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

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

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

Diligence, Vision, and Remembrance

Be Diligent

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for attending to this issue of great importance.  

Vision Casting

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

Our Proposed New Vision Statement!

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

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

We pray that is the plan we follow. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis 

Don’t Forget Hilltop Over the Summer

By Galen Ewer, finance committee chair

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

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

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

Children Make the Parent

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

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Living Gospel

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

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

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

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

Life is so complicated at times. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is time to start the conversation again. 

God doesn’t call us to small tasks. 

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

How do we get started on this soon? 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Strange and Foreign

Isaiah 28:11 -- For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people.

Methodism grew out of two “Great Awakenings:” The first in England in the 1730s and the second in the United States in the early 1800s.  Both awakenings were marked by enthusiastic response to the word of God preached and offered to everyday people.  Unstated then but understood now the Methodist movement focused on ‘The creation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.’ Transformation marked the Methodist movement.   

For example, Gertrude Himmelfarb, writes “[T]he miracle of modern England” is “the fact that England was able to survive the economic revolution of the eighteenth century without succumbing to a political revolution [the best example is France].”  She places much of credit for this on John Wesley, the people called Methodists and the Methodist blend of Justification by Faith and Good Works. 

Wesley accomplished this through field preaching, the creation of active small groups, and high personal accountability – all of which were as “strange” or “foreign” to the people of his day as in our own. 

Wesley, and the people called Methodists, accomplished this national transformation by starting a movement.  Wesley and his people changed a nation -- for the better. 

America was also changed by Methodists – providing spiritual support in a growing foreign and strange land.  Francis Asbury was one of the first two American Bishops and the most movement focused.  He was tireless in his leadership of the church.  Like in England, during a time of religious awakening, a good man was prepared to lead a movement. 

My friend, the Reverend Doctor Bob Kaylor of Tri-Lakes UMC in Monument, CO, sees “humility, confession, repentance and surrender” as critical to our Christian experience, and I offer those four words framed the Methodist movement implicitly if not explicitly.  Those words of “humility, confession, repentance and surrender” often sound as “strange” and “foreign” to our ears bombarded with the constant worship of self.  Jesus words of unconditional grace sounded “strange” and “foreign” in his time as well. 

I think it is safe to say that the movement part of Methodism seems to have “gone out” and our flame needs to be re-kindled.  Our leadership sees our goal as:  We will re-ignite a Christian movement that begins with grace, offers abundant life, and reclaims the life-changing love of Jesus Christ for ALL people.  Key there is re-ignite acknowledging that the flame has gone out. 

How do we re-ignite this flame?  I posit it is by looking at our history.  Wesley and Asbury were driven by an interest in individual souls lovingly cared for and brought back to the bosom of God.  I am their theological and biblical child. 

I once heard a person say about being a Texan as “I wasn’t born here, but I got here as fast as I could.”  I confess, I wasn’t born a Methodist, but I got here as fast as I could.  I love the Methodist movement that focuses on Grace and Faith in Action.  That is exactly what Himmelfarb is driving at when she talks about Wesley’s combination of Justification by Faith and Good Works – Grace and Faith in Action. 

But let’s be clear – the ideas espoused by Wesley, Asbury and Jesus that include humility, confession, repentance, and surrender – sound strange and foreign to us.  Those are not words with worldly endorsement, in fact, the opposite is true.  Our call is to be foreign and strange in the land in which we sojourn.  There are times in this movement leadership people will look at us and say “you are not making any sense.”  If our marks are humility, confession, repentance, and surrender, they might sound foreign and strange, but that puts us in good company, as Jesus sounded foreign and strange in his own time. 

“You are not making any sense” is a badge of honor if we are witnessing in the spirit of Wesley, Asbury and Jesus, especially Jesus! 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Going Over the Ground Rules

2 Corinthians 9:6-7 (NRSV) -- The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

 

As many of you are aware, I love baseball.

