Epiphany Thoughts

I had high expectations when I entered seminary in Boston. I anticipated a place of great wisdom, soberness of discussion, and genuine Christian community. It didn’t take long to find out that seminary could just as easily be spelled, “cemetery.” If you didn’t have faith and knowledge of Christ before you got there it quickly dissipated. Theology and Biblical language study can be quite unexhilarating at best. Some of the upper level students were apt to try to lighten the search for wisdom, knowing that true wisdom isn’t found in books, it’s found in everyday life.

There were pranksters everywhere. For instance, on the first day of class someone switched the signs on the library’s basement restroom doors. They slid the plastic signs for the men’s and women’s restrooms and swapped them. That was sneaky and yet taught great wisdom. Another place for a search for wisdom lay in the classroom. I remember one class where we discussed endlessly what doctrinal camps we supported: Arminianism, Calvinism, pre-trib, post-trib, Pre-millenialism, Post-mil, and Amillenianism. I’m an A-mil, by the way. During one heated debate, one guy made the unwise assertion that he was no camp follower. He said that he was a Biblicist. His point was, in effect, “All the Bible scholars of the last two millennia are irrelevant. I understand God’s word without their help.” Sure, right, huh, huh.

Wisdom is built upon past traditions and present experience. The Wise Men, the Magi, were famous examples of this. They gathered information from past and present sources and acted accordingly. Too often what made seminary into “cemetery” was the disconnect between information and transformation. I remember being tripped up by this disconnect when a student of another denomination asserted to my pleasure that United Methodists would be the first to enter heaven when Jesus comes back. As I was smiling, wondering where this comment might be leading, he then added, “It’s in the Bible, you know.” I said that I didn’t so he then told me, “Yes, the Bible says clearly, ‘The dead in Christ shall rise first!’” He added, “I don’t know anyone as dead as you Methodists.” There’s a difference between a Wise Man and a wise guy!

The difference can be overcome by connecting our faith to our actions and words. “Seek wisdom,” Scripture does say but that wisdom includes sanctified “street smarts,” like surviving pranksters. True wisdom starts in heaven, like the star the Wise Men followed, but works at street level, too, where we bump shoulders with others. It isn't satisfied with information retrieval. You can't access wisdom by the megabyte. Wisdom is concerned with how we relate to people, to the world and to God. Wisdom is found in life decisions, not in computer chips, lexicons, or the number of textbooks read.

One day one of Mahatma Gandhi's disillusioned followers came up to him and said, “You have no integrity. Last week I heard you say one thing, and today you are saying something different. How do you justify such vacillation?” Gandhi quietly replied, “It is simple, really, my son. I have learned something since last week.” When Gandhi learned new information, he sometimes changed his mind and altered his position. One of my resolutions for the 2010 is to be open to change!

Bedlam to Bethlehem

I’m almost done with my Christmas pottery and glass making! I have 2 pie/quiche plates to glaze sometime today and 1 huge bowl (30 inch diameter). Last night we went to our last Christmas party, and tonight Cindy and I will celebrate our 34th anniversary. Getting married at Christmas seemed like a great idea back in 1975. It was a family tradition. My parents got married December 23, 1937, and my grandparents on December 25, 1910. I can’t imagine the pressure we put on our folks to have a Christmas wedding even though it shouldn’t have been a big surprise given the family tendency. It’s a crazy time of year, but worshipful, too – if we pause and ponder.

I know of and have been part of churches that have had live nativity scenes. I heard of one where everything was fine except for wayward goats. The whole thing was planned as a worship scene, a living tableau of Bethlehem’s manger complete with live animals. Unfortunately, it was too real. There weren’t any problems with the cow and the lambs. They played their roles well. Never mind that a camel couldn’t be found. After all, we reasoned that the Wise Men would have parked them out back anyway.

The goats were a different story. Hindsight is always 20-20. No wonder goats aren’t usually found in crèches. Jesus told the truth when he said that on Judgement Day the sheep ought to be divided from the goats. Together, they can wreck a nativity scene. The goats took off midway through the evening and headed down the main drag in town. You should have seen us trying to round them up!

We often turn our experience of Christ’s birth into a zoo. We mix our metaphors for Christ’s incarnation, blend the sacred and the secular, and end up with the goats and sheep butting heads. Our symbols and celebrations have become a hodgepodge of the commercial and sentimental. Santa and tinsel have overshadowed Jesus. Phyllis Diller said it well, “Santa Claus comes to us under many names: Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas, Mastercard.” We have lost Jesus and replaced Him with a Coca-Cola image of jolly old St. Nick.

With Christmas customs and live nativities, Bethlehem can easily degenerate into bedlam. What began as an earnest attempt to make the Nativity of our Lord more realistic turned into a somewhat humorous disaster. But that’s nothing new. “Bedlam” often describes how we celebrate Christmas today.

The word “Bedlam” goes back to the 1400s when a London hospital named St. Mary of Bethlehem opened its doors to the insane. According to historians, it was a very noisy and unkempt place. People started dropping St. Mary from the name. Then they eventually contracted and corrupted the last part. Bethlehem became Bethlem and finally bedlam, a place of noise and confusion. A name that was first associated with the mother of the Prince of Peace became synonymous with disruption and despair.

Sounds like our hectic schedule of Christmas parties and commitments, doesn’t it? But, it doesn’t have to be this way. The celebration of Christmas need not become bedlam. Worship ought not cause confusion but peace, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (I Corinthians 14:33). This season is best enjoyed in stillness and reflection. Let the hush of this holy season toss out the bedlam of overactivity! One week to go: reclaim the peace through the Prince of Peace!

Star to Scar

I was at one of the Columbia District churches yesterday and goofed on one of the verses of “Angels from the Realms of Glory.” The third verse reads: “Sages, leave your contemplations, brighter visions beam afar, seek the great Desire of nations; ye have seen his natal star…” I ended up singing “natal scar” instead of “star.” It wasn’t a bad mistake. As a matter of fact, it was appropriate in a serendipitous way. Sure the verse was about the Magi coming to Jesus’ birth; but Jesus in-the-flesh is more about scars than stars; humility over vanity; service over being seen.

Ralph F. Wilson, in “Burlap, Boys, and Christmas,” gets at the heart of the difference between Jesus-of-the-Stars and Jesus-of-the-Scars. About Christmas pageants he said: “Angels are clean. Angels are beautiful. They seem almost otherworldly, since girl angels always seem to know their parts better than do boy shepherds. The angelic satin stuff goes pretty well in most Christmas pageants. The problems come with the burlap part. Do you know what real-life shepherds were like? Townspeople looked down on them. “Herdsmen!” they’d huff derisively. Shepherds would work with sheep all day, sleep outside with the animals at night and then come into town dirty, sweaty and smelly. Like boys. Tradesmen in the marketplace would be polite enough. Shopkeepers would wait on them, but everybody was happy when they moved along. Burlap fits the part. It really does. Angels get clouds and the Hallelujah Chorus for props. Shepherds get a stable. Maybe cattle lowing has a bit of romance. But conjure up the smells and the filth. No stainless steel dairy palace this, but a crude barn, with good reason for straw on the floor. Not exactly the setting you’d choose for a birth if you had the luxury of planning ahead. Angels seem appropriate to the birth of God’s son. But straw and sweat and burlap do not. Why, I ask, would the Son of God Most High enter life amidst the rubble of human existence, at the lowest rung of society, in obscurity and at the stable-edge of rejection even before he is born? And as hard as I think about it, I come back to one truth. God wanted to make it explicitly clear that He came to save each of us. He comes to the slimy, dark corners of our existence, the desperateness, the loneliness, the rejection, the pain. He comes to unswept barns and cold nights of despair. He comes because he understands them. He knows them intimately and came for the very purpose of delivering us from those raw stables to real Life.”

Wow! It is a miracle that God desires to enter this world. Thank you, Jesus, for taking my scars; all the pain. The old Appalachian folk hymn is running through my mind, “I wonder as I wander out under the sky, How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die, For poor on’ry people like you and like I.” The glorious meaning of Christmas is God’s unconditional grace spread across creation. It is perennially profound just as Frederick Buechner put it, “Year after year, the ancient tale of what happened is told raw, preposterous, holy and year after year the world in some measure stops to listen.” I’m listening.

