayer, proclamation, and conversation, we invite God into the life of Faith UMC, that we might be transformed, inspired, and energized for the mission of loving into the kingdom all God’s children.

Sent Out for Others

2010-07-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

Sermon for July 4, 2010 - 6th Lord's Day After Pentecost
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

First, a quick recap: today is the fourth week of our five-week series focusing on the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Bishop Robert Schnase. Many of you have been reading, praying, and pondering the practices as we’ve gone along, and we’ve had very interesting and exciting congregational conversations after each worship service – today we have a special guest to lead us, Lisa Maupin from United Methodist Ministries in Omaha. On the first week we focused on Radical Hospitality and extending God’s invitation of relationship to others in ways that stretch us. Next, we focused on Passionate Worship and how worship is a time, place, and way of life through which God meets us to satisfy our thirst for relationship with God. Last week we focused on the practice of Intentional Faith Development – how we seek to follow Christ, to learn from him, and to be like him through small groups. Next week we’ll focus on Extravagant Generosity. And today, we turn our attention to the way Jesus modeled and sends us out in Risk-Taking Mission and Service for others.

As we turn our attention to Risk-Taking Mission and Service, let us think back to the Children’s Sermon and our theme song for these five weeks: “Follow You” by Leeland Mooring – the lyrics are in your bulletins. This is a song about being characterized by the practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service, a practice that each and every follower of Christ is called to.

In Leeland’s song, we see first that the call to Risk-Taking Mission and Service is not something we Christians do just because there are people in need. Followers of Christ engage in Risk-Taking Mission and Service because that’s how Jesus lived everyday – “among…the weary and weak” – and to follow Jesus is to be like him and live like him. As the song says, to turn away from those in need is a tragedy. To practice Risk-Taking Mission and Service is a calling of every follower of Christ to live the words of the chorus: to follow Jesus “into the homes of the broken,” “into the world,” and “to meet the needs of the poor and needy.”

As we think and pray about, and engage in Risk-Taking Mission and Service, Leeland is absolutely right to start with the life and witness of Jesus. Today, in our celebration of the sacrament of Communion we have a powerful reminder of God’s heart for Risk-Taking Mission and Service. For when we celebrate communion, we praise God for taking a huge risk in becoming human in Jesus Christ – a risk because it cost Jesus his life without even knowing if people would love him for it. He gave himself fully for the mission of God in and for the world, which we remember when we pray, “On the night he gave himself up for us…” in the Great Thanksgiving. And in Communion, we also have a reminder that God will constantly nourish and sustain us for similar Risk-Taking Mission and Service, for when we receive the bread and juice, we receive the very power and being of God – food for the journey, that we might be for the world the body of Christ.

God empowers and nourishes God’s people for the journey of discipleship, mission, and service, which we see especially well in today’s reading from the Gospel According to Luke. In it, Jesus sends out seventy of his followers to be in mission and service. He sends them out to prepare others to receive God in Christ – to offer peace, heal the sick, and proclaim that the “kingdom of God has come near.”

Jesus sends out the seventy in what is certainly Risk-Taking Mission and Service. He tells them that the fields are ripe with a bountiful harvest (there are many people who are thirsting to connect with God) but that there are few workers for the job. Essentially, he’s telling them they’ve got their work cut out for them, and they need more help in bringing the kingdom of God. If that’s not risk-taking enough, Jesus tells them, “I’m sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves” (v.3). Proclaiming a new world order, a new kingdom, a new way of life will be a costly endeavor. They will have to, in the words of our song, give all of themselves to God and to others. Then, to add even more to the risk-taking nature of the mission of God, Jesus tells them, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…” (v.4). They’re sent out as sheep in the midst of wolves without provisions or extra things to slow them down. Jesus’ mission for them is urgent, so urgent that they cannot be weighed down with packs of supplies. What’s more, by instructing them to go out without supplies, Jesus emphasizes that the mission of God will be accomplished by the grace of God, not by the work or toil of humans alone. They cannot succeed by themselves, but must rely on the grace of God shown in the hospitality of others.

