Author: Jeff

When I was a child, my best friend and I were going to be scientists and football players when we grew up. Upon high school graduation, I went to CMU with an interest in engineering. That interest then traveled through meteorology (being a weather reporter), pre-law, and eventually accounting.

When I expressed an interest in ministry in the course of my undergraduate studies at CMU, my parents were supportive in a very practical way. They said that I might want to consider getting trained in a good profession in case ministry did not work out. I am grateful for my accounting degree, the two years I worked in public accounting at a regional accounting firm, and the three years I worked with a father-son accounting firm in seminary.

My early experience in public accounting already included responding to a call to ministry, so I don’t consider myself a second-career pastor. And I have used my accounting background in every place I have served.

I remember great advice for exploring vocations around the time I was graduating from college. I was encouraged to look at the people who were deemed to have “made it” in my potential profession and then decide whether I liked them or not.

It turns out that pastors are blessed and burdened in many of the same ways and the same proportions as people in other professions. In my life, the pastors and mentors all have served in ministry as what Henri Nouwen called “wounded healers.”

I still appreciate the advice of looking at the people who have “made it” in a given profession and deciding whether I like them. To that standard I can add the work we get to do and the joy we find in doing it. From all those perspectives, I still find ministry the best way to respond to God’s claim on my life.

Anne Lamott in her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, describes this frustrating, then redeeming encounter with her son, Sam:

He sat down in the dirt, and we talked in a stilted, unhappy way. I practiced being right for a while and he was sullen; then I practiced being kind. Things improved a bit. My friend, Mark, who works with church youth groups, reminded me recently that Sam doesn’t need me to correct his feelings. He needs me to listen, to be clear and fair and parental. But most of all he needs me to be alive in a way that makes him feel he will be able to bear adulthood, because he is terrified of death, and that includes growing up to be one of the stressed-out, gray-faced adults he sees rushing around him.

Anne Lamott guides us as she describes her encounter with Sam. The kind of people we are and the work we do contribute to the hope or despair of those who come behind us. Are we more interested in being right or being kind? They are not mutually exclusive qualities. We are called to speak the truth to one another in love. However, our emphasis or exclusion of truth or kindness makes a pretty clear difference to people. We feel that difference like Sam did.

Are we alive in a way that lets those who come behind us know that it’s OK to be disciples of Jesus Christ? What are they learning from us about belonging to a faith community and the pretty clear difference it can make in the quality of their lives? Is part of our truth that kindness and mercy and compassion are better ways of healing wounded people?

How appealing is life in our congregation to people who are just starting their intentional spiritual journeys?

As a congregation, we are witnesses to the effects of long-term commitments to God and each other. Pastors come and go but the ongoing identity of Greenville First United Methodist Church is all of you, the congregation. As we approach our first anniversary, I am grateful for the inspiration, grief, commitment, fellowship, service, and laughter that you genuinely share. And I am encouraged by the many opportunities we have for ministry in new contexts (partnership with City Church; digital and online engagement).

Let’s keep growing in our love of God, our neighbors, and ourselves as we thank God for the grace to “make it” as wounded healing disciples of Jesus Christ.

I don’t remember his exact words but they clearly sounded critical and sarcastic. The topic was what preaching style the congregation expected from their preacher. He said something to the effect that he was not interested in a glorified book report of what the preacher is reading. The congregation needed the Bible to be preached.

It can take me a while to think through things (My blog is called “Second Thoughts” after all) but it has since dawned on me that the Bible is a library of 66 books which makes a sermon precisely a glorified book report. The glory is God’s and the report is the witness that we give or proclamation that we make. The Bible itself contains glorified book reports. Jesus, Paul, and the biblical writers looked back into and sort of quoted their Scriptures for God’s direction for their lives and the growing Church and reported it to their current companions.

Jesus did this when he announced his mission in Luke 4:16-21:

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Preaching is a blessing and burden for me. My most influential preaching professor said we have a responsibility to be truthful and interesting. The reading I do in sermon preparation is part research and part conversation with authors or their ideas. I feel it is important to credit authors whose ideas and statements are sources for my sermons. And I understand how that can come across as a book report of what I am reading.

