Supporting the Connectional Church

Supporting the Connectional Church: Why, Why Not & Because

Reverend Doctor C. Dennis Shaw, Retired Elder in the Mountain Sky Conference and a member of the Conference Council on Finance and Administration

This is a first in a series of thought pieces addressing elements of why and towards what end we are asked to support the United Methodist church beyond the local church.

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A frequent question in discussions of how we support the United Methodist Church beyond the local church is: “what does our church get back for paying our Mission Shares and Apportionment?”

I hear in the “what does our church get back” question, a “why” question. Help us understand “why” we support the Conference and levels beyond? Illustration: a university philosophy class had a one-word final exam: Why? A passing answer was “why not” but excellence was recognized when the answer was “Because.”

My answer to the “why” question is “because”, but I offer you more than one word.

Our “because” is we United Methodists are a connectional people. Connection is defined by the United Methodist Church as: “The principle, basic to The United Methodist Church, that all leaders and congregations are connected in a network of loyalties and commitments that support, yet supersede, local concerns.[1]” [Note:  footnotes do not automatically move you to the reference.  You will need to scroll down.  Sorry.]

Why do we support activities beyond the local church? “Because” it is who we are. We are a network, and within this network, we show loyalties and commitments to other United Methodist churches and other expressions of Methodism in other countries. Interestingly, this principle acknowledges that it both supports local concerns, but at times, supersede those same local concerns. I will return to this in another article, but not here.

As I read that UM definition of “connection” echoes of Jesus speaking of himself from John 15 as the true vine and how we are to remain in him merges in my head with Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 reminding us we are part of the body of Christ. If we remain in Christ and acknowledge we are part of the body of Christ, then the logic of connectedness through our denominational network suggests to me that our connectional understanding is grounded biblically. I will return to a biblical grounding in each article in this series.

Therefore, my “because” is because it is who we are: a connectional people, with a scriptural emphasis, and this principle was true in our creation story.

Duke theologian Laceye Warner writes: “The … heritage of Wesleyan, Methodists, and Evangelical United Brethren … emerged from a missional imperative ... This is distinctive since other denominational traditions often trace their roots to disagreements regarding confessional or doctrinal matters.”[2] Because it is who we are. It is a principle within the “method” that makes us “Methodists.”

I am mindful that “why not” in my philosophy illustration gets a passing grade and “why not” must be dealt with.

“Why not” and trust, most often the lack of trust, are related. Lack of trust rarely appears explicitly named in the unwillingness to share conversation. However, trust is in short supply across our nation and within our church. Laceye Warner, quoted earlier, observes that trust is presumed present in our overall connection, but “when trust is low, this becomes a weakness since there are few, if any clear structures for accountability that almost maintain the connection.”[3] I agree and expand that it is my take that what we don’t understand and when trust is not present there is an assumption of waste and lack of need. As I mentioned earlier, it is my plan that this piece will establish a baseline for discussion, but I will follow it up with other pieces addressing more specifically what the local church gets back. I believe it is considerable.

Our Book of Discipline places great emphasis missionally on both the local church and the Conference. The local church is “the basic unit in the connectional system” while at the same time, the Conference is understood as “the fundamental body.” Our mission statement reminds us that “Local churches and extension ministries of the Church provide the most significant arenas through which disciple-making occurs.”[4]

Disciple-making takes place at the local church (and extension ministries) but the equipping for that action is facilitated through development and deployment of leaders by the Conference. I believe the missional imperative for the Conference is leadership development and deployment and discuss it a little here.  My next article will focus on this more specifically. 

Fundamentally, the Wesleyan movement has understood sharing as a vital part of who we are. A favorite image of mine is a comparison of the Sea of Galilee with the Dead Sea. Both are nurtured by inflows of water from the River Jordan. But the Sea of Galilee releases what is received and gives back. The Dead Sea is not capable of this release, and the water that flows in, stays, to become brackish and filled with minerals. The Sea of Galilee teems with life, sustaining villages around its shores. The Dead Sea is just that: dead.

