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

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 once said in a sermon 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. 

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 our lives 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, Dennis

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. 

I wonder if the issue is less about title and more about the why, the purpose of the sermon, and for me, it is about being, becoming.  “What does it mean to be a Follower of Christ?”  

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 twenty years ago, sometimes even twenty minutes ago. 

Being a Christian within 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. 

Wesley would call it "moving on to perfection." 

I suspect this moving on 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 always towards becoming. In the words of the Skin Horse, you become real, real as a follower of Christ.

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

Casting Out Fear

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  1 John 4:18 ESV

Fear is a natural element of the human condition. 

It is easy to utter the words “fear not” -- much more challenging to live out of an ethos that actually does it.

In Exodus the Israelites construct a Golden Calf to worship rather than this God of Liberation. 

Like the Wilderness Wandering Israelites, we are quick to turn fear into our own  Golden Calf, a Golden Calf that its flawed priests point towards and encourage us to “worship and honor the God of Fear, because that God feeds a natural element of your humanness.”

It is after all, a natural element of the human condition, and as a natural element, wants to be fed.

The Star Wars fictional character Yoda sees fear as leading to darkness in our souls:  “Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.”  Jedi Master Yoda doesn’t say “a path” he says “the path.”  That is absolute: “the path.” 

Jedi Master Dietrich Bonhoeffer is equally absolute calling fear “the archenemy itself … crouch[ing] in people’s hearts.”  Again, the article is definite:  the. 

I grew up in a Christian denomination that, I felt, operated from fear.  Too often the theology was fire and brimstone, turn or burn.  The overarching approach was often to use fear to rally us away from the ‘dark side.’  I remember far fewer sermons on the idea of love being a superior or at least an equal, countervailing, force against fear.  Instead of trying to remind us of the force of perfect love, and bringing us to that, fear of hell or damnation was very often the key lens by which we were led to see the force of Jesus.

Much of what drew me to Wesley and the People Called Methodists is the idea of love made visible in Jesus.

In the First Letter of John, we see this idea of love being made visible in Jesus in striving towards perfection in love.  This leads to our fears, our natural human condition, being cast out. 

Cast out is the same phrase used to describe overcoming demonic possessions.  Think about that for a second. 

If fear is ‘The path to the dark side” and “The archenemy”, perfection in love is “The” force that leads us away from fear and towards wholeness.

“Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.” John 14:27

Selah, Dennis

Gifts of the Spirit

Galatians 5: 19-23:  Now the works of the flesh are obvious: … impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. 

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Paul is big on the idea of the Spirit.  The Spirit is clearly an important theological idea for Paul.  References to the Spirit fill Paul’s letters as he coaches his far flung flock.  One is quoted here.  Paul was having trouble with Galatians Community UMC.  Things had fallen apart after he had left. 

I like to think of the Galatians readings in terms of car dashboard lights.  

When we are in proper relationship with God, our fellow co-laborers in the church and ourselves our dashboard lights are green.  Love, joy, peace and other good things are displayed consistent with what Paul enumerates in Galatians 5: 22-23.  The machine should work well when the lights are all green.  However, we need to check our spiritual engines when the dashboard lights are red with strife, anger, factions, envy and the like.  In the car dashboard world, green is normally good, red is normally a problem.  Fruits of the Spirit are good; Works of the Flesh are not.  Galatians 5 helps us understand and measure how we are doing with this relationship stuff.  The passage is an indicator of relationship. 

The issue here is how we use our gifts in order to produce Fruits of the Spirit.  Sometimes we know what those gifts are:  I am good at numbers and I am not particularly good at small engine repair.  But I didn’t know I was good at numbers until I got dropped into a position in 1973 that called for me to be a numerical analyst.  I struggled for a while but mentors and coaches helped me and turned that struggle into strength.  What we now see as a gift was at one time not a gift.  It was honed and developed by others, plus my own willingness to be coached to success.  I had to be a numbers disciple, a student, for a while.  In reality, I am still a numbers disciple, constantly looking at web sites and articles about how to better display data so that it becomes information, but I digress. 

I had to trust others to see that gift in me that I didn’t know that I possessed. 

In my learning and growing here, I didn’t become angry or exercise poor self-control.  In fact, this endeavor became an object that lead to joy.  When it comes to being a numerical analyst, my dashboard lights here were never red, always green. 

Look to the dashboard lights and crosscheck them against Galatians 5.  Green?  Red?  Listen to your heart.  Listen to others.  Listen for God.  Remember that God sometimes speaks in a small, still, voice, except when small, still isn’t working. 

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

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

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

Waiting Patiently, Listening Carefully

“But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”  Isaiah 40:31 (English Standard Version)

If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame. Proverbs 18:13 (English Standard Version)

We have one newsletter for both December and January.  What is a visionary pastor to say that speaks to two different seasons in the life of the church?  

Advent is a season of anticipation, waiting for the Christ Child to get to Bethlehem.  Many of us want to rush it; we resist going through the steps of hope, peace, joy and love.  We want to get there, quickly.  “Let’s quickly move through those steps.  The department stores have had their lights out since October!”  We are trampling on Advent when we bring Christmas into that season.  It is like celebrating Easter in the middle of Lent.  

