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

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

United but not Untied

Recently, my wife and I went to the Turks and Caicos to reaffirm the wedding vows of two friends. Great people.  

That Sunday morning, most of the community gathered from across the United States was Roman Catholic, so that was where we went ... the local RC Church.  

The experience was transcendent.  The music had a local flavor but used ancient words.  The liturgy was powerful and the sermon orthodox.  The gathered community was multi-cultural and young. I was strongly touched by the remembrance of what God has done mixed liberally with our anticipation of what God is yet to do, making our now a special, worshipful, grateful, place. 

Following communion, the priest invited those who could not take communion to come forward and receive a blessing.  About 25% of those present came forward ... 

People don't have a tattoo that says "I am divorced" but I wonder if that wasn't a significant element of this sub-community, that was still seeking the blessing of the church? I felt like I was witnessing beauty.  

This observation led me to wonder how is it that Jesuits and Franciscans can get along? It intrigues me that Catholicism can at times be so both/and rather than always either/or. I am mindful RC can be either/or, just not always.  

Catholicism can truly be quite orthodox in what it tolerates (or doesn’t), but at the same time, seek a big tent approach on many things.  

I wondered then if the second most famous quote that John Wesley never said might potentially apply: 'In essentials, unity; in non-essentials liberty, and in all things, charity.'

Elements of our community seem in a rush to declare schism the reality and that we should proceed as such. I do get it.

While I get it, I not so sure I agree with what I get. I vote slow down, please.  

What if we instead tried to reach some agreement (I didn’t say consensus for a reason) about what we agree on – and define these as elements of unity, granting liberty on those issues we did not declare to be essential. 

Baptism of former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS is the preferred term at least in Utah, preferred over Mormons) might be a United non-essential, that would be quite essential to the UMC in Deseret (the name for the LDS footprint in the West).  For me, what does the person receiving the LDS baptism think of the theology behind the action words of ‘baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’?  I am not saying it IS a non-essential, just it might be.  Deseret is probably Utah, Southern Idaho, Western Wyoming and Colorado, Northern Arizona and Eastern Nevada and there it would be an essential, but for the national “United” church, I think ‘meh’ might be the general reaction to this issue.  At least to most members of most non-Deseret touched conferences, I suspect. Trust me, for the United church to essentially say 'the baptism of your parents, grandparents, and other relatives is not a Christian baptism [our current position]' may make sense to some, but it is problematic in the extreme in Deseret.

I intentionally chose a regional issue rather than a national one, so we could potentially see one such issue through different lenses.  

   

What if our #nextmethodism/#dreamumc modeled an organization of local churches within (still) regional conferences who had a common set of non-essential values.  We are United on essentials, but on what has been agreed to be non-essential, we are not.  We are in effect, on non-essentials, Untied. 

We could then I think evolve into a system where certain national and international boards and committees are united between the two untied elements.  The United Methodist Committee on Relief comes to mind, but maybe the board that manages our health and benefits?  I would hope that we could hold United that which provides hospitals in Africa.  The United Methodist Church says this is an important essential of who we are and we are going to fund this.  I think the fewer illustrations I offer here, the better the dialogue will go.  A lot of hobby horses out there for sure. 

I probably don’t get it, but is the potential loss of our ability to link the needs of the world with the passion of our hearts a risk we wish to take over doctrinal issues of tradition and scripture?  I think most of us, if not nearly all of us, can agree that Jesus called on us to reach out to those in need and hear in their voice, their needs, and their calls for justice.

Can’t we find a way to stay United on the essentials and agree to a Grace-filled state of being Untied over the non-essentials? 

If we want to find solutions, I think we can.  I confess often, I hear voices that are uninterested in finding solutions.  Show me where I am mistaken. 

