Odds And Ends

Some random thoughts on life, faith, and Charlotte, North Carolina . . .

If Ann Patchett wrote it, I'm going to read it.

I work on two messages per week . . . researching and writing one that I will preach in four to six weeks and then internalizing one that I will deliver on the upcoming Sunday.  For some reason, I've never gotten the two confused.

Of all the doctrines that different Christians hold, dispensationalism with its secret rapture is my least favorite.

In my dark nights of the ministry soul I have a secret desire to go into the lawn care business.

It's fashionable in Methodism to dismiss Beth Moore.  Don't.  Her study on the Book of James is one of the best bible studies of any kind that I've ever encountered.

I have good hand writing for a man.  Even for a woman.  Hand written notes have been a core part of my practice of ministry since way back in 1990.

I can't fix or build anything.

The main lesson God has been teaching me this year is that people belong to Him and not to this church.

I love Pardon The Interruption as long as both Wilbon and Kornheiser are there.

James 4:13-17 = Psalm 39:4-8.

The blinking yellow left turn signals are the worst thing about living in Charlotte.

I didn't really know how to read Genesis 1 until James-Michael Smith showed me how.  What a great example of reading Scripture not literally and not symbolically but literarily . . . according to the kind of literature it is.

Theologically Progressive Diversity?

Does progressive theology at the denominational level result in diverse ethnicities at the congregational level?

Or: if we would just be more progressive in our theology -- Jesus as one of many rather than the One and Only; heaven and hell as creations of pre-Enlightenment minds & not worthy of modern consideration, and it's high time to re-write centuries of understanding regarding God's boundaries for human sexuality -- would that help ensure local congregations have a wide mix of races, languages, and people groups?

(By the way, my cyber-friend John Meunier has an excellent post on progressive theology that you can read here.)

It's interesting to me how often our Methodist movement assumes that logic to be the case.  That if we would just move to the left theologically and if we have Annual and General Conference delegates who are racially diverse, then our local churches will ultimately become red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.

Experience shows that the reverse is true.

Old line denominations, such as the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, continue to have local churches that are for the most part either all white or all black.  This in spite of the fact that each group has national level offices or initiatives to address issues around race!  The United Methodist version is called The General Commission on Religion and Race.

In contrast, what congregations tend to have a full color array of God's children?  The Pentecostals -- a group never known for its progressive theology.  Our charismatic and Pentecostal brothers and sisters have been building multi-race churches for years now, all without the benefit or assistance of national programs showing them how to do so.  They simply lift up the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit and voila! . . . people of all kinds come.

Close to home, Steele Creek Church of Charlotte -- a large, independent, and sort-of-Pentecostal church about five miles from our campus -- is the most diverse church in the city.  And in terms of theology (not politics, theology), they are among the most conservative . . . probably a couple of steps to the right of Good Shepherd.  Many of the steps we've taken towards becoming a full color congregation have come as a result of what we've learned from them.

I come down on the side that ethnically diverse congregations thrive best in the midst of theological unity and doctrinal orthodoxy.

It’s John 12:32 in real time: But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

Diversity, then, becomes a result and not a cause. 
 
It comes as the result of lifting up Jesus and the decisiveness of his message.  When that happens, He unleashes his unique power to draw all kinds of people to himself.
 
That's something I want to be in the middle of.
 

Top Five Tuesday -- Top Five Insights From Tim Keel

Last week, I had the chance to hear Tim Keel speak to a group of United Methodist pastors from Western North Carolina.

Tim is the founding pastor and primary teacher of Jacob's Well Church in Kansas City.  That congregation is located in KC's version of what we Charlotteans call NoDa . . . a section of the city heavily invested in the arts and deeply interested in God's justice.



Yet what most impressed me with Keel's presentation and his congregation was not the tapestry on the walls or the pottery on the shelves.  It was the theology undergirding the entire community.

It's easy to hear echoes of N.T. Wright in Keel's words, yet his theological insights are not merely derivative of another's work.  There's much that is fresh and needed in how Keel connects doctrine with devotion.

Here are the top five -- or maybe ten -- insights from Tim Keel.

1.  When my parents divorced when I was 18, the Body of Christ rescued me.

2.  As a people, we want to experience and then express the love of God.

3.  We want creativity at every level of this organization . . . except accounting.

4.  The church is not a collection of individuals based on shared personal preferences. 

5.  The Gospel is more than a message; it is the creation of a new people that is the continuation of the new Israel under Christ.

