Take Root...Bear Fruit

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After considering several apparel choices at ICHTHUS (annual Christian music festival outside Wilmore, Kentucky we go to with our youth group), I chose this one:

The simple message is appealing and I am inspired by its directive. In our Alpha course video, founder Nicky Gumbel comments on a Japanese woman learning English phrases who converted "What on earth are you doing?" to “What are you doing on earth?”

Our Monday morning adult class is studying the book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations (Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity), and experiencing the gifts of conversation, insight, empathy and determination to improve the quality of our life and ministry here. And at our annual Church Conference October 29 we shared many signs of fruitfulness in our congregational life. The stories of our rootedness and fruitfulness in the Hartford area are easy for me to tell as I speak with others.

November begins with our All Saints' Day celebration with open communion (11/4) and includes our annual Thanksgiving meal after worship on 11/18. In each of these celebrations we give thanks for the people in our lives who have followed the simple directive, Take Root...Bear Fruit.

I invite you to continue your growing journey with God, and consider the wisdom of God's creation expressed in Advice from a Tree by Ilan Shamir (The Power of a Positive No, 233):

"Stand Tall and Proud

Sink your roots deeply into the Earth Reflect the light of a greater source Think long term Go out on a limb... Be flexible remember your roots Enjoy the view!"

Thanks for your faithfulness in planting, tending and harvesting fruit in this Body of Christ.

Mission...In Progress

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In between Mission Impossible and Mission Accomplished lies the greater realm of life, Mission-In-Progress. I find there are few "resolved" matters in ministry. Instead we are all on the way with Christ. Our United Methodist heritage includes the powerful mission of "going on to perfection." I was asked questions related to this at my ordination in June 1991: "Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after it?"

"The best, most accurate description of Christian perfection is love. It is love fully formed in the human heart, soul, and mind. With Christian perfection the heart is so filled with love that there is no longer room for sin and evil to reside there" (Steven W. Manskar, a perfect love: Understanding John Wesley's A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 6). Christian perfection is not about the elimination of sin or mistakes in our life as if we strive for perfect "performance"; it is about the increasing triumph of love in our lives by God's grace.

Knowing only in part how much is going on in our lives that we cannot control, we can at least be mindful of our direction. Pastor and author, Andy Stanley, makes this admittedly obvious affirmation:

"Direction-not intention-determines our destination"

(The Principle of the Path, 14)

One way to gauge our direction and measure how we are "going on to perfection" is through core principles or values. Some years ago I worked with the FranklinCovey PlanPlus system to write down some of my core values as a disciple of Jesus Christ and United Methodist pastor. They are signs of what God has revealed in my life to help me continue or return to the path of love and grace with Christ. I encourage you to devote time in prayer and reflection on the values you depend on or live by in your journey with Christ. These are mine:

Incarnation: I will seek to be fully present with God, neighbor and self (spiritually, emotionally, physically) in each moment.
Communion: I will seek to personally connect with God, neighbor and self in each interaction, and express genuine interest and care.
Imagination: I will seek times of solitude for the purpose of reflection and exploration of my imagination. I will invite others into similar exploration and encourage them through shared times of creative imagination.
Generosity: I will seek an abundance mentality toward my possessions, gifts and all creation. An integral part of this commitment is the availability of my person (spirit, mind, heart) for service with and for others.
Integrity: I will seek to realistically assess my relationship with time and correspondingly make commitments with God, neighbor and self that are reasonable and authentic. I desire to make and keep genuine commitments.

Let's keep going in the direction of Love and let God accomplish impossible things in our midst.

First Year Reflections of Grace

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To the Hartford UMC congregation and friends:

With the combined June-July 2012 issue of the newsletter we mark one year of ministry together. The good ministry you shared with Pastor Ron and Jan for 12 years has become our ministry as the Spirit has enabled another faithful transition in our congregation, a Body of Christ who traces its life to gathering as a Methodist Society in 1855. You have welcomed me as your pastor, and warmly received Beverly and our daughters, Sarah and Amanda. At this writing, we are moving Lindsey, our oldest daughter, and Callan, her husband, to Nebraska where she will begin a Ph.D. program in Psychology and Callan will continue his studies at the University of Nebraska. Last year started with their wedding.

I am grateful for the ways you value the pastor in the life of the congregation, and want to re-affirm my value of our partnership in ministry. In the course of a week you relate with hundreds of people, many of whom may not have a church home or know the peace-love-forgiveness that comes from knowing Jesus Christ. I depend on your leadership and wisdom to discern the best ways to respond to the Holy Spirit in our time and place.

A special thanks go to our paid staff. They are dedicated, faithful, loving servants who are open to the Spirit and are just plain hard workers. Thank you, Connie, Jenna, Jeff, Kari, and Justin.