If Catholicism can simultaneously embrace Jesuits and Franciscans, I wonder if we are not able to simultaneously embrace two sides which see the world on some issues, very differently  

Selah, Dennis

New Life

There are places in our world where seasons are shadows of what we experience here in these mountains. Mountain seasons are intense and they are rapid and sudden. In these mountains, I regularly hear people say: “This is the Rockies, you can experience three seasons in one day.”  Something about the altitude and our proximity to the heavens makes seasons sudden, intense, and beautiful. The mountain spring comes with a rush but is also sometimes chased away by powerful blasts from winter that reluctantly let go. But spring does arrive. Powerful colors emerge alerting us to new life from which so assuredly seemed like death. 

Paul writing to the church in Corinth about the resurrection of the body would remind the church that death is not ultimately victorious. Winter is not victorious; it gives way to spring. That which seemed like death gives way to life, and despair gives way to hope. Philosopher Bernard Williams wrote, “The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created spring.”

The Easter biblical narrative is about the sudden, intense, and beautiful manifestation of hope. Because of Easter, death is not victorious; death has, in Paul’s words, ‘lost its sting.’

As religious people, Easter defines us. Easter, at least the hope and new life, behind Easter, is, according to theologian Luke Timothy Johnson, the “engine that drove Christianity” in the first century. Easter is about hope; and for those first disciples experiencing the empty tomb, it was sudden, intense, and once they figured it out, beautiful.  Easter defines us as religious people. In that defining, Easter gives each of us, young, old, powerful, weak, poor, or rich, a tremendous life force. That life force emerges from hope. From that hope, this life force is capable of transforming all of us without regard to who we are. William Bridges writes, “When you see a blade of grass cracking its way up through a sidewalk, you know there’s a tremendous life force in even very small life forms.”

New life is being experienced at Hilltop. In some cases it might be gradually in breaking, but in others it seems sudden, intense and beautiful. There may be some who will attempt to introduce winter into the conversation, but Easter defines us! This new life is truly like blades of grass pushing their way up in unexpected and different places. In Mark 16 the women go to the tomb wondering who will roll away the stone, and the answer is sudden, intense, and, after they figure it out, beautiful. The same force that gave and gives us life rolled that stone away. Now go and project that life force so that the new life we are experiencing at Hilltop is shared by others. 

Death is not ultimately victorious, death has ‘lost its sting.’ He is risen, he is risen indeed!

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Pastor's Musings for November

Ecclesiastes 3: 1, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Our newsletter theme for November is “Growing in Faith Together” and as I roll the idea around in my head, I hear echoes of the idea found in “Hilltop: a place to belong, believe and become.” The Ecclesiastes 3 with the sounds of Pete Seeger and the Byrds echoing in my brain, fingers, and ruminations. 

On November 30 at 9:00 AM, we are going to return to being a church with multiple worship opportunities. Prior to my arrival, Hilltop took an extremely bold and courageous step to move from three different worship opportunities to one. At least part of the motivation centered on bringing unity to the Body of Christ. Sadly, in our journeys to unity there is always the possibility we might have to pass through a little disunity. For example, we lost a few long time members. There was no one constant reason but in our unity quest, we got to a season where we belonged, believed, and became. But seasons are rarely, if ever, static. A church is a living organism and in our belonging, there are Ecclesiastes 3 seasons of contrasts for “every matter under heaven.” 

We are about to embark on a new season in the Hilltop story. 

We intentionally chose to return to multiple services as the start of a new season in the church year: Advent. Laurence Hull Stookey in his seminal look at the church year, Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church writes: “the primary focus of Advent is on what is popularly called ‘the second coming’ … Advent is the celebration of the promise that Christ will bring an end to all that is contrary to the ways of God.” So, in this new season of the church year, we look forward, in hopeful anticipation to a time when the ideas of seasons disappear into the mist. But until that ‘second coming’ becomes, we have to focus, or perhaps, refocus, on our beliefs and our belonging. A new season emerges, and we get a chance to reexamine God’s divine purpose for us, and perhaps more importantly, our role in God’s divine purpose. 