Jesus sends out the seventy in Risk-Taking Mission and Service to offer God’s peace, heal the sick, and proclaim that God’s kingdom had come, and I’m absolutely sure that in the back of their minds, they’re filled with questions and fears. Will they receive us? How will we eat? How can we heal all the people’s wounds and illnesses? Who are the wolves Jesus spoke of? With these and other questions, the seventy nonetheless set out, two-by-two (because Jesus knew that the life of faith requires the community of others – small groups). And, lo and behold! they find that they are received by others, they are empowered to bring healing to others and share Christ’s peace, and “even the demons submit” to them (v.17). God empowered them to be witnesses of Christ and the kingdom of God.

But the message of scripture is that Jesus didn’t just send out the seventy or the twelve; Jesus sends us out for others. In Acts 1:8, Jesus challenges his disciples of every age to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Likewise, in what we call the “Great Commission,” Jesus sends out all disciples to go and make disciples of all people (Mt.28:19). Now, lots of times, we might think of the Great Commission and the charge of being Christ’s witnesses to be a matter of evangelism, as though Jesus sends us out just to talk and preach to others. But we must remember Jesus’ sending out of the seventy when we think of Jesus sending us out. Jesus sends each and every one of us out to others to offer peace, to work healing, to serve others, and to be the kingdom of God in the world. Jesus sends us to Mission and Service every bit as Risk-Taking as that of the seventy.

Jesus sending out the seventy offers us a great challenge to the life of faith as we might have known it. In it, we see clearly that Jesus didn’t live, die, and rise again just for us – for you and me – and that the way of Jesus isn’t primarily a personal thing. Jesus came to proclaim release to the captive, recovering of sight to the blind, and the set at liberty those who are oppressed. Jesus isn’t our personal buddy-God who makes our lives hunky-dory. Jesus is a gift for the world, the very presence and power of God bringing wholeness and salvation to all, bringing the very kingdom of God to life in the world.

And so, when we come to faith in Christ, when we’re baptized and confirmed, or when we proclaim faith in Christ as our own in membership vows, Jesus incorporates us into his mission – a risk-taking mission to the world, and specifically to the downtrodden and oppressed of the world. To ignore this is, indeed, a tragedy and a failure to be who Christ calls us to be. In his sending of the seventy as sheep among the wolves, Jesus sends each and every one of his followers to engage in Risk-Taking Mission and Service for others, and that to which Jesus calls us, Jesus also empowers us.

In light of Jesus sending us out for Risk-Taking Mission and Service, we can praise God that there are many ways many in this congregation are heeding Christ’s call. There are people who visit and pray with those in the hospital or nursing homes; there is the communion steward ministry in which people take communion to those absent from worship. These are great ministries that certainly take great time and energy, but they are also directed solely to church members. What about the others in our community God is reaching out to? To reach out further, this church recently sent a crew of people to work on Habitat For Humanity’s All Church Build, and the Faith Sowers make quilts for every Habitat House. What’s more, this church has covenant relationships with two missionaries: Phyllis Crouse at Red Bird Mission in Kentucky and Hyung Ran Song in Mombasa, Kenya. This covenant means we promise to support these missionaries with $1200, as well as our prayers. Finally, this congregation is involved in the great risk-taking mission of providing for Spanish-Language ministry in Grand Island through Ministerio de Fe. In all of these things, we praise God for leading us into Risk-Taking Mission and Service. For God both sends and empowers us for Risk-Taking Mission and Service for others.

Yet, these steps are only first steps. Many of them ask very little of the congregation as a whole. The challenge of Jesus sending us out for others is that we must always ask ourselves, “What’s my passion?” and “How can we turn our focus ever more fully toward others?” Jesus sends us each out for others and empowers us for Risk-Taking Mission and Service. The question is, to whom is God sending you?