6.  We gather together each week as an alternate reality to the ways of the world and to rehearse the gospel together.

7.  Israel asks in the Old Testament, "what does it look like when God reigns?"  Jesus is the answser.

8.  John is a re--telling of the creation story.  Matthew and Mark are re-tellings of the Exodus story.  Luke is a re-telling of the Exile and Return story.

9.  The average pastoral tenure in the United States is five years.  The average pastor leaves a church because of seven people.

10.  How do you know something is alive?  Not by how many people show up but by how many stories they tell.

Royal Pains, Week 2 -- The Iron Lady King

No, it's not a sermon on Margaret Thatcher.



It's not even a sermon on Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher.

But it is a sermon on a lady leader whose story has everything to do with iron.

And I think it might be one of the more unsettling sermons we've had recently.

I'm looking forward to it.

She's not the stereotypical Royal Pain, but she is the one and only Iron Lady King.

To see who and what I'm talking about, Sunday.

8:30.  10.  11:30.

His Word The Last Word

At the conclusion of Sunday's worship gathering, we gave people an chance to pick up a His Word The Last Word card as a sign of a "surrendered brain."

What is HWLW?

It's a legacy of the ministry of Dawson Trotman who founded The Navigators student ministry in 1933.  Trotman developed the nightly discipline of reciting or reading a section of Scripture out loud just before he went to bed.  In that way, God's word would be the last word to come from his mouth in a given day.

Trotman also believed that by finishing a day with Scripture that the next day would begin with that same Scripture already on his mind.  After all, he'd had all night to sleep on it.

And now, so has a congregation full of surrendered brains from Good Shepherd United Methodist.

Top Five Tuesday -- Top Five Bob Dylan Songs

A couple of weeks ago, I went down to Austin, Texas to visit my mom in advance of Mother's Day.  While there, I also spent time with two older sisters and two older brothers.

As you may know, Austin is the music hub of the southwest.  Home to musicians and music fans alike, it serves that community with a wide array of music stores which carry out of print CDs you don't find anywhere else.  I was in just such a store when I saw a used copy of Bob Dylan's 1989 album Oh Mercy on sale for $3.95.  Since I only had that album on cassette and had fond memories of that no longer accessible music, I picked it up.

I'm glad I did.

That CD, plus spending time with my siblings -- Dylan fans all -- got me thinking:  what are my five favorite Bob Dylan songs?  I've never been a loyal fan and his voice is certainly an acquired taste, but I've nevertheless had seasons where his music and his lyrics captured me.

So here they are.  Much of Dylan's music is difficult to access via YouTube, so I've done the best I can.

5.  Every Grain Of Sand.  In the late 70s and early 80s, Dylan had a controversial born-again Christian phase that produced music unlike any other in his catalog.  Critics and fans have never known quite what to make of Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love, his three albums from that season
In any event, Every Grain Of Sand (from Shot Of Love) is among the most haunting and poetic of that or any era.



4.  Man In A Long Black Coat.  My favorite song from the Oh Mercy CD I so happily found in Austin.  Dylan's voice is at its gravelly best in this haunting track.


3.  Neighborhood Bully.  Dylan released Infidels in 1983, on the other side of his born-again phase, and it's clear he can't avoid his religious impulses.  On Neighborhood Bully, his Jewish roots mix with Israeli geopolitics and this shot across the bow is the result.

To hear a sample of the song, click here and then click again on "Neighborhood Bully."

To reach the lyrics, click here.

2.  Positively 4th Street.  The second best song ever sung with a sneer.



1.  Like A Rolling Stone.  Positively 4th Street is only the second best sneer song ever because this one is the best.  Wouldn't you hate to get on Dylan's bad side at that stage of his life?

Bishop Patronizes Continent

In a May 17 column posted on the United Methodist Reporter site, Bishop Minerva Carcano of the Desert Southwest Conference offered her assessment of the recently completed 2012 General Conference.

 As many of you know by now, that Conference retained our denomination's position on the volatile issue of homosexuality in Christendom: homosexual persons are of sacred worth while at the same time homosexual practice is not compatible with Christian teaching. Every General Conference since 1972 has reached the same sensitive-yet-faithful conclusion on the issue.

As a result, persons who are self-avowed, practicing homosexuals cannot be ordained into United Methodist ministry and UM pastors cannot perform same-sex weddings.
 