The gifted writer and Wesleyan theologian Dean McIntyre writes:

Advent is a season rich in tradition, symbolism, art, music, and liturgical practice. It has its own unique themes as well as those that point the way to Christmas. And yet, we annually confront the pressures and questions of …"Why can't we sing Christmas carols in early December?" The answer, of course, is that to do so allows Christmas to intrude. It allows the themes, practices, spirituality, history, traditions, symbols, art, and music of one season to displace those of another. We lose the richness and the benefit of experiencing the promise, longing, hope, and expectation of Advent. The world, television, and shopping malls have done all they can to convince us that Advent does not matter; it has no place in our culture; and many of us have come to accept that for our church, as well. Our faith teaches us something very different.  (Italics are not in the original.) 

Our theme for Advent will be: Waiting patiently in hope, peace, joy and love.  Each week will focus on one of those four ideas.  We want to honor Advent I think part of how we honor the season is cherishing and embracing waiting.  The Isaiah above is a theme for all who want to move quickly.  ‘Renew your strength:  wait.’ 

It is our Hilltop tradition to have a Blue Christmas service in December.  We will continue that tradition on December 12^th at 7:30 PM. 

The next season is called Epiphany.  Epiphany was originally about the recognition by the Wise Men of the Christ Child.  But we can have secular epiphanies:  “a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is very important to you.”  Many churches use the Season of Epiphany to help those who came on Christmas Eve to move from a state of annual tradition to one of faithful inquiry seeking a deep, rich “moment.”  My take of that moment is one of raised consciousness rather than true understanding.  I have personally been studying this stuff for a quarter plus of a century and parts I still don’t truly understand.  When I want to truly understand, I call our own John Davison, and he clears it up for me. 

Many have heard me say:  too often we listen in order to reply rather than to truly understand.  I hope I don’t shock anyone with the idea that all of us do this to some degree.  I hope I don’t shock anyone with the idea this is not a new problem:  look at the Proverb above.  I agree that if we are formulating the reply in our head while the conversation is going on, we are taking part in folly. 

I want to spend our time of growing consciousness around the idea of listening.  During that time, I hope to touch on the trials and tribulations of the United Methodist Church as it faces the possibility of becoming Untied instead of United.  I think the solution to some extent is one of learning to better listen. 

Join us in both seasons, a season of waiting followed by a season of listening. 

I pray that you covenant to first wait patiently, to listen carefully, and to be with us in both of these two seasons unless you are not in our fair city. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Update on Stewardship: November 1, 2018

We want to give you a cautiously optimistic report on our 2019 Stewardship Campaign, at least as it relates to “treasure.” 

	For 2017	For 2018	2019 as of Now	2019 Probable
Pledged	$302,292	$310,327	$325,042	$355,000
Number Pledging in terms of Treasure.	101	95	96	108

The table above shows where we are at 8:00 AM, November 1, 2018.

We are nearly $15,000 increased in our pledges for 2019 over 2018.  The pledge total for 2019 is nearly $23,000 over 2017. 

We have at this time one more pledge for 2019 than for 2018. 

While that table is good news, we think we have more good news on this.  There are sixteen families or individuals who are now worshipping here who in 2018 pledged nearly $40,000 towards Hilltop.  We are contacting them this week in the first phase of our post-Commitment Sunday work to ask if they plan to step up again for 2019.  We are cautiously optimistic that most of them will say “yes.”  If twelve of them step up even at 2018 levels, the last column in yellow is where we expect to be.  We are cautiously believing that three 2019 dollars will emerge for every four 2018 set of dollars.  Given the ‘Culture of Growth’ we saw start with pledges and non-pledge families and individuals, we think that is conservative.  Said another way:  we do not think that the probable pledged or pledge count is unrealistic. 

We see this growth as part of the culture we are hoping to sustain and nurture:  A Culture of Growth. 

Our potential growth in terms of time and talent is not as positive.  We have eight families/individuals who want more information on how to grow in terms in discipleship and eight (some the same, some different) who want to explore serving.  We still have work to do here. 

Returning to treasure and Growth, we have right at 230+ families or individuals who have worshipped at Hilltop in 2018 three times or more.  We have pruned this list to remove those who are seasonal or having zip codes that are not in our region/area.  Adding those who pledged in 2018/2019 with those who supported the church financially in 2018, we get 170 or so families or individuals. 

First, there is no entrance fee or minimum expectation of support in terms of time, talent or treasure.  For years, the first word of Hilltop’s self identity was “belong.”  Again, there are no dues or entrance fee to belong to the church, only an inquiring heart.  If in doubt, please read and re-read until the meaning is understood unequivocally. 

That said, we continue to pray that as part of “belonging”, a family or an individual will want to get started with supporting that which they belong to. 

We have made some suggestions over the course of this campaign around levels of weekly sharing of our treasure.  Here is a modest proposal:  treat $20/week as a “full share” in Hilltop’s financial life; treat $10/week as a “half share” and $5/week as a “quarter share.”  Multiple families are investing in double digit shares annually.  Where are you?  Why?  The invitation here is to get started with a plan ($5/week) and then back that up with a transaction at your bank that realizes that plan.  In 2020, grow it to $10/week.  In 2021, grow it to $20/week.  Using this logic, Marilyn and I supported Hilltop in 2018 with a little short of 30 shares.  Others have done far more. 

We invite all to get started, on a culture of growth:  time, talent, and treasure. 

Selah,

Pastor Dennis and Dr. Roy Trawick