Christmas and Family

Our first Christmas together was right after our wedding that occurred on December 20, 1975. After honeymooning in Gatlinburg and enjoying its perfect Christmas atmosphere including snowfall and St. Bernard puppies for sale, we went back to Cindy’s Nana’s house to celebrate the 25th with extended family of Godwin’s and Burch’s.

I was adopted by a wonderful family. Christmas with Cindy’s family has been made rich with memories of gift swapping, carols sung, games played, all-night barbeques, and tons of sweets. But, by far, the best thing about my in-law’s and extended family is their gift of relationship. They exhibit love on a grand scale but without pretense. The gifts aren’t elegant or measured one against the other. The main gift that is passed from one to another is family.

This is key for me! I also dearly love my own biological family and have marvelous memories of Christmases past when we all gathered at our house, which, by the way, was also home to my grandparents. We cousins and kin celebrated on a huge scale. After all, December 25 was my grandparents’ wedding anniversary, and my own parents were married on December 23. Nevertheless, with all of its hoopla, Christmas with my family of origin hasn’t compared with the reality of familial love that I’ve witnessed with Cindy’s relatives.

Maybe part of the problem is that my parents were older when I was born, fortyish, and might have been too tired for a newcomer. They even let my two brothers have the honor of naming me, I surmise to help extend my life. My first name “William” was my maternal grandfather’s name. My middle name, “Timothy,” came from the bear in the “Dick and Jane” books. My brothers and I are eight years apart in age. When I was two, my oldest brother went off to college. I really don’t remember living in the same house with him. He was a celebrated visitor. My middle brother was just becoming interesting when he got hooked on cars and girls. So I became another one of the independent agents of our household, fending for myself, except for the gracious tutelage of nursemaids and kind aunts. The yo-yo between closeness and distance has been a family trait. My family has always been a three-ring circus with everyone going off in his or her own direction. Therefore, maybe it was the whole family’s penchant for doing your own thing that led me to give much of my Christmas holidays to selling fireworks in partnership with one of my uncles.

Therefore, learning to do family has occurred mostly after marriage for me, and I haven’t been the greatest student of the art. It is an art to be in relationship with other people. The eagerness to be with family and the Christmases we have shared is what makes Cindy’s family so dear to me. They haven’t just adopted me. There’s a host of others who have been included, too. The inclusion of so many is what makes Christmas, or any other time with them, so special. Rather than a disjointed make-an-effort family system, theirs is as natural as breathing.

As much as I miss my deceased parents and desire to have closeness with my living McClendon kin, I made a choice a long time ago. I’ll always love my brothers and their families and my extended Jackson cousins from my mother’s side, but for all practical purposes I belong to another family now, my wife’s. I love them, and they have taught me how to love better. I just wanted to say, “Thanks.” With Cindy's mother's death a couple of months ago, Christmas will not be the same. Our parents are all gone now and that reality hits me in my gut sometimes. My folks have been enjoying Christmas together in heaven for years now, but this will be the first time in 9 years that Mr. and Mrs. Godwin will spend it together. They will be in our hearts all day, too, and we will forge new family traditions, but after it's all said and done, it will be Ganny and Gandaddy's life and love that will hold us together.

Always On The Field

Christmas is just around the corner and I'm pondering "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." I love the movie "Elf" and the last scene when Jolie sings about Santa and he shows up with Will Ferrell in tow. Listen and you'll hear... "He knows who's naughty or nice, he knows who's been bad or good, so you better watch out..." Well, in good old South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford dodged an impeachment effort and will be slapped on the wrist with just a censure; and who's not tired of Tiger Woods' silent treatment. I like listening to Sports Radio and enjoy the banter of 107.5 "The Game." They have been going back and forth on the whole Tiger saga. One of the commentators suggested what I did not want to hear about Tiger: his off the field behavior is no big deal if it doesn't affect his on the field results. My answer: Malarkey!

We're always on the field in the game of life. Integrity means everything about us is connected to a common core, no loose ends or loose cannons allowed. There has to be consistency in our public and private lives or else not only do we end up on Santa's Naughty List but God's. It's Advent season and the Judge is Coming so I better watch out and remember I'm always on the field.

Great Expectations

With so many of our WWII vets dying every day and remembering well the HBO Series “Band of Brothers” and their travails during the winter of 1944 in the Battle of the Bulge, I can’t help but think about the sacrifice paid by so few for so many. Brave soldiers with their families back home, and persons in support industries mobilized an unsurpassed effort to defeat fascism and tyranny. We can’t say, “Thank you,” enough to all from every conflict that have acted on behalf of our freedom.

I remember a church member in a previous church who was in the Battle of the Bulge as a tank gunner. His name was Elbert MacDougald. He carried with him the physical and emotional scars of being caught in that tank as it took round after round of small arms fire while it was stranded. He said he could still hear the plinking sounds hour after hour until relief arrived. The tank’s tracks had been immobilized. Its turret and cannon could only fire in one direction. I remember the horror on his face as he recounted his story. In one attempt to fire at the attackers, the tank’s cannon was loaded, but in the process of loading the shell, Elbert’s hand was caught between the seal and the rifled tube holding the round. The only way to be set free was for him to fire the gun. When he did it, half of his hand was obliterated in the recoil.

With every bit of news from Iraq and Afghanistan about brave soldiers losing limbs, I think about Elbert and others like him that have given so much, regardless of the politics of war and our theology against it, to make us free. I listened to president Obama’s speech with keen ears. I hope another surge works and we root out the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, plus make his overly optimistic timetable. It will take great sacrifice by the families of our service personnel and the entire country.

Being a disciple of Christ demands no less a sacrifice. Christian martyr’s dying bravely for the faith turned the Roman Empire upside down. Discipleship isn’t for the fainthearted. It takes bravery, devotion, and decisive action to do God’s will in a hostile environment. Cheap talk of being loyal to Christ isn’t adequate. Henri Nouwen, in his book, With Open Hand, prayed, “God, give me the courage to be revolutionary as your Son Jesus Christ was. Give me the courage to loosen myself from this world. Teach me to stand up free and to shun no criticism. God, it is for your kingdom. Make me free, make me poor in this world; then I will be rich in the real world, which this life is all about. God, thank you for the vision of the future, but make it fact and not just theory.”

What a prayer! Christianity needs more practitioners, not theorists. In the United Methodist Book of Discipline there is a list of what are called “chargeable offenses” for clergypersons and laypersons. The list includes such things as immorality and crime as grounds for dismissal or trial. In the 1996 AME Zion Book of Discipline, there is a glaring typographical error. In the section on “Chargeable Offenses,” the first numbered chargeable offense of clergy is this: “Immortal Conduct.” Can you think of a better “chargeable offense?” When is the last time someone could have charged you with this offense? That’s a question I’m thinking about today. With all of the hoopla over Tiger Woods’ indiscretion and auto accident, I’m afraid that we have become a country that has double standards. We expect our military to be excellent and our celebrities to be less than mediocre. I think a good dose of Jesus will straighten us all out!

Christmas Tree Merry-Go-Round

We don’t have our Christmas Tree up yet. It has been musical chairs or trees for us. With Ganny’s death Christmas preparations have changed more than a bit. Oh, we’ll still barbeque a hog and gather at her house, but she would have already wanted Narcie, her official Tree Decorator, to have already put everything up. So… plans change. Without anyone at her house and fear of a fire if the tree isn’t watered consistently we’ve decided to switch some things up. Narcie and Mike get our tree with colored lights so Enoch and Evy can enjoy the myriad colors, and Ganny’s house gets Narcie’s tree with white lights and no need for watering. She and some of the students from Winthrop Wesley will go down this weekend to set it all up, and I’ll go to Lowe’s or Home Depot to find a tree for us. We’re the odd tree out, but that’s okay. Simple problem, simple solution. Decorating for Christmas is a joy not a burden. The same should be true for all of our Advent/Christmas preparations.

This reminds me of what former CBS News Anchor Dan Rather writes in his book, I Remember, about watching the Flying Valentis while growing up. He writes, “Walking past a vacant lot on our way to school early in the morning, we would come across the Flying Valentis practicing in their long tights and tank tops.” The Flying Valentis were a troupe of circus acrobats who traveled and performed throughout the United States.

“Although we were used to their art,” Rather recalls, “the Flying Valentis never ceased being the wonder of the neighborhood. Every morning it was like getting invited to a great show without having to buy a ticket. They did triple somersaults above their practice nets and caught each other by the forearms while swinging from the trapeze. We’d gasp when they missed connections and fell into their nets.”