This puts Methodists firmly in line with 2000 years of church teaching regarding celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in heterosexual marriage, and puts us at odds with several more progressive denominations -- United Church of Christ (UCC), the Episcopal Church, Presbteryian Church (USA), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) -- who have abandoned restrictions against homosexual clergy and same-sex weddings.


There's one other piece to the backstory to Bishop Carcano's comments (which I'll get to in a moment):  over the last several quadrennia, the percentage of voting delegates from Africa and the Philippines -- where Methodism is growing rapidly -- has surged while the American percentage of the voting bloc has declined.  And as whole, the Africans and  Filipinos vote overwhelmingly in favor of our current stance.

So now that you know the story behind the story, I'll want to share some of Bishop Carcano's comments; words I would not have believed she said if I hadn't read them myself:

Delegates from Africa once again proclaimed that their anti-homosexual stand was what U.S. missionaries taught them. I sat there wondering when our African delegates will grow up. It has been 200 years since U.S. Methodist missionaries began their work of evangelization on the continent of Africa; long enough for African Methodists to do their own thinking about this concern and others. Our conservative U.S. United Methodists continue to depend on the conservative vote of African and Filipino delegates to maintain our exclusionary position on homosexuality, a position I believe would be changed for the inclusion of our LGBT sisters and brothers if a U.S. vote for a U.S. context were taken. The manner in which we deal with the concern of homosexuality affects all of ministry in the U.S., and we are the poorer for it. It is time for us to let go of our wrong position and be the church of Christ Jesus, a church that excludes no one.

A bishop of our church, charged with teaching and protecting the faith handed down to the saints, publicly wonders when an entire continent of Methodist believers will "grow up."  Her words, not mine.

Patronizing, insulting, haughty, and almost beyond belief.

Even beyond the written insult, consider some of the assumptions behind the Bishops' words:

1.  Theological liberalism is sophisticated while aligning with orthodoxy is simple-minded.  I will take the intellectually robust orthodoxy of Thomas Oden, William Abraham, and Timothy Tennent over the Bishop's progressivism any day.

2.  Newer is better when it comes to doctrine.  Over the last couple of years at Good Shepherd, I have tried hard not to teach anything new but to do my best to excavate what is ancient, unchanging, and always relevant. 

3.  Human impulse is the determining force in human morality.  Much of the Christian way involves surrendering our impulses -- sexual, material, anti-social -- to the Lordship of Christ.

The Bishop's words are also thick with irony.  Earlier in her column, she offers strong support for identity based structures in our denomination -- the General Commission on Religion and Race and the Commission on the Status and Role of Women.  While some at GC2012 wanted to disband both COSROW and the GCRR, Bishop Carcano and others worked energetically and successfully for their preservation.

Yet two paragraphs later, she laments the existence of immaturity of an identity group.  Two, in fact: Africans and Filipinos.  The implication is that your identity group is valid if you lean leftward in your theology and it's not if you tilt to the right.  In that case, apparently, you just need a little more education; you need to "grow up."

Perhaps our African brothers and sisters can remind the Bishop that while their Methodist neighborhoods are thriving, her Desert Southwest Conference -- like the far-left leaning Western Jurisdiction of which it is part -- is on the fast-track to irrelevance, with vanishing membership and shrinking attendance.

I believe the Bishop is blind to the connection between doctrinal waywardness and denominational decline.  Just ask our friends in the UCC, ELCA, and PCUSA, and our ancestors in the Episcopal Church.

If that's growing up, I want no part of it.

Royal Pains Launch -- The King Of Bling

Scripture records that when the children of Israel cried out for a king to lead them, the Lord tried to get them to change their minds.


But the people would have none of it. The nations surrounding them had kings, and so should they.

So God gave them what they wanted – a royal family.

Yet the royal family failed to give Israel the stability and leadership it craved. Instead, the kings and their queens leave a legacy of espionage, adultery, assassination, and idolatry.

Really, this royal family becomes – with only a few exceptions – a group of royal pains.

Royal Pains. A series that uncovers the little monarch residing in each of us.

May 20: The King Of Bling

May 27: The Iron Lady King
June 3: The Kings Of Compromise
June 10: The Hell King

June 17: The Sanitation King



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When Verses Obscure Scripture

You might look at the title to this post and think, "What?!  The verses ARE the Scripture!"

No.  They're not.

The division of the bible into chapters and verses is a much later development.  You can read some of that story here. 