Growing as Disciples

2010-07-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

Sermon for 6.27.10 - 5th Lord's Day After Pentecost
2 Kings 2:1-14

First, a quick recap: today is the third week of our five-week series focusing on the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Bishop Robert Schnase. Many of you have been reading, praying, and pondering the practices as we’ve gone along, and we’ve had very interesting and exciting congregational conversations after each worship service – today’s is at my house and we’ve got snacks all ready, so swing through and look at the Emmanuel pictures and then come on over. On the first week we focused on Radical Hospitality and extending God’s invitation of relationship to others in ways that stretch us. Last week we focused on Passionate Worship and how worship is a time, place, and way of life through which God meets us to satisfy our thirst for relationship with God. Next week we’ll focus on Risk-Taking Mission and Service. And today, we turn our attention to the Christian practice of Intentional Faith Development – the intentional practice of how we as groups of Christians seek to follow Christ, to learn from him, and to be like him.

Today, as members and relatives of Faith celebrate a reunion of Emmanuel Evangelical United Brethren Church, we have a powerful example of Intentional Faith Development. A number of Faith’s members were first members of Emanuel, and neither church would exist at all if it weren’t for the great faith and deep conviction of one woman: Mrs. Fredrick Wiegert. In 1872 Mrs. Wiegert wrote to the Iowa Conference of the Evangelical Church to request that a missionary be sent to the Grand Island area to start churches. Beyond this woman’s great faith and boldness, I am particularly moved by her implicit assumption that people cannot be disciples of Jesus alone. Mrs. Wiegert insisted that a missionary be sent to start churches out of a strong and right belief that we, as followers of Christ, need others in the community of the church to grow in faithfulness and Christ-likeness. We need others to follow as we follow Christ, others to help, guide, and nurture us. Larry’s stories confirm the importance of intentional relationships and small groups in faith development.

Today also, we see the importance of relationships in the life of faith through the story of Elijah and Elisha from 2 Kings. As we read the story of Elijah passing his mantle and authority as a prophet to Elisha, we see a clear example of the life of discipleship: through Elijah, Elisha was invited into community, nurtured and mentored, tested, and confirmed as a disciple, a follower of God.

Some time before our reading today, in 1 Kings 19, just after Elijah hears God’s still, small voice on top of Mount Horeb, God instructs Elijah to “anoint Elisha […] as prophet in your place” (v.16b). Immediately after that, Elijah finds Elisha plowing his family’s fields. Elijah throws his mantle over Elisha. Now, to us this sounds strange, but this act is symbolic. A mantle is like a shirt (or cloak) without sleeves, and culturally one’s mantle represented his personality. To be covered by it, or to have it given to you, was to inherit this person’s identity and vocation. Perhaps, in some small way, it’s like girls in high school wearing their boyfriends’ sports jerseys: by wearing the jersey, she identifies with her boyfriend; their identities are intertwined.

So Elisha, after only a slight protest of wanting to say goodbye to his family, leaves to follow Elijah. He follows him as his servant, but he’s also learning from him. In the space between 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 2, we see Elijah busy proclaiming God’s message of judgment on unfaithful and idolatrous kings. Don’t you think Elisha learned something of what it means to be a prophet of God from these experiences? Indeed, we must assume that Elijah mentored Elisha in the ways of following God faithfully during this time, saying, Follow my example; follow God like this.

As we come to today’s reading, we are told that the time had come for Elijah to pass his authority, identity, and vocation on to Elisha: the companies of prophets in Bethel and Jericho knew it was time, as did Elijah and Elisha. But Elijah doesn’t just hand over his mantle, the symbol of his prophetic authority and power, and go walking off into the sunset. Instead, he tests Elisha: You stay here. I’m going over to Bethel. I’m going over to Jericho. To which Elisha repeatedly replies, Oh no. as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you. Elisha knew that in order to be faithful to God, in order to learn and grow into the man God created him to be, he had to keep following his mentor, even to the mysterious, bittersweet end. And as a result of Elisha’s faithful following, God bestows Elijah’s mantle and prophetic authority on Elisha as Elijah is taken up into the heavens. God confirms Elisha’s faithfulness and empowers him for greater ministry.

