A More Compleat Tool Belt

If your only tool is a hammer, all problems are a nail

I am advocate for a good tool belt.  Good.  Not perfect. 

In the last decade I have become far more competent at household repairs than I was before that.  YouTube has been invaluable in this.  Where before I would enter a new task with trepidation combined with a lack of knowledge, I can now only deal with my own trepidation.  My knowledge is much higher. 

In effect, I am increasing the number of tools, and skills, associated with my tool belt. 

My tool belt is become closer to good.  It will never be perfect.  There will be times when what is needed to repair things in my home exceed my skills, my tools, and truth be known, my interest factor.  Some of these things I am just not interested in.  I am sure some of my pastor colleagues are just not interested in increasing their knowledge in numbers because their interest factor is so low. 

For now, I want to focus on the number of tools in our tool belt, and less about analysis of numbers as a wrench, screwdriver, or hammer. 

When I was introduced to the leadership at Hilltop United Methodist in 2012, one of the questions I was asked was focused on me as if I were the sole leader responsible for transformation.  I attempted to turn the conversation around to leadership as a cooperative, and communitarian, adventure.  One of the tools in my perceived tool belt is leadership development.  Jesus developed twelve and that development changed our world. 

In that same conversation, I was asked what I had learned in Colorado Springs that would work in Salt Lake.  My answer was while some solutions might transport, I expected issues at Hilltop were different than in Colorado Springs, and we needed to be adaptive in our leadership, rather than technical.  One of the tools in my perceived tool belt is adaptive leadership.  Jesus displays his adaptive ability on multiple occasions, often in his use of parables and storytelling as a way of teaching and leading. 

Clarity on purpose is another tool for that tool belt.  Our focus in the military focused on mission, and clarity from leadership as to what was important and what was less important in our missional focus.  One of the tools in my perceived tool belt is a laser focus on our purpose, our why, our mission.  Jesus missional focus was on Calvary and the Empty Tomb. 

The ability to absorb criticism is a critical tool.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t let criticism bother you.  All of us want to be liked and respected.  And you can get too far in front of those you are leading.  You must stay in contact with them, while, I believe, leading from the front.  I once asked a key leader why I was getting a particular task and he said “you don’t let other people bother you” and I replied, “Another person I have fooled.”  The truth of course is that like all of us, I want the respect and admiration of others, but there is a time for our skins to be a little thicker than it often is.  A United Methodist District Superintendent once told me my leadership task at my church was as pastor to lead my sheep to faithfulness.  Easy to say:  hard to accomplish.  A tool in my perceived tool belt is a thicker skin.  Notice I said skin, not a coat of armor.  Do I need to offer any specific Jesus example of a thicker skin at times? 

Other examples exist of tools and skills.  That is just four.  

I like the ancient English word:  compleat.  It suggests finality, and the reality is that I have discovered that in reality, the more I know, the more I know I don’t know.  So when I think back to this tool belt image, it isn’t a compleat tool belt, it is a more compleat tool belt.  Closer to finality, and perfection but still a mirror that gives me an incomplete view of the world around me.  Better but not perfect. 

My hope in my blogs is that elements of this completeness in creating and managing our leadership tool belt will emerge. 

A more compleat tool belt.  With more tools than a hammer. 

Selah, Dennis

Jesus: An Unraveling Revelation

Colossians 2: 2-3 (NIV) My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

This Lenten Season we look at the revelation that is Jesus.  Lent begins on March 6^th with Ash Wednesday; we are going to set the Lenten stage on Transfiguration Sunday (March 3^rd).  In our reading that morning, Jesus will be encountered both on the mountain top and in the valley (Luke 9: 28-43). 

On that mountain top, the voice from the heavens will say:  “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”  For the rest of that scene, Jesus is silent but the next day, when they come down from the mountain, Jesus is frustrated by a failure of the disciples to sustain healing powers displayed earlier in the Gospel.  Jesus says:  “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you and put up with you?”  The disciples were previously able to heal people “everywhere” but now, they fail.

The text is unclear, at least to me, as to what has gone wrong:  one scene, they have it, a few scenes later, whatever they had, is gone.  Jesus calls them “unbelieving and perverse.”  I understand “unbelieving” but perverse is less used in our 21^st Century world.  One definition is the “showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.”

“A deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.”

The disciples have just themselves healed others.  Three of them have been on the mountaintop and heard the voice of God pronounce Jesus as divinely chosen and, given their first shot out of the barrel to show they get it, they stumble. 

What happened in that movement from mountain top to valley? 

I’m just guessing here mind you but I wonder if it just wasn’t life.  Don’t we often have a deep and fundamental desire to behave unreasonably and unacceptably?  We glory in mountain top moments, but journey into that valley, unbelief.