The original manuscripts were written by the original authors of the day according to communication standards of that time: little to no punctuation, no capitalization, and no division of the story, letter, sermon, or poem into to modern day chapters, verses, and indentations.

And with more frequency than we'd like to admit, the singling out of verses blinds us to the overall flow and even rhetorical brilliance of a biblical book.

The book of Hebrews is a case in point.

I've always been a bit leery of that book, considering its unknown author, its awkward placement at the back of the bible, and its bewildering use of Old Testament phrases and imagery while communicating a New Testament message.

Nevertheless, Hebrews has always had some great stand-alone verses which are relatively easy to memorize and preach on:

For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing sould and  spirit, joints and marrow . . . Hebrews 4:12

It is destined for man once to die and then to face judgment.  Hebrews 9:27

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  Hebrews 11:1

" . . . for our God is a consuming fire."  Hebrews 12:29

Yet this past week, while preparing for a summer message series called Upgrade, I read through the entire book in one sitting. 

And it is so much more than a collection of occasionally brilliant verses.

It is instead a carefully constructed and masterfully delivered sermon that alternates expositions about Jesus with exhortations to live like Jesus.  The pattern and the intent is obvious when you read the book as a whole -- yet for the 33 years I've been reading Hebrews, I'd only read it in isolated parts.

So plunge deeply and fully into books of the bible and you'll see that they mean much more than the sum of their verses.

 

Encouragement By Ice Cream

For the last couple of weeks, I had been telling the staff to clear their calendars for Tuesday, May 15 at 1:30 p.m. for a Surprise Extravaganza.

I was most disappointed when one of our team members did not re-schedule the cruise he is taking with his wife this week.  But Chris Macedo will know better next time.

With only a couple of other out-of-town exceptions, they all showed up.  The best part was that we were able to include both our Pre-School and After-School teachers in the mix, two groups who don't often get to come to our staff outings.

So we had about 30 different staff members dutifully show at at 1:30 yesterday for the Surprise Extravaganza:  an ice cream truck.

The truck rolled up, the music played, and Good Shepherd employees were surrounded with All You Can Eat ice cream.

It was all a chance for me to thank them for making this not only a good place to go to church, but a great place to work.

Here's the truck itself . . .

Dennis Sult, Coordinator of Pastoral Care, has a Choco Taco with Pre-School teacher Tammy Hay.

Missions Pastor Ron Dozier with Michelle Persyn, Pre-School teacher and Kristin Dwyer, Assistant Youth Ministry Pastor.  I think Kristin's enjoying a Polar Bear.

After School Staff:  Monnie Lane, Madeline Bolger, Rachel Bukuts, Erika Rodriguez, and Jason Perry.

Laughing at my own joke, no doubt.

And with my son Riley who is filling in with the After School staff now that his freshman year at Chapel Hill is over.



Top Five Tuesday -- Top Five Tears Of Joy In Sports

Bubba Watson's tear-filled celebration upon winning this year's Master's sparked an internal question:  what are my favorite "cry" moments in sports?

To make the list below, the tears must be those of victory, not of defeat.  They may well contain some larger pathos (see Michael Jordan in 1991) but the overriding emotion is that of celebration.

So here they are . . . my Top Five Tears Of Joy moments in sports:

5.  Michael Jordan wins 1991 NBA title.  All watching knew that Jordan's tears -- and the ferocity with which he held on to the trophy -- had as much to do with losing his father as with winning it all.



4.  Andre Agassi wins 1999 French Open. He'd been on top in 1994.  He'd been on the bottom -- and, we later found on, on meth -- in 1997.  These are the tears of redemption, gratitude, and awe.



3. Bubba Watson wins 2012 Master's.  How can you not love this?



2.  Dick Vermeil tells Kurt Warner he loves him.  Too bad there aren't more Vermeil clips available.  If there were, he could have tear-filled list all to himself.



1.  Roger Federer's first Wimbledon 2003.  Who knew there would be (at least) five more?  The tears flow in full about 2:00 minutes in to this clip.

What Methodists PRACTICE Or What Methodists BELIEVE?

If you ask most people who are even remotely connected to church life -- Methodist or otherwise -- "what is it that distinguishes the Methodist church from any other church?" you'll get answers that focus on the practices of our denomination as opposed to its beliefs:

They move their pastors every four years.

They have a method to their worship services.

They have pastors who wear robes.

They take communion on the first Sunday of the month.

They have United Methodist Women.

They do good works as part of their faith.