The important thing to see in today’s story of Elijah and Elisha, and in the witness of our common heritage with Emanuel Church and Mrs. Wiegert, is that being God’s disciples, being those who follow and learn from God in order that we become like God, is an intentional, communal activity. We Christians don’t follow God faithfully alone. We’re created to be grown by God, and God works through groups. And in case you think I’m making this up, consider the witness of the New Testament as well.

Look at Jesus’ life and ministry: he called a group of people together, walking, living, praying, eating, and studying together. He mentored them. He walked with them through many challenging events – tests of sorts, not unlike that of Elijah and Elisha. And he confirmed their identity as his followers, calling them his brothers and sisters, his witnesses in the world. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit came upon the people at Pentecost, Luke tells us, in Acts 2:42, that the new believers in Christ “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Finally, as you may have noticed on the front of your bulletins, Paul instructed the Corinthian Christians to “follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1Cor 11:1, TNIV). Essentially, Paul is saying, Follow me as I follow Christ; learn from me, and we’ll all grow in Christ-likeness together.

In this, every one of us should know that the point of being a Christian, of being a follower of Christ, of being identified with Christ, is becoming more and more like Christ. Bishop Schnase says it this way in Five Practices: “Growing in Christ-likeness is the goal and end of the life of faith” (64). And what we have seen through our passage today, as well as through the biblical witness as a whole, is that we grow in Christ-likeness in groups. Groups formed with the intention of growing together in Christ-likeness provide God the fertile soil necessary to bear fruit through us.

Gathering in the large group format of worship isn’t enough on its own. Small groups who pray, study scripture, and serve others together provide the perfect growing environment for God to make us more Christ-like. Look at Elisha. He was an Israelite, a member of God’s chosen people. But that large community isn’t the community through which God shaped and formed him for further ministry. Instead, God chose to work powerfully within the close, intentional, mentoring relationship Elisha had with Elijah to form and prepare Elisha for the prophetic ministry to which he’d been called. God specifically chooses to work through intentional relationships of small groups of people to form us into Christ-likeness. We know this is true, for many in this congregation have told me that it was within a particular study group or Sunday school class group that God really nurtured and grew you.

Intentional Faith Development requires more of us than to just come to worship regularly. God calls us to form intentional relationships for the purpose of growing in Christ-likeness. And through such groups, God continues to transform us and empower us for greater participation in Christ’s ministry. If we, as individual Christians, and as a church, are serious about being followers of Christ and growing in Christ-likeness, we must take intentional steps toward this end by submitting ourselves to the work of God in the setting of small groups, gathered together so that God can change us, use us, and complete us. The question for us, and for every age of Christ-followers is simply this, do we truly want to follow Christ and be formed into his likeness, or do we just want to play church and wear crosses?

Putting on Christ

2010-06-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

In preparing for preaching, I went to one of my regular sites, the Ekklesia Project blog. The commentator, Janice Love, dealt with all of the texts of this Sunday's lectionary in a way that is beautiful and challenging. Of course, as I somewhat expected since this week's theme within the series is "Passionate Worship," Love's comments don't exactly move in the direction God is leading me this Sunday. However, I would encourage anyone who is reading the lectionary texts this week to ponder Love's remarks.

I was especially drawn to her connection of Baptism and putting on Christ with putting on clothes. At this point our son is not putting on clothes himself, but we're laying the ground work for it. Perhaps we should be explaining everything that we're doing to him in more detail than simply saying, "Let's put on your shirt." And in this, it makes me ponder our own methods of discipling young children. The liturgy for the Baptismal Covenant for the United Methodist Church includes this question for the parents and sponsors of children:

Will you nurture these children

in Christ's holy church,

that by your teaching and example they may be guided

to accept God's grace for themselves,

to profess their faith openly,

and to lead a Christian life?

It also includes this congregational prayer:

With God's help we will proclaim the good news

and live according to the example of Christ.

We will surround these persons (those baptized)

with a community of love and forgiveness,

that they may grow in their service to others.

We will pray for them,

that they may be true disciples

who walk in the way that leads to life.