The Sea of Galilee is compelled to share, it is part of what it is. The Dead Sea is compelled to hoard, it is part of what it is. Part of who we are as Methodists, people who are part of a connection, says we are a people “connected in a network of loyalties and commitments that support, yet supersede, local concerns.” Our support is a both/and – both local and global. There are places around our world where the connection teems with life, sustaining others around its shore.

Again, I plan for this article to be an intellectual grounding in “why” and will unpack in a series to follow more specifically what is it the local church gets back from Mission Shares and Apportionments. Again, I think considerable.

References (and all will be linked to their URL):

Barbara Carroll -- Minnesota Annual Conference – “What Does My Church Get Back from Apportionments”

Dennis Shaw – Mountain Sky Conference – “Defining our Mission Around Leadership Development”

Erik Alsgaard -- Baltimore-Washington Conference – “Connection makes the UMC Work”

Laceye Warner -- UM-Insight “Sent in Love”

Laura Rainwater -- “What does my church ‘get back’ from our apportionments”

North Carolina Annual Conference (and adapted from Minnesota article) – “Faith and Money: What do churches get from paying apportionment?”

The 2016 Book of Discipline

This article as a PDF on Mountain Sky Website.   

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[1] Source: Sharing God's Gifts Glossary of United Methodist Terms. And I plan in a future piece to discuss a little about “supersede.”  My take on that is that there are times the greater good is superior to the local church, but for now, let’s not dwell on this. 

[2] UM-Insight by Laceye Warner

[3] Quoted in a Baltimore-Washington Conference News article from May-June 2017. Link is HERE.

[4]¶ 120. The Mission—The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches and extension ministries of the Church provide the most significant arenas through which disciple-making occurs. United Methodist Book of Discipline, 2016.

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

Pronouns Matter

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.  1 Corinthians 12:12 (ESV)

In my time in the Army, I often heard leaders say while pointing to the US Army strip on our uniforms “there is no me in Army” then point to our name tags, mine of course saying SHAW and offering “there is no I in Team.”

There is no me in Army, there is no I in team. 

The preamble to the Constitution starts, “We the people.” 

The New York Yankees do not allow names on the backs of their jerseys, only numbers.  

Some coaches tell basketball, football, and baseball players to play for the name on the front of their jersey rather than the name on the back.  The back has their last name, and on the front, is the team name. 

All of those ideas point to the same concept that Paul was pointing to in his ongoing philosophical dispute with the church in Corinth:  when you sign on to be a follower of Christ, you leave the stuff behind you previously held on to.  For Paul, the image of a healthy human body was helpful to understanding the idea of team:  the team worked together and the eye was the eye, and it didn’t try to be the ear, mouth, or ankle. 

There is no me in Church, there is no I in team.  Me and I are called pronouns, which mean they can be used as a substitute for nouns. 

Here is my point:  Pronouns matter, they matter a lot. 

How many times do we hear national leaders over the last twenty years get into extended dialogue where the pronouns used are I, me or my.  Those are all first person, singular pronouns.  Somehow when Jesus says “I am the light of the world” that is positive, but when a leader pronounces “I am the light of the world” it is jarring. 

Personally, I always try to make sure the pronouns when I speak to leaders about leadership are to the maximum degree possible, if first person, plural.  We.  Us. 

When in active church leadership, I ask that when we sing “Spirit of the Living God” the pronouns be us, rather than me.  “Melt us, mold us, use us.”  Yes? 

But that is so hard.  Look at the very first sentence of this thought piece:  quickly it gets to first person, singular.  Sometimes the I statement is unavoidable.  First person singular isn’t automatically sinful.  But other times, it would be more true, more helpful, and more kind to go to plural pronouns. 

Reading European sports writers talk about the recent World Cup was interesting.  England are something.  Not England is something.  My word processor gives me an error on are following the singular noun, England, but England in the context meant is a team, a plural. 