Sadly, describing Methodist distinctives in these ways misses the mark because it ignores the richness of our theological heritage . . . a theology that I believe is uniquely prepared to speak to people in the 21st Century. 

And it's saddest of our when our own people describe our movement with these kind of phrases.  I think our real dilemma is that our churches know the practices of Methodism but not the theology of Methodism.


It’s interesting . . . I’ve served two appointments in 22 years of UMC ministry. The first appointment was a charge (pastoring two churches simultaneously) that included one church founded in 1885 and another founded in 1913.

But out of all those years and all those pastoral appointments and all the trappings of Methodism in both (UMW, hymnals, montly communion), neither church knew basic Protestant theology, much less Methodist distinctives. What had they been hearing all those years?  I'm not sure.

I’ll always remember a conversation with a dedicated church leader, one of the finest men I’ve ever met, in which he first “got” salvation by faith. Throughout his church-centered life he had assumed salvation went to the good.

I don’t know how my pastoral time at that church reversed the tide of theological ignorance, but I hope and pray we took first steps together.

The second appointment is here at Good Shepherd -- as the second pastor of a congregation founded in 1991. This church has almost no trappings of Methodist practice (no UMW, no hymnals, and no acolytes) yet I inherited a body of people who had been well versed in the essentials of our thought: salvation by grace, holiness of heart and life, and the calm consideration (and rejection of) predestination.

Why?

Because Claude Kayler, the founding pastor, was theologically grounded and eager to pass on what had been passed on to him.

Whenever that time comes, I can only hope I will pass on a similar gift to the third pastor of this church.

Courageous Week 5 -- Profiles In Courage

For this final message in Courageous, I'm moving out of the story of Joshua and his leadership of the messy family known as the children of Israel and moving into Paul and his leadership of the messy family known as the church at Colossae.

And it's a topic that relates to every household and every family, whether it's on Mother's Day or any day.

I can't wait to tell you about it.

Sunday.

8:30. 10. 11:30.

World Pollution

The first 2/3 of James 1:27 brings great comfort to those of us who believe in showing our faith through good deeds:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

We get the orphans and widows part.  That's why we support orphanages, celebrate adoptions, and love on widows who keep coming to church even when the music gets too loud for their tastes.

But "keep oneself from being polluted by the world?"  That's different.

That implies, first of all, that the world -- not so much the physical creation in which we live but the values, attitudes, and philosophies that surround us -- is infected with soul pollution.  James regards that as accepted fact without need of explanation.  I suspect that those of us who watch television, read the newspaper, or log on to the internet would agree.

So how do we keep ourselves from being polluted by a polluting world?

It's not enough simply to guard your mind and shield your eyes.

To keep yourself free from pollution, you will want to fill your mind with its opposite: beauty.  God's beauty.

What's your reading list like?  Does it include a heavy dose of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?  What's on your iPod?  Do you fill it with some of the glorious songs we've been singing on Sunday?  And what's on your viewing schedule?  Programs that ask nothing of your mind or programs that engage and interest?

It's why Paul is yet again a marvelous complement to James.  Look at Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- let your mind dwell on these things.

That's the best antitode to world pollution yet.

When Church Enables

I've had a gnawing sense recently that churches in general and this church in particular need to take more care to avoid enabling unhealthy behaviors.

With the best of intentions, we can reinforce behaviors and patterns in people that do much more harm than good.

For example . . .

   When a church allows people to "over-volunteer" -- you know, the ones who are there before the church doors are even open -- it enables them to avoid life at home.  Some people wrap themselves up in church activities so they don't have to deal with unpleasant situations or relationships in the family.

   When a church tolerates continual bad behavior -- you know, people who serve on committees and get their way through sheer volume of voice or force of personality -- it enables the very behavior the Scriptures condemn.  In keeping the peace, churches perpetuate war.

   When a church relies more on charity than the ministry of life development -- you know, agreeing to pay for somone stay at a local motel simply to get them out of the office -- it enables a dependency mindset in the ones asking for help.  Next up on my non-fiction reading list:  Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton.  Can't wait.

   When a church has low standards for involvement -- you know, "we're so glad you're adding to our worship attendance total that it doesn't bother us you haven't cracked open a bible in seven years" -- it enables the kind of spiritual complacency it claims to combat.

Gee.  All that sounds a bit like this church.

Does it sound like yours?



  

  

  

Top Five Tuesday -- Top Five Piano Songs In Rock

Rock & roll and the piano have long had an uneasy relationship.

