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I shared these remarks at our Greenville National Day of Prayer service in Veterans’ Park.

Good afternoon and greetings from Greenville First United Methodist Church where we envision to grow a loving community while we gather, connect, learn and serve, and welcome one another as Christ welcomes us.

I am Rev. Jeff Williams and I appreciate the variety of gifts of my colleagues in their prayers and reflections. I am praying today for businesses and workplaces.

Businesses and workplaces are part of the fabric of healthy communities. They provide employment and resources and opportunities for citizens to enjoy a quality of life that is meant to be satisfying and sustainable.

Since the beginning of time, divisions of labor and trade of goods and services has been a consistent occupation for people across every era and time period.

As people of faith, we know that more than a job, it is our life’s work to follow Jesus; to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; love our neighbors as ourselves; and go into all the world and make disciples. We are baptized by water and the Spirit into the serious and joyful business of life together with Christ. Each person is created in the image of God and holds inherent dignity, and God calls each person to be a good steward of God’s world. Therefore, both our place of work and our heart’s disposition at work can reflect our dignity and desire to follow God’s ways. A God-honoring business can be a great benefit to employees and the community, and a person who honors God in each task through the day speaks a testimony of faith.

Whatever you do, whether in speech or action, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).

Those who lend generously are good people—as are those who conduct their affairs with justice (Psalm 112:5).

And we have Jesus’ lesson in the parable of the shrewd manager who was losing his job and negotiated with his customers so he might find new employment and be welcomed into people’s homes: “Whoever is faithful with little is also faithful with much, and the one who is dishonest with little is also dishonest with much. If you haven’t been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? (Luke 16:10-11)

Let us pray,

Together, Loving God, we thank you and pray for workers and employees in fields and factories, stores and offices whose labor plants, tends, harvests, creates, builds, and brings produce and products and information to the marketplace. We pray for their dignity and integrity and fair compensation and workplace safety. Bless and guide them in all they do.

Together, we thank you and pray for managers who work in between staff and owners blending the needs and feeling the pressures of each for businesses to operate successfully. Bless and guide them in all they do.

Together, we thank you and pray for business owners and leaders to be of sound character with integrity and humility; honest in speech and action; empathetic and vulnerable to the needs of their workers and customers. Bless and guide them in all they do.

And loving God, we confess our sin and brokenness as workers, employees, managers, owners, and leaders.

From self–righteousness that will not compromise, and from selfishness that gains by the oppression of others,  O Lord, deliver us.

From the lust for money or power that drives to kill, O Lord, deliver us.

From words and deeds that encourage discord, prejudice, and hatred; from everything that prevents us from fulfilling your promise of peace, O Lord, deliver us.

Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others and to your honor and glory. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Amen.

In closing, I want to note the importance of meeting in public. While we are here with peaceful intentions there is broken glass on the pavement around us. This reminds us of the brokenness of the world and our community where we can witness to the love and grace of God.

Sources:
A Litany for the Church and the World
Peace with Justice Sunday
Praying for Businesses and the Workplace

Full of fear, the women bowed down to the ground, as the men said to them, “Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive?” (Luke 24:5)

I looked at Luke’s Easter story from a new-for-me angle this year. I gained an appreciation for the reaction of the women in the tomb upon seeing the two men in bright shining clothes. They bowed to the ground as they heard from the messengers, “He is not here. He has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and three days later rise to life.'” (Luke 24:6-7)

Fear in Scripture is often more related to reverence or awe than fright. The women moved closer to the earth to receive the message that Christ was raised from the dead. With them, we feel humbled in the divine presence (of messengers and messages) and move closer to the earth with reverence. They were overwhelmed in that instant and I wonder if it was a spontaneous reaction with their bodies that allowed them to stay in the present moment and hear what came next.

In a way, they were grounded by divine glory represented by the two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning. It’s like bowing to the ground changed their orientation from expecting to anoint Jesus’ dead body to being summoned to remember, return, and report the news of the Resurrection. This is being grounded in a positive way.

We also use grounded in a negative way. It can be a kind of punishment, you’re grounded! You can’t go anywhere. You’re deprived of privileges. You lose something when you’re grounded this way.

Thankfully, the women were grounded in a way that allowed them to rise and respond with the power and proclamation of the Resurrection.

Being grounded by God’s glory is affirmed by Paul in word and action in these eloquent ways:

 

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called–his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance (Ephesians 1:18).

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong (Ephesians 3:14-17).

May we remember the power of physical expressions of reverence and awe in the presence of God’s glory. May we be positively grounded in God’s love so we may rise with power to remember, return, and report the news of the Resurrection in our day and time.

Good work in good company has made a good life for me in campus ministry.

At the end of June, I will complete eleven and a half years serving as the Chairperson of the West Michigan Conference Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministry (BHECM) and then Michigan Conference Division of Higher Education and Campus Ministry (DHECM).