In these, our promises made to our children in the midst of the worshipping congregation, we have a model of discipleship. It goes something like this: "Let's put on Christ this way when we go to school"; "Let's put on Christ this way when we are mad"; "Let's put on Christ this way when we pray and study"; "Let's put on Christ this way when we serve others."

The point of teaching our children how to dress themselves with phrases like, "The tag goes in back" is that eventually they'll be able to dress themselves. So too is the point of all ministry with children that they may, by the Spirit's prompting be able to confess Christ as Savior and Lord, and commit to following him that they might be more and more like him by the grace of God.

And now the hard question: is what we as parents, grandparents, and God-loving church people do working toward this mission or toward something else?

Worship: Thirsting For God

2010-06-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

Sermon for Sunday 6.20.10 - 4th Lord's Day After Pentecost
Ps 42-43

Preparing Our Hearts and Minds for Worship:

- Worship is about connecting with God, about being written into God’s story.

- As we gather let us ponder God’s story and how we are written in.

o What do we bring to the story and how does God see that gift being used?

o What longings and thirsts do we bring as we come to worship?

o What does God do with these thirsts, these stories, these gifts? What do we expect God to do in worship?

Sermon Text:

Today is the second week of a five-week series based on United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. Last week we focused on Radical Hospitality and next week we’ll focus on Intentional Faith Development. But this week, as many of you have been praying and pondering for the last six days, we’re focusing on Passionate Worship as an vital practice of fruitful congregations.

Yet, even if I were to quote Bishop Schnase’ definitions of Worship, Passionate, and Passionate Worship, I think we might still be scratching our heads and wondering in our hearts, “Okay, Bishop, that sounds fine and good, but what does that mean for us, here, this day? What does Passionate Worship really mean for us normal people?” Am I right? Thankfully, today we have before us a wonderful passage of scripture, Psalms 42-43, that help us to truly see what Passionate Worship is all about. Vera read just Psalm 42, because that’s what I sent her, but as I studied more, I recognized the importance of reading and praying Psalms 42 and 43 together, because they are, in fact, one psalm, one prayer. Therefore, let us hear the prayer again including Psalm 43, this time from the Message paraphrase.

“¹ A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek; I want to drink God, deep draughts of God. ² I'm thirsty for God-alive. I wonder, ‘Will I ever make it - arrive and drink in God's presence?’ ³ I'm on a diet of tears - tears for breakfast, tears for supper. All day long people knock at my door, Pestering, ‘Where is this God of yours?’ ⁴ These are the things I go over and over, emptying out the pockets of my life. I was always at the head of the worshiping crowd, right out in front, Leading them all, eager to arrive and worship, Shouting praises, singing thanksgiving - celebrating, all of us, God's feast! ⁵ Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God - soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God. ⁶ When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you, From Jordan depths to Hermon heights, including Mount Mizar. ⁷ Chaos calls to chaos, to the tune of whitewater rapids. Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers crash and crush me. ⁸ Then God promises to love me all day, sing songs all through the night! My life is God's prayer. ⁹ Sometimes I ask God, my rock-solid God, ‘Why did you let me down? Why am I walking around in tears, harassed by enemies?’ ¹⁰ They're out for the kill, these tormentors with their obscenities, Taunting day after day, ‘Where is this God of yours?’ ¹¹ Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God - soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God.

“¹ Clear my name, God; stick up for me against these loveless, immoral people. Get me out of here, away from these lying degenerates. ² I counted on you, God. Why did you walk out on me? Why am I pacing the floor, wringing my hands over these outrageous people? ³ Give me your lantern and compass, give me a map, So I can find my way to the sacred mountain, to the place of your presence, ⁴ To enter the place of worship, meet my exuberant God, Sing my thanks with a harp, magnificent God, my God. ⁵ Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God - soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God.”

