Acute Appointment Anxiety

Being a District Superintendent is something that I honestly love being and doing. I just got back to the office after spending several hours with a pastor and spouse walking, talking, and having lunch together. This time of year is when I spend three hours with each clergy doing whatever they want to do. We build relationships and we get to know each other a lot better than we do when we're having consultations in my office. These times are a blessing. I'll never forget last year around this time as I was with several of my clergy on a canoeing trip when I got the call about Narcie being in a hospital by herself and finding out she had brain tumor. A few days later I was doing pottery with some clergy when she called to let me know the scary prognosis. We were there for each other. I broke down and cried and they cried and prayed with me. Transparency and vulnerability is a good thing. We need community, especially as clergy who are always giving, giving, giving. I want to say thanks for everyone's support, and ask that you continue to pray that Narcie's tumor disappears and/or doesn't grow. She goes back for her every 3 month MRI next week. This is when the prolonged state of anxiety gets acute. Help!

This is also the time of year when every United Methodist Clergyperson has acute appointment anxiety. Am I moving, or not? It's the same for local churches. I'm  getting last minute phone calls from churches either lobbying for their pastor to move or stay. We start appointment making this Friday morning and it's an arduous task bathed in prayer and full of emotion. We want to do what's best for both churches and clergy, all to the glory of God. Our system is so different from the way average Americans think. It's my perception that Americans would rather go out and pick their pastor the same way corporations and businesses hire people. The United Methodist system of episcopal supervision and appointments listens to what churches need and tries to match those needs with a particular clergyperson's gifts and graces.

In our system we believe God calls people to ministry and the Annual Conference through the Board of Ordained Ministry and the Clergy Session validate that call. From then on we are a sent ministry. UM churches don't send out "pulpit committees" to guage a potential pastor. The SPRC meets with me and the other DS' to discuss the needs and we try to find the right person. I ask the Staff-Parish Relations Committee to do a secret ballot and vote on what the church/community needs during this season of its life in a pastor. I give them 3 choices that summarize Par. 340 "Duties of a Pastor" in our Book of Discipline. The choices that I think sum up what every pastor should bring to the table are: Leadership, Proclamation, and Pastoral Care.

Anyway, I use this information to guide my thinking about the clergy leadership that a church needs. This is what all DS' do. We know that clergy exist for local churches, not the other way around! The local church is the primary arena for disciple-making. Please pray for us as we attempt this week to make this happen through the appointments. The church's relevancy to the world depends on getting this right!

Earthquakes and God???

Why do earthquakes happen, cancers occur, wars start? I like the tune of Twila Paris' song, "God Is In Control," but I don't like the lyrics or what they seem to say. I have heard enough malarkey from well-intentioned people concerning my daughter's brain tumor, "It's meant to be," or the ubiquitous "Everything happens for a reason."  Well the reason most junk happens in the world has nothing at all to do with God, except that God gets us through the stuff. God doesn't cause bad things to happen. Take a look at James 1: 13-17, "God doesn't test anyone...Every good and perfect gift is from above."

So why the earthquake - ever since the fiasco of the Fall this world's natural laws have run amok. Proof: Jesus was asleep below deck while with the disciples on the Sea of Galilee. They were afraid that the storm was going to drown them. They woke Jesus. He came up on deck and it says, "He REBUKED the winds and waves." If Jesus is God and if God controls nature and everything in it, then why would Jesus have to rebuke the storm. He only uses "rebuked" in the NT for evil anyway. The point is obvious to me. There are things not under God's control.

Bad things happen because of our choices; the choices of others, the general decay in the world because of the Falleness of Creation (the biggie); and evil - never God. So what does God do? God works miracles and that's the line I want to be in in heaven as I ponder theodicy. I want to ask God why did God intervene and heal my Dad and not my Mom. If we had taken a family vote it would have come out very differently, thank you very much. God redeems the junk caused by life. God (Romans 8:28) can work all things for good, but God doesn't cause them! There are so many variables, but God is constant love.

So, with earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina's, cancers, brain tumors, and the like - I'm going to trust God with the solutions, not blame God for the confusion. It's a huge difference to me!

Lenten App

I just noticed an article in our local newspaper about a new iPhone app for people who need to confess their sins. Sounds like an interesting way to add substance to our Lenten spiritual disciplines. The article asks, "Can your iPad or iPhone bring you closer to God?" It is aimed at Roman Catholics as the app is titled "Confession: A Roman Catholic App." It costs $1.99. Cheap enough, but is it cheap grace?