The reality is that Jesus is an ongoing mystery with a revelation of knowledge and wisdom.  That knowledge and wisdom might be revealed to us is in testing while listening to the prophetic voice of Jesus himself.  My personal take is that the more I study Jesus, the more I realize I don’t know, I don’t understand.  I am sure that at times, Jesus could accuse me of being faithless and perverse. 

Are we in the United Methodist Church being faithless and perverse, and if yes, who?  My knee jerk is it must be those who do not agree with me, but that is less than gracious. 

I am saddened by the most recent experience in St. Louis this week by the United Methodist Church to reach some kind of accommodation with how we understand human sexuality, specifically, homosexuality.  We are clearly not of one mind on this.  I am frankly, still digesting what happened.

But even in my despair, I invite us to urgently refine the prophetic call of the mysterious but revealed Jesus.  I believe that means being in, but not of, the world.  Instead of being so vanilla and bland we might be a church in the “middle of anywhere”, I believe we are called to be a church on the "edge of somewhere” with that somewhere located more in valley than in mountaintop.  That somewhere is emotionally closer to despair than exhilaration. 

Join us in March as we try to unravel that revelation that is both the mystery and beauty of Jesus. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

My Tuesday eNote -- Pastor Dennis

While this note has been "overcome" by the events of Tuesday in St. Louis, I think it provides an accurate assessment of where we ended up:

Friends:

This is a brief note to provide you an update on what has transpired so far in St. Louis at the special, called United Methodist General Conference on Human Sexuality. 

The Special Session has until 5:30 PM our time today to wrap up, but I think it is fairly safe to forecast that the current status quo will be maintained.  Multiple “plans” were discussed and considered but only the Traditional Plan reached the floor of the General Conference as potentially approved.  The Traditional Plan would retain the current homosexuality as “incompatible with a Christian life-style” wording and would attempt to make enforcement of violations of the Discipline more uniform across the connection.  When we talk about the connection, we are referring to all of us who call ourselves “United Methodists.”  The Traditional Plan, particularly the enforcement element, keeps running into problems in how the United Methodist Church is organized, with Conferences having wide latitude and authority constitutionally. 

Progressives lack the voting power to bring about the desired policy changes, and Traditionalists lack the voting power to bring about the constitutional changes needed to accomplish enforcement across the connection.  The UMC Constitution, like the US Constitution, has a high bar for change, and neither side has the votes to do it.  About 2/3 of the US Church is in favor of more inclusive language, but only represents about 60% of total delegates.  The final count on most issues keeps settling in at the 55/45 percents with inclusive being the 45%.  Differences exist here, but that is about right. 

My own assessment, unless something unexpected happens this afternoon, is that where we were last Friday, is where we are going to be tomorrow:  very divided on the topic of human sexuality. 

I have already had a person or three express reservations about continuing in a denomination which espouses a position of homosexuality as “incompatible with a Christian life-style.”  I am mindful that others feel that if the UMC were to move to what is labeled a “more inclusive view” would cause others to consider leaving.  As I said a few weeks ago, we are going to lose people no matter what happens, and here “we” means “the church” not necessarily “Hilltop.” 

I humbly ask for all of the events of the Conference to be digested and processed, with “where next” considered after the passions of this week have subsided. 

I propose that after the 10:30 AM service is over this Sunday, we grab some coffee and return to the sanctuary and talk, listen, pray, and confer.  I would think some kind of “question/answer” format would work best.  I am disappointed with where we are, but not without hope.  I hope our talk and time together can be constructive and helpful. 

In the words of the confession of the Korean Methodist Church:  “we are not alone, we live in God’s world.” 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

There Should Be No Division in the Body of Christ

1 Corinthians 12: 24b-26 (New International Version):  “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

One of the more famous quotes that John Wesley never said is: 'In essentials, unity; in non-essentials liberty, and in all things, charity.' It is unclear who said it first, maybe St. Augustine, but it appears doubtful that Mr. Wesley, the founder of the worldwide movement called Methodism, said this. But it is a good quote, a very good quote, nonetheless.  It is quite clear how Mr. Wesley felt about division in the church: he was against it. 

The United Methodist Church has been debating human sexuality for about three years less than half a century. That is a long time, a very long time. At issue is the current position of the United Methodist Church that states homosexuality is incompatible with a Christian life-style primarily leading to restrictions in the area of ordination, weddings and the use of church space.

 

This February in St. Louis, over 860 elected delegates from the World-Wide Church will gather in legislative session once again, and thrash out where we stand on this issue.  We will be represented by four clergy and four laity, six from Colorado and two from Montana. They were elected in 2015 and their term of service effectively ends this summer.