Maybe we need to think of the Body of Christ in a European team concept:  The body of Christ are …

English teachers will freak out but in reality the plural verb makes an excellent point – a team is intrinsically plural, not singular.  You want the team to get to a place of unity, oneness, functioning as one.  But even in perfect oneness, perfect unity, it is still a collection of me’s and I’s. 

I used The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown several years ago for sermon illustrations.  Boys in the Boat is the story of the University of Washington Rowing Team and how, spoiler alert, they won the Olympic Gold Medal in 1936.  In part, the book is about how one man, Joe Rantz, neglected and abandoned by his family, had to learn to sacrifice his personal individuality for the unity of the team.  When Rantz makes that psychological, spiritual shift in his understanding of how it all fits together, the crew is one with each other.  The nine members of the Crew become one. 

For Paul, this thing called church is a one.  He sees it in terms of the complexity of the human body, many diverse parts and roles, but still functioning as a single thing.  All of this diversity of function and role still serves to keep the body healthy and viable.  Every member of the body, that is eyes, fingers, feet, stomach, ears, all function in support of the one that is the entire body: the entire body of Christ. 

This Jesus stuff isn’t easy.  It isn’t going to happen without effort and hard work and a willingness to make that psychological, spiritual shift in understanding of how it all fits together.  You’ve got to sacrifice much of our individuality to make it all fit together.

One of the barometers in how we assess how we are doing on this “body of Christ” stuff is the pronouns.  When first person singular dominate, we are probably focused on the wrong things.  When the dominant pronouns are plural, we are probably functioning consistent with what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 12. 

There is no me in Church, there is no I in team. 

Selah, Dennis

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, found 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 for me from 2012 to 2019 included the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, my wife staying overnight for Family Promise, or in community creating emergency buckets at the United Methodist Committee on Relief in Salt Lake. Last night it was for me feeding the needy at Asbury UMC here in Charles Town.  

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 he calling you by name, and if yes, is he calling you into the unfamiliar?  If so, listen.

Selah, Dennis

Listening in order to Understand

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

James 1:19-21, The Message.

I use a quote from Stephen Covey a lot:  “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

We all regularly encounter those who start sentences with something like “I don’t understand” but then complete what began as a quest for understanding with why what they don’t understand is clearly wrong, stupid, or something they strongly disagree with. 

This is basic human nature:  it is part of the human condition. 

My reaction when this happens is to think “you must think you understand enough about this to say you don’t like it.”  I hear the religious authorities of Jesus day saying to “I don’t understand this Jesus dude, and I don’t like him.” 

I confess I find this type of conversation jarring.  I operate in the faith that optimism, enthusiasm, and hope are contagious. 

May I invite all of us to lead with our ears and follow with our tongues? 

May I invite everyone to replace replace negativity with the "help me understand.” 

Bonhoeffer nails it (as he usually does):  "The first service one owes to others in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God's Word, the beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them."

He also writes:  "There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that .... is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person."  It almost sounds like the Covey  above!  Maybe I need to change who I am quoting from Covey to Bonhoeffer?  

Rise above basic human nature: listening is not part of the human condition.

In the 1951, John Huston movie “The African Queen” the character played by Humphrey Bogart laments that how he behaves is “only human nature” to which the Katherine Hepburn character answers:  “Nature … is what we are put in this world to rise above.” 

We are Easter people. 

Let us endeavor to spread the joy of the empty tomb in all that we do. 

John Wesley wrote: “I have often repented of judging too severely, but very seldom of being too merciful.”

It can be argued that judging too quickly is a form of judging too severely.

Perhaps in seeking understanding, we might reduce the need to request mercy later.

Selah, Dennis

Denied Pain: A Redux

“Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate.”

 Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness

 I think many of us know the expression, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

As Brené Brown offers in Braving the Wilderness, that expression is sometimes, but not always,true.  Courage can be forged, but fear or hate might be as well.