With apologies to Jerry Lee Lewis, the genre has from its beginnings been driven almost exclusively by the combination of guitar and drums.

If the piano or keyboard play any role in most rock songs, it's usually a complementary one. Yet there come those times when the ebonies and the ivories are exactly what a song needs to make it great.

The songs I list below are defined by and driven by piano -- not synthesizer or keyboards -- and, as usual, reflect something about my age and tastes. So here are my top five piano driven rock songs:

 5. Layla, by Derek & The Dominoes. While the piano isn't exactly the locomotive of this song, it sure is the caboose. A long and daring one at that. Is it killer rock song or tender ballad? Yes.
4. The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, by Traffic. If you've got 12 minutes, you can listen to the original version. If you're pressed for time, here's a modern rendition by Steve Winwood, the song's original vocalist.
3. The End Of The Innocence, by Don Henley. Piano comes courtesy of Bruce Hornsby (more on him later). Video, vocals, lyrics, and staying power -- all from Henley himself. Unfortunately, the original video is not available on YouTube, so enjoy Henley performing at the 1990 Grammys, complete with Japanese subtitles and shoulder length hair.
2. Your Song, by Elton John. It's a little bit funny, I know . . . an Elton John song on this blog. But this one is simply gorgeous.

1. The Way It Is, by Bruce Hornsby. Underrated and underplayed these days. Love the piano's peaceful refrain that belies the singer's anger. I'd love to do this in church sometime.

Anatomy Of A Radical Impact Project

At Good Shepherd, we have a how that goes along with our what.

The big what around here is our mission:  Inviting All People Into A Living Relationship With Jesus Christ.   We love those words and that focus.

But in developing that mission, we also took some time to spell out how we will accomplish it.  We came up with a strategy that has four layers:

Worship Gatherings
Life Groups
Serve Teams
Radical Impact Projects

The first three are pretty much self-explanatory as well as common fare among churches: to accomplish any Christ-centered mission, you will need to worship, you'll want to re-gather in smaller groups, and you'll want to serve inside and outside the congregation.

Yet the fourth -- Radical Impact Projects -- is unique to this community.  We have noticed through the years that when the people of this church are presented with bold initiatives that seem to fly in the face of common sense, they respond with enthusiasm and generosity.

It's why for Christmas of 2010 we celebrated not with mangers, angels, and shepherds, but with honest lessons about human trafficking, the global sex slave trade, and the imperative to give -- and the people of the church gave $207,000 to the International Justice Mission in response.

That was a Radical Impact Project.

It's why in October of 2011 we took one Sunday and instead of worshipping with songs and a sermon, we worshipped with hair nets, food bags, and soy products -- and the people of the church packaged 293,000 meals for famine-torn Uganda.

That was a Radical Impact Project.

And it's why yesterday the church went home.  As the culmination of the Courageous series, we didn't have Sunday morning worship on campus but resourced and equipped families to celebrate worship in their own homes.

Instead of one sermon, we had 1,000. 

Moms and dads, grandmoms and granddads, nuclear families and single adults, all gathered in small communities of faith and studied the story of Jesus and Zaccheus from Luke 19.

Faith began at home.  Parents passed on faith to their children instead of passing that responsibility off to the church.

And over and over throughout the day I heard reports of families gathering around their breakfast tables, opening up their bibles, and talking honestly about Jesus.  Together. 

And best of all, I heard of and spoke to dads who for the first time in their lives assumed the role of spiritual mentor in their children's lives.

So nobody came to church yesterday morning.  But everyone had church.

That's what a Radical Impact Project is all about.

------------------------------------------------------

We invited the Good Shepherd community to gather back together on Sunday afternoon for a Spring Celebration Picnic. About 1,000 people showed up and celebrated what God had done in homes that morning by taking part in music, games, balloons . . .

. . . a rock climbing wall for the adventurous spirits

. . . plenty of food

. . . and, of course, a Dunk-The-Pastor Dunk Tank. That's me after about five soakings.

The Church Is Going Home

For the first time ever, the blog is telling you not to come to church Sunday morning.


Here's what's going on instead:


To download the home worship resources, go to www.gsumc.org.

When I'm Glad To Be Methodist

In the middle of a General Conference week, with all the built-in rancor of that event accelerated by social media commentary, it's easy to be critical of the Methodist family.

My previous two posts have even been mild examples of such negativity.

Yet something happened last weekend that reminded me of the richness of our movement.