There are three competing plans for what we are going to do about human sexuality:

1. Remove the restrictive language and allow various levels of the church to make their informed decision as to what works for them in their context. No church will be forced to accept an openly homosexual pastor. No pastor will be forced to perform a same sex wedding. No church will be forced to allow their space to be used for a same sex wedding. This is the “One Church Plan.” 

2. Retain the current restrictive language and it would strengthen the response for those who violate these restrictions. This plan would permit “gracious exit” for churches who find the language problematic. This is called the “Traditional Plan.” 

3. A very contextual solution that would eliminate one layer of church hierarchy and keep us United in name, but would allow for three different theological understandings to be their defining ethos. It is reasonably safe to say these three approaches are: more open and affirming, roughly where we are now, and something between the two. This is the most complex plan, and will require the longest to implement for various reasons. This is the “Connectional Conference Plan.” 

As with any legislation, amendments can be offered, debated and voted up or down. It is quite challenging to know precisely what will be approved or disapproved. This will be a defining moment for the movement called Methodism.  There will be some leaving no matter what is or is not agreed to, that is a simple fact. Division is going to happen: the issue is how to minimize the division while being faithful to scripture as informed and illuminated by our traditions, experiences and reason. 

I believe that if we are attempting to minimize division and want to find solutions, we can. I confess often, I hear voices that are uninterested in reaching common understanding and I hope a spirit of active listening leading to understanding will be present in St. Louis. 

I personally endorse the “One Church Plan” as a pragmatic solution that allows conscience to be invoked at multiple levels: conference, local church and pastor.  Is it perfect? No. There may come a day twenty-five years from now where such an agreement with the “One Church Plan” will be viewed consistent with barring pulpits to women so long ago is viewed now. “You were part of a denomination which permitted some churches to refuse to accept homosexual pastors and refused to perform same sex unions?”  My explanation at that charge would be:  We had to accept that compromise in order to keep the United church from becoming Untied. 

Barry Welliver, your Lay Leader, and I will be discussing this on Saturday, February 9^th, at the United Methodist Men’s Breakfast. Breakfast is at 8:30 am, and our discussion will probably start about 9:00.   Send a note to office@hilltopumchurch.org if you do not normally attend the Men’s breakfast and would like to attend to help with head-count. All are welcome. 

I pray we can find a way to stay United on the essentials and agree to a Grace-filled state of being less than United over non-essentials.

Selah, Pastor Dennis

A Constant State of Gratitude

Proverbs 22:2-4 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

“The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.”

November, both secularly and religiously, presents so many opportunities for us to be thankful. I think of it as a month set aside for us to be in a constant state of gratitude. 

The first Sunday in November is a chance to remember the great ‘cloud of witnesses’ that have gone before us and paved the way for us. The personal courage it took to leave a Bristol, England in a seventeenth century sailing vessel is impressive. This courage was displayed multiple times in multiple ways throughout our history. Others had to have the courage to survive today buoyed by hope tomorrow would bring a life of freedom. I find the courage, among other characteristics, of our forebears humbling. Their courage in the face of life challenges almost always leads me to a state of gratitude, a gratitude that empowers me to be hopeful and optimistic. 

This year the second Sunday is the actual day of remembrance for those who have served: Veteran’s Day. While officially the day is one of remembering those who have served in the military, I think including those who have answered the call to serve us in the role of first responders, e.g., police, fire, medics, are a focus I have used in the past, and want to again this year. Having been a member of the Warrior Class, I plan to try and offer a thought or three as to how we can best support those who move towards the sound of danger. Again, I find the courage, humbling. Again, courage leads me through a state of gratitude, towards hopeful and optimistic. 

Thanksgiving Day is preceded by the third Sunday, and we are going to reflect a little on what it means to respond from multiple blessings in gratitude. The Hilltop musical tradition of how we mass, play and sing “Come Ye Thankful People Come” is goose bump. It consistently makes me awe-full. 

The final Sunday of the Church Year is “Christ the King Sunday.” Awe and gratitude are always in my mind when I think humbly about Jesus as the Christ.

Sometimes, focusing so much on Thanksgiving, humility and gratitude does lead me to feel called to share with all of this precious flock called Hilltop, the joy I find in ministry. First, I think of myself as a person of ideas, and I have the happy task of getting time each week to participate in a drama focused on ideas. Further, I have spent a great deal of time over these last six plus years with you during moments of great personal pain, anguish, and confusion. Being allowed to be there at those moments is inspiring and humbling.  When I walk into the room of someone close to the end of this life, and their face lights up at seeing me is nothing short of an awe-full moment. There is nothing awful about it. And at that moment, I am each of you, there to sing, read scripture, anoint with oil, pray, listen, and quietly hold a faithful hand. It is so humbling. 