Too often those in pain try to talk to someone, you, me or another friend, about their pain.  On our best days, we listen.  On our worst, we tell them to be tough and soldier on.  I have, too often, witnessed this danced out with exactly this be tough and soldier on choreography when asked to deal with depression.  Sadly, I have led this dance myself more than once.

A person has a broken ankle and we stop, cast them, operate if necessary and shower them with special care.  A person has a broken heart stemming from life’s pains, and we often, too often in my opinion, tell them to suck it up and drive on.

On forced road marches in the Army, I often heard non-commissioned officers telling soldiers to “take two salt tablets, put your mind in neutral, and drive on.”  It worked.  Often in fact.  Not always.  When I comment that we need to be prepared to listen for the pain, it is the deeper pain that is being denied, or ignored.  That is the type of pain that leads to anger and/or fear.

A powerful, insightful, book I read several years ago was Hillbilly Elegy.  The author deals well with the deep pain of living in a culture where that pain is denied or ignored.  To re-quote Brown:  “Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate.”

I think there are movements in this country right now feeding from the trough of denied or ignored pain.  These movements are across our political landscape, and not isolated to any one group.

How people are often moved to action is through a careful, intentional dose of hatred that is used so stoke the ovens of fear.

What we have too often is a single coin, with two sides:  one side – fear, the other - hatred.  Fear and hatred are two sides of the same coin, minted by those who use that coin to fund and fuel dissension and separation.

We live longer, have less poverty, are better educated, and are generally healthier than at any time in human history.  But still we live so often in fear.  Communities lock down because of a shooting and helicopters fly over our heads shaking us out of a world of confidence into a world beset with basic human fear, and we ask do I face this and rise, or do I flee, and if I do flee, where do I go that is truly safe?

So often FEAR is Forgetting Everything is All Right and that is a basic element of the human condition.  I was once told, there are 365 times we are told to Fear Not in the Bible.

In Romans 5: 3-5 we are told “we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. 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.”  Each of us has a role in the steps here from suffering to hope.  Moving from suffering to hope is not a personal, singular journey.  Each of us are potential messengers of the Gospel on this journey.  

Our task, our sacred call, is to listen deeply for the pain in others (or ourselves) and be agents that cause that pain to not be denied or ignored.  Listening to others is important.  Allowing yourself to be supported by others serves to help release that pain.

Sometimes we minister by quietly sitting, quietly listening.

     Sometimes we minister by moving from sitting and listening to rising so that we are instruments of change in a world that might too often be guilty of the charge of not listening for the pain.

          Sometimes, two salt tablets and putting our minds in neutral is not the Christ-like response.  You figure that out by listening, and being open to not believing everything you think.

               Sometimes what doesn’t kill you, makes you meaner or more fearful.  Learn to recognize that in yourself.  Be alert to seeing it in others.

Everyone of those sometimes contains a suggested Christ-like response:  be a friend to those to whom love is a stranger.

Selah, Dennis

I published a slightly different version of this two years ago based on a Sermon Series preached at Hilltop UMC in Sandy, Utah, thus "a Redux".  

Trust and Faith: Maternal Cousins

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3: 5-6, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Trust and faith are related, cousins, not twins. 

Faith, leaning on Hebrews 11, is about assurance and conviction (NRSV:  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”). 

Trust is about character.  Our own character and how we feel about the character of the other.  Heart in biblical terms is usually about character rather than our bodily organ.  Both, organ and character, are vital, necessary, life giving. 

How we understand the character of the other is driven generally by experience.  It takes time for us to know someone well enough to get a full measure of their character, and after we do, it is often fixed:  concrete.  A great example of this is after Saint Paul gets metaphorically knocked off his horse in Acts 9 on his way to Damascus, Paul reaches out to the gathered community of Jesus followers, in Damascus and Jerusalem, but fails to connect.  Simple:  they don’t trust him.  ‘We know this guy; he has shown us who he is.  Don’t trust him.  It’s all an act.’  Even the intervention of trusted Barnabas fails until Barnabas gets his own appointment in Antioch.  He remembers Paul and puts him to work.  Paul is redeemed, and that redemption hinges on Barnabas’ trust in the character of Paul’s repentance. 