Up through seventh grade I pretty much only read sports books. It was a challenge to expand the scope of my reading. My dad and sister were the most prolific readers in my family growing up. Beverly and I read a lot at the house and on the road and we like very different kinds of books. She is able to re-tell the story or describe the plot and characters in great detail.

Reading changes us as individuals. St. Augustine, a theologian and Bishop of the early Christian Church, writes of his call to conversion in the midst of agonizing soul-searching:

So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take up and read; Take up and read.” Instantly, my countenance altered… So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find (Confessions of St. Augustine, Chapter XII; my emphasis).

Reading impacts the Church:

Reading plays a crucial role in our learning how to act faithfully in the world, to act for the common good of our churches, our neighborhoods, and the world. Apart from reading scripture and interpreting it (another act that itself requires a good deal of reading), we can’t give an account of how or why we do certain things. I want to challenge the church to think about all the ways we read and to see how reading carefully and well helps us to act with more understanding and more compassion in any given situation (C. Christopher Smith in A Sabbath Way of Reading – Reading to Save Our Souls in Off the Page by D. L. Mayfield, 12/27/17; my emphasis).

I am grateful for the gift of reading and have a pastoral hope that we are “reading carefully and well” as a congregation. I am interested in what you are reading and I invite you to:

• Visit our church library, loving maintained by Nancy Cooley.
• Participate in Faith Connections on Sunday morning.
• Participate in the new book group led by Ben Chapman on C.S. Lewis’ book The Four Loves.
• Participate in the Thursday morning adult Bible study.

I want you to experience growing confidence in God’s Word. Because when we are grounded in our faith, our actions have the intensity and integrity to face opposition and contention in the world. Reading and “reporting” together is a primary way we may experience the depth of discipleship and joy of community life.

As we live into our second year of shared ministry with City Church Greenville, I keep searching for ways of imagining our mutual ministry through what is common and what is unique. “Two congregations, one Body of Christ” helps me affirm our relationship.

It also is good to view the relationship in active ways which has me searching for a picture that I learned about some years ago.

It is a picture of the crowd at an Elvis Presley concert. There are parents and children and they are clapping to the music. But they are not clapping at the same time. One group is clapping on the downbeat and the other group is clapping on the upbeat. If there were video, in one frame the older hands would be together and the younger hands would be apart and in the next frame, they would be the other way around. If you come across the picture, please share it with me.

A great vocal example of this effect is by the group, Anointed, in their version of “Joy to the World”. Notice their emphasis on Joy to the World and Joy to the World.

Or there is this:

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

That’s right. Gilligan’s Island and Amazing Grace can be sung to each other’s tunes because they are both written using the same musical meter.

In 5th grade, I took the music aptitude tests with the only thought of playing drums. The results came back and the band director told my mom something like this, “Well, Mrs. Williams, maybe with some lessons he might be able to learn to play the drums.” I still remember lessons in flams, paradiddles and five-stroke rolls at Mr. Banning’s home studio throughout 6th grade. I returned to drum set lessons in my late 40’s for about a year.

But my greater music education has come through marriage and the Church. I married well. Beverly, my wife, has a wonderful singing voice. As a congregation, we have been blessed through the years by good musical leadership, we celebrate the current vocal/instrumental gifts of our music leaders, and anticipate the return of our choir.

Albeit under our masks these days, oftentimes we sing along with the special music songs in worship. Connecting through music deepens our experience of grace. It’s even more fun to discover relationships among the songs themselves.

Common meter is a 4-line poetic stanza with alternating lines of 8 and 6 syllables (86.86 in our United Methodist Hymnal). Amazing Grace; O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing; All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name; Gilligan’s Island; and House of the Rising Sun all use common meter.

I appreciate learning the many ways we sing the Lord’s songs in our congregations and the many ways we find to share our gifts for ministry.