I walk into lives, that without the presence of the divine would have every reason to be in a state of despair, and I find, among other things, courage. And yet again, I find the courage, humbling. And yet again, courage leads me through a state of gratitude, towards hopeful and optimistic.

November presents many opportunities for us to be thankful. 

   Might I invite each of you to think of November as a month set aside for you to be in a state of gratitude?  

      How do we grow that gratitude for a month into a constant feeling?  

         I have found such a feeling leads to riches beyond silver and gold. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Doing is on the way to Becoming

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse.  'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become ….’”

The Velveteen Rabbit

I once was asked why I didn’t title my sermons.  

My not serious, tongue in cheek, quip was that I was a closet Episcopalian, and while I believed in Jesus, I didn’t believe in titles.  Episcopalians do not title their sermons, Methodists normally do.  But I assure you, I am not a closet Episcopalian.  Their Sunday duds are just not me.  I might become an Episcopalian, but I doubt it. 

The real answer is titles box me in. 

Here at Hilltop, we print the bulletin on Thursday, and I am often, very often, not ready to put a title on a sermon at that time.  A title forces me into a direction I am not always ready to be go. Yes, I can be stubborn at times with the Holy Spirit and the direction of a sermon. 

When I have a good title and know with great certainty where the Holy Spirit is carrying me, it’s easy.  Look at the bulletins for Sunday worship in September; titles will be present. But that title creation prompted me to think about a lot of stuff. 

The act of creating a title for this Sunday’s sermon produced a jumble in my head.  As we look at the book of James in September, that jumble is stirred by contemplating the answer to the question:  “What does it mean to live as a Christian?”  

The theme for the month, “Doing Church” is also messing with me. Several weeks ago when it was proposed, it generated no dissonance in my head at all.  Now, for some reason, it keeps clashing in my head.  (To be clear, this a good dissonance, like in Jazz or the Blues or Stravinsky). 

I was glad to read that the theme had an impact on Mary Jean Davison as she wrote her excellent Music and Arts article in our newsletter. Mary Jean suggests that by doing church, we start to experience transformation and get to a place of becoming where we are the church.  You don’t stay at doing. At some point, you become. 

Spanish has two verbs to be.  One has an element of permanence, and the other is understood to be temporary.  If you use the wrong verb to say someone is smart or beautiful, you are actually suggesting it is not part of their normal state.  I see this doing/being in the same way.  We have to do the church enough, that at some point it stops being doing, and it becomes a vital statement about who we actually are. 

I assure you that after having prepared right at 500 sermons I am not the same person I was 500 sermons ago.  Church is a different reality for me than fifteen years ago, sometimes even fifteen minutes ago. 

Being the church is, in the sense of the two Spanish verbs to be, permanent and temporary.  Gradually as we become real in terms of being little Christs, the meaning of Christian after all, he becomes permanently part of who we are, and we leave more and more of the temporary behind. 

I suspect it is never completed, that in this life we are never fully 100% finished.  To paraphrase Paul from 1^st Corinthians 13, I suspect it is a state of constant becoming, a state of seeing in the mirror and just getting it dimly, always seeking more light, more clarity, moving from doing to a state of becoming. In the words of the Skin Horse, you become real. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Culture of Growth

My June-July Newsletter Musings invites us to focus, probably re-focus, on creating a culture of growth.  For those who might not have read those musings, I have posted them to my blog HERE. 

I propose a new conversation focused on a culture of growth as it relates to our economic well-being as a church start today.  Read on please. 

Next week, you should receive from our Stewardship Co-Chair, Dr. Roy Trawick and me a letter.  This letter will address both our specific Hilltop context and your possible place in our financial, economic, and stewardship world.  We are working on this communication with great care.  The communication is meant to express: gratitude, understanding and invitation.  Our gratitude for steadfast faithfulness; understanding when life circumstances means a family (or individual) cannot help; and an invitation to be part of a new culture focused on growth. 

Where you sit in life matters.  This will not be a “one size fits all” approach to our economic message.  The “one size fits all” we do hope for is understanding, prayer and discernment as we attempt to lay out where we are and invite all of us to use this as an opportunity for embracing a culture of growth.  Again, we are I believe, mindful of those on fixed income, out of work, dealing with expenses from a wide array of external requirements, etc. 

Overall, we can and must do better. 

Table 1 looks at the eight Anglo Churches in Utah with a full-time pastor.  We are second in attendance but in per capita congregational giving we are eighth.  I will note, we are better than we have been in the past, the gap is closing. 