I expect we have all heard the phrase:  “In God we trust, everything else, we check.”  It says everyone else’s character is untrustworthy. 

That worldview, that statement of the human condition, is remarkably cynical.  

In fact, that cynicism is organizationally cancerous.  Like undiagnosed, untreated cancer, lack of trust is fatal:  killing vision, killing mission, killing hope, killing creativity.  Mistrust is a cancer on our view of much of our current world:  government, media, business, and the church.

But this is a reflection on leadership, not our entire culture:  Leaders must be open to self-examination.  Must.  Self-examination leading to self-awareness is a leadership imperative.  Leaders, true leaders, those who actually bring about change, must be willing to trust in their judgment, their own growth and maturity, and others.

What would have happened if Barnabas had trusted the judgment of the crowd in Damascus and Jerusalem, and allowed the mistrust of Paul to cause him, Barnabas, to not invite Paul to assist him with Antioch First UMC? 

Often mistrust is a function of fear.  1 John 4: 18 tells us there is ‘no fear in love’ and that ‘true love’ casts out fear. 

What is it we fear individually?

What do we fear organizationally?

How do we overcome those fears as individuals and within the organizations we are part of. 

Those questions will not be easy, and if one generates an answer quickly, reflexively, then the gentle, seeking completeness, reader might need to go back and re-read this short reflection until this dose of chemotherapy, this dose of radiation treatment, this surgery, has begun to excise the cancer of mistrust from our organizational body. 

Selah, Dennis

A Scarlet Letter

Jesus says in Matthew 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life” (ESV).

Paul writes in Philippians 4: 6 “do not be anxious about anything” (ESV). 

A wall plaque posted behind my computer screen advises:   “Let your faith be bigger than your fear.”

Rejecting fear doesn’t mean we have to necessarily reject safety.  Safety is important. I fasten my seat belts for even the shortest trip in my car. But are we sometimes overly safety conscious?

The late Rabbi Edwin Friedman offers we live “in a ‘seatbelt society’ more oriented toward safety than adventure.” Let's bookmark that thought briefly and return to it in a few lines. 

I interact with many where one of the harshest direct criticisms is, “you are an anxious presence.” Those words have, or are expected to have, a mystical, “red letter”, scriptural authority.

Immediate penance and repentance is expected when this is uttered. Immediate!

Hester Prynne, Hawthorne’s heroine in The Scarlet Letter, was required to wear on her dress a Scarlet A, for adulteress. 

In my clergy leadership world the Scarlet A is for anxious, and within that world we avoid that A as if anxiety were synonymous with adultery.

Here is the issue: who gets to define what anxiety is? 

Anxiety might actually be a reaction to another’s desire for urgency.

Urgency is required to bring about change.

Some of that change could be altering the status quo.

Anxiety is often, not always, but often, driven by our preference to hang on to the status quo.

Is it a good idea to let any one person be the definer of what is anxiety?

Returning to Friedman, he urges us not to give excess power to the most anxious presence in the room. I posit conversely should the one in the room with the highest preference in the status quo decide what anxiety is?

If we don’t want to allow the most anxious presence to have the power, I don’t wish to empower one person to define what anxiety is.

Honest disagreement may emerge but a dismissal with the remark, ‘you are just an anxious presence’ needs to be expunged from our ‘compleat’ leadership tool belt. 

Your anxiety may be my urgency. Your anxiety may be my raising the temperature in the room to bring about change. 

John Kotter is an expert in leading change. To paraphrase Kotter: ‘The first step in leading change is creating a sense of urgency.’ Urgency might mean we need to move from a too comfortable world.

The poet Brian Andreas writes: “Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable; fall asleep ; miss your life.” 

Overcoming comfortable and missing our life’s call often requires urgency. 

I believe we need to listen to angels that endeavor to be sure we are not too comfortable and wake us up.