From watching this family work out, Rather and his friends discovered that practice meant a lot of hard work. It might have looked like a lot of fun, but it was work. Rather writes, “From this hard-working family with its specialized brand of togetherness, we learned that even life in the limelight was no cakewalk. When we traipsed back from school in the afternoon the Valentis were still swinging away from their nets, and when they returned from a tour looking banged up and limping with limbs in casts we could see that a price had to be paid for fame.” Rather learned a valuable lesson from watching the Flying Valentis, “Their vicissitudes would have been good preparation for survival in the acrobatics of network television.”

Advent is our time of holiday preparation. It is a time when we look back, examining Israel’s expectation of the long-awaited Messiah. It is also a time to look forward to the day when Jesus will return. We do not know when that long anticipated event shall occur, but we try to stay prepared. Like flying a trapeze, Advent/Christmas season often looks like a lot of fun with all of the tinsel and lights. However, without the disciplines of reflection and preparation, this season can make us end up looking as battered as working without a net.

Advent season gives us the spiritual net to help us survive the hurriedness of Christmas. With great panic we can either say that there are only 4 Sundays until Christmas Eve and we’re not ready, or with the right amount of spiritual preparation we can say that we’re looking forward to it. With adequate reflection, we can celebrate this special season with all the wonder and poignancy that it deserves. Don’t miss the net!

A Good Thanksgiving

What a great Thanksgiving and beginning of Advent! We went to Rock Hill to see our two grandchildren and have Thanksgiving Dinner with our son-in-law's parents and grandmother. Caleb went with us, but Josh and Karen were in Greensboro with her folks. It was a good day, and after a few hours we came back to Columbia. Of course we miss Ganny since her sudden death in August. This was our first Thanksgiving with all of our parents gone, but in the Communion of Saints they were still with us is so many ways.

For instance, on Friday Cindy and I went to the movies to see "Blind Side." It is a great movie! It reminded me so much of my mother who became the legal guardian for an African-American man who was mentally challenged. The authorities had threatened to send him to a state institution. He hung out and helped people with their groceries for years at my grandfather's country store, but his mental condition deteriorated, and his family had basically abandoned him. His name was Frank Arthur. He lived with us, had his meals with us. My Dad shaved him and cut his hair. Any way, the movie "Blind Side" brought buckets of tears to my eyes thinking about my mother's big heart and bravery in doing what she did for Frank in the 1950's when race was a worse issue than it remains today.

So around the Thanksgiving table and all weekend I sensed the presence of so many: Ganny, SaSa, Papa Mac, Gandaddy, Papa, Grandmother, Uncle Lee, and many more. On Saturday the Gamecocks beat archrival Clemson and that would have made most of my deceased relatives very happy. Sunday was an even better day! We celebrated Evy's first birthday and her baptism at St. John's, Fort Mill. Everything was simply wonderful. Narcie's sermon was outstanding and Mike's music and the Praise Band were superb. Cindy and I both were filled with tears of gratitude in how God is using our children. Josh and Karen are doing great in ministry and Nursing School. The Rock Hill Herald newspaper had a wonderful article about Josh's ministry with the homeless yesterday. Check it out http://heraldonline.com/front/story/1775436.html. God has blessed us and we're thankful.

Oh! Wow!

This past Sunday I preached at one of the Columbia District churches. It was both Christ the King Sunday and the church's observance of Thanksgiving. As we are about to enter into a new Christian year with Advent, I first want to reflect on Christ the King. We struggle with our desire for God to be both immanent and transendent. Our hearts desire a God who is closer to us than a best friend and yet bigger than any problem. The immancence of God versus the transcendence of God is a complicated conundrum. God's immanence proclaims that God's image can be seen everywhere but decidely declares that God isn't everything. God is beyond "thingness." God is wholly other than creature. This otherness is what is meant by God's transcendence. While it is true that we can see God in everything (panentheism) and that God is everywhere (omnipresence), we must never confuse the Creator with the creation, except with Jesus, of course!

This "of course" is huge! In Jesus we see the mystery of incarnation. Incarnation means "in the flesh," "carnation" coming from the same root as "carnivore." The mystery of Jesus' personhood is that He is both human and divine simultaneously without devaluing or convoluting either. I am utterly amazed at the miracle of how big our God is - big enough to create the universe and big enough, oxymoronically, to limit Godself to time and space in Jesus. Wow!

You might ask, "What's the big deal?" The answer is as clear as why I feel so powerless soemtimes. It's as clear as my need to know why we even exist. The wonder of God is a big deal because it informs my choices, invigorates my faith, and clears up my confusion. Simply put, I need a God big enough to know it all and small enough to know me. Jesus is that God!

David c. Needham, in his book, Close to His Majesty: An Invitation to Walk With God, writes about the greatnes of God: "When I was a boy, our family often went camping in the High Sierras in California. Traveling along the eastern slopes of those 10-14 thousand feet peaks involved several steep grades and dry, desert-like heat. Steaming radiators and canvas water bags slung over car bumpers were standard equipment. One mountain grade I will never forget. It had a funny name: the 'O' grade."

Needham continues his story by asking his father, "Why 'O'? Why is it called that way? Is the next grade after it the "P" grade?" Mom and Dad simply smiled and said, "Just wait. You'll see." Needham says, "Up and up we would climb on the twisting switchback road through scrub pine and sage. And then -- when it seemed we would never get to the top of the ridge -- we did! Spontaneously I cired out, 'Oh!' There in fron of us, beyond a diamond-studded lake and framed with quaking aspen, was the jagged, snowy Sierra Crest ... higher, more massive, more beautiful, and more alive with color than I dreamed. We all laughed together at our now-shared secret. Someday, I thought to myself, I would have the chance to say to someone else, 'Just wait. You'll see.'"

Christ the King Sunday and Advent remind me of the "Oh!" of Jesus' wonder, both immanent and transcendent. He is great enough to be called King of Kings and one of us so as to be called Friend." Oh! Wow!

The Journey of a Connectional People

Well, one more day of the Worldwide UMC Study Commitee. I'm looking forward to driving home tomorrow. It's been a good meeting. The right issues have been raised about what's contextual around the Connection and what's universal and holds us together. There seems to be consensus that we will retain our unity and not slip into an Anglican-style confederation that abrogates our connectional polity. The discourse has been an example of holy conferencing. We have heard from divergent segments of the church from traditional and progressive caucus groups, general agency representatives, and persons from the Central Conferences. I sincerely hope that the US will not fragment into one or more regional conferences. I promise to help craft the best legislation possible while retaining my commitment to our distinctive polity. This isn't about human sexuality. This is about our structure expediting effective ministry. Form should follow function. The question must be answered as to what we value: special interests or the common good. The local church and the annual conferences are the locus of primary disciple-making. Whatever we do must support and empower laity and clergy on the local level. There is much to process from what I've heard. It is humbling to be part of this group. Each person plays a vital part. I, for one, promise to keep localism as a core value without allowing regionalism to trump our identity as a movement of God. We will meet in Manila in the Spring and Africa later in the summer. It will be good to hear from the people in the places where the church is growing.

Human Self-headeness or Christ as the Head

I have been at two back-to-back General UMC meetings: The Connectional Table and the Worldwide UMC Study Committee. The Connectional Table coordinates the mission and ministry of the denomination and decides budgets. The WWNC is studying how we can be a worldwide church allowing autonomy in certain ways in diverse areas of the UMC while defining boundaries of non-negotiables that hold true for the entire denomination. Tomorrow and Tuesday we will hear from divergent and opposing groups on the issues. The defining issue that seems to be driving a desire for the US branch of the UMC to form its own regional conference or conferences is the practice of homosexuality. I think we should spend more time listening to the voices of those outside the US. By listening to US groups we perpetuate the reality voiced by overseas UM's that we are a US-centric church that is structured to enable a codependency model and neo-colonialism. I think it is a matter of spiritual warfare for the heart and soul of the UMC, and I don't think this hot-button issue should be the primary force for dismantling our time-tested ecclesiology. Our polity is one that does and should embrace diversity, but not at the expense of connectionalism. It is a work in progress. I embrace process theology that is dynamic and not static, but though theology should have local variation, doctrine should be off-limits. The first and second Restrictive Rules in the UMC Constitution protect our Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith. Our difficult task is to discern what is doctrine and what is theology. So... pray for us to have wisdom and truth-telling in love as we work on this task.