 

Before every game, the teams meet at home plate to exchange lineup cards and go over the ground rules of that stadium.  For example, Wrigley Field in Chicago has ivy covering the outfield wall, and a ball “stuck” in the ivy is out of play, and the batter is awarded second base. This is a “ground rule double.”

 

Let’s go over the ground rules for our coming stewardship campaign.

 

Handouts, the newsletter, and my blog pieces will be the primary place where we discuss elements of the money story.  Money is head talk, and head talk will be primarily something for you to read. For example, on October 1^st when we talk with the Trustees about the building, we are not going to talk about utility costs.  The handouts will address that.

 

Handouts will also identify who you might talk to about a particular area. Current people are identified as they know the story, new people will not.

 

Our ground rule is head talk is reserved for reading, and speaking will focus, we hope, on heart talk.

 

Our speaking will focus on our hearts with why the church exists – change. The people called Methodists call this change transformation. Change is local, regional, national and international. Change is also personal.

 

Drawing from the scripture above, we are called to sow in a bountiful, grace-filled manner, so we can have a bountiful, grace-filled harvest. We have all heard, you reap what you sow. That is true both on what commodity comes back in the harvest, and how successful you are. Sow love and grace generously, and we harvest both, generously. 

How do we speak to the next topic in love and generosity?

 

If we look at the seven predominantly white churches in Utah with a full-time pastor, we apparently are sowing sparingly because we are reaping sparingly. If our giving were consistent with the others, our congregational giving would be in the $530,000 range. It is not. Our congregational giving is for 2017 is expected to be about $405,000 (or plus $35,000 over 2016).  I will say that there is some good news here:  that amount is almost $100,000 higher than at the end of 2012.  We are making progress here.

 

Let me return to the ground rules. 

We know there are those who have limited flexibility to step-up here.  Our ground rule is we will honor and respect that.  We do hope those in this situation will pledge and be faithful, and regular, stewards.

You may pledge for 2018 at anytime in October.  You do not have to wait until the last Sunday, and in fact, we hope you will step-up here early rather than later.

 

We have for many years been compelled to keep asking people into January if they intend to pledge.  This is generally focused on those who have pledged in the past.  We want to get to a ground rule that says the campaign is finished on Commitment Sunday (this year, October 29^th).  That knowledge will help us in our budget building. We are people of faith, but we do not approve faith budgets.

 

We do need more of us to pledge, and those that pledge, to pledge a little more.  If everyone who last year’s pledged increased their pledge by $10/week and everyone else who did not pledge increased their unpledged giving by the same amount, we would be right at $500,000 which would allow us to accomplish many, long deferred goals. We will speak those thoughts over the month of October.

 

Selah, Pastor 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

What are our Assumptions?

Assumptions matter.  They matter a great deal.

 

There was a story I heard years ago about a physicist, a chemist, and an economist who were stranded on a desert island with no tools and a can of food. The physicist and the chemist each devised an ingenious mechanism for getting the can open; the economist merely said, "Assume a can opener"!

David Watson in a recent blog comes to this idea by a different route.  He notes when he was obtaining his PhD part of what he learned in intellectual argumentation included the art of deconstruction:  “The most common and effective route [to deconstruct an argument] is to attack the assumptions upon which an argument rests. Once you destabilize its foundational assumptions, the argument itself tends to fall apart.”

For years, I was taught the way to examine any critical issue was to be sure you knew what the issue was (a clear definition of the problem), what do we know with certainty (the facts) and what do we have to factor into the calculus for which we are less certain (the assumptions).  Almost every broken mathematical model I was exposed to broke down because of the assumptions.  They were generally flawed.

 

Here is an assumption – my first - I make about #nextmethodism:  it will have elements of the past joined in the present in anticipation of what God is going to do in the future.

 

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  We call it “the mystery of faith” for a reason.  But it is our faithful assumption.  And as we faithfully operate, those assumptions bear up under a rigorous deconstruction, as they have for two thousand years. 