We exist, at least in part, in order to make God’s reign, just a little more obvious, a little more visible, a little more real. Our purpose in going to a new service, at least in part, is to reach a group of people who might not be with us at the present time. One group is those who might want to celebrate their praise of God a little earlier in the day, and then “beat the Baptist to the Buffet” or to the trailhead or ski slope or … you get the idea. We know there are people who want to use the Sabbath as a time for family and reconnecting in various ways and the solitary 10:30 AM option sends them elsewhere, or maybe even, nowhere. A second group is those who want to have their children receive Christian Education while they are in worship. We know they exist. We are mindful that a few believe that we should be developing children who understand worship with more intentionality than this model presents, but we have elected to accept that a parent will know when their child can be better informed and grow spiritually through worship. They know their child’s season. 

I do not know how long the season of getting this service to fruitfulness will be. The Greek of the New Testament has at least two words that both mean time and one is about what we might think of as “clock” time but the other one means “the fullness of time.” It is, I think, about the idea of seasons. I don’t know the precise day that good skiing will occur in the Wasatch Mountains, but sometime this season, skiing will be an option and an opportunity. I believe that the 9:00 service will organically take on its own unique characteristic, style, charm, and approach. I just don’t know what they all are right now. I think cherishing elements of what we have done at 10:30 which is a style that encourages a certain amount of congregational work is where we will be, but at the end of the day, I no more know precisely what this service will be anymore than I knew precisely what the 10:30 service would precisely look like on July 1st, 2012, my first Sunday at Hilltop. I am prepared to allow the season to unfold in the fullness of God’s time. 

A key element of my personal ethos is that the church is the means by which God’s mission of transformation is deployed in the world. It follows that we are the church in order to meet God’s needs in the world, rather than our own needs. We are not alone: we stand in continuity with generations of women and men who found the Good News of God’s Grace through Jesus Christ to be transformative. Grace truly experienced moves them from a season of self loathing to a season of humble appreciation. I believe there are people who will know the peace we know through the threefold fullness of Grace we represent that will not find spiritual wholeness elsewhere. Through Wesley, we offer unconditional grace to all of God’s broken children. 

I do see this new season as a chance for us to ‘grow, in faith, together.’ We are setting out on a new adventure wrapping up one season of unity, and starting a new one of opportunity. I am excited. I pray you are as well. I invite everyone who calls Hilltop their spiritual home to plan to be at one of the two services on November 30th. In particular, I pray that those who plan to make the new service their spiritual connection to Hilltop plan to be here. I am going to be there. Join us. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Fall Kick-Off

Romans 12: 2:  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

1 John 4: 1:  Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

In the middle 1980s, I fancied myself a Unitarian Universalist.  During that period, I heard a UU preacher string together epistemological, ontological and eschatological into a single sentence that actually made sense at the time.  I forget how he did it, and how he did it is beside the point.  Let’s forget eschatological in this conversation for a second and focus on the other two first.

Epistemological means essentially “how do we know, what we know?”  That might invoke the memory of that Pilate quote as he is about to hand Jesus over to the Roman Cohort that is going to carry him to Calvary:  “What is truth?”  Pilate is a confirmed post-modernist before it was cool to be a post-modernist:  everything is totally, 100% relative.  All truth is in short, to the post-modernist, relative.  Paul, and I agree with him, says  ‘just a darn minute here, everything isn’t relative, and we need to test what we think we believe against God’s word.’  Paul, and I agree with him, is strongly anti-post modernity:  everything isn’t relative; there are some absolute truths.  “How do we know, what we know?” 

A core concept within Methodism is reason.  We want people to be empowered to not check their minds in, in the narthex.  We want people to develop a deep, meaningful, comprehensive system of ‘testing’ what it is that the preacher on a Sunday or a teacher on a Wednesday labels with the exalted, and holy, ‘thus sayeth the Lord.’  “How do we know, what we know?”