Table 1 looks at a sub-set of churches in our area, but if we look at all United Methodist Churches in Western Colorado and Utah, over 40, the average giving per attendee is right at $2,100.  Our average is $1,825.  There is a very high relationship between attendance and congregational giving in the aggregate, with right at 90% of the uncertainty in congregational giving being a function of attendance.  In the world of economic analysis, that is a very high level of uncertainty explained. 

If we were ‘average’ in this area, we would have +$60,000 to invest in growing the kingdom.  Just ‘average.’  I personally do not think Hilltop is an ‘average’ community but in this area, we are ‘below average.’  In some measures of grading we would get a ‘needs improvement.’  Many former Hilltop members now worship in St. George at Shepherd of the Hills.  If we were at their level of average giving, we would have nearly $150,000 more to invest in kingdom growth.  Getting to average gets us over $60,000 and getting to level of many of our former parishioners in St. George almost gets us $150,000. 

At this moment, our forecasted overall income is right at $30,000 less than our forecasted and budgeted expenses.  That is about a six percent shortfall.  To return to the theme of last year, we are not over expensed, we are under incomed. 

How have we gotten to this place?  Multiple factors I think. 

• We are younger than the average church.  We have more young families than most.  Resources are not evenly distributed across the age groupings, and as a general rule, money is highly clustered in older families and individuals. 
• We are highly transient.  People do show up here and then depart within five years.  Their financial commitment to Hilltop is gradual and then interrupted by their professional moves to another place in the country.  They blessed us in many ways during their brief time with us. 
• Finally, I think we have used resources generated by the building to pay for programs.  Examples have been and in some cases still are, Hilltop Christian School, Building Use Donations and Cell Towers.  This occurred during lean times and we have kept it up.  To the detriment of the building I believe. 

Do those three factors, and perhaps more that are unmentioned, mean we are fated to lag our colleagues in Utah?  I think no.  I do think it will require us to focus on who we are and whose we are – with a solid vision.

Our new proposed vision is:  Hilltop – An inclusive community of hospitality, healing, help, and hope, leading hearts to Christ. 

A portion of our hospitality is the building, but it also the staff which is a part of leading, managing, facilitating lay-led programmatic work to bring us to a place where we can heal, help and be part of the hope message.  It is also our healing, help and hope support for the church beyond our walls where we are only sharing 67 cents on every dollar we should be sharing.  The building is a means for helping us realize our vision, staff to help lead and manage a culture of growth lived out by the laity, and being interested in supporting the greater church in places like Africa and the Philippines. 

For this specific note let’s address the building which gets about one dollar in four from our budget.  Most of that one dollar in four is for fixed or reasonably fixed costs:  mortgage, trash, utilities.  What is left over is insufficient to adequately provide required upkeep on the property.  An excellent example is our 1983 parking lot.  We keep sealing the cracks but at some point, it needs a new layer of asphalt.  Another example is the roof where over the past six years we have spent over $80,000 and 100% of that was paid for by insurance.  A blessing we had the insurance for sure.  The age of the building ranges from thirty-five to about ten years.  We are under invested in its upkeep and maintenance. 

In my June-July Newsletter Musings, I mentioned that Paul in his letter to Timothy speaks to being diligent. I wrote: 

“To be diligent suggests we will attend to life in a way that shows care and conscientiousness in our duties.  I pray you show care and are conscientious in your weekly attendance at Hilltop and supporting her with your time, talent and treasure. It is important. It is important to sustaining a culture of growth.  Paul says to “give yourself wholly to them.” I think that is excellent advice, and I pass it on for your consideration and possible implementation.” 

I closed that article saying “Thank you for attending to this issue of great importance.”  We need to attend to this opportunity to create a culture of growth.  When you get your letter next week, find a quiet moment to read it and attempt to develop an understanding of what we are saying. 

People often ask me, what might I do to help more at Hilltop?  You would bless me if you would patiently and with great wisdom and understanding, carefully read what we have to say to you. 

Thank you for your anticipated understanding and “Thank you for attending to this issue of great importance.”   

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Diligence, Vision, and Remembrance

Be Diligent

1 Timothy 4:13-16, New International Version -- Until I come [that is Saint Paul], devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Despite summer not officially being until June 21st, many have started attending to summertime events. Marilyn and I took advantage of the beautiful weather on Memorial Day to visit the Golden Spike Historical Site, the Bear River Bird Refuge and the Spiral Jetty. It was a full day we thoroughly enjoyed. We have not traveled in Utah as much as we should have, and hope to take some time this summer seeing the incredible beauty that exists here.  But this past Memorial Day was a time of growth: spiritual and intellectual. We plan to have other times this summer where growth will continue to be a primary focus. 