The late Robert Webber addresses this in terms of worship – worship is bringing together into the now, a remembrance of what God has already done in the past, with an anticipation of what God will do in the future.  Scholarly articles may talk about this in terms of anamnesis (remembrance) and prolepsis (anticipation).  We ritually reenact this through Holy Communion – God has acted in the past, remember it, and God isn’t finished, be in a state of anticipation.  We then take the “mystery” and we use past tense, present tense, and future tense verbs to help us see the past and the future in terms of our now.  And Christ IS risen, is the central thematic statement upon which all of the variations in the symphony that is the church are developed.

 

Doing so faithfully, then calls us to a place where we examine ourselves against the plumb line that is God’s ancient word and are we then being faithful to God’s call, rather than culture’s call.

 

Allow me to offer a second assumption that I think need to be clearly stated:  we are supposed to be surrounded, and we are surrounded not by an enemy but rather by opportunity.

 

C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity:  “Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”  Major Dick Winters in the HBO Mini-Series Band of Brothers understood this clearly when told that he and his unit are about to be surrounded at Bastogne in December, 1944.  “We’re paratroopers lieutenant, we’re supposed to be surrounded.”

 

My proposed assumption is that we recognize that we are supposed to be surrounded and we are supposed to be offering a counter cultural message.  Yes, both the Lewis and Winters illustration might lead one to believe I see those as outside of the church as “the enemy”.  I do not.  I frankly see them as an opportunity.

 

But here is the key:  Kent Ingram of Colorado Springs First writes of us often waxing nostalgically for the time church was culturally normative.  What if that maybe that time of heightened numbers and cultural acceptance was really and truthfully Egypt or Babylon.  How is this for a news flash:  Nostalgia is a Golden Calf.  So much of what we have attempted to do over the last decade (at least) has been driven by a flawed assumption that what once was, can be again.  I hear it as we need to get back to Egypt as fast as we can, life is hard out here in this wilderness.  Making bricks without straw wasn’t really that bad, was it?  I say yes, it really was, and if we decide to worship that Golden Calf, we will continue to decline.

 

If we can agree on that 'surrounded by opportunity' assumption, and it was an operative assumption for 18^th Century English Wesleyans, then we can effectively cast aside what the world, however that is defined, thinks of us as a cultural value.

 

Watson offers another very valid assumption:  “People are spiritually hungry, too. The problem is that they just don’t know it ….What they’re hungry for is Jesus.”  At some point, stuff doesn’t fill that ‘hole in our souls.’  It has been my experience in my seventeen years in ministry that Watson is right – people are spiritually hungry.  Wesley understood that.  Jesus understood that.  I pray we understand it in our communitarian futures.

 

Our past has given us keys for our future – scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.  And let us be crystal clear, scripture is framed in part by tradition or we would be reading The Gospel of Thomas in our lectionary readings. 

I love serving this United Methodist Church.  I do so in tension over the fact what is United may become Untied.  That tension is driven by an assumed can opener.  There seems to be an unstated assumed can opener that many operate from as it relates to looking at #nextmethodism and that is that we can continue to do the things in the world that we are doing.  I hope that assumption is accurate.

 

Several years ago, I got used to watching news broadcasts from Liberia where the Ebola crisis was in full ravage mode.  Rarely, if ever, did the announcer make the point that the interview was being conducted outside of a hospital with a large cross and flame on it.  I watched with pride:  I knew.  We didn’t put those hospitals there to brag about it, we rather put those hospitals there because that was where the greatest need and our Grace filled hearts had a collision.  We answered that call.  Some assume a #nextmethodism can still do that.  I hope they are right.  Just as I am not sure the economist can opener can open any cans, I am not so sure that once untied, we can continue to provide hospitals in Africa beyond where the road runs out.  Among other things, that isn't my only assumed can opener.  

 

I heard a quote in the last few years that keeps resonating with me:  “Too often we listen in order to respond rather than to truly understand.”  I want to assume that in #nextmethodism, we will endeavor to truly understand.

 

Peace ..

Selah, Dennis