My wife knows after 35 years of marriage to ask another question after I say a generic, "I'm sorry." She asks, "Why are you sorry?" Now that really gets into a full-disclosure confession. It also makes sure that I think more than twice before I commit the same stupidity again. It isn't $1.99 grace, and it isn't cheap.

Lent is a season when we need to enter into Christ's passion and suffering so that we, too, may rise on Easter. The word, "Lenten," comes from the Old English word, "lencten," "to lengthen." Lenten season literally implies that we take a longer look at ourselves. As the days get longer so should our spiritual disciplines.

John Wesley organized the people of the 18th English Wesleyan Revival into classes and bands so that they might be accountable helpers for one another's spiritual growth. He saw salvation not as a forensic matter to be proved in court by a time-specific body of evidence; i.e. "I was saved at 8 p.m. on March 11, 1971." It included known events but wasn't limited to one-time shots of salvation. Wesley emphasized the therapeutic nature of Christ's redemptive work. His notion of salvation certainly was a process - a healing, therapeutic process that led through his via salutis (way of salvation) by stages  of prevenient grace, justifying grace, and sanctifying grace. It was dynamic (therapeutic) not static (forensic). It was never-ending, always a growing in grace and upheld by the means of grace!

All the more reason as the season of Lent starts that we commit ourselves to more than a $1.99 iPhone app. Find your prayer partners, friends, Sunday School & Bible Study colleagues, Clergy buds, and neighbors who are just simply intrigued by Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday; and ask "Would you like to help me have a better Lent this year?" I pray that we will be surprised and hope-filled by the amazing ways that we can grow in grace this Lent.

Transfiguration Pinnacle and People

Epiphany season in the church has been a time through the centuries to sense the power of God’s self-revelation to the world. It is the season of encouragement that immediately follows Christmas and precedes Ash Wednesday and Lent. Epiphany is a reminder that though Christ is about to enter his “dark night of the soul” in the controversies that led to his crucifixion, he knows full well just who he is. He is God-Incarnate, God-in-the-Flesh.

This knowledge changes everything. It doesn’t lessen the pain and humiliation that Christ is about to undergo, but it does help him endure it. Epiphany season ends with the greatest affirmation of Christ’s personhood, Transfiguration Sunday, which we commemorate this Sunday. On the sacred mountain, Jesus is reminded that only he is God’s beloved son. Though the valley of suffering is deep beyond compare, God will transfigure the ordinary into extraordinary, the crown of thorns into a crown of Gold.

Transfiguration Sunday’s climatic end to Epiphany season doesn’t diminish the pain Jesus resolved to endure, but it did fortify his soul for the journey. Isn’t this why we come to Sunday School and Worship? Isn’t the Lord’s Day our Day of Transfiguration? We seek to find out who we are on Sunday and pray that it helps us through the dark nights of the work-a-day week.

Such a transfiguration took place in the life of a man named Ben Hooper. Fred Craddock ran across an elderly gentleman by this name at a restaurant just off I-40 in east Tennessee. The older gentleman found out that Fred Craddock was a seminary professor, a teacher of preachers, in Atlanta. The gentleman, without hesitation, said that he had a story to tell about a preacher. Fred had heard many such stories over the years but he listened attentively. The old gentleman told how he was born in the hills nearby, and that his mother was not married. He described how children made fun of him and called him names. He recalled how everyone would stare at his face trying to figure out who his daddy really was.

The old man said he felt embarrassed and unworthy everywhere he went, especially church. At church, as a young boy, he would slip into the back pew after the singing began and slip out before the last hymn finished. One night, however, the new Methodist preacher talked long and hard about God’s grace and love for everyone no matter who they were. He was mesmerized. Before he could slip out, a group of people had already queued up in the aisle. Before he could move, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the preacher! He spoke while staring at the boy’s face, “Well, son, let me see who you are. Oh, yes! I see a striking resemblance. You’re a child of God … Go out and claim your inheritance!”

The older man told Dr. Fred Craddock that night transfigured his life. He felt God’s grace like never before. It changed him forever. Fred Craddock asked the man what his name was again, knowing this would make a great story to tell preachers. The old man replied, “Ben Hooper.” “Ben Hooper, Ben, Ben Hooper!” Craddock thought to himself. And suddenly it came to him that his father had once told him about the time when, for two terms, the people of Tennessee had elected a man named Ben Hooper, who had been born to an unwed mother, as governor of their state. What a difference transfiguration makes!

Think about the millions of people around us who need a transfiguration. They wonder if the institutional church is relevant, and so do I. However, the Gospel is relevant, if we'll connect to people and let people know through word and deed that Jesus has made a difference in our lives. People are starving for salvation and need transfiguration. I pray that we will guide them in real, relational, and relevant ways to an encounter with the Living God!