Let this Fall Kick-Off be a time where you seriously covenant to go deeper into God’s holy word and discover what it truly means “to be” a follower of Christ.  Ontological, by the way, is the study of what it is “to be.”  Be a follower of Jesus Christ that knows how to “test and approve God’s will.”  Be epistemological so that you can truly be ontological so that you understand the eschatological.  Join us for growing as a Disciple of Jesus Christ. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Team and Hilltop

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.  —2 Corinthians 3.18

Being a member of a “team” has been part of the fabric of my life for a long time. I started my musical life when I was about twelve.  Most of that early time was spent in a band (or “wind ensemble”) driven by my age, grade or ability. Choirs became a part of my life in my early twenties and still are a part of my life. I started military training at eighteen, and before I was twenty-three was in the U.S. Army. We used to say in the Army “there is no I in team, there is no me in Army.” Who I am draws strength from a life as part of teams.

My sermon of April 21^st was about recognizing that there is an organic connection that invites everyone to be part of the fruitfulness of the vine. At its core, it was a sermon focused on unity of purpose and teamwork. Our purpose is to be fruitful in our faithfulness. 

The theme article on passages this month is at its core about teamwork. It uses material from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth (reintroduced at the start of this article) where Paul is laying out for the church an opportunity to live out their ministry in a new covenantal relationship drawn from the gifts of the Spirit.  Paul says to choose life, Spirit, righteousness, and a permanency that is drawn from the Light of Christ.  That might sound like individual tasks, and to be sure, there is an element of individualism in how those are applied but Paul’s pronouns throughout the material surrounding the quoted passage are uniformly plural.

Paul is saying that being in relationship with Jesus leads to profound and deep transformation in community.

We are approaching a number of special and potentially transformational days. (You might wonder what would happen if we treated them as days about passage, as days about transformation, within a framework of team?) Might we look at these days of passage as a framework for transformation as a team? 

Mother’s Day is for many a remembrance of transformation from couple to family. That is transformative. For many, parenting moves them to a different understanding of the importance of community on the idea of nurture.

 

Pentecost this year will in part be about confirmation, where individuals will move from being an individual to being part of a larger community.  For many, that movement is transformative.  We fully intend to use the diversity of the community as a reminder that while we may be different, we do actually understand each other.

 

Memorial Day weekend will in part be about remembering where individuals gave up their lives for the larger community. For many, the sacrificial element of that movement is sacred, leading to transformation. For many, the depth of that sacrifice leads to a different understanding of community

  

Senior Recognition Day will in part be about celebrating a change in a key element of their individual stories. Our music and our proclamation will be about blessing the transition and simultaneously acknowledging that the quest for adventure may take some away from this community. The community supports that adventure, and will proclaim that we are praying for them and will welcome them back when their adventure is complete.  That element of the story may require a different understanding of community.

 

There will be other passage days this summer, fall and winter.  What might they say to you about transformation?

I am not the same person I was four hundred sermons ago.  I see the world differently.  I see that we are consistently being invited to see that all of us are, hopefully and prayerfully, “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”  It is more than a little scary.  It is also more than a little biblical.

 

To be clear, I am not advocating blind assimilation into an unthinking hive.  There is tremendous power in the varied intellects of Hilltop, intellects created in different places by different experiences that draw strength from diverse traditions.  We are richly blessed with high quality leaders.  I am advocating reflection on the idea of community.

Let this coming time of multiple passages invite you to go deeper into your faith and explore what it means to be part of this community, to be part of the oneness of Christ, to be part of the “true vine” that is Jesus Christ. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Renewing Hilltop -- April Pastor's Musings

Renewing Hilltop

Because Christianity grew from roots that were Judaism, it should not surprise us that Jesus was firmly rooted in the Jewish tradition.  Examples abound:  his followers acknowledge him as “rabbi” (teacher) and his preaching is drawn from material in the Hebrew Bible.  The Passion narrative is best understood within a context of Passover.  Pentecost is a spiritual “first fruit” built on the idea of a Jewish “first fruit” festival.  Jesus’ ministry was a renewal movement, not one to create a new religion, but one to introduce spiritual renewal among God’s chosen people.   Our calling here at Hilltop is about spiritual renewal to all who come through our doors.