Jesus and Paul and Friedman urge us not to be anxious. What element of our leadership life have angels looked at and said “wake up, you are letting comfort dictate what is going on, following the call of Jesus may not be comfortable or safe.” 

There is an irony in Hester Prynne: she is arguably the person of most character in The Scarlet Letter. Her Adulteress A is gradually transformed to an item of beauty, embroidered as a reflection of her inner character.

What if allowing others to brand us with an Anxious A is actually a mark of our own transformation, an item of beauty?

Returning to Friedman: What might it take for us to leave the 'seatbelt society' and instead seek a holy adventure in some presumed unsafe wilderness? I wonder if this isn’t Exodus meeting contemporary safety standards.  

Jesus says to not be anxious.

Paul says to not be anxious.

It is scriptural to not be anxious.

As we jointly tackle an uncertain future, let’s understand that urgency is the issue, moving from the status quo, and not allow anxiety to define us.

But we need clarity within community as to why and what defines us as anxious.

For Hester, her Adulteress A became a scarlet letter of distinction and honor. 

Maybe if others label you with a Scarlet Anxious A, but you are, in holy humility, confident that you are a Jesus-like and Paul-like non-anxious presence, let it be a scarlet letter of honor. 

Urgency and raising the temperature in the room so that the status quo is chased does not immediately equal anxiety. 

If the issue is urgency and changing the status quo, I believe we can wear that scarlet letter with honor. 

Selah, 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

Growing in Love

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 New International Version

We love [God] because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 New International Version

The search for meaning in my life ultimately brought me to the Church.  That quest for meaning presented me, in love, with a life defined by the life of Christ, a Christian life, shaped by the Word of God and the ongoing presence of God in my life.  A life initiated in love but further defined by the need for constant growth. 

A Christian life in a state of growth consists of at least two further searches, if not more:  Acknowledging that God searching for us, we are searching for God.  Those two searches are defined and driven by love.  In the scripture above, we understand God loves the world and we love God because God first loved us.  That affirmation of love is meant to be meaningful and transforming.  Most of our lives have been transformed by love:  think about it, where would you be without love?

The love we experience is not static or stationary.  It is a constantly evolving and at its best, constantly growing, force.  It grows deeper through trust and mutual respect, tenderness and care, growing.  I confess love has transformed me, and I suspect you as well.  Love leads to growth. 

I said this past May that “at the heart of God is to be in relationship.”  That day it was the relationship of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Today, let’s reflect on loving relationship within the Body. 

Our new Vision Statement makes relationship core by naming it – Hilltop and then addressing how we are in community:  Hilltop – An inclusive community of hospitality, healing, help, and hope, leading hearts to Christ.  Our vision is intended to be understood as a statement of being, who we are.  We provide hospitality and help, and God provides the healing and hope. 

In the First Century, long before we had denominations and set aside buildings for worship, the Christian search for meaning thrived on relationship.  We lose our way when we forget that.  People are the church:  we sing a hymn called “I am the Church.”  Too often we get focused on denominations or buildings to define the church, and that is the wrong focus.  At our best, we are a restless, searching, people who are, in humility, leading other hearts to Christ. 

We call the Church the very Body of Christ.  The Church, at its best, is focused on helping us be Christians that are constantly in a state of communicating, receiving, and giving.  We are, at our best:

·        Communicating the Good News of Jesus Christ to a cynical world, 

·       Receiving nurture, direction and hope regularly in order to be forces of transformation in that cynical world, and

·        Proudly, joyously, giving back to God our Time, our Talent, and our Treasure. 

Let’s spend some time this Season of Stewardship, a Season of Prayerful Growth, with great intentionality looking at where we are, or perhaps are not, growing.  Are we growing in the depth of our relationship and if not, what are we doing about it?  Growing in our minds, growing in our service, growing in the joyful sharing back to God what has been given to us in the first place.

Be alert, be attentive, be awake to the small still voice of God calling to you about how you might grow.  In order to truly understand that call, you may have to first be open to your potential for growth leading to joyful response. 

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