The First Timothy speaks to public reading of scripture followed by preaching and teaching. In fact, we are encouraged to be diligent in these matters. Paul is rejecting in this pastoral letter an attitude of complacency; rather it is an advocacy towards a culture of growth. 

Your Sunday attendance is important for growth. When I thank people for a first time attendance at Hilltop, I use nourishment as an image: “I pray you were spiritually nourished.” Just as our bodies need a regular dose of rest, fluids and food, our soul requires regular spiritual nourishment. My car needs to be topped off with fuel periodically, and our soul needs to be topped off with spiritual fuel in the same way. I will go so far as saying that if you are at home, the place you are called to be on Sunday morning is Hilltop. Here is where you are supposed to be. If you are on the road, I pray you avail yourself of a chance to experience worship in a different setting or location, and see how others might be fed or refueled. But your Sunday attendance is important for your spiritual growth and health. How are you going to grow spiritually if you are not spiritually fed or fueled? Pleases continue to make it important to you and your family and be fed and fueled at Hilltop. 

Your continued financial participation is important for sustainment, and potential growth, at Hilltop. Many summers see an economic downturn in giving leading to anxious moments by those in financial leadership (see Galen Ewer’s article from the Newsletter below). With a drop in attendance, the members’ checkbooks are not brought to church, and anxiety is born out of that downturn. What happens is that instead of a culture of plenty, we enter into a culture, induced by a history of low attendance and giving in the summer that sees only scarcity. An enormous portion of our monthly spending is for staff and non-discretionary expenses, e.g. mortgage.  We might take a vacation, but servicing the mortgage, for example, does not. I would pray that if you plan on being gone for much of the summer, take some steps to get your pledge or programmed contribution over onto automatic. The sustainment of key activities of your church depends on it. 

Paul in his letter to Timothy above speaks to being diligent. To be diligent suggests we will attend to life in a way that shows care and conscientiousness in our duties.  I pray you show care and are conscientious in your weekly attendance at Hilltop and supporting her with your time, talent and treasure. It is important. It is important to sustaining a culture of growth.  Paul says to “give yourself wholly to them.” I think that is excellent advice, and I pass it on for your consideration and possible implementation.

Thank you for attending to this issue of great importance.  

Vision Casting

Our Proposed Vision:  Hilltop – An inclusive community of hospitality, healing, help, and hope, leading hearts to Christ.

Our Proposed New Vision Statement!

We are getting close to looking for congregational buy-in on our proposed Vision.  Belong, believe, and become has served us well, but your leadership believes it is time to cast a new vision from which to navigate the next ten to fifteen years. The amount of time we might use the proposed vision above is “God knows.”   

On May 27th, I spoke to the idea of allowing the Holy Spirit to be the wind in our sails and we use the testimony of God to pick our destination. There were two other options mentioned that morning, one of which was to row like it all depends on us and the other was to get on board a raft and allow ourselves to be blown by the winds. One says it all depends on God, and the other says it all depends on us.  What about opening our hearts to a biblically ordained destination, and allowing God’s holy breath to blow us along towards that destination. 

We pray that is the plan we follow. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis 

Don’t Forget Hilltop Over the Summer

By Galen Ewer, finance committee chair

I am nervous.  Each year as the summer months come Kathy Wheeler, our treasurer, and I get nervous about Hilltop’s cash flow. Last year the congregation was good about keeping up pledge commitments during the summer but that has not been the case in prior years.  Some of the past years we have had to skip our obligation to the conference or stretch out other bills.  Not good business practices!

As we enter the vacation months please do not forget the needs of your church.  If you noted the monthly report in the 3rd Sunday bulletin we are about $10,000 in the red for the year.  If giving slows over the next three months our financial situation could begin to look bleak.

Please keep up on your pledge and giving.  Remember the bills do not take a vacation in the summer!

Familiar in the Unfamiliar

[The Angels ask Mary]:  “Woman, why are you weeping?”

[Mary] said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (Which means Teacher).  John 20: 13b-16 (NRSV)

I was in my fifties before much of the significance of this scene started to really lay claim to my soul.  Every time I explore the scene again, it grows in power, its meaning sharpens a little more. 

Easter, 2018, finds me preaching from the Gospel of John and the extract above is part of the common reading for the day.  I will touch on other elements of the scene, but the center piece of the message is how Mary recognizes Jesus through the calling of her name.   

John in his beautiful writing style is looping back earlier in his Gospel where the Good Shepherd says about his sheep: "The sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out" (John 10:3). The Good Shepherd then adds, "I know my own and my own know me" (John 10:14).  Mary is part of his flock, so it should not be surprising that she recognizes the risen Christ when his voice is heard calling her name.

Mary is experiencing the familiar, Jesus, in an unfamiliar place, the garden outside the tomb. 