I talk at times about “The New Hilltop.”  I wrote in our annual church conference report as a goal for 2013:

  

Define The New Hilltop:  Acknowledge that a “new” Hilltop is being created before our eyes and we are creating it with God’s help.  How do we use the various metrics of Vital Congregations augmented by our own metrics to measure that vitality?  We will, as a community, identify what it means to be a church that wants to grow through an intentional and concerted focus on families with children and youth?   This time next year we should be able to align our resources, i.e. building, people, and budget with that identity. 

While those words focused on the idea of “families with children and youth,” the idea was in reality more than a “New” Hilltop; it is about a “Renewed Hilltop” full of people of all ages and backgrounds who are renewed in the Spirit.  I want to focus on one result of the “The Renewed Hilltop” -- the need to add a second worship service.

 

How can we best provide meaningful, spiritual worship as our faith community expands?

For many years Hilltop had three worship services.  Hilltop made an important decision last year to move to one.  This decision was bold.  Part of the covenant to consolidate into one service included revisiting that decision at a future date.  At the March Church Council a proposal to create the paradigm for a second service was presented by the Worship Committee and me.  The simple idea of the proposal was that when a six-week moving average (not including Easter or Cantata Sunday) reached more than 275 worshippers and when we had 100 members in covenant to support the second service, we would launch at a future, yet-to-be-determined date (but not immediately.)  

Discussion from the council encouraged us to go back and re-think some basic assumptions.

It is always important to ask: “how do you know what you know?”  When that question emerged this past month, we were not precisely sure what we knew, why we knew it, or how we knew it.  We did know facts, e.g., attendance at the three services, attendance since the merger.  Even though the leaders have talked to various groups about going to a second service, we do not know exactly what the congregation as a whole thinks.  We agreed that it would be good for us in our continuing attempt to “renew” Hilltop to take some focused time to ask the congregation very specific, directed, and targeted questions about worship and, importantly, Christian Education.

 

We plan to discuss some of this following worship on April 21^st if at all possible, and between April 21^st and May 19^th present a questionnaire (or survey instrument) in which the congregation can express their wisdom and insight.  I heard loud and clear during last summer’s “ice breakers” that we had done enough “surveys.”  That said, I think the critical element of that lament was the congregation saw little relationship between any survey and direction of the church.  Your church leadership believes for us to understand renewal at Hilltop, we need to receive congregational feedback about options and potential directions of renewal at Hilltop first.

 

Paul in his 1^st Letter to the Church in Corinth focused on an idea of “the body” and how each part of the body was important to the whole.  It was an entreaty to the idea of “oneness” and an appeal for genuine appreciation of the other.  I pray that our need to go through the process of discussion and planning for expansion to another service at some future date enhances the “oneness” we have felt since going to one service.  I pray that our quest for “oneness” produces fruit for Hilltop’s spiritual “renewal” and our own.

Selah.  Pastor Dennis

Fellowship -- A Component of "The New Hilltop"

[This was written for the October, 2012 Newsletter.  I post it to my blog so I can reference it easily in other articles I may write/create.]

In March, key Hilltop leaders made several bold decisions aimed at recreating Hilltop. The belief was that unity would be realized by moving to a single worship service and using elements of the national church’s Vital Congregation elements to focus on Christian education and fellowship. When we talk about it, key leaders use the image of a three-legged stool to remind us that the elements—worship, Christian education, and fellowship—are to be understood in unity. If any leg of a stool is too long, or too short, the stool is improperly balanced and is less than it can and should be.

I was not here to witness the three different worship services that existed before the current unified service. Reports I hear are that bold moves by your leaders are proving fruitful in bringing a new energy to Hilltop worship. The New Hilltop will continue to seek avenues for us to experience in community through worship all that God plans for us.

In last month’s newsletter, I invited you to explore a deeper relationship with God through intentional growth as disciples. Some accepted that invitation, and I hope and pray that from those seeds we will experience a thirty, sixty and hundredfold harvest. This will continue to be a regular and focused priority with your leaders.  We will now turn our focus to fellowship which has received the least attention in our three-legged stool paradigm.