Of more importance than any of this is whether or not we witness to people of Jesus' power to save and transform. Our only hope as a church is to share Jesus. All the tinkering and special-interest maneuvering is irrelevant if we don't share Jesus with hurting people. What the world needs is Jesus. You can't legislate the Gospel, you have to share it. May it be so! We can promote regional self-headeness (autonomy), but not if it replaces Christ as Head of the Church with Humans.

The Methodist Movement

As I write this I'm in the home stretch of conducting Charge Conferences for the Columbia District. I enjoy hearing the reports of what each church is doing. Each has a success story, a unique personality, a history, and a tragedy or two. I see much of my call as a District Superintendent to get to know as much as I can about the churches. Sure, I spend as much time as I can with my clergy, but I'm a firm believer that clergy exist for churches, not churhes for clergy. Our connectional system isn't a welfare system for flunky preachers. It's our special way to help Methodism remain a movement!

I have seen movement in the Columbia District churches. In my way of having townhall-style charge conferences, I give time for people to ask me whatever they want to ask, deal with the "hidden" issues that are beneath the surface, and simply have conversation. Sometimes things get heated. Usually, however, this is an opportunity for catharsis and healing. I even try to get to each church early so I can walk around the facilities, and the cemeteries. You can tell a lot about how a church is doing by how well things are cared for. So far, I can honestly say that things are going well in the Columbia District. Many churches have had significant growth in disciples and disciple-making. Our district is the only one in South Carolina that has gone up this year in apportionment payment to connectional giving. We lead the Annual Conference.

But numbers don't tell the whole story. The people tell it and retell it every time they live and breathe their faith, and speak of the hope that is within them through Jesus. I have to share why this is important through a piece that I first heard through Bishop John Hopkins of the East Ohio Annual Conference:

“An interesting article was written in a journal called The Public Interest by Roger Starr, a professor at City College in New York. He is a liberal, Jewish Democrat. (Remember that; it is important to the story.)

Starr Concluded that there was only one other period in world history that matches the day in which we live. It was 18th century England. There was a problem of addiction – they had just discovered gin alcohol. Families were falling apart, Children were being abused. Domestic violence was rampant.
There were problems of pollution, crime, and violence – problems very much like our own.

When he discovered this, Roger Starr wanted to know what saved England, or brought them out of their situation. And would you believe? This liberal, Jewish, Democrat argues that the only thing that saved England was someone that he had not really heard much about – someone by the name of John Wesley who started a movement called Methodism.

“Now, I don’t even know any Methodists,” says Starr. “I don’t anything about them. But this Wesley started a movement that literally saved England. It was a movement that had profound social, economic, and political consequences and transformed and indeed saved that nation. Maybe what we need to do is to study those Methodists to find out how they did it, and to duplicate what they did back in the 18th century.”

About a month later, George Will wrote and editorial for The Washington Post. George Will is a conservative, Roman Catholic Republican. (Remember that; it is important to the story.)

· Will wrote, “I never thought I’d agree with anything Roger Starr has ever written. But you know, this liberal has actually got a point. It is that in the 18th century you have the German and French revolutions, and other revolutions around the world; but you don’t have an English Revolution. But they did, you see. It was called the ‘Methodist Revolution,’ because these Methodists turned their world upside down. Maybe what we need to do is to take Roger Starr seriously and look at what was the secret of those Methodists.”
· Then he added, “I know this is going to sound strange for me, saying that we need some more Methodists to save the world; and I hate to end the column this way, but does anybody out there have a better idea?”

About a month later, Fred Barnes, editor of The New Republic, wrote an article. Fred Barnes is an evangelical Episcopalian moderate. (Remember that; it is important to the story.)
He writes, “Can you believe this? We have George Will and Roger Starr agreeing on something. I can’t believe it! But the more you think about it, they are exactly right. But they forgot one thing. What they forgot was that basically the Methodist Movement was at heart, a spiritual awakening.”

Barnes continues, “Yes, it had tremendous economic, social, and political consequences, but it began as a spiritual revival – a spiritual awakening. And unless we get in this nation a spiritual awakening and a spiritual revival that will create these kinds of economic and political implication…in our day, it won’t work. It’s got to have a new generation of Methodists who will do for this day what they did in the 18th century.”

Other people see and say about us what we can’t see, or are too bashful to say about ourselves: The world needs a new generation of United Methodists to lead the way to change the world. Are we ready to go?”

Wesley Chapel - Going Home Again!

Yesterday, I went back to a church that I started serving 24 years ago and left 17 years ago. It was their 220 anniversary as a congregation and the 100th year of being in their current sanctuary. Everything was beautiful and the fellowship was absolutely wonderful. It was like going home again. There was much talk about the past, but the future was on everyone’s minds, too. This church is declining, not precipitously, but slowly and out of sheer demographics. But, there is hope! As the old adage says it well, “Where water has once flowed it can more easily flow again!” The determinant factor, in my mind, is whether or not we will open the spigots and let the water of the Holy Spirit flow through us. We can’t just do good deeds and expect people to believe in Jesus and join the church. We have to have the Spirit-empowered courage and words to seal the deal, bringing people to Jesus and the church more than just inviting them. It’s up to us if the water will flow again.

Church Consultant George Barna has devoted years to tracking the impact of the church on society. In his book, The Second Coming of The Church, Barna says, “At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, I believe the church in America has no more than five years – perhaps even less – to turn itself around and begin to affect the culture, rather than be affected by it.”

Five years isn’t a very long time. Is it possible that the church that has been around for millennia is at death’s door? The answer is definitely, “Yes.” If one thinks back on church history, one can see those pivotal hinge moments in the life of human history when the culture was so corrupt that it crept into the church. At each juncture, heroes of the faith stepped forward. Certainly there were people like Martin Luther, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitfield who were at the vanguard. But, just as important were the unsung women and men, boys and girls that held the church to a higher standard of Biblical holiness. The Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the First, Second, and Third Great Awakenings are evidences of God’s resuscitation of the church.

At the core of any revival is the passionate desire of God’s people to know Jesus Christ and make Him known. The combination of faith and action is impossible to deter. When the church wakes up to its possibilities and acts accordingly, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

It is important to keep faith and action in balance. Acting without thinking is dangerous. There’s a story about President Lincoln and Union General Joe Hooker. Hooker had replaced General Burnside, and he wanted to establish a reputation as a general who took action. Accordingly, Hooker’s first message to the president bore the inscription: “Headquarters in the Saddle.”

Lincoln noticed the heading on Hooker’s dispatch, but was not impressed. Lincoln had already heard that Hooker’s actions had not been well thought out on the battlefield. The president said to an aide, “The trouble with Hooker is that he’s got his headquarters where his hindquarters should be.” Action without thinking is dangerously unwise, but inaction is a poor substitute.

The Sunday School teacher asked her class, “Which parable in the Bible do you like the best?” One child quickly piped up, “The one about the loafs and the fishes.” Loafing as a Christian is an anathema to God. To change this world, we have to put faith and action together. Rudyard Kipling said it well: “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” Let’s get to work!

The New Normal

I was walking on Saturday morning in my daughter's neighborhood. There's not a lot of space between the houses or townhomes so there's not much yard for kids to use for recreation. Something caught my attention in the semi-darkness of dawn. There was a basketball goal in the driveway of a small home, and there's not a flat driveway in the whole neighborhood. You should have seen how that goal post and net tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

One thought as I walked by was about the need for a neighborhood playground or rec area. Another thought centered on some poor kid who winds up being a great basketball shooter in his own driveway on an off-kilter goal, only to be the worst shooter ever on a real basketball court because he's spent too much time aiming at a target that's off.

We set ourselves up for failure when we aim at the wrong targets. Our New Normal is off in our society. The normal for the kid with the lopsided basketball goal will not help his shooting when he gets on a real court with a level goal. It doesn't do us any good either if we aim at wrong targets. We learn bad habits and think they're okay or normal because that's all we know.

My hope this week is not to yield to a New Normal but to the old but fresh standard of God: Scripture. If I don't stay grounded in what God's Word says then I end up yielding and conforming to the culture around me. I remember the days when I would walk out of a movie theater if certain words were used; now I hardly change the channel when the same words are on the TV. I've been conforming to the New Normal too much. I want to get back to God's standard and stay there. That's my goal this week.