Twelve staff and volunteers from Good Shepherd went on a mini-mission trip to the mountains of southwest Virginia to work on home repair with the Appalachia Service Project.  We spent two days restoring windows, installing siding, and repairing plumbing. 

For the construction-challenged like me, such projects are a stretch.  Thankfully, we brought in some ringers who knew what they were doing and directed the work accordingly.

At the end of each project, we shared Holy Communion with the homeowners for whom we had worked.

But here's what made me so glad to be part of the Methodist movement: at the weekend's conclusion, one of our group members -- someone quite new to GSUMC who has come from a lifetime in independent bible churches -- said to me, "that's the first mission trip like that I've ever taken.  All my others have been either street evangelism or Vacation Bible School."

In the Methodist movement, mission trips that combine acts of mercy (siding on a house that has none) with words of grace (celebration of Holy Communion) are woven into the fabric of who we are.  Anyone who has spent any time with any level of involvement in a UMC has been on such a trip.  It's grimy, difficult, good Methodist fun.

Yet other movements within the Christian family are so focused on soul winning that they can neglect life building. 

Our service projects should never be silent just as evangelistic missions shouldn't neglect acts of mercy.

We Methodists need to always to "be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."  (I Peter 3:15)

Yet Peter's words there assume that people will ask.

Which they just might if you give up a weekend fixing up their house.

Theologcial Life Support

During our recent trip to India, an eager young theologian handed me a brochure describing his theological seminary.  The material noted with some pride that the school would graduate four students in 2012.

"Wow, that's small," I thought to myself.  But then I self-corrected:  "Wait a minute.  We've got some United Methodist schools of theology that aren't much bigger than that these days."

It's true.  Of the thirteen official United Methodist Seminaries almost half have perilously small enrollments.  Good News magazine has done a thorough study examining the cost to the denomination to educate prospective pastors.  I have included the entire article below; please know that the term "ordinand" refers to a seminary student on the path to ordination within the United Methodist Church.  Even the smallest of these schools educates students from other denominations as well as Methodists pursuing a theological career that won't necessarily involve ordination.

Yet the numbers -- and the cost to all of us who give to local Methodist congregations -- are shocking.

Why does this matter to me?  (And some of you probably know where this is going . . . )

Because Asbury Seminary is not a denominationally-owned school and as such receives no denominational dollars -- yet it educates more United Methodist pastors than the top four UM schools combined.  It currently has an overall enrollment of 1,800 -- a number the official schools can hardly fathom.  Asbury's commitment to historic orthodoxy distinguishes it from the official 13 who have long capitulated to the whims of theological liberalism.

Now: I don't believe Asbury should advocate for UM money as its independence is a critical part of its strength. 

Yet I do believe, as the article below suggests, that we Methodists ought to think long and hard about providing life support to system of theological education that is crumbling under its own weight.

In some cases, it might be time to pull the plug.

Here's the research from Good News:


Would You Spend $149,000 For One Seminary Graduate?


That is what The United Methodist Church did in 2011.

According to statistics released this week by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the 13 official United Methodist seminaries received a total of $14,459,694 in Ministerial Education Fund money in 2011 and graduated 337 persons into ordained ministry. That averages out to $42,900 per ordinand.


Four of the seminaries, however, received well over $100,000 per ordinand. These same four seminaries graduated only 6 or 7 ordinands each. Gammon Theological Seminary received $124,333 per ordinand. Iliff School of Theology received $128,054. Claremont School of Theology received $143,840. Boston School of Theology led the way at $148,839 per ordinand in 2011.

The amount received by each of these four seminaries would undoubtedly be enough to pay for the entire seminary education of each ordinand. However, these same ordinands would normally pay their own tuition (minus scholarships and aid) and typically graduate with thousands of dollars of educational debt.

One of these seminaries, Claremont, recently received a gift of $50 million to set up an interfaith university to train clerics from the Christian faith, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, and others all under one institutional roof. According to Claremont perspective, all faiths are equal and all faiths equally lead to God. Our contribution of $863,040 (to be reduced to $524,355 in 2012) pales into insignificance when compared to that kind of money. The question is whether the seminary preserves the integrity of United Methodist principles and doctrine.