Because she is a member of Jesus flock, she recognizes Jesus through her called name. 

For Mary, here in this scene, it was the voice of Jesus calling her by name, making the unfamiliar, familiar.  Life is like that, we are able to live and survive in the unfamiliar because of the familiar. 

Sometimes, for some of us, the familiar is television, the older the better.  Remember the television series that started in 1983 and ran till 1992, about a bar in Boston, ‘where everybody knows your name:’ Cheer’s?  Our name is a powerful force to take us to familiarity even in a place of unfamiliarity.   

The familiar is often best understood, experienced, in community.  James Baldwin published in 1961 a collection of essays about the black experience in the United States, under the dark title Nobody Knows My Name.  Baldwin’s title suggests he is haunted by the absence of community, i.e. Nobody.  In comparing Baldwin’s essays with the Gospel of John with community one writer suggests:

When one's name is known and called, one is enfolded in community. When Mary's name was called by the risen Jesus, she was enfolded into the company of heaven, and she recognized the One who now lives directly within and from the life of God.

That is goosebump:  Jesus is calling Mary into the community of heaven.  In her case, it is a community of the faithful who encounter the risen Jesus.  At this moment in the John biblical narrative, it is a pretty exclusive community:  her.  Be not anxious:  It doesn’t stay that way. 

Do we understand, when Jesus calls us by name, it is a call to community? 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:  “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”  Are you ready to be interrupted by God? 

Here’s the question: if Jesus calls you by name, would you recognize his voice?’  Here my Bonhoeffer twist is, ‘would you want to recognize his voice?’ 

An industrial size dose of candor would compel many, if not most, to admit we do not truly believe that Jesus will come to us in the garden and call us by name. 

If Jesus does, we will do everything in our power to pretend we don’t recognize the calling voice. 

For many, if not most, recognizing Jesus voice in the garden would scream out for immediate rejection.

Jesus is calling us to disconnect from the preferred familiar, and emerge in a reality so profoundly different, so totally unfamiliar, we cannot imagine it.

At least, we cannot imagine it, until Jesus calls us by name. 

It is important to place ourselves in spaces where we experience and affirm Jesus in our midst.  We do this in hearing “the body of Christ, broken for you”, in the scent of the oil from the candles, in the familiar sound of a favored hymn or anthem that stirs us in places too deep to be named, in the feel of the Bible given to us in love in a confirmation class fifty years ago.  Those are the familiars that help us to live in the unfamiliar and are part of how we hear the voice of Jesus calling our very names.  The unfamiliar includes the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, staying overnight for Family Promise, or creating emergency buckets at the United Methodist Committee on Relief here in Salt Lake.

Easter comes, and then it comes, and then it comes again.  Easter in a familiar rhythm, sound, sights and smells.  However, from those familiars, we are called to serve, and that can make the familiar pretty unfamiliar. 

Are you familiar enough with the voice of Jesus to recognize him calling you by name, and if yes, is he calling you into the unfamiliar?  If so, listen.

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Children Make the Parent

“We all know that parents do not make children but that children make parents … Authentic parenting is one long sacrificial act … parenting reveals the way that sacrifice at once diminishes our life as we knew it … while at the same time revealing to us larger and infinitely more fascinating forms of life … Parents know experientially that the very process which makes them suffer also makes them grow.”

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Living Gospel

Luke Johnson is a New Testament Scholar at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.  Candler people I know in ministry speak highly of him. 

Right off, there are a few things with the quote that potentially give me pause.

Initially, I was not sure I would have said my life had been diminished by being a parent, even with the qualifying phrase “as we knew it” coming so quickly.  But try as I can, I am unable to wordsmith a better image of shrinking what we thought was important before we became parents.  It certainly has a way of changing our focus.  I told my children after the birth of their children that ‘your life will never be the same.’  My son in particular recently reminded me of that phrase and said it was so true. 

I also know using the above quote can be painful for some.  Parenting can have a mixed message; it can be a mine field in how we understand it or see it.  Some want to be parents, and have not realized this goal.  Others have had strained relations with their children, birth and adopted, feeling, as Johnson alludes to, they had sacrificed much but different than Johnson, for little appreciation. 

Life is so complicated at times. 

But, Luke Johnson is touching on an element of the Christian walk that too many of us try and avoid, or see as some kind of plague or curse:  suffering. 