A man in the coffee shop this week was talking to me about life and faith and his journey – strangers often do this when you tell them you’re a pastor – and he said something that stuck with me. Talking about people coming to church or not, or believing in Christ, he said, “Everybody we meet’s wrestlin’ with something.” I think there’s a lot of truth in this, and today’s psalms lend their support. Psalms 42-43 are psalms for everybody, and especially, psalms for those wrestlin’ with something. They’re lament psalms written for community worship. And what lament means is that they are prayer in which people and communities pour their broken hearts out to God in a passionate plea for help, for salvation, and for guidance, trusting that God will do it. And even as laments are filled with accusations and complaints against God, they are also immensely faithful acts of trust and praise, for God is good and works in the world for good.

It’s true: we’re all wrestlin’ with something. The psalmist definitely speaks of this wrestlin’. As we look at Psalms 42-43, we can see a basic, recurrent pattern: wrestlin’-lament followed by praise-filled refrain; lament and praise-filled refrain; lament and praise-filled refrain.

From the first lines of the psalm, we know something’s up in the lives of those who pray these words (and remember, we’ve prayed them together in our reading): “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” This is not a “let’s go to worship,” ho-hum kind of statement. This is intense longing (telling God that our only sustenance is our tears), and this is Passionate Worship – an intense desire to be in the presence of God and to drink from the cool water Christ offers each of us to satisfy our thirst for relationship with God. We don’t know what the psalmist or the original community is wrestling with, but we know it has made them feel as though God is absent, and caused the unbelievers around them to mock them saying, “Where is your God?”

But immediately after offering this lament and complaint to God, the psalmist turns to a memory of being in the midst of the worshipping throng with glad songs of thanksgiving on their lips. For us, it would be like when in the midst of wrestling with some struggle, perhaps wondering how to make ends meet in a bad economy, we suddenly have some memory of being in the midst of the worshipping community, perhaps the church of our youth. And in the process of recalling this memory, we are filled anew with hope, for God was and is and always will be faithful and good.

In worship, one of the things we do is remember: we recall and retell the mighty acts of God read in scripture, and we give testimony to God’s continued mighty acts. Through such worship, God fills us with hope to get us through whatever it is we’re currently wrestling with, which is precisely why the next lines of the psalm are a repeated refrain. Imagine how this psalm might play out in its original worship context. The leader, praying as representative of all our concerns (like Doyle), speaks passionately about feeling overwhelmed by the struggles of life. And the response – like our “Lord in your mercy, hear our prayers” – is this refrain: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God” (v.5-6a). In this, the gathered community turns from lament to claim the hope they have in God, that God will bring them through and enable them to worship and praise. And in this very act, their hope is already fulfilled, for they are worshipping. Through their lament and promise of praise, through their worship, God transforms them, fills them with hope, heals them, and inspires them. And this pattern repeats in Psalms 42-43 three times: lament of current struggles, memory God’s goodness and past work, and praise-filled refrain.

That is precisely what Passionate worship is about. Through the experience of worship, God works in and for the world, transforming us, inspiring us, healing us, filling us, and sending us out for others. Through worship, God reminds us that God is good, and has always been and will always be about the work of redeeming the world and drawing creation to Godself. And because this is true all the time, we come to worship God with expectancy; we believe that God will show up, will work in us, will change our lives for the transformation of the world. When we gather for worship, we believe with all our being, that God will bring the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven! Don’t we?

To be characterized by passionate worship doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to wave our hands or clap or cry – though we might. To be a community characterized by Passionate Worship means that we gather weekly because we want to, fully expecting that God will be present and work powerfully in our midst through songs, prayers, preaching, and the sacraments (and finding that God is). Through Passionate, Truthful Worship, God changes people’s lives, every day. If this isn’t happening, then either we just haven’t developed the vision to see transformed lives and it really is happening, or God isn’t doing it because we’re not asking for it, not expecting it.

And of course, this is the big question when it comes to being characterized by Passionate Worship: Do we expect God to work in our lives through worship? Do we expect God to speak when the scriptures are read and proclaimed? Do we expect God to actually nourish us spiritually and physically with the bread and juice of communion? Do we expect God to call us to and empower us for Christ’s mission in the world? Do we come with prayers on our lips that God would reveal Godself to us in mighty and intimate ways? Or do we simply come to worship because we always have, desiring merely that we might be comforted and assured that we’re okay, that God’s okay with us?

