Eavesdropping

I try not to make it a habit, but occasionally I’ve caught myself eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation. I know, I know, it’s rude and I have no business doing it. But the conversation today was irresistible. I was sitting at lunch, celebrating someone’s graduation from seminary when several older gentlemen were discussing their churches. They were members of another denomination and went to different churches. They were sort of comparing notes. One says to the other, “Ya’ll do communion every Sunday?” After an affirmative response he went on. “Yeah, we do too. I just have one question, why? Why? Why? Why? I mean, it hasn’t changed anything.” Luckily for me, someone asked me a question at this point and I wasn’t given the chance to jump into the previous conversation uninvited. I was struck by the gentleman’s simple disgust for the sacrament of the church. Like it was something that their minister insisted on them doing, sort of like when your parent’s forced you to wash your hands before dinner or when you just had to brush your teeth before going to bed. I felt sorry for the man. I felt sorry for his church. But, I also felt sorry for his pastor. Whoever he or she is must have to deal with that kind of attitude all the time. But more so, I feel sorry for the pastor who has done such a poor job explaining why we share in this sacred sacrament, that he or she has parishioners running around being angry about it. Based on this conversation, I’ve learned that maybe I need to do a better job of explaining to God’s people about communion and other things that we do in the church. I take for granted that they know as much about this stuff as I do. I mean, I’ve always wondered about new Christians and how they must feel when they walk into a service and see new things that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable to them. I’ve never thought that some of our members, life-long Christians, would have just as little knowledge about the church as the strangers in our midst. Lesson learned. Thank God for communion, thank God for teaching moments, and thank God for the blessing of good ears that over-hear some pretty interesting conversations. -Brad

Holy Moments

She couldn’t help but cry, after all it was her mother. Sitting in that cold, stark hospital room, you could feel the chill in the air. The doctors had just relayed the bad news. ‘No more breathing treatments, they won’t do any good, we’ll just make her comfortable from here on out.’ While she and her sister were prepared for this, are you ever truly prepared for death? Of course not. So she cried. And leaning over, she rubbed her head against her mother’s hand and gentle kissed it. Then taking a tissue, she gentle wiped her face, and slowly she wiped her mother’s arm, now wet with the daughter’s tears. Using the same piece of simple paper, she then proceeded to delicately dab her mother’s forehead. It truly was a very peaceful moment, filled with love and care. I knew in that instance, I had just witnessed a holy moment. What this child, this weeping daughter, this weeping child of God had done, was to anoint her mother, preparing her for what was to come. Many years ago, this woman’s head was touched with the waters of baptism, preparing her for a life lived in the grace of God. Today, her head was yet again touched by water, only this time it was the tears of her own flesh and blood, preparing her yet again for a life to come with God. Thank God for these Holy moments.

Hope

What a blessing it was to enjoy a meeting of the young clergy of the United Methodist Church in the state of SC! While our numbers could have been a little better, we have begun a conversation that will hopefully continue into the future, maybe even when we are no longer considered ‘young clergy’.

Several really important issues were raised. We openly discussed how we will be able to support one another in the years to come. I will never forget one professor at Duke say, “Today you are colleagues, when you graduate you will become competitors.” While I hated to hear it, I must admit that given the state of the church, it was sadly true. I realized today, however, that it doesn’t have to be that way. It would be easy for me to distrust or to even view another young clergyperson as my competition, especially when I don’t know that person. But, when we meet each other, when we really get to know each other in a personal way, the divisiveness disappears. When I know another’s spouse and their children, we I see how effective and faithful they are, it will go a long way in the future to allowing me to celebrate their success and accomplishments. With God’s help, jealousy will never come between me and my peers.

One issue evolved around the system of authority and power that is in place. On the one hand, we need to be a voice that calls for change. We need to say, “Times are different and we need to look at things differently”. But on the other hand, we discussed how we needed to take the right steps to become more involved in the system. We need to take the initiative and not wait around for ‘our time to come’ or to be asked to be on a committee or part of a group. Instead, we need to push a little. We need to make ourselves available, to try and gain the trust of our older colleagues more quickly than they are willing to give that trust. Navigating this will require a healthy balance.