I believe fellowship and small groups go together.

Through the end of August, nearly four hundred different Hilltop people had participated in a small group of some kind this year. That is nothing short of fantastic!  That is about half of all who call Hilltop their spiritual home. Even with that success, I still want to invite those not part of that number to find a small group of some kind and participate on a regular basis.

We have consciously increased the small group opportunities that focus on our development as disciples. But small groups also include our music ministers, the men at Britton’s on Wednesday, the women in their regular meetings, the card crafting, and our ministry opportunities at Crossroads and with Family Promise. That list is illustrative and not intended to be exhaustive. We get to know each other by taking part with others in Hilltop activities. Jesus brought together twelve men from disparate backgrounds, and they transformed their world and ours. I strongly endorse our gathering together to fellowship across age and gender, for example, fellowship at 10 or 11:30 on Sunday morning or during pot-lucks.

 

I re-invite all to find and connect with a small group at Hilltop. That group might be one that is growing in discipleship, but it might be one that is in service, provides music, or gathers by age or gender.

I have recently challenged key leaders to ask themselves who is not a regular participant in the life of Hilltop and to discern what they might do to invite those not at the table to be part of the oneness of Hilltop. Jesus did not stand in the synagogue and invite the broken of his time to find their way to him, he rather went out looking for them. Those we invite to join us on our spiritual journey will be blessed and enriched through our three-legged paradigm of worship, discipleship through Christian education, and fellowship of fellow sojourning Christians.  That’s our prayer, our call, and part of our mission and vision.

Pastor’s Musings – October 2012

Hilltop highly resolves to … what?

There is a lot of energy present in the sanctuary when we have nearly 300 people present. As I stand in the middle of that gathered body I feel like I am at one with you. It is often extremely uplifting.  Why can’t we just keep it like it is forever?

Does anybody really believe that something that is not growing can hold a level of energy indefinitely? I would suggest that one of our New Year’s resolutions is that “Hilltop highly resolves to … keep growing.” Product innovator Robert Cooper sounds like a theologian when he writes, “Every moment of our lives we are either growing or dying—and it’s largely a choice, not fate. Throughout its life cycle, every one of the body’s trillions of cells is driven to grow and improve its ability to use more of its innate yet untapped capacity.” Paraphrasing a little what Jesus says in John 10: “I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly.” We have an enormous amount of untapped capacity at Hilltop to extend God’s Kingdom in the South Valley and share the abundant life that comes of knowing Christ.

We have begun the conversation necessary to start framing what a second service might look like. Here is what we are thinking:

· The current multiple musical groups and styles will be the framework at 9:00 am.

· Sunday School is retained for now at the 9:00 hour because we know there are parents who want to worship while their children are in Christian Formation.

· Launch in September.

· Make the decision if we are going to Launch in September, in May.

We would like to see attendance targets of about 275 as an average achieved for non-Easter Sundays in March and April along with clear covenants by enough, about 100, to make such a service well attended and have energy.

I believe we need to continue to grow. Yes, retain elements of our history but also to grow. The product innovator I quoted earlier, Cooper also writes that such thinking “…turns conventional thinking upside down…As … people—there is no staying the same. If we aim for some middle ground or status quo, it’s an illusion—beneath the surface what’s actually happening is we’re dying, not growing. And the goal of a lifetime is continued growth, not adulthood.”

I believe that our Triune God calls us to constant and continued growth.

 

I suggest that one of our community resolutions be “Hilltop highly resolves to launch a second worship service in September, 2013.”

 (Pastor’s Musings – January, 2013)

Healing Beauty

My theme for Sunday was beauty and how beauty heals. 