Through communities of Passionate Worship, God transforms lives for the transformation of the world. God heals. God emboldens. God fills with hope. God challenges. God calls. God confirms. God equips and sends. All this is available to us in Christ through the Spirit, by simply participating in communal worship in Spirit and truth. We come, daily and weekly to worship as those always wrestling with the stuff of life, with struggles of how to be faithful in a world that constantly denies the existence and power of God. We come to hear and proclaim the refrain of the psalmist: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God” (v.5-6a). The question is: do we truly, honestly expect anything of God in our worship?

Flooding in Nebraska - From Lisa Maupin

2010-06-23T08:58:00.001-07:00

Flood Relief in Nebraska

Many of our communities in eastern and central Nebraska have been affected by recent flooding. Let us pray for all who live in the affected areas. Below, you'll find more information about how to take action.

To donate cleaning buckets...
Cleaning up after a flood is a messy job, but UMCOR has standardized the process by creating a supply list for cleaning buckets (formerly known as flood buckets). These supplies enable people to begin the overwhelming job of cleaning up after a flood. Click here for the complete list. Contact your district office for information about where to deliver cleaning buckets. Wouldn't it be great if every church donated at least three buckets?

If you or your church needs disaster assistance...
We also want to make sure that those who have been affected in any way realize that they can and should use their district superintendent as a source of assistance. Please let him or her know what your needs are and they will use all of their resources to help meet your needs.

Disaster relief efforts are currently being coordinated by the Rev. Dr. Jeff Hale, Prairie Rivers District disaster response coordinator. He can be contacted at 308-258-0683.

If you want to volunteer...
Any VIM teams who are needed to work will be coordinated through our Conference VIM Coordinator Lisa Maupin. She can be contacted at lmaupin@bigmuddyumc.org or 402-898-9862.

The United Methodist Connection

2010-06-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I was ordained at a worship service during the Annual Conference session (perhaps more on that later). One lay person told me later that attending that worship service allowed her to truly see and feel the power of the United Methodist connection. She told me how it was so powerful and moving to be there as a lay person, amidst other lay people from across the conference, worshipping with clergy, district superintendents, and presided over by the Bishop of our Annual Conference as well as the resident Bishop of Nigeria and the Episcopalian Bishop of the Nebraska area.

It was truly a powerful service. But this woman's comments reminded me that in order to celebrate this joy of being a connectional church, someone must help to tell the stories - to give testimony. As a result, I am going to try, for at least a little while, to write some short posts with links to other stories about ministry of which we are a part through our connectional structure in the United Methodist Church. Many will be local or regional, others might be far-reaching. We'll see where the Spirit takes us.

The first installment of connectional, missional testimony is about the Volunteer in Mission team going to Kenya from Nebraska today. Check out their thoughts and experiences on their blog: http://numckenya2010.blogspot.com/ . The team is made up of members of UM churches in Norfolk, South Sioux City, Laurel, Madison, Minden, Hay Springs, and Scottsbluff. They will return on July 3.

Get on the Path - from Bishop Sherer-Simpson

2010-06-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

This is a video message from Bishop Ann Sherer-Simpson, resident bishop of our Nebraska Annual Conference. She's speaking of worship as one of the formative elements of the Christian faith. Others might use the phrase "constitutive practice," meaning that communal worship of God is what makes us Christian (and likewise, that if we don't regularly participate in communal worship, we are almost Christian).

The Bishop's point is that worship is vitally important in the lives of those following Christ together through the church. The Annual Conference leadership has started tracking local church worship attendance regularly during the last few months. Part of this seems very institutional, yet the Bishop and the Council of Bishops is correct that worship attendance is a key indicator for Christian healthiness. This next video from the Bishop discusses this in more depth.

Worship-Prayer Link

2010-06-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

This is an article by the Rev. Melanie Adams serving Grand Island at Trinity UMC, which she recently published in that church's newsletter. It is reprinted here with her permission. I share it because I found it to be truthful and challenging, things from which every church can grow. Mrs. Adams writes...