We also discussed how we need to be more vocal at all our conference events that involve youth. We need to offer them an opportunity to respond positively if they are feeling a call to ministry. We need to become unofficial mentors to those young people, so they can see that ministry is a calling and not simply the burden that many make it out to be. Serving God is a beautiful thing, no matter where that service is found, i.e. church, on campus, camping and retreats, etc. We need to get dialed in at our seminaries and divinity schools, to provide support to our students who will be joining us in a few years.

None of this will be easy. We diagnosed a lot of things that we need to do in the future, even a few things that we have little control over. In the end, I left this first meeting feeling like a really profound and deep conversation about the future of ministry in SC had truly begun. May God bless our journey into a world of transformation and change. With God’s help, we can be hopeful in the time that is now and in the time to come.

Brad

Consistency

I experienced something yesterday that caused me a bit of concern. I am not one of those people who are opposed to television, movies and video games that have violence in them. I was allowed to play those kind of games, but the distinction was always made that they were not real life, instead, they were make believe, definitely not reality. In the real world, violence was never an option. But others would disagree. They say that violence in any form is not good because not everyone can mentally make the distinction between real and make believe.

With this being said, I was a little disturbed to see something violent in real life. Imagine my dismay yesterday as we went to a Columbia Inferno hockey game, a minor league team that plays at the Carolina Coliseum, and found that the time in which the crowd, filled with men, women and children, cheered the loudest was when two grown men grabbed each other’s jerseys with the intent of pummeling each other. It occurred several times throughout the game. Apparently Columbia and the team from Gwinnett do not get along very well. It was eerily reminiscent to several scenes in the movie Gladiator where Russell Crowe plays Maximus, a gladiator forced to kill, all for the amusement of the crowd, a crowd that cheered each time harm was done. At the hockey game, I couldn’t help but think how these same people cheering would be appalled if their children wanted to watch a violent movie or play a video game that had violence in it.
Now, hockey is not the only sport with violence. I cringe thinking about the number of times I’ve seen someone charge the mound after being hit by a pitch in the game of baseball and how violent the game of football can be. None of us are innocent. My friend Joe says, “That’s the great thing about Jesus’ parables, they tie us all up.” Jesus has a word for everyone, for you, me and everyone in between.

The whole conversation speaks to consistency throughout life. How can we on the one hand condemn violence but then on the other hand go to something like a sporting event and cheer such violence occurring in real life. I worry sometimes that as Christians, we are quick to take a stand on some things, but our message lacks a consistency among other things. I have long said that I will never condone the Ten Commandments being placed on the walls in our courtrooms until we start living by them, especially the one that says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Am I abdicating that hockey or baseball or any other sport be outlawed? No, but should we cheer when two people fight? No, let’s be real. Let’s be consistent with the stand we take for Christ in every aspect of our lives together.
Brad

Encouragement

One of my new favorite activities is "Girls on the Run". It is a program that the Counseling Center at Epworth Children's Home has gotten our younger girls on campus involved in. Now, I have to admit that running is one of my least favorite activities. Yet running with my Epworth girls completely transforms the dreaded task. What is usually a chore has become a real time of inspiration for them and for me.
For one, they look up to me. And I know that if I slack then they will think it is ok to slack. So, I run as far as I can before I have to stop and walk. Amazingly, that tends to be much further than when I'm on the treadmill at the gym!
But no matter how far I can run, I'm still a pretty slow runnner. So as I jog, there is always someone, usually a 7 year old, walking beside me. And that of course encourages me to keep going.
Together we have encouraged each other to finish what we committed to, even though our muscles ache, our stomachs cramp, and our lungs feel like collapsing.
When I'm out there with those girls, I can't help but think of the church and what it was created to be. Life following Jesus is not easy, in fact there are times when we all want to quit...take a longer break than is absolutely needed, or just slow down. It's during those times that we need people surrounding us, walking beside us and encouraging us. Somewhere along the way though we as Christians stopped running together. We all joined our own separate gyms and spend time exclusively on our own spiritual treadmill. We need to get back to doing it together...caring for each other's souls and not going it alone.
May God help each of us run the race together!
Megan

Not just another Easter...