Appreciating the relational power of common meter also can work theologically. As United Methodists, these are the major beliefs and affirmations we hold in common with other Christians:

• Belief in the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit);
• Faith in the mystery of salvation in and through Jesus Christ;
• Belief that God’s redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit, both in personal experience and in the community of believers;
• We are part of Christ’s universal church when by adoration, proclamation, and service we become conformed to Christ;
• The reign of God is both a present and future reality;
• Recognition of the authority of Scripture in matters of faith, the confession that our justification as sinners is by grace through faith, and the sober realization that the church is in need of continual reformation and renewal;
• An affirmation of the general ministry of all baptized Christians who share responsibility for building up the church and reaching out in mission and service to the world;
• The essential oneness of the church in Christ Jesus…It is also experienced in joint ventures of ministry and in various forms of ecumenical cooperation.

“Nourished by common roots of this shared Christian heritage, the branches of Christ’s church have developed diverse traditions that enlarge our store of shared understandings” (Book of Discipline 2016, Paragraph 102, Section 1).

This Easter season our worship series is “Deep & Wide.” We will celebrate and highlight the expansive ways God is present and at work in the world and how we are inspired to recover the Church as a movement, “an expanding group of people sharing a unique identity and purpose” (Andy Stanley, Deep & Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend). In partnership with City Church Greenville, let’s “enlarge our store of shared understandings” to keep learning new ways of singing together and serving God’s people in Greenville and beyond.

It is the season for winter weather advisories. Along with school officials and families, weather reporters, and road commissions, we watch the advisories to know what to expect in the future (next day; 10-day outlooks). We adjust our plans accordingly. We have canceled Mens’ Breakfast on a couple of occasions related to these advisories. We have a sense that they are mostly short-term. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has confronted us with an expanded sense of advisories.

In an insightful and timely article for the Michigan Conference (“Blizzard, winter, or ice age?), Rev. Dr. Sherry Parker-Lewis writes that “for those who are yearning for the way things have ‘always’ been, there will be disappointment. While the mission of communities of faith will remain the same, the way churches accomplish their mission will change in the months and years ahead. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed congregations and their leaders to consider what it looks like to offer Christ to the world in a time of social distancing and post-pandemic.

Lewis’ article draws on another article, “Leading Beyond the Blizzard: Why Every Organization is Now a Startup”, where the authors suggest that church leaders may find a way forward through the use of the metaphors “blizzard, winter, and ice age.”

The early onset of the pandemic was a blizzard, an emergency. Churches pivoted to cancel in-person worship and offer online worship and Zoom meetings. We sheltered in place and waited with the assumption that the emergency would end.

When it did not, we extended our time frame for expectations. This became a winter season where we responded with enhancing online worship and electronic communication and established or improved electronic giving and invitations.

Lewis describes this stage in the context of life in Michigan: “We are familiar with pulling out our snow shovels and warm boots. We put a window scraper and an extra blanket in the car. We wear more layers and make more soup. And if we see our breath in the cold air or slap our mittened hands together for warmth, we don’t mind. Spring will come again.”

The Ice Age reference involves 1816 known as The Year Without a Summer. 1816 came toward the end of what is known to climatologists as “The Little Ice Age,” a several-century-long reduction in temperatures in the northern hemisphere that shaped European history in profound ways (“Leading Beyond the Blizzard”).

Lewis observes, “In Michigan, our lands and waterways were shaped in the Pleistocene Age. Great glaciers up to 6,000 feet thick moved over Michigan carving valleys and pushing up hills. When glaciers receded, they left behind newly formed lakes and bays. If we had been alive to witness the ‘before and after’ of the most recent ice age, we might have wrung our hands and asked, ‘How can we get back to normal?'”

In a way, the “blizzard-winter-ice age” metaphor describes the experience of the Church following Jesus’ death and resurrection. First, there was an imminent expectation of Jesus’ return. When that did not happen, the Church had to organize itself which we see in the later books/letters of the New Testament. And we now live with the “Ice Age-level” impact of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Church and world through a couple of centuries.

Jesus Christ impacts us at all of these stages which means that God’s grace and love and power are available to us no matter which winter weather advisory we live under.