Because of our leaders, one gift of this year has been learning to pace myself differently, allowing recovery from, and renewal for, the ongoing work of ministry. The joy of teaching that is a deep and abiding gift from my dad, mom and sister has found expression in the adult Sunday School class, Sunday evening DISCIPLE Bible study, our Parenting small group, and leadership development. Praying with and for you has also been a powerful experience of grace. We build upon our spiritual foundation as we joyfully embrace prayer, particularly through our Prayer Chain, and the weekly prayer offered by our men for me and the worship service.

My spiritual momentum and joy in serving with you are to encourage our growth in faith so that we may account for the hope that is in us with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15). I am encouraged by the enduring strength of your faith in facing hardship in physical, social, economic and spiritual pain. Your creative generosity has brought resources to people in need. And your commitment to mission affirms the world-wide scope of God's redeeming love. So, let's plan on another faithful year together, and seek God's grace in the endings and beginnings of summer.

Commitment Creates Opportunity

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When our three daughters were younger Beverly and I bought a used, white Plymouth Voyager mini-van. It was a fine vehicle that was soon equipped with a state-of-the-art VHS videocassette player console that fit between the front seats. Its single screen dropped down from the center of the ceiling. We enjoyed many miles of travel with it as a family and were glad that it went to another family with young children after us.

But a curious thing happened shortly after we purchased the van. We started seeing white mini-vans all over the place. They were easy to spot and it was so obvious that there were now more of them on the road than before we bought ours. While I did not confirm this fact by checking auto dealer sales records or the Secretary of State's registration data, it was clear that this was a new reality.

Now to be fair, I need to acknowledge some limitations. Annie Dillard observes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “My eyes account for less than 1% of the weight of my head; I’m bony and dense; I see what I expect.” What makes this experience memorable for me is that I was not expecting to find other white mini-vans when we drove off the dealer lot, they just seemed to appear more frequently after doing so.

It's as if our commitment to a white mini-van changed our perception of the transportation world. Our choice revealed the presence of other similarly-committed travelers and their vehicles. So maybe this is a repeatable experiment...Might a commitment to love my neighbor reveal more neighbors to love? Would a commitment to peace-making bring me into more situations of conflict needing peace? Would a commitment to Sabbath (resting and renewing my spirit-mind-body) open up time in my life and help me let go of lesser important things?

Jesus preaches about primary commitments and their consequences, "Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met" (Matthew 6:33; The Message). 

My supervising pastor in seminary said that in our lives of faith "we are refueled in flight". That is we are sustained in commitments we are living out rather than simply contemplating. Its as if God uses our active commitment as an opportunity to expand our vision and knowledge, and connect us to other disciples on the way.

That makes faith an exciting and surprising trip. Which of course is even cooler in a white mini-van.

With gratitude for our common journey and commitment to Christ, Pastor Jeff

Easter Happens All Over the World

I think there are years I experience a southern hemisphere Easter. Our brothers and sisters south of the equator do not experience the renewing, colorful, blooming, sometimes sloppy springtime that is so closely associated with Easter in our part of the world. In an article, "Easter in New Zealand", we read "The imagery around Easter is all about new life, new growth etc – and in the Northern Hemisphere this all fits. In the Southern Hemisphere however, Easter falls in autumn – the leaves are falling from the trees, the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder and Daffodils couldn’t be further from blooming in the garden!"

Another writer raises this question, which would not even occur to me, "Here in the southern hemisphere, Easter is always celebrated at a time of waning and consolidation. So the question arises: Does the southern hemisphere celebrate Easter at the wrong time of the year?"

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed that acting for justice never comes at the right time for those in power: "Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was 'well-timed' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation" (Letter from Birmingham Jail).

Thankfully the Good News of Easter, briefly proclaimed, "Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!", does not depend on our timing or location on the globe. Nor do we have to be in a specific spirit-mind-body state to experience the gift of Easter. The resurrection is God's act of confirmation that Jesus is God's way of abundant life in this world. At Easter we affirm God's direct-action campaign of loving-justice for all who suffer unduly from the disease of sin and separation.

What we have to celebrate this Easter is how the momentum of the resurrection continues to work in the lives of Jesus' followers. And we celebrate how the earliest experience of that momentum inspired our spiritual ancestors through the risen Jesus' blessing that "when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere--in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Thankfully, Easter happens all over the world, not just where we are growing and expanding, but also where we are grieving in colder, longer nights. On Easter God's love for the whole world is released into the lives of faithful people everywhere. So, we can't keep this Good News just to ourselves, nor confine it to certain areas. May God's blessing and love in the risen Jesus Christ sustain you wherever you celebrate Easter this year.