We seriously question whether the current or forseeable enrollment at our seminaries is enough to justify 13 schools supported by the church. It appears that a certain critical mass of students is necessary to sustain both quality and efficiency in our theological education process. Schools with enrollments yielding more than 40 graduating ordinands per year (Duke, Candler, Perkins, and Garrett-Evangelical) provided that education for less than $30,000 last year for each ordinand. Schools with enrollments yielding 20-40 graduating ordinands per year (Wesley, St. Paul, and United) provided that education for less than $50,000 last year. Schools with enrollments yielding 10-20 graduating ordinands per year (Drew and Methesco) provided that education for under $63,000 last year for each ordinand. But the four schools with the smallest enrollment yielding under 10 graduating ordinands per year (Iliff, Boston, Gammon, and Claremont) cost us over $124,000 last year per ordinand.

When the enrollment drops sufficiently to provide less than 10 graduating ordinands per year, the cost more than doubles. This is an issue of stewardship and wise investment that needs to be looked at.


On top of that comes the awareness that theological education in the central conferences is much less expensive on a per student basis. And the need for trained pastoral leadership in all the central conferences is much greater.

Good News recommends that the University Senate or another group be tasked to study the needs for theological education in the United States and the viability of our supporting 13 seminaries, with recommendations being made to the 2016 General Conference.

Good News also supports the proposal to set aside $5 million dollars from World Service apportionments to be devoted to theological education in the central conferences. We need to invest more money where it can get the greatest return and where the greatest need exists. While there may be an oversupply of ordained clergy in the U.S., there is a crying need for them in the central conferences, particularly Africa and Eurasia.

In a time of diminishing resources, let us make the best use of what we spend.


(This article appeared in the Monday, April 30 issue of Focus at the 2012 General Conference of The United Methodist Church.)

Top Five Tuesday -- Top Five Reflections On The United Methodist General Conference

The United Methodist Church's quadrennial General Conference is currently meeting in Tampa, Florida.

The gathering of 1,000 or so delegates from around the world began on April 24 and will conclude on Friday, May 4.

This body is the only one who can speak officially for the entire denomination.

Live streaming of the proceedings is available at www.umc.org. As a result, I've checked in periodically over the last week to see how the Conference conducts its worship, orders its debates, and makes its legislative decisions.

This year, delegates have had to wrestle with issues endemic to a shrinking denomination with declining resources: 1) how to minimize bureaucracy without losing mission; 2) how to deploy pastors strategically without enabling those who are no longer effective at ministry; and 3) how to harness the leadership abilities of the bishops of the church without giving them carte blanche over the entire system.

In addition, the General Conference will (eventually) vote on proposals regarding our denomination's stand on homosexuality . . . an issue that has arisen every four years since 1972 and one on which global Methodists have consistently sided with historic Christian orthodoxy:  celibacy in singleness and faithfulness in heterosexual marriage.  I believe this year's conference will make the same decision.

In any event, here are my top five reflections from occasional live streaming . . .

1.  I'm so glad I'm not there.  Now: I wish I had been elected as a delegate.  I wasn't. Only 13 pastors from Western North Carolina were elected by fellow clergy and I wasn't among them.  However, as I watch the endless debates over arcane procedural details -- motions, counter-motions, amendments, re-amendments -- I realize I simply don't have the patience for ten days of that kind of activity.

2.  When traditional Methodists try to do contemporary worship, it's awkward.  The worship moments I have seen have been full of pageantry, metaphor, and planning.  Yet it's obvious they are trying to do two things at once: be cutting edge and historically Methodist.  As a result, it's not the seamless, unified kind of experience you'd get at a Northpoint Church in Atlanta or Forest Hill Church here in Charlotte.  Sometimes it feels as if the Conference is trying to serve a hamburger at Chick Fil A.

3.  The international flavor saves us.  While United Methodism is declining in the United States, it is growing rapidly in both Africa and Asia.  Both those regions tend to be more orthodox in theology and yet flexible in worship stye than their American counterparts.  So our international delegates do much to ensure that we as a people stay faithful to the Scripture that shapes us.  (Sometimes they have been heard to ask:  You Westerners brought us the bible many years ago . . . why don't you believe it anymore?)

4.  The live Twitter and Facebook feeds are more interesting than the proceedings themselves.  Check it out here and you'll see what I mean.

5.  The delegates have a thankless job.  Emotions run so high on every issue -- homosexuality chief among them -- that regardless of how they vote, Conference delegates will make some new enemies.  Beyond that, the grueling schedule and heavy focus on detailed legislation take a heavy toll on both mind and body.  While the event may be in the Sunshine State this year, it's no vacation at all.