The season of Lent is set up for us to deal with the multiple ranges of reality in a pandemic.

The authors of “Leading Beyond the Blizzard” note that, “Christian creativity begins with grief — the grief of a world gone wrong. It enfolds it in lament — the loud cry of Good Friday, the silence of Holy Saturday — and still comes to the tomb early Sunday morning.”

They encourage us to pursue this creativity. “(W)e urge every leader to realize that their organization’s survival in weeks and months, let alone years, depends far more on radical innovation than on tactical cutbacks” (“Leading Beyond the Blizzard”).

I am grateful to be serving together with inspired disciples of Jesus Christ in the blizzards, winters, and little ice ages of our time. Let’s keep seeking God’s help and guidance to find ways “to grow a loving community while we gather, connect, learn and serve.”

Dr. Helen Czerski is a British physicist, oceanographer, and TV presenter. In her September 29, 2017, TED Talk, “The Fascinating Physics of Everyday Life”, she begins with a story about sitting at the table at her Nana’s (Mum’s Mum) house as a 2nd-year undergraduate student at Cambridge studying physics. She had quantum mechanics folders spread out in front of her. Nana looked at the folders and said, “What’s that?”

Helen tried to explain and Nana looked impressed. And then she said, “What can you do when you know that?” Helen responded, “Don’t know, Nana.”

In her TED Talk, Dr. Czerski then reflected that when we talk about physics, we don’t include the things we can do when we know that. We’ve got an image problem, let’s be honest. It’s weird and difficult and done by slightly strange people. Fundamentally, why should anyone care?

Physics is best known for its extremes or its frontiers which are quantum physics (very small, very weird, it happens very quickly), and cosmology (very large, very far away, and also very weird). There is physics in the middle. It’s just that nobody talks about it.

She continued that the joy that you get by spotting common patterns of physical laws doesn’t go away as an adult. To help things move along at a boring party, she suggested fishing some raisins out of the snack mix and putting them in the lemonade. This has three consequences: 1) It’s quite good to watch, 2) It sends the boring people away, and 3) It brings the interesting people to you.

She affirms the value of what you can do when you know physics. Being familiar with these concepts means we’re not helpless. This isn’t about knowing all the answers. It’s about having the right framework and confidence so you can ask the right questions.

For four years, I was a presenter at the Exploring Future Pathways Career Fair at North Rockford Middle School. I presented on the vocation of being a pastor.

For the record, the veterinarian had an unfair advantage in bringing a dog. I talked about how construction workers build your house, plumbers install and repair your pipes, doctors and nurses care for your body, a mechanic fixes your car, bankers help you with money, and that I help people in their relationship with God and that’s kind of hard to understand and maybe a little weird.

I remember talking about the Bible and prayer and being with people in their homes and at the cemetery and in the hospital as well as gathering at the Church building. I brought vitamin C drops as a treat which we were giving out in worship in those days. We wrote our names with our non-dominant hand to show how it feels to recognize something but not have a lot of confidence about it. In other words, it can be awkward learning about God. We also did a Yurt Circle to demonstrate how we depend on each other (you hold hands and every other person leans in or back to create a support circle; it’s cool to do).

Through teaching about ministry with middle school students, I gained an appreciation for how our work fits in the larger world and contributes to the common good.

Through being the Church we learn that God loves us and the world; and that Jesus Christ is God’s Son and our Savior; and that we can feel the power of the Holy Spirit when we are doing all kinds of things and remember what Jesus taught his disciples.

And what we can do when we know that, is LOVE!

We learn and then teach how to love God, our neighbor, ourselves, and our world. And we also learn that all those other vocations can be versions of the gift and task of LOVE. From God’s perspective, we all can learn how to LOVE.

As we enter the Lenten season mid-month, I invite you to respond to the question “What can you do when you know that?” by seeing your vocation or twilight career or daily life as an expression of LOVE.

How have you been moved this year? What is saving you or breaking your heart as we move into the Advent/Christmas season?

Beverly and I peacefully moved to Greenville mid-year in the regular course of The United Methodist Church appointment system. We are grateful for Pastor Don and Shelly who preceded us here and Rev. Paul Reissmann and Ashleigh who followed us in Wayland.

