Truly Amazing!

I was listening to a radio program this morning that referenced the fact that we now confine ourselves to concrete jungles rather than enjoying the creation with which God has truly blessed us with. After spending a couple of days and a night at Pisgah National Forest with two good friends, I would totally agree. For a vast number of reasons, we have isolated ourselves from God’s creation. With inventions and innovations, we have attempted to make our lives easier, resulting a lot of the times in making things a little more difficult and vastly more stressful. But every now and then, I am amazed at what the human mind is capable of. For example, it is remarkable that we now can keep in touch with friends, family and loved ones with the simple stroke of a few fingers. What is even more remarkable is the fact that I can introduce the world to what will be, in less than five months, our newest addition. Meet our yet-to-be-named baby boy!

Change

A few days ago, we drove up to one of my favorite places in the world, Asbury Hills United Methodist Campground. Asbury Hills is special to me because of its sentimental value. As a youth, every fall we had a retreat up to Cleveland, SC that was the highlight of the year. I have many great memories of those trips during the seven years I was in the youth group. While in college, I worked at Asbury Hills for a summer. I recall that summer as one of my best ever. So when Megan offered me a chance to go with her to visit the kids from her church who had been at camp all week, I couldn’t pass it up. Walking into a dinning hall filled with kids, kids who had been camping out in some pretty rustic conditions, you can imagine the first thought. “Wow, these kids stink! I don’t remember them smelling this bad when I was here.” While the smell may have appeared to change, some things have not. The kids still eat family style, working together to get the food to everyone and cleaning up the tables. The kids still bang on the tables after dinner, chatting crazy rhymes together. And thankfully, the kids still sing “Here I Am, Lord” at the end of each week. Still today I can’t sing that song without a tear coming to my eye.
Interesting enough, we got into a conversation with one of the female counselors over lunch. She was one of those life-time members of the Asbury Hills Family. The kind that go to camp as a kid, then are CIT’s (Counselor-in-training) for two years or so, and then are full counselors. In all total, she had been at Asbury Hills in some way, shape or form for the last thirteen years. (It was only when I got home and looked back at my pictures that I realized she was one of my campers when I was a counselor, 9 years ago. Boy do I feel old.) Talking to her was very insightful. She was very opinionated about some of the changes that appear to be coming to Asbury Hills. Without the boring details, the camp is supposedly going to look rather different in the future. And she wasn’t completely buying into it. I suppose she had a right to be wary, I mean she had a lot of time and energy invested in the camp, and she didn’t really want to see it change from what she had grown to love. She said that even the kids were talking about not liking the changes at Asbury Hills. That got me thinking, here is a camp that is filled with young people resisting change, just like many congregations who are filled with much older people. Do we ever like change? As human beings, has God created us in a certain way that we want to resist change? Or, better yet, did that come with ‘The Fall’? That would make me feel a little better if it did. Regardless of where it came from, resistance to change is all too real, no matter the age of the person involved. But, and it’s a pretty big BUT, change has to come. It’s necessary. It is the only thing that keeps us alive. Literally, the medical definition of death deals with the fact that it occurs when the body ceases to change. Of course, all of this has huge implications for businesses, institutions (like the church), corporations, states (although we in SC don’t believe this) even nations, but I believe it also has implications for us as individuals. We are constantly changing, that’s the way God made us. The question for us is this: Are we changing for the better or changing for the worse? Are we constantly trying to improve ourselves and be more than we are right now, or are we just trying to get by? Are we picking up bad or negative habits that are hurting us more than they are helping us? Are we living in a way in which changes come easy or do we go kicking and screaming? I know I’m anticipating some HUGE changes. Maybe, with God’s help, I can start living in a way in which those changes won’t be so difficult.
Brad

Fantasy versus Reality

I am a huge sports fan. For those of you who know me well, know how much of an understatement that may be. I eat, breath and sometimes sleep sports. I have my favorite teams and my favorite sports, but that doesn’t stop me from watching anything sports on television. My current sport is cycling as I am enthralled in watching the Tour de France. Now those guys are athletes, and a little crazy. Before the Tour, I watched Wimbeldon, before that Euro 2008 soccer. Notice how I haven’t even included any ‘traditional’ American sports. I watch those too, especially baseball. I have also gotten into the fantasy sports scene as well. I have my golf team, my baseball team, my cycling team and have just signed on for another year of fantasy football. The fantasy sports world is interesting to me. As one of those guys who had just enough sports talent not to make the final cut of any team, I have become an avid fan of anything and everything. Having the fantasy sports world gives me an outlet for my obsession. Who to trade, who to pick up, who to play or who to leave on the bench? All questions I ponder, during my free time of course. In a way, it kind of allows me to ‘play’ from the sidelines. I know, I am not really playing anything, but in a small sense, I at least feel a part of the games I watch. It keeps me interested.

In thinking about this, I wonder about the church or the faith people have. I wonder if people are out there who participate in church in a similar way. Do they look out on the church and feel as if they don’t have enough faith to fit in? Do they think, “I’m not quite good enough to do the whole church thing”? Some even lead a lifestyle that is not exactly the most holy, so they therefore feel guilty about being involved. I remember in college, how awkward it was to see some people at our campus worship service on Sunday morning at 11AM, when I had seen them only 12 hours earlier in a very different state. That’s just one example of many. This begs the question, like in the sports world, have we set the bar so high that these people simply don’t make the cut, like I experienced with high school sports. I was lacking just enough to keep me off the team. Do we treat people the same way in the church? Is the bar set so high that they don’t feel welcomed? Or should the bar be set higher for more accountability to occur? Or should the bar be set at all? I think all parties share in blame. We in the church are not as welcoming as we should be to those who are different. We rush to judge someone far quicker than we are to learn about them. Those who are not in the church sometimes carry around a sense that they are not good enough for the church, a low spiritual self-esteem if you will. They too are guilty of passing a quick judgment on individuals, only theirs is aimed at people inside the church. And none of this tackles the difficult issue of what the church as an institution means to people who are inside and outside its walls.

Going back to the idea of fantasy sports, I believe there exists a fantasy world for faith as well. A few months back, I learned how large communities are worshipping now via the internet. People will turn their computer on and listen to a podcast or watch a live streaming worship service, never leaving the comfort of their own home. While this may seem new, it is not. Older folks turn the television on and watch a worship service. Some have done this for years. These individuals do this, not because they cannot physically go, but merely because it is easier that way. They observe from the sidelines, watching a service, but not participating in the traditional, communal kind of way. While their own personal spirituality is affected, they do not interact with anyone else while doing this. Jesus himself said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. (Matt. 18:20)”. Now does this mean that Jesus isn’t with the individual who experiences a crisis or goes through some hard times? Absolutely not. But when it comes to worship, the sermon, the music, the prayers are only part of the whole. Another part is the community that gathers together, comes together in relationship with one another, for both the good and the bad. The bottom line is the fact that relationships were created by God. God looked at Adam and felt like he needed someone to be in relationship with, so God created Eve. We as human beings were created in relationship with God, in relationship with other human beings, in relationship with all of creation. When we live in a way that lacks those real, concrete and holy relationships that we were created to be in, we cannot become all that God wants us to be. We try, oh do we try. And by doing so, we tend to play the role of God the creator. So we create fantasy worlds for all kinds of things, relationships, worship, sports, just to name a few.

So here’s the thing, maybe it’s time for us to quite living in fantasy worlds and staring living in the world God created for us. For me, that means going out and throwing a ball with someone rather than simply playing sports with my computer. What does that mean for you? What fantasy world are you living in instead of living in the real world that God created for you?

Brad

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