Church Authority and Control

As I have been presiding over Charge Conferences it has been apparent that much of church life, and, I dare say, all life, is about authority and control. Nobody likes to be accused of having "control" issues, but I think we all do. It's a part of our human condition to want control. Isn't that what Adam and Eve were hoping for in their grasp for autonomy in the Garden?

I heard a "thinker" piece of humor some time ago. Somebody asked what the difference is between capitalism and communism. Someone replied that in capitalism man (pardon the sexist language) exploits man; and in communism it's the other way around! Well, it sounds to me that no matter what you call the system, exploitation occurs. Control is when we want things our way and want to be the rulers of our own existence.

Many of the questions that come my way as a District Superintendent are about who gets to decide this or that in the local church: Is it the Pastor? Is it the Church Council? Is it the Trustees? Is it the Finance Committee? Is it the PPRC? Who's in charge? These questions, however important, aren't the penultimate most important question. Sure, on a specific point of church law, the question may be about one of the groups mentioned, but as Christians the real question is about who Jesus is in our personal and corporate lives.

All of our efforts to go our own way and manipulate power into control miss the mark of being under the Lordship of Christ. If Jesus is Lord then we yield to the Mind of Christ. Christ modeled humility rather than pride. Jesus did not try to grasp authority. He already had/has it! It was a non-issue for Him. It should be a non-issue for us. Jesus is in charge!

So when I sense and see the buzz-saw tenor of some of our church squabbles it's easy to know that Jesus isn't the One in authority. If a church is wrapped up in warfare over who's in charge or control then it's not a healthy church. The situation then becomes difficult as I preside over these meetings. How do I speak the truth in love and point out the fact that we're seeking something we're not supposed to have?

I think the answer lies in my own exercise of my authority as "Presiding Elder," the old lingo and title for District Superintendents, and the title still used on the Charge Conference Minutes' form. If I try to beat people up with the "power" of my office and make threats about sending the church a less-than-adequate pastor, church closure/merger, or some other very real possibility, then I'm not acting from the vantage point of being like Christ.

Perhaps the best way to be in authority is to be like Christ who was non-reactive before Pilate; and who said from the Cross, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." Humility and non-reactive leadership through listening and speaking only God's words are the answers that I hope to model. Godly authority is about love not control. May it be so as I/we try to submit to God's authority, and lead others to do the same.

Clergy Communion

A few weeks ago several Columbia District clergy and I went to Mt. Mitchell and fellowshipped. We even went down the mountain for Thursday Night College Football. How we got back in the gate at the park is another story, and one worth telling sometime. We needed that time together sharing and having fun. Unfortunately, our life together has low moments, too. I just came back from a hospital room as proof.

However, I just saw our covenant community as clergy in action again. One of the pastors in my district just found out that he has acute leukemia. Tomorrow he starts 24/7 aggressive chemo. We're not at all sure about the prognosis. I spent time with him and his wife last night and again today. Their faith is strong, but they are shell-shocked. I have been working with his church since last night to cover the ministry needs, and I hope the church rallies around him. It has been a tough appointment, not because the people are unChristian. They are wonderful, but they are still grieving the moving of their former pastor of 13 years. That has brought out the usual grief-related potshots at the current pastor, and the adage "Don't let worry kill you, let the church help" has been too true in this situation. My prayer is that healing comes to the pastor and the church.

At the hospital a few minutes ago another one of our clergy came into the room with Bible and Communion elements in hand. He read poignantly from Psalm 20 - Read it! I have never felt the power of those words of comfort so eloquently read. I gave the Great Thanksgiving and we communed in a way far deeper than I have experienced the sacrament in a long time. When United Methodist clergy start our ministry our membership is transferred from our local church to the Annual Conference. The Annual Conference becomes our church home. I saw it today and I am wonderfully encouraged. May God grant us all a support community where we find sanctuary. Amen.

Wrecks & Remembrance

What a week! Normal but not exactly - charge conferences, consultations, crises, and a crash. I was on the way to back-to-back charge conferences on Tuesday night when suddenly I encountered a metal grate about 7 feet long with metal crisscrossing bars. It was in my lane lying there as I was tooling in my Mini Cooper at 70 mph. The truck four car-lengths in front of me didn't touch it. Then I saw it and could swerve quick enough - whack! This thing was about 3 inches high but felt like a boulder. I pulled over and my front right bumper was mangled, light missing, wires lying in the road, and a humongus gash in the passenger side frame through part of the door. When I looked in the rear-view mirror the grate had shattered into shrapnel. No one else was around thankfully, but my 8 month-old car took the explosion. My car could still run even though my airconditioning and gauges registered -40 degrees, and my engine light was bright yellow. I called the Mini Service Dept. and they said I could still drive it unless the light turned red. I made it to both charge conferences and limped home with the motor and car shuddering as I went. They towed it to Charlotte on Wednesday, the closest Mini dealer. I hope it's fixed like new.

The same could be said for a lot of areas of my life - to be fixed like new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says Christ makes us new creatures, but I know too well about myself and others that though we're forgiven, scars remain. I can forgive or be forgiven but the memory of life's crashes remain. Oh, to have a poor memory. I hope I can look at my car when it's fixed and not "see" mangled metal. Someone said forgiveness is like pulling an unneeded or unwanted nail out of the wall, only to have the scar left there until it's spackled over and repainted. Too often, even when the issue has been resolved, our mind still retains the memory of the spot. We end up missing the beautfiul wall and focus on the tragic memory.

Sure, I know sometimes we have been hurt so badly that we NEED to remember life's lessons in order to keep them from happening again; i.e., "Don't throw your pearls before swine," and "Be innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents." However, focusing too much on past scars makes us miss the wonder of grace and repair. My prayer is that I am being made new, and that I remember the same about everyone else. Yes, I don't want to be burned again by a serial sinner or scam artist, but at least I want to hope for the best until I'm proven wrong, and then, guess what, I need to forgive "70 times 7" and keep hoping for the best. What a struggle - praying that everything is being made new, and knowing the car has been wrecked; grace but not cheap grace; forgiveness without too sharp a memory. It's a challenge everday.

Zingers and Well/Ill-Intentioned Dragons

I'm a creature of habit although I do like to try new things. Being shocked by the taste of a new dish isn't something I relish when I already know what I like. As I have been engaged in multiple Charge Conferences at churches, and Consultations with pastors, I have attempted to go beyond my comfort zone and ask questions that I hope exceed the mundane same-old-same-old. I like to have time for a town-hall style meeting where we actually air questions that need asking and answering. One question that I've been asking to help prod things along is, "Why do we have Charge Conferences? What is the theological reason to do this?"

Now, to be sure, it's wrapped up in United Methodism's methodical DNA to add up the numbers of new members, deaths, transfers, and all the other offical things we vote on and hear about at Charge Conference; but all this belies a deeper purpose. Our emphasis on sanctifying grace is supposed to lead us into a closer walk with God, and we believe that we need to check on our progress. Therefore, District Superintendents come around and ask the questions and look at the reports. We're answering two basic questions: "What business are we in?" and "How's business?"

So far Charge Conferences have gone pretty well. There have been a few tense moments and I have received and offered some zingers, but that's all a part of supervision and the give-and-take of being a part of a connectional system. One of the things that I need to work on is not being reactive and staying calm. There have been well and ill-intentioned dragons in more than a few of the meetings in which I've been. What to do or say in such a moment is a perpetual question.

The following is an example of a poor zinger plus poor timing, not the way I want to be, although secretly I may be tempted: There were two evil brothers. They were rich, and used their money to keep their evil ways from the public eye. They even attended the same church, and looked to be perfect Christians. Then their pastor retired, and a new one was appointed. Not only could he see right through the brothers' deception, but he was also a good preacher so the church started to grow by leaps and bounds. A fund raising campaign was started to build a new sanctuary. All of a sudden, one of the brothers died. The remaining brother sought out the new pastor the day before the funeral and handed him a check for the amount needed to finish paying for the new building. "I have only one condition," he said. "At my brother’s funeral, you must say that he was a saint." The pastor gave his word, and deposited the check. The next day, at the funeral, the pastor did not hold back. "He was an evil man," the pastor said. "He cheated on his wife and abused his family." After going on and on in this vein for awhile, he concluded with, "But compared to his brother, he was a saint."