Climate Confirmation

     I thank Rev. Laurie Haller, Grand Rapids District Superintendent, for this story in her 2-21-11 "Leading From the Heart" blog: In a village located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, a little bit north of Cape Horn in South America a young man built a boat all by himself and made plans to sail it around the world. When the day arrived for him to leave, the people in the village came down to the shore to wave good-bye. Many of them were crying because they didn’t think they would ever see him again. Others were shaking their heads in disbelief as if to say he was a fool.

The young man’s family was very upset. His mother kept hanging onto him and pleading with him not to go. His father was angry and said that his son was doing the stupidest thing he’d ever seen in his whole life. Others were giving him all kinds of warnings and advice. “If you get to the Cape, and the wind is howling out of the Southwest, turn around and don’t go any further!” said one man. “If the temperature drops below freezing during the late afternoon, give up your voyage right then and there. Don’t keep sailing into the night!” said another. “If you get around to the other side, and you’re having any difficulties with your radio, please find a safe harbor. Don’t strike out across the Pacific!” said yet another. On and on the comments went.

But one person was different. Just one. He happened to be the oldest man in the village. “Son,” he said to the young, adventurous sailor, “I’ve watched you grow up from a little baby to a young man. I know how much you love the sea and what a great appetite you have for excitement and adventure. All I want to say to you is this, ‘Go forth with joy! Savor every minute! Have a great time! Just know as you do that the Lord our God goes with you and will be with you every step of the way!’”

     The heritage of our congregation is that we are generations of disciples following Jesus together. I continue to learn family histories and relationships that span generations. And one impression I have is that there is a fairly steady climate here. Over time and throughout the years you have found, and now we are finding, ways to remain faithful in the midst of lots of changes in the weather (remember the summer storms last year) and momentary challenges that claim our attention.

Lent is the gift of a season to reflect on the longer-term ways God is growing us up in faith; to appreciate the spiritual climate of the church.

Rev. Haller continues her reflection, "What is the difference between climate and weather? Weather is momentary. Climate endures. Weather lasts for a limited time. Climate describes a prevailing characteristic, an attitude, or way of being in the world."

Annie Dillard, one of my favorite writers, describes the contrast this way: “There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life” (The Writing Life).

In Lent we not only reflect on the climate of our faith but encourage each other to go forth with joy, based on life-long journeys with God and appreciative knowledge of each other. May God bless our Lenten journeys with gratitude for the life-confirming climate of grace and peace.

Why Has God Unplugged You?

The 1/22/12 sermon, "Close Calls with Jesus", included a story from Susan Scott, author of Fierce Conversations, about experiences at Cook Paint and Varnish in Kansas City with her boss, Mr. Fred Timberlake, when she was 16 years old. She could type 110 words per minute and used an IBM Selectric typewriter (raise your hand if you used one) with the whirling metal ball. She writes, "During my second week on the job, the Selectric suddenly froze, and I looked up, shocked to see Mr. Timberlake holding the cord after having pulled the plug from the outlet. He was smiling. He handed me a sheet of paper. 'What do you think of this advertising layout, Susan?'"

She looked around, sure that there was another Susan on the payroll whom Mr. Timberlake was addressing. But no, it was her. "My impulse was to shrug and say, 'I don't know. I don't have any experience in advertising.' However, I had the impression that Mr. Timberlake anticipated my response with genuine interest. I didn't want to disappoint my boss, so I thought hard."

Because she had been directly asked, she creatively and thoughtfully shared her impressions from her personal experience. "Mr. Timberlake listened as I spoke. When I stopped, he stood quietly for a moment, then said, 'Remarkable. Thank you, Susan. I'm sending this back to the drawing board.'"

Mr. Timberlake initiated and guided the interaction in such a way to draw out Susan's creative thinking. He called her to get more deeply involved in the life of the company. Here is the conclusion to Susan's story:

Throughout the summer, whenever my Selectric froze, I would smile

and prepare to answer another of Mr. Timberlake's questions.

In his presence, I became a bigger human being.

Every person who worked for Fred Timberlake

would have followed him anywhere.

Jesus unplugged his disciples from their existing roles by calling them to follow him. Nets were dropped by Simon and Andrew, and net mending ceased as James and John left their father and other workers in their boat. They learned and imperfectly practiced new and challenging rules of engagement...Love your enemies; Forgive and you will be forgiven; Deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow; Feed hungry people.

Jesus unplugged them for the work of the Kingdom of God which Jesus announced and lived in person. They became bigger persons in Jesus' presence. And Jesus promised that his disciples, the ones who believe in him, "will also do the works that I do and, in  fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father" (John 14:12).

Why has God unplugged you? Have you been interrupted in the routines of your life and felt called to respond? An integral part of our walk together as a congregation is to help each other look and listen for such "unplugged moments", and to celebrate the new depths and directions God reveals to us. May you prayerfully consider God's claim upon you through Jesus' call to follow him. And don't be surprised when you are unplugged for the sake of the Kingdom of God.