The Hebrew people were liberated by God from slavery in Egypt and moved into and through the wilderness.

With the death of their husbands, “Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22). Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David.

Generations later Joseph and Mary were on the move from Nazareth to Bethlehem in response to a decree from Emperor Augustus because Joseph was descended from the house and family of David.

God acted with purpose in each of these moves. The sources or reasons or circumstances for the moves did not determine or prevent God’s actions but were the worldly occasions for God’s story of redemption to be told.

Each of these moves was a disruption. Bonds of friendship and family were changed. Bondage was broken.

These are common occurrences in the human story.

While written to preachers, Frederick Buechner’s challenge also is good as we consider the role of the church in ministry with our community.

“They must address themselves to the fullness of who we are and to the emptiness too, the emptiness where grace and peace belong but mostly are not, because terrible as well as wonderful things have happened to us all” (Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale, 4).

The COVID-19 pandemic has moved us apart in many ways. There is suffering we are unable to share at loved ones’ sides and there are overworked, exhausted healthcare workers who represent us in caring for them. We await the anticipated rise in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday and the colder months that will prevent outdoor gatherings. And in the midst of this, the news about vaccines is promising.

We are completing federal, state, and local elections, and the transfer of national governmental power whose integrity is questioned in courts of law and public opinion and affirmed in the intentional organization of a new administration.

The worldly momentum seems to be moving us toward chaos and strife.

These conditions characterize our entrance into Advent and the preparation for Christmas. But they don’t change the story of God’s loving, redeeming action in the world. We can learn from Buechner how to tell the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s redeeming grace as a tragedy, comedy, or fairy tale.

Buechner writes, “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.” The tragedy is that we are sinners whose hearts are sick. The comedy is that we are “loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for.” The fairy tale is that extraordinary things happen to us “just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen…Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul set out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ” (Telling the Truth, 7). We can add Mary’s astonishment that she will bear the holy child who will be called the Son of God and her song of the mercy and strength of God who “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly…filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:50-53).

Every year I wonder how things are going to go in the Advent/Christmas seasons. How will the ministry and worship plans for the Church be received? Will we address the fullness and the emptiness “where grace and peace belong but mostly are not”? And every year I am moved by the grace that Advent preparation happens and Christmas comes to the world and we hear the Gospel that God has chosen to share our tragedy-comedy-fairly tale existence in person. Thanks be to God for our shared ministry in a broken and beautiful world. Merry Christmas.

While my favorite month is October with its cooler temperatures, beautiful colors, and vivid change, it is followed by November with its own fulness of life.

November begins with All Saints’ Day. Last Sunday, we remembered 21 persons in worship who have died in the last year with the affirmation, “Absent from us. Present with God.”

While not always recognized as a major “holy day” in the Christian year, All Saints’ Day reminds us that we are related to each other not only biologically, but spiritually through faith. One of the most familiar scripture passages used on All Saints’ Day observances refers to the saints who have gone before us as “a huge cloud of witnesses to the life of faith” (Hebrews 12:1).

I appreciate Father Richard Rohr’s description that, “Saints are those who wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one” (Father Richard Rohr, “Public Virtue”, 11/6/20).

Saints are those persons to whom we look for guidance on living through joyful and painful seasons of time. And their basic character is like that of Jesus who came to serve rather than be served.

The stress, confusion, division, and contention of our federal, state, and local elections clearly call for recovering public virtue.

In the face of this need, the public witness of the Church comes through lives of service, humility, compassion, and justice.

Again, from this past week’s meditations by Father Richard Rohr:

“The mystery of the body of Christ turns the focus outward, to ask: how can I be good for the sake of my neighborhood, my city, my church, my community, and even the world?” (Father Richard Rohr, “Public Virtue”, 11/1/20).

“History is continually graced with people who have been transformed and somehow learned to act beyond and outside their self-interest for the good of the world, people who clearly operated by a power larger than their own. They are exemplars of public virtue” (Father Richard Rohr, “Public Virtue”, 11/6/20).