The Burden

I have a sense of unease this morning. It's Tuesday and I am already longing for the weekend. I preached last Sunday and then presided over 3 Charge Conferences, had consultations every hour on the hour yesterday with clergy, plus worked in a few crisis situations; then experienced a great Charge Conference last night. Consultations will begin again in less than 45 miniutes, go all day, then another Charge Conference tonight. I did walk for 45 minutes early this morning in the dark - praying, pondering - trying to give it all to God, but here at the office the dread has come back.

I just reread my testimony in a misconduct trial, and that is what probably pushed me back over to the dark side of pessimism. I'm overcome with sorrow about the state of "affairs" that I have to deal with. Nobody blushes anymore, whether they are lying to my face or hedging the truth. Last night I looked forward to getting home and watching the season premier of one of my favorite TV shows, "House." The build-up in the paper was well-hyped. It said that it would be another Emmy-winning performance by Hugh Laurie, and finally "he would have a mature relationship with a woman."

Well, as good as the show was, especially in its plug for good therapy and how to deal with pathological persons, the "mature" relationship House had was with a woman who was married with children. In light of Governor Sanford and the idiocy of adultery (There's nothing adult about adultery), I am appalled at the lowering of our standards of morality. Manipulation, half-truths, and outright lies have jaded me to expect lesser of people rather than better. My gift of discernment has been in overdrive and it's wearing me out.

One of the things I did yesterday was read a person's paper on doctrine and theology. One section was on humanity and the need for divine grace. Sure, we have been made in God's image: moral, legal, and social; but we have fallen beyond any semblance of self-repair. Total Depravity is total, and only by God's gace in Jesus can we find salvation.

My prayer for today is to hear truth in every conversation, spoken in love with accountability. As a District Superintendent, I must expect no less if I truly believe that God saves us through Jesus to transform us for the transformation of the world. I long for days of truth-telling seasoned with love and grace; but not "cheap grace" or avoidance.

Should I Pray for My Team

The longest prayer I ever heard, and I mean ever, was at a high school football game. A pastor in that small town had evidently been saving up for his big chance to pray under the “Friday Night Lights.” He prayed for the football players, the referees, the coaches, the assistant coaches, the cheerleaders, the bands, the parents, the teachers, the school administrators, and the highway patrol officers who were directing traffic. No joke, he prayed so long and for so many people that the game started 20 minutes late!

Don’t get me wrong! I’m all for prayer, and “Sweet Hour of Prayer” is one of my favorite hymns. Nevertheless, prayer at sporting events bothers me, and it’s not just because I’m such a stickler about the separation of church and state. I think my problem stems from being a University of South Carolina Gamecock fan. I grew up going to all the games. I heard Dr. Lauren Brubaker of U.S.C.’s Religion Department pray at every game year after year. Here’s my problem as a U.S.C. fan. If you pray for the best team to win, that’s probably the other team. If you pray for nobody to get hurt, that might negate Carolina’s only hope of winning. Bottom line, I agree with Hall of Fame catcher, Yogi Berra. Once, when a batter stepped into the box and made the sign of the cross, Yogi said to him, “Let’s just leave God outta this, okay?”

Okay, I yield. I know prayer helps us in everything, but really… should we pray for our team to win? There’s an anonymous tongue-in-cheek story that puts this question in perspective: “Jesus Christ said he had never been to a football game. So we took him to one, my friends and I. It was a ferocious battle between the Protestant Punchers and the Catholic Crusaders. The Crusaders scored first. Jesus cheered wildly and threw his hat high up in the air. Then the Punchers scored. And Jesus cheered wildly and threw his hat high up in the air. This seemed to puzzle the man behind us. He tapped Jesus on the shoulder and asked, “Which side are you rooting for, my good man?” “Me?” replied Jesus, visibly excited by the game. “Oh, I’m not rooting for either side. I’m just enjoying the game.” The questioner turned to his neighbor and sneered, “Hmm, an atheist.”

Is God an atheist when it comes to sports? What harm is there in praying for good results about a game, a great round of golf, or a super outing on the lake? The answer is, “Nothing,” unless we take God’s apparent disregard or ambivalence to our request as indifference. God cares, for sure, about every facet of our lives, but maybe God has bigger fish to fry than who wins the game, and God expects us to be the cooks. Luke DeRoeck put it this way in a letter to the editor of Sports Illustrated, “To suggest that God really cares about the outcome of a sporting event is preposterous. Conservatively, 20 million people in the United States went to bed hungry on Super Bowl Sunday. A God who cares about the outcome of the Super Bowl is not a God I ever want to meet.”

Being a good sports fan is great. I know I love my team. Being a disciple, however, is more important than anything!

Ganny & Gandaddy

My mother-in-law, Dixie Godwin, died Sunday and was buried yesterday. My two children, Narcie and Josh, who are both United Methodist Ministers did the service. My youngest, Caleb, was a pall-bearer. Ganny, as Narcie named her years ago would have been so proud. The service was perfect! Ganny has been at Agape Rehab 3 miles from Cindy's school since the first of February. They were marvelous to her and I cannot thank them enough.

Ganny was a wonderful mother to Cindy and Guyeth, and mother-in-law to Rob and me. There could not have been a better grandmother to Narcie, Josh, Caleb, Lindsay, Doug and her great-grandchildren, Enoch and Evy. She lived her faith and enjoyed life. She had so many friends and a colony of "lost boys" to whom she was a surrogate mother. She was extraordinary in so many ways. As much as we will miss her, her decline reminds us how blessed we were that she was still "with it" until she died suddenly on Sunday. They had told her Friday that she had some form of leukemia and were preparing her for treatments. We wouln't have wanted her to suffer any more, but she lived life to the full until the end. She made friends out of every nurse and adapted to life's changes with a God-given grace that was amazing.

Two weeks ago tomorrow we took her to see the movie "Julie & Julia." She loved it! She was a story-teller and librarian. She and Gandaddy were truly educators. They both taught us how to live and die. They're together again as they should be. They have left a legacy for all of us, and we're thankful.

Form Follows Function - Worldwide Study Committee

Tomorrow I preach at 9:45 and 11:15, then head to Simpsonwood outside of Atlanta for the first meeting of the Worldwide UMC Study Committee. Many of you know how big an issue this is for me personally. I have written about our connectional polity for years with articles in "The Circuit Rider," "Quarterly Review," and the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women. I have worked for our eccelsiastical unity helping create The Connectional Table, and have worked with many others in presenting reasons why the proposed consitutional amendments to create a diocesan parochialism in the UMC is a terrible idea.

I agree that there must be cultural adaptations that honor diveristy, but if that occurs at the expense of connectionalism, count me out. The big question before the Study Committee is not, according to the agenda I received, the history of what got us to this point, or which side, liberal or conservative, wins the battle over human sexuality that is shaking all main-line denominations. The big question for me is what structure will help us make disciples for Jesus Christ. Form follows function!

As for sexuality issues and the global church, every 30 years there is some hot-button issue of one ilk or another. Maybe this one will never go away, but the issue of women's ordination and inclusion of people of color have at least been alleviated in offical church law if not in actual practice. As a matter of fact, all one has to do to put the brakes on the worldwide proposal as presented is to note United Methodist history's reaction to women's ordination. One of the reasons that the Korean Methodist Church went autonomous and left the UMC was over their rejection of women's ordination.

So, we will always have issues that divide us. How about us focusing on ways to stay united? I think that focus should be on Christ and offering Christ to a confused world. Therefore, we must have clarity about our mission. Is our mission to offend no one or please SOMEONE (Jesus)? Certainly the Gospel is for all people and the reconciliation of everyone to God, but let's not confuse how we do it with why we do it. If United Methodists lose connectionalism we have lost our distinctive vehicle for offering hope to the world. Our "why" of being reconcilers without boundaries of right and wrong, humanism without the need for atonement, will supercede our allegiance to Christ and will result in us offering false hope or no hope to anyone. Our real "why" behind how we structure ourselves better be bringing people to a real experience of Christ reagrdless of who they are. The best way to do that is not to give in to the relativism of national churches, but through a common connection to John Wesley's "Scripture Way of Salvation" lived out!