I shared these reflections at my final DHECM meeting on April 22.

Twenty five years and four months of my young adult life and vocational ministry service have been profoundly shaped by relationships in campus ministry:

• • As a student at CMU Wesley with Rev. Tom Jones, 1979-83; Tom baptized our oldest daughter in my first appointment
  • As a member of the WMU Wesley Board, Fall 1992
  • As the WMU Wesley Director, Spring 1993 to June 2002; our middle and youngest daughters were baptized at Wesley
  • As the BHECM/DHECM Chairperson, 2014 – 2025

I feel such good grief because of the goodness of all that time. In November 2024, Naomi Garcia told us in a transitions seminar to attend to the grief in our transition. I know grief has been a companion in my call to ministry and personal spiritual journey all along. I encourage you to hold your grief gently.

The outer bounds and sometimes out-of-bounds nature of campus ministry frames it for me as a perpetual new church start. It needs to be innovative and creative, always running the risk of getting into good trouble. I have the wonderful memory of overhearing at Annual Conference some years ago something like, “Don’t let the Wesley people get to the microphones,” because of how well we were organized in our communication and networking.

At my very first meeting as BHECM Chairperson in January 2014, our host Director at WMU Wesley, Rev. Lisa Batten shared that we are the cutting edge of campus ministry in the United States. We’re being awarded grants based on merit and our strategies are being lauded and populated around the country (not just at Wesleys but in campus ministries in general). We are doing good Wesley ministry in our conference.

What was true then, is still true now in contemporary ways. I am so grateful for our good work in this leadership transition. Each of you has stepped up with the many dimensions of our work. I celebrate closing this chapter of ministry as you have already begun writing the next one.

Campus ministry has truly been a boundary experience for me. My life with this Board/Division started in a critical time. I was asked in November 2013 to join the Board. I was asked in December 2013 to be the Chairperson. I suggested that I would observe the winter meetings and be ready in July 2014. Then I was told I would start as the Chairperson in January 2014. We were facing a budget cut and feeling pressure to close one of our ministries. Instead, we advocated for, and received increased funding in 2015.

In leaving, I know some things are undone and under-developed. I look forward to how you will grow your ministry.

Horizons for my post-DHECM good life may include:

• • Scholarship promotion
  • Local church UM student communication and promotion
  • Financial review services

I praise God for each of you and all of us. This has been the most rewarding work in my ministry. And I am ready to go because of how I know you will carry on.

(At the final formal worship service for WMU Wesley in their old building I took off my shoes when sharing my reflections. I gave thanks for the holy ground of Wesley’s ministry at that location since 1964.) Before receiving a motion to adjourn, I offer a portion of Jan Richardson’s “Blessing at the Burning Bush”

You will know your path
not by how it shines
before you
but by how it burns
within you,
leaving you whole
as you go from here
blazing with
your inarticulate,
your inescapable
yes.

Thank you for saying YES to campus ministry!

I heard a comedian say recently that one key to a happy marriage is to not say the first or second thing that comes to your mind. I take that as encouragement to consider the third thing that may represent the fruit of further thought.

On September 21, 2005, I entered the blogging world with “Second Thoughts” (https://grace-on-first.blogspot.com/). Since then Second Thoughts has migrated here: https://jw4grace.net/.

I described the meaning of Second Thoughts like this:

I have named my blog, Second Thoughts, intentionally. Such a title may refer to doubt, like, “I’m having second thoughts about some decision/matter/question, etc.” However, I use second thoughts in the more positive light of giving further consideration to matters of faith and life. Second thoughts suggest that first thoughts and impressions may not convey the deepest meaning…The late Howard Thurman, a theologian/pastor/author, referred to the need to allow our decisions and questions to “simmer.”

Closing out 2024 and entering 2025, I came across this notion of second thoughts from my favorite Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann:

The biblical text functions among us as a “second thought,” coming after the initial description of our life in the world according to the dominant narrative of our society. One function of redescription is to protest against that initial description and to insist that the initial presentation of reality is not an adequate or trustworthy account (Brueggemann, The Word That Redescribes the World: The Bible and Discipleship).

This insight adds a prophetic quality to thinking about what we are being told. Language that demonizes immigrants, and attempts to enact authoritarian measures beyond the constitutional framework of our nation make this kind of “second thought” more urgent.

One example of this practice is when authoritarian messages are presented, we can have second thoughts about Jesus’ teaching on leadership, “You know that the rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the leaders have complete authority. This, however, is not the way it shall be among you. If one of you wants to be great, you must be the servant of the rest (Matthew 20:25-26).

Another example is when three-letter acronyms (DEI) or three-word phrases (waste, fraud, and abuse) are used to justify discrimination and threaten support for vulnerable and marginalized people, we can have second thoughts about the way racism hides its face and obscene wealth gaps are justified by disparaging the poor.