Is it possible that work can be recreation or at the least, re-creation. After Sunday, I definitely believe it can. What a joy to worship the Lord on Easter Sunday. In the past, I have struggled with Easter. I have felt that it wasn’t fair that everyone gets to come and share the joy of Easter, but then all the Sundays between Easter and Christmas and then continuing to the following Easter, we have so many empty pews in the sanctuaries across the nation. It doesn’t seem fair that many people miss the day to day struggles of the church and what it means to be in community with one another, but then show up to sing “Up From the Grave He Arose”. It doesn’t seem right that very few show up during Lent for services, and even less for Holy Week, the time we honor Christ preparing for the cross, giving a new commandment and that fateful Friday of suffering, but yet they help begin the service by responding to “Christ is Risen!” with “He is Risen Indeed!”. You see what I mean when I say I have struggled with Easter?

But this year was different. Maybe it was our recent trip to the Holy Land. Maybe it was a recent struggle with the call. Or maybe it was just God jumping in and shaking things up in our lives a little bit. But something was different. All of those reasons of why I struggle with Easter are the very reasons why Easter is so important. Because everyone can come, because God loves humanity so much that even when we turn our backs, God is still waiting there with open arms, ready to grab hold of us. On Sunday, I told the congregation at my church this: “It is a joy to celebrate this day with you. Traditionally, this is an important day for families to be together, to dress up and to celebrate. For most of us it is an important day for us and our individual faith in Jesus Christ. But this Sunday, more than any other, is important for all of humanity. We join with believers around the world affirming that Christ redeemed all humanity and all of us have been loved by God so much that he sent his Son. Today is important because the whole world is included in God’s redeeming grace.” Or at least that is what I hope came out of my mouth. I’m not really sure if it was or not.

Regardless what I said or didn’t say, what was heard or what went unheard, this Easter was a time of re-creation. I hope it was for everyone else as well. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Lesson from the Tree

When did it get so hard to climb trees? Yesterday, Megan and I spent a good bit of time doing some early spring cleaning. I know, not nearly as exciting as our adventure last Monday. But it needed to get done. Amidst the cleaning, we found a hammock-swing that Megan’s mother and father bought in Honduras. We decided it was time to put it up. Well, that of course meant hanging it from a tree. After purchasing a long thick chain to hang our swing, I decided I would climb up the tree to set it up. That was when I realized how hard it is to climb trees nowadays. Have trees gotten more complicated in the last twenty years? Has something occurred in the ecosystem in which trees have responded by becoming climb-proof pieces of God’s creation? Surely I didn’t have this much trouble as an eight or nine year old, when I spent a lot of time running through the woods and hanging from trees. I think, as I sat on a branch some twenty feet above the ground that the trees haven’t changed. Unfortunately, I have.

Thinking about this, I thought about a little guy I met named Charley. Charley is missing one arm from his elbow down. Yet, I have watched him climb in and out of countless trees with reckless abandonment. Charley is simply not scared of falling out, so he goes as high as the tree will allow. And he does it one handed. He simply doesn’t see the consequences of falling like I do. For him, he would dust himself off and move on, maybe wearing a cast for awhile. Me, I’m thinking about falling and the death that awaits me. I’m thinking it would be really hard to minister to folks while on crutches, not impossible mind you, just difficult. I guess it must be an age thing. Have I really reached the age in which I am too old to appreciate climbing a tree?

But then, I think about someone else I’ve heard about who climbed a tree. I’m pretty sure that Zacchaeus was older than I am right now. After all, he was wealthy and chief tax collector. He had to be a little older than me, right? And he didn’t think twice about climbing up that sycamore tree to see Jesus as he passed by. I guess he had the right motivation that suspended his fear of falling out of the tree. In order to see the Lord, he had to do what was necessary, even if it meant climbing a tree. I think that’s a big deal. I wonder how many times we stop short of doing things because we are afraid of the consequences. How many times are we afraid to hold someone accountable because they in turn might hold us accountable? How many times do we not help someone because we are afraid they will become dependent? How many times do we fail to offer Jesus Christ because we are afraid what someone might think about us? I’ve thought a lot about fear since yesterday. It’s amazing where simply climbing a tree can lead you.