Conflict Training

This is a photo of me as a "Fighting Gamecock" USC fan, not of my leadership style! This week has been spent in a Lombard Mennonite Peace Center "Conflict Mediation" Seminar. Well, that's a mouthfull, but the training has been good. Conflict can even be good, "Iron sharpens iron," says the Psalmist, but it's tough work to look for the good in a stressful situation.

As a District Superintendent I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with people who want me to "straighten out their preacher." Sometimes they might be right, but I know enough about Edwin Freidman and Murray Bowen (I hope) to not buy into their triangulation. I hope to be non-reactive and stay objective as I mediate. For me, that means cutting down on my facial expressions, no nods up or down, and mostly grunts and innocuous words that state that I have been listening adequately to both sides.

This is exhausting. But community is worth the effort. Scott Peck's book on peacemaking A Different Drummer has long been a favorite. He sums up life, church, work, and home, etc. as falling somewhere on a continuum between the following stages of community: pseudocommunity, chaos, emptiness, and real community. Some want to avoid conflict and stay in a fake community. To get to real community you have to dare to confront, speaking the truth in love through emptiness.

I hope to do better at listening to people, being objective, empowering people to come to the table and work through their differences. To do it, I've got to nail my feet to the floor, and maybe superglue my mouth shut. The main thing is to love, love, love; and listen, listen, listen. Every day is an adventure.

Church: Exercise Without Endorphins

Cindy and I had an adventure yesterday. We took her mom, who has been either bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound for the last 7 months, to a movie. She is improving and we're getting close to her last hurrah. She has surgery a week from Friday, and who knows if she'll make it in her condition.

Nevertheless, we had a great day, with a few tense moments. We took her to see the movie, "Julia & Julie" about Julie Powell cooking and blogging her way through Julia Child's Mastering French Cooking. It was a feel-good flick that was authentic and amazing. Meryl Streep deserves the "Best Actress" Oscar.

The tense moments in the adventure were timing (it's difficult to handle a wheelchair on a schedule, not to mention a frail 76-year-old), the thick traffic on Saturdays on Harbison Blvd. which is atrocious, and our sheer fatigue from long weeks at work. But we made it and it was worth it.

However, in the inimitable words of my dad, "They didn't have to rock me to sleep last night," meaning someone is so tired it's an effortless thing to just hit the pillow and count down from 10 and you're out. One cute thing happened as we grabbed a quck bite to eat on the way home though. The cashier mentioned how exhausted we looked (never a good sign). She asked if we had been doing yard work or something to tire us out. I said, "No, her mother in a wheel chair and a movie." Cindy spoke up and said, "Yeah, but tomorrow is Sunday. It's the day of rest." Then I said, "We'll go to church and have Sabbath." The the profound words from the cashier: "Depends on the church. Some churches will tire you out, too. It depends on what they're talking about."

How unfortunately true! Some churches will wear you out no matter what they're talking about, sometimes worse depending on the preacher's words. Rather than being energized, it can be deflating. We/I need to do something about that. May it not be so today! Church shouldn't be exercise without endorphins!

Palmetto Pride

My last post showed me doing sgraffito-carving on a leatherhard vase. I like to free hand palmetto and crescents - the symbols of South Carolina. Our state is infamous for too many things. Someone said about SC when the state seceded from the Union to start the Civil War: "What! They're too small to be a republic, and too large to be an insane asylum."

Well, I wonder sometimes. Our cigarette tax is one of the lowest in the country. Our legislature is often out-of-touch when it comes to medicaid and benefits to the poorest of the poor. Our unemployment rate is worse than anyone else's, but our tuition at our colleges is highest in the Southeast. Plus, don't get me started about our governor, lieutenant governor, or a Confederate flag flying in our faces in front of the Statehouse.

That flag alone is enough to make me sick. It is so hurtful to so many people. Our history is replete with innocent blood on that flag. That may be my history, but it's not my heritage. History is something you learn from, and heritage is something you pass on to your children. But we haven't learned, have we? How many of us would be offended if the German B.M.W. plant in Greer flew a Swatiska over its buildings? We all would!

We need to put the shine and lustre back on the Palmetto and Crescent. That's a symbol worth standing up for. It's up to me and you to do it. I have spent a few days before calling legislators. I need to do it more than that. Apathy gets us nowhere. It may be summer recess for our legislators so we might think it's no time to call them up. Actually, summer recess is the best time. They work for us! Pick up the phone!

Spinning Wheels and Fiery Furnances

I know that this story flies in the face of my theodicy and why people suffer, but it helps on a rough day, especially for a potter like me. God doesn’t cause the crud in our lives but God does use it for good, if I will wait and see. Here’s the story:

There was a couple who used to frequent crafts shops. They both loved pottery, and especially vases. They saw one in a shop that immediately caught their fancy. They asked the shopkeeper if they could pick it up and look it over more closely. As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the vase spoke, “You don’t understand.”

It said, “I have not always been a vase. There was a time when I was just a lump of white clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, “Let me alone,” but he only smiled, “Not yet!!”

“Then I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. “’Stop it!! I’m getting dizzy!’ I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, ‘Not yet.’

Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the peep hole, and I could read his lips as he shook his head, ‘Not yet.’

“Finally, the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ‘Stop it, Stop it!!!’ I cried. He only nodded, ‘Not yet!’

Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This one was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged, I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf.

An hour later he handed me a mirror and said, ‘Look at yourself.’ And I did. I said, ‘That’s not me; that couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.’

“I want you to remember, then’ he said, ‘I know it hurts to be rolled and kneaded and patted, but if I just had left you alone, you’d have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have collapsed. I know it hurts and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have crumbled. I know the fumes were bad when I poured the glaze over you, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened and been made strong. You would not have had any color in your life, and if I hadn’t put you back in the oven for a second time, you wouldn’t survive for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”

God is the potter and I'm the clay. If I believe that the the spinning wheel and fiery kiln will be worth it when it's all said and done. Lord, Give me patience!

In a Tizzy or Trusting

I just saw a sign riding down a Columbia street in front of a United Methodist Church. It said: "Sermon Waiting For God." There wasn't a colon between "Sermon" and "Waiting," and I found it either an intriguing title or an accidental conundrum. I hope every sermon that I preach or any preacher preaches, for that matter, is "Waiting for God."

It's a fact that I have preached more than a few where I didn't wait on God long enough and should have gone into the pulpit Quaker-style and waited for a Word from the Lord. But, oh no, I have usually thrown something together in my own strength or perceived ability, and then I wonder why God didn't show up. I didn't wait long enough.

The rhythms of life are all about waiting, pausing, taking a deep breath. As I write this, however, I know that sometime today I am going to get a phone call that was set up yesterday and is extremely important. Here's the deal. It was MUCH more important yesterday when it was set up. Part of me was very anxious, a bit angry, more than a little bit hurt, and flumoxed a lot. Here's the deal 15 hours later: Big deal, whup, whup!

If I trust the Lord who is as perennial as the tide and as solid as a mountain range, then what's up with worrying and freaking out? Two sayings come to mind that I must choose between: "Don't let worry kill you, let the Church help!" and "Worry is like being in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere!" So let the church kill me, or be still. Two choices. I hope that I make the right one when the phone call comes.

Support Systems

I’m tired today – too many meetings, the usual District Superintendent quota of fires that have to be put out, and a sheer burden for our churches, and the world. For whatever reason, I’m really feeling it today. I have a support system: my family, the Cabinet, friends. I need reassurance that God is here, too.

What helped today was remembering Sir Christopher Wren. He rebuilt much of London after the Great Fire of 1666. Over fifty churches are a part of his architectural legacy. They include many graceful styles.

For instance, one of his most striking designs was of St. Paul’s Cathedral in downtown London, the church immortalized in WWII newsreels. There’s even a shot of its dome at the beginning of the new Harry Potter movie. Wren’s design of St. Paul’s established him as the world’s leading architect. Unfortunately, that fame led jealous rivals to criticize his work even more. When Christopher Wren designed St. Paul’s he created a massive dome supported by a single column. The uproar was predictable, “Surely this church will crumble! He must add additional supports.”

But Wren held firm. He was confident in his work, but it was one of the few battles that this genius would lose. Amid tremendous political intrigue, the prominent designer was forced to add two more columns to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The controversy faded and was forgotten. Half a century later the dome needed repainting, so workmen assembled scaffolds. Were they ever surprised! The two added columns were never connected to the roof. Short by two feet, but close enough not to be detected from the floor, they served as a decoration or adornment for appearance only.