Closing out 2024 and entering 2025, our Thursday Bible study is going through the book of Jeremiah. It is a painful account of a nation who lost their way by forgetting God’s ways and consuming themselves with their own worst tendencies.

Every time we gather, connect, learn and serve as a congregation we have the opportunity to have second thoughts about the Kingdom of God, what it means to follow Jesus Christ, and what it means to be empowered and directed by the Holy Spirit. I am grateful for these faithful sources of second thoughts that allow us to grow more deeply in love with God, our neighbors, and ourselves, a three-fold description of the greatest commandment.

Along one branch of my family tree I am a 3rd generation US-born citizen. My great grandparents on my Mom’s side emigrated from Prussia to Wisconsin. Green Lake, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, and Ripon were among the Wisconsin places I remember hearing about growing up. I am writing this article at the end of my spiritual renewal leave, an annual leave available to pastors.

This year we were in Wisconsin Dells at a resort we have visited in the past. Beverly and I, and our youngest daughter and her husband had the weekend together and I stayed the rest of the week. On Saturday, we toured Taliesin (“shining brow” in Welsh), the home and estate of Frank Lloyd Wright near Spring Green, Wisconsin. I bought the book, Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought by Jerome Klinkowitz, and Wright became an unexpected companion with me on this year’s leave.

One of the most powerful stories is about his designing The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and how it survived two earthquakes. Louis Sullivan, one of Wright’s earliest employers in Chicago, commented on his work, “This man…began his solution with the fixed fact of earthquakes as a basis and made an emotional study of their nature and movements.” Sullivan continued “The second move was…to devise a system of construction such as should absorb and dispose of the powerful shocks, waves and violent tremors, and yet maintain its integrity as a fabricated structure.”

Klinkowitz summarizes, “The Imperial survives not because it is stronger than an earthquake but because the earthquake’s nature is built into its design.”

I am returning in time for Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.  Earthquakes, shocks, waves, and violent tremors are apt descriptions of the political campaigning we have endured these last several months. The vile, racist, and menacing rhetoric about immigrants that has incited threats and violence against immigrant communities is one example of the tremors that are designed to divide us and reverberate throughout our shared political life. These threats and effects seem to be built into the design of our political system and clearly harm the integrity of our community relationships.

But you know what else is built into our design? Being created in the image of God. We have clear and intimate access to God’s love and justice in Jesus Christ.

You know what else we can claim? The divine energy affirmed in our baptism vows to “renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world” and “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”

We are this very human-divine creation full of grace and sin; blessed and burdened with loving God, our neighbors, and ourselves. We are preparing to celebrate Christ’s birth again this year. An affirmation of faith that God joins this human-divine life with us in person to show us the ways that make for peace. And his mother Mary reminds us of the tremors that come to those who seek to consolidate power and control the lives of citizens and neighbors:

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53).

I don’t know what the coming months will hold for us as a nation, community, or Church. But I know that renewing the built-in features of our humanity that God provides will give us the strength we need to keep building a loving community for people to experience God’s redeeming love.

I recall Walter Wangerin, Jr., pastor and author, telling the story of an invitation for a home visit he received early in his ministry from an elderly woman. He said it felt more like a summons to appear. She formally received him in her home and they had tea. When he inquired about her interest in having him visit, she said that she knew his father and wanted to see how his son had turned out.

I appreciate serving a relatively older congregation in my early 60s and seeing what we look like or how we have turned out through years of discipleship.

The mission of The United Methodist Church follows the Great Commission from Jesus to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Relationships usually do not mature in a moment, but are nurtured and grown through the years. At this point in my life I am grateful for disciple-making that happens over time.

I am interested in this aspect of ministry now because of the contentious and divisive atmosphere of the larger church and our political climate in these most recent years. The corrosive and combative nature of our rhetoric with each other is painful. I sometimes feel exhausted and discouraged in the midst of it.

So, I got to thinking about the long-term effects of acting and speaking and thinking in certain ways. I find I am less interested in the content of theological or political arguments these days because many of them are approached in bad faith and not for the purpose of learning from each other. My greater concern is how we turn out because of the beliefs we hold and actions we take.

Theology is a major contributing factor to the kind of disciples of Jesus Christ we become through the years. What we believe about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, humanity, and salvation both shape and are shaped by our worldview. That’s why we focused on the Apostle’s Creed after Easter.

So, how might we assess the quality of our discipleship? How might we figure out how we are turning out? John Wesley felt that good places to learn these qualities included the Ten Commandments and Old Testament Prophets, and the teachings of Jesus especially the Sermon on the Mount. We can add the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and Micah 6:8.

Our current worship series on “A Church that Loves Like God” reflects our commitment to growing a loving community while we gather, connect, learn and serve. We care about how people turn out because of their involvement in our congregation. As we enter our 5th year of ministry together I am grateful for your faithfulness and the ways we are turning out because we have been summoned by God to be full of love.