It seems to me that whenever I read the word suffering, I hear in my brain this echo of Paul from Romans 5:
 

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.  (NIV)

Paul writes:  “Glory in our sufferings.”  Paul is using glory as a verb which means to take pride or pleasure.  For sure I do not take pleasure in suffering.  For me, suffering might at times be a badge of honor that I wear, but I don’t think Paul means suffering by itself is the badge of honor.  Paul talks about it as part of life.  We are going to suffer, but that suffering leads to positive outcomes:  perseverance, character and hope.  Hope and the character that precedes it are the badges of honor.  Johnson means it the same way:  our suffering as a parent leads to changing us in positive ways.  We grow from the experience.  We are forever different.  Growth and a different outlook are for Johnson the badges of honor. 

We don’t have to experience or be near the actual physical birth pains of a human child in order to be a parent and be forever experientially changed as a result. 

We used the image of Hilltop as a parent when we were talking about a satellite campus growing into a fully identifiable separate church somewhere south and west of us.  We did so with intentionality thinking that being a parent in this sacrificial way, would help define us, in a positive way, as to who we are.  I really think that idea still has resonance and meaning.  Because we had one miscarriage, does not mean we should swear off parenting. 

I hear those who say:  ‘we aren’t ready yet’ and ‘we tried that last year and it didn’t work, let’s focus on Hilltop first.’  I concede there are elements of Hilltop life that needs strengthening. That is absolutely true.  I am not sure our miscarriage was entirely driven by lack of strength, but let’s talk.  What does need strengthening? 

Examples of things that need our continued attention are:  money, volunteerism, lack of universal engagement, aging infrastructure, a culture with a waning interest in Christianity in a post-Christendom world, and enthusiasm for the topic of parenting.  I could go on. 

But I still plan to persevere here in hopeful and hope producing leadership.  Here I think I am doing this in the tradition of Hilltop’s Saint:  the late Reverend James Cowell.  Jim was the pastor here at Hilltop from 1991 to 1997 and was the architect of Colorado Springs Sunrise United Methodist.  Being bold, creating church children from healthy parents was a core belief of Jim’s.  Core.  I am his ideological descendent. 

Like Cowell and Johnson, I think this image of Hilltop as a parent is critical to help define who we are as children of God. 

We should do this in order to produce a Pauline like ecclesial character that looks forward to hopeful outcomes. 

Suffering, and know that we are going to, isn’t embraced because it is pleasurable, but rather look at how so many who have been able to be parents have had their very lives changed by that process. 

In the early 1900s a phrase emerged:  What would Jesus Do?  We see it abbreviated as WWJD.  Well, at Hilltop for sure, what about maybe WWJ²D.  Jesus and Jim – or J Squared. J Cubed if we add Johnson?   

It is time to start the conversation again. 

God doesn’t call us to small tasks. 

How do we strengthen Mother Hilltop so that she is capable of nurturing new life? 

How do we get started on this soon? 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Ministry Moment October 15, 2017

(Christine LeBel is the Vice Chair of our Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC), and Eric Weber is the Chair.  They assisted with this ministry moment.)  

Today Christine/Eric and I want to talk a little about staff …

Let’s review …

The mission of the United Methodist Church is transformation … it is our very why … we exist so that we can help transform the world … ourselves, our neighborhood, our world …

Transformation of the world begins with the individual … (repeat that)

Our staff is a very important element of that transformation …

Let’s start with how our staff contributes to this transformation story  …

SPRC Rep:  We have a great staff.  They care for and about each other.  Truly, pain for one, is pain for all.  Joy for one, is joy for all. 

Very often, when we say “the church” our staff is the living church – the embodiment of you, of me, of all of us -- throughout the week and they prepare and provide us with many things, not the least of which is meaningful worship each Sunday.  

Further, our staff is, through their work, an outreach of discipleship from our congregation out to the larger community.  They do this day in and day out.

Shaw:  What you want us to understand about what we are trying to do with our staff?

SPRC Rep: 

For too many years, we have underappreciated our staff in terms of compensation.  The level of responsibility that they have is much greater than their compensation levels.   All of them work for more hours than we pay them, and we pay them less than market wages. 

The staff has more responsibility than their compensation would suggest. 

We have an excellent staff and we are trying to build financial bridges to improve their compensation. 

That bridge building is not complete, nor will it end on December 31, 2018.  We have some catching up to do here.  Across the board. 

Shaw:  Anything concluding thoughts?

SPRC Rep:  Yes, we need to support our staff with a competitive compensation program that helps support and expands their responsibilities plus recognizes their expertise. 

Many of our initiatives start with development by our staff.   Better support helps to move all of our initiatives forward….. The staff is over half of our budget and some of the ideas we have suggested here, and more not stated but hoped for, will require us to step up with our giving so that we can realize our goals ….

Shaw:  We could go on for quite a while here.  (Lift up the handout) … more details are here. 

But the fundamental question is “does the world need more or less of your staff’s contribution to a message of God’s free and unconditional grace?”  Thank you …