Wren had the last word. His ability and the completed project were both vindicated. Just one support was enough to bear all that weight. There is only One support that the rest of us need, too – Jesus. I hear the words in my ears, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand…”

Summer Time

Remember the song "Time in a Bottle"? That's on my mind as I write today. I’m fairly convinced that the type of popular music that we like is linked to when we were juniors and seniors in high school. My personal favorites include Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Birds, Three Dog Night, The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, The Who, The Beatles, and, especially, The Moody Blues, who I repeatedly listened to as I read and reread The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Whenever I think of Middle Earth I can’t help but think of the mystical sounds of the Moody Blues.

Here I am squarely at middle-age, and life’s bookends are staring me in the face. I have enough time under my belt to retire, but that’s too far away to even ponder, much less desire. Being Columbia DS is an exhilarating challenge and last night’s Set-Up meeting has gotten me jacked up for another ministry-filled year! On the other hand, I’m missing summer and wondering how to get back to the beach, mountains, and any place of solitude. That’s my life, maybe yours, wondering about where I’ve come from, and rethinking, remembering. For instance, rethinking childhood and adolescence is an idyllic mixture of triumphs and wounds, from first love to broken bones, winning seasons to a Charlie Brownish dropping of the ball. It’s hard at whatever the age to keep one’s mind off the “befores and afters” of life.

But God is eternal and knows no time though time-bound for a short period through Jesus’ incarnation. For God, age is ageless. For God, time is always kairos not chronos. “Kairos” is one ancient Greek word for time. It defines time by the content of the moment. “Chronos” defines time in the manner that I am most accustomed. By its definition time is spatial, chronological, and linear. Chronological time views things as “fifteen minutes UNTIL something,” or “thirty minutes AFTER something.” Conversely, kairos time is more digital than spatial. It is defined by the God-moment, the experience rather than by what comes before or after.

In this regard our watches and clocks which display time in a spatial way, with spaces between seconds, minutes, and hours, are antithetical to a celebration of the “now.” Digital clocks and watches flash the exact hour and minute begging us to think in the present and live in the now without pressing us to think about before and after. God help us to live in the now! The past may have been great, and I am looking forward to better days ahead, but to live faithfully in this world is to do it as God does – giving my complete attention to whomever and whatever is before me right now. If our favorite music is defined by the content of certain life stages, may we dare give another listen to the sounds about us now? It might not be classical, swing band, country, rock and roll, the blues, or ballads that we need to listen to. There just might be enough God-presence in the sounds of a loved one’s sigh, the arthritic creaking of our own joints belying the hopeful maturity of the years, or the sweet-baby noises unintelligible yet profoundly clear in their message of love upon which we need to focus today. Focus we will, for time is of the essence! Think digital and live digital in God’s Time.

Carolina Moon Over the Marsh

It's got to be a full moon! Just as sure as the full moon makes the tides grow larger, I think they also pull all of our brains a little too far from our brain stem - craziness happens. I resemble that remark. The last 3 days have been 12+ hour days, everything pretty good stuff with the occasional trap or two. The tyranny of the urgent has about robbed me of the best of the last month, but I'm fighting it! A month ago I spent a glorious week by myself on top of Mt. Mitchell, reading novels and papers, getting spiritually ready for teaching at Emory. Then it was two weeks at Emory sleeping in the same sleeping bag I used on Mitchell, except this time I was on a sofa (The mattresses in the dorm were worse). The students were super! I love teaching. If I could teach more I would do it. If I ever happened to be elected to the episcopacy, the teaching office of bishop would be huge for me.

Then I dashed to a week of Cabinet Retreat with our Bishop and my colleagues at Palm key in the marshes near Bluffton, SC. It was wonderful and we did good work listening to the Spirit and visioning for the work of the Annual Conference. We went kayaking to build up our sense of community and it was great. Next was our scheduled week at the beach. The grandkids were great!!! Enoch loved the ocean. All I had to do was say, "Beach," and he started taking his clothes off. It was simply precious. The highlight was a huge rainbow over the ocean that my mind keeps remembering. In the midst of all the crud there's God's providence and promise!

It's good to be back in our own bed, and last Sunday began my transition back into the life of a D.S. I preached and observed the Eucharist with a wonderful church at 10 am then held a charge conference to certify a young adult as a candidate for ordained ministry at 12:30; then it was 2:30 that we had a very productive Native American Committee meeting; then it was on the road to do a pottery-sermon on the stages of grace at another church at 6. I made it home after cleaning up at 10:30.

The next day didn't start so good when I noticed our city-supplied trash can missing from the curb. A lady walking by said she saw several turned over on the otherside of the neighborhood. There it was with my clay as proof that it was ours turned over on someone's lawn. I cleaned it all up and drove my little car with the flashers blinking with my arm out the window pulling the trash bin. It had to have been a sight. I disinfected and came to work. Meetings, Cabinet Retreat minutes, calendar for the Cabinet, and getting ready for our annual set-up meeting tomorrow night has been interpersed with talking to a lot of people, catching up on situations and getting home late. I just finished the Cabinet calendar and tomorrow I tackle the rest of the minutes. In the hectic day tomorrow I do get to meet with a young adult who wants to know how to start in the ministry process. Thank God for the oases of connecting with people. One joy was being with one of our clergy families as they welcomed their new daughter into the world!

New birth, new opportunities - keep me going. I may physically feel like the waxing moon in my picture over the marsh, but better days are ahead!

Hoods: Charge Conferences & Commencements

Hope is what I thought about when I saw this rainbow last week. I have to go back to Candler’s summer COS graduation in a few weeks and we have our Columbia District set-up meeting on August 9 to get ready for annual Charge Conferences. Commencement and set-up meetings have a lot in common. Both of these events, plus Charge Conferences, present a fresh start, to commence living in a new way. I hope it’s in honest ways. Too many people have skirted by in university classrooms by saying only what they think a professor wants to hear, and too many clergy simply go through the motions of Charge Conferences without telling the whole truth. This is unacceptable.

Think about this in the context of graduation’s hooded academicians. At any graduation there are a rainbow of different academic hoods. The various colors represent a person’s field of expertise via the outer velvet’s color, and the person’s alma mater is visually represented in the hood’s interior. My doctoral hood, for instance, has red velvet signifying theology and blue and gold inner trim denoting Emory’s school colors.

This practice goes back centuries. Hundreds of years ago people didn’t wear hats. They wore hoods, and they wore many different colored hoods. The color of a person’s hood signified their occupation. If you were a minister, you wore one color of hood. If you were a medical doctor, you wore another color of hood. You could tell, therefore, a person’s occupation by the color of hood worn.

The problem with that, of course, was that some people tried to pass themselves off as somebody they were not. So, they wore a false hood. This is where we get the word “falsehood.” Today we think of a falsehood as something that isn’t true. It is any kind of dishonesty. A person’s honesty is of utmost importance. Lying erodes everything. I want to promote intellectual honesty by requiring students to do their own work, or, when using information not new with them, to offer appropriate citation. If a clergyperson doesn’t do his or her own work, falsehood will undermine the whole of that person’s ministry. Without honesty, there isn’t much of a foundation for anything in a person’s life. Charge Conference forms and Academic Integrity statements help keep us honest!

People can say wedding vows, but without honesty they don’t mean much, do they? Children can say that they love their parents, but love without honesty has little or no respect. People can say that they have done their best to put in quality time and effort at work, but the proof of their shoddy work ethic is quickly apparent. Falsehoods are found out! From the beginning of Christianity, the church stood for honesty even if it meant martyrdom. Early Christians could not say they believed in Jesus as Lord and kneel to Caesar as god, too. Honesty often means either-or rather than both-and!

Honesty requires a choice, a putting off of falsehood. A heart patient visited his cardiologist for his two-week follow-up appointment. He informed the doctor that he was having trouble with one of his medications. “Which one?” asked the doctor. “The patch,” the man replied, “the nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours, and I’ve run out of places to put it!” The doctor was flabbergasted. He had the patient quickly undress. The man had over fifty patches on his body! The patient didn’t understand that each time he put on a new patch, he was supposed to remove the old one.

Our new life in Christ requires honesty! Life in Christ demands that we take off our falsehoods and allow Christ to dress us in new clothing. A life of honesty may be difficult, but it’s even more difficult to live a lie! Hope springs eternal like the sign of the rainbow.