The scene from the Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington movie, Philadelphia, framed the first part of the sermon.  I quickly communicated enough of the story to have this scene make sense, and then described the scene in some detail.  My concluding remark was that Denzel had been transformed by the beauty of the opera:  something that at the beginning of the scene he acknowledged did not particularly interest him.  I told the story yesterday, but you may link to the clip here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0p9mTJOJI 

All beauty in the world is either a memory of Paradise or a prophecy of the transfigured world.  —Nicholas Berdyaev, Russian religious and political philosopher (1874–1948)

Beauty surely is in the eye of the beholder.  For me two of the most beautiful moments in my life were when I got to see pink and blue squirming lumps covered with blood that had just emerged into our world.  It is a feeling I have not had since but it was a moment of transcendent beauty: they were, and are, prophecies of a transfigured world.

Beauty can take many forms.  Literature, drama, art, photograph are just examples.  I confess for me, music is a special place, a special moment.  I can truly feel whatever is physiologically going on with my body enzymes when I am surrounded by music I like.  Love of the created beauty is also clearly something that engenders moments of transcendence.

I wonder if Jennie’s question to Forrest Gump, near the end of her life isn’t an inquiry into how he dealt with his own fear.  She asks were you ever afraid in Viet Nam?  And Forrest, begins to talk of the beauty of God’s creation:  night skies, sun on the bayou as it is getting ready to go to bed, the skies reflection on a lake where it looks like two lakes, and finally, in the desert mountain west, where the sky and earth seem to come together and one doesn’t know ‘where heaven ends and the earth begins.’  Jennie laments to Forrest that she wishes she ‘could have been there with you’ and Forrest says to her, ‘you were.’  In a moment of intense fear of the unknown, Jennie is showered with a narrative of beauty and a reminder, like the Philadelphia opera excerpt, that love allows us to see that beauty around us.  

Beauty is something that we can and should seek out at moments when we are feeling awful so that we can be full of awe – awe-full. 

Psalm 8 might help to frame for us how we can biblically grasp that moment of  awe-full transcendence. 

LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!   You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants 
   you have established a stronghold against your enemies, 
   to silence the foe and the avenger. 
   you have established a stronghold against your enemies,     to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, 
   the work of your fingers, 
the moon and the stars, 
   which you have set in place, 
   the work of your fingers,  the moon and the stars,     which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them,    human beings that you care for them?

That transcendence can lead to transformation.


Francis Collins in his book The Language of God speaks to how beauty moved him to take a leap of faith. You can hear him talk to this on how beauty transformed his soul ...  He talks to it here:  Collins and his transcendent moment of beauty.

There are clearly times we all have holes in our souls.  Beauty is one of the things that can surely be used to fill those holes.  Seek beauty when we experience moments of brokenness, point to it when others are shattered.  Beauty is a 'foretaste of Paradise or an opportunity to see the world as it can be.' 

Beauty is something that we can and should seek out at moments when we are feeling awful so that we can be full of awe – awe-full. 

Selah.

David and the Giant

Yesterday's sermon was on David facing his giant, and attempting to ask others what about David's experience might be helpful to them in facing their own.

I started this endeavor by planning to speak on the Five Smooth Stones David picked up in the stream-bed ...

I morphed into instead talking about how David knew those stones were the right stones ...

The 1st Samuel 17 passage seems to be clear in that David:

o Knows God ... David is outraged in that the living God is being disrespected by the Philistines and their champion ...
o Knows himself ... he turns down Saul's equipment, because it wasn't what he was used to ...
o Knows his experience is of value ... which is admittedly, the flip side of knowing himself ...
o Knows that his brother in his negativity is full of "it" ... what ever "it" is ...

Yes ... I think it changed to being a sermon about "knowing" or in philosophical terms ... how do we know what we know ... or epistemology.

This knowledge helps us to frame how we know what our own smooth stones might be as we face the Giants in our collective and individual lives.

This passage speaks to all of us ... it's very timeless quality is that the message is so powerful to people as we try to figure out what life is all about ... 1st Samuel 17 tells us a lot about us in our human condition ...

I have already had one member of the church tell me that the direction he had planned for Monday morning was changed as a result of the words he heard yesterday ... in my best, 'tripped-out Flo' from the Progressive commercials ... I can only offer a "wow" on that ...

Peace ...