Do you know the most important step in the preparation for worship? Is it figuring out what should go into the bulletin? Is it the time the pastor takes in researching and putting together the sermon? Is it the preparation of the elements for Holy Communion? Is it the rehearsal time of the musicians? Is it the work done to clean the sanctuary?

All of these things are important. But none of these are the most important. The most important step in preparation for worship is prayer. Whose prayers are the most needed in preparation for worship? The pastor's? The musicians'? The ushers'? The sound technician? All of these are vitally important. But jsut as important are the prayers of the person in the pews. That's right. Your prayers are needed for an energized, living worship experience!

The most important preparation for worship is prayers: prayer that spills out far beyond the person or persons up front. Paul Nixon points out that "great worshipping congregations are invariably marked by high percentages of people entering the worship space (1) in a spirit of prayer, (2) preceded by prayer (that is, they have prayed before coming to worship), and/or, (3) with an expectancy that something extraordinary is about to happen."

Next Sunday, if you aren't already in the habit of praying for God to break into our worship in a powerful way, try it! If you come into the sanctuary early, pause and offer a brief prayer. Or try praying before you come to church. Come to worship expecting that you will encounter the living Christ!

I resonated with Pastor Adams' words because I know she is speaking a word that is true and challenging. The churchy word we use to refer to all of the words and stuff we do in Christian worship is liturgy, which simply means, the work of the people. In many congregations, we Christians sometimes forget that worship is the work of the people, not the work of the pastor to be received by the people. Helping to maintain the congregation's role in worship as more than consumers is a challenge worth our intentional focus. Pastor Adams does a good job of reminding us that prayer before, during, and after worship is part of the work of the people that is necessary for worship. She also reminds us that worship is a time in the life of a congregation when all should be characterized by expectancy: we gather as those expecting God to show up, be present, speak to and through us, and stir us up for greater discipleship.

May God guide us all to more passionate, prayer-filled, expectant, work-of-the-people worship.

Radical Hospitality - Congregational Conversation

2010-06-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Radical Hospitality

Congregational Conversation – MEF Leads

Definition: (Cultivating Fruitfulness, Bishop Robert Schnase, p.7)

- “Christian hospitality is the active desire to invite, welcome, receive, and care for those who are strangers so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ.”

- “Radical describes that which is drastically different from ordinary practices, outside the normal, that which exceeds expectations and goes the second mile.

- "Practicing Radical Hospitality means we offer the absolute utmost of ourselves, our creativity and our abilities to offer the gracious invitation and welcome of Christ to others. We pray, plan, and work to invite others and help them feel welcome and to support them in their spiritual journeys.”

Table Talk: Initial Thoughts and Testimony

- We sought God in prayer, conversation, and meditation this week.

o What have you heard from God? What did you like? What did you dislike? What did you learn about being a Christian?

Table Talk: Why do Christ and the church matter?

- Radical Hospitality, in its simplest form, is about inviting others into relationship with God in Christ through the church. But “Come to church” or “Come to Jesus” as statements don’t really explain what we’re really inviting people to, or from whom, or for what reason we’re making the invitation.

o “How is your life enriched by being a follower of Jesus Christ? What have you received by being part of a community of faith?” (p.14).

o “Why do people need Christ? Why do people need the church? Why do people need [Faith United Methodist Church]?” (p.14, Adam Hamilton, Leading Beyond the Walls, 2002; p.21)

Table Talk: Hospitality – How are we doing and how can we grow?

- “In all three churches, the pastor and congregation are focused on welcoming those from outside and inviting them inside. Paul implores the followers of Christ to practice an active hospitality. ‘Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God’ (Rom15.7). The grace received in Christ places upon Christians the joyful gift and challenging task of offering others the same welcome they themselves have received” (p.18).

o “What does [Faith United Methodist Church’s] congregation do to engage, invite, and welcome the unchurched? How do you personally help?” (p.18).

o What are three ways you could help Faith United Methodist Church be more radically hospitable?