We conclude November with Thanksgiving which is a season I wish officially lasted longer rather than being left behind by the commercial Christmas season. Thanksgiving directs us to the deep roots and broad branches and towering clouds of service, humility, compassion, and justice in the lives of the saints and our families and communities.

We clearly have a lot of work to do in the wake of the elections and in the midst of the COVID pandemic. May our gratitude for the saints guide our paths and allow us to serve side by side with each other.

Good morning and God bless you. We are in the midst of a worship series that responds to the question,

What do active disciples of Jesus Christ in
United Methodist congregations do with their lives?

A faithful United Methodist response is that we love God and our neighbor as ourselves through our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. The series is Five Paths: One Journey.

Our visual reminder of these paths woven together is the worship table display we had on World Communion Sunday.

While the limitations of the COVID pandemic deeply affect the ways we can go about active faithful lives, we are still free to serve in creative ways. Our Michigan Conference has offered these suggestions (https://michiganumc.org/8-ways-to-serve-during-a-pandemic):

• Give money: Relief, aid, and justice organizations still need money. If you are among the lucky whose bank account has been mostly unaffected by the pandemic, you can serve immediately by supplying funds towards causes and organizations.
  
• Run a fundraising or awareness campaign: You may not have the kind of funds in your bank account to make a difference. It may be time to build some awareness and community around your cause and raise some needed funds by inviting others into service, too.
  
• Send a meal: Perhaps you know someone locally who could use a hand up. Did you know you can send meals through businesses like DoorDash or Uber Eats? Sending a meal during this time is a double-dip of service: you offer a lift to the recipient while supporting a local business that is likely struggling.
  
• Write letters: Now could be the perfect time to become a penpal. There are many who are vulnerable but still feel a want for connection and community. Your letter could be a big reminder that we’re still connected and that people care. Write to the elderly in your life. Write to military personnel. Write to the incarcerated.
  
• Serve as a mentor: More than ever, young people and eager learners are looking for meaningful ways to connect with teachers and role models. Many mentoring programs now offer online means for connecting people.
  
• Share the good stuff: Remember how much we loved it when John Krasinski shared Some Good News? Take on the same role. You may not need to produce your own news show, but use the platforms available to you to share about the good stuff happening.
  
• Serve from a distance: Many United Methodist churches began protective mask-making programs…VolunteerMatch is full of opportunities for socially-distanced service, as well.
  
• Donate what you have: You’ve likely spent a little extra time at home this season–and by now, are well aware of what items you use and those lying around your house that you don’t utilize. Charity organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill Industries could use your under-used items. Utilize this time to have a cleaning day and donate what you weed out to an organization you’d like to support.

I write about voting now in advance of Tuesday, November 3, because according to the Michigan Students Vote Toolkit “Important Dates and Deadlines” (https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/Michigan_Students_Vote_Toolkit_701243_7.docx):

September 24: Absentee ballots available

Clerks begin to mail ballots to voters who requested to vote from home.
In person absentee voting is available in city and township clerk’s offices.

I confirmed my voter registration at the Michigan Voter Information Center (https://mvic.sos.state.mi.us/).

Elections are volatile and vulnerable national events. Attempts at genuine persuasion based on reliable sources of information are assailed from every direction by misinformation, disinformation, deceit, malice, and contempt.

One of the books I read near the end of 2019 was Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974 by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer. They present recent history along economic, racial, political, and gender and sexuality fault lines. They support their time period this way:

But the turbulent decade of the 1960s caused the common ground of the mid-twentieth century to crumble beneath Americans’ feet. Rather than seek to find new sources of agreement, the nation reconstituted itself in the 1970s and the decades that followed in ways that augmented and institutionalized these lines of division (p.3).

Fault lines have at least a double meaning as the authors explain:

While these fault lines in America were important, so too were the lines Americans were fed about who was at fault. The media became increasingly fractured during these decades, changing from a fairly rigid industry dominated by three television networks and a handful of prominent newspapers to a more cluttered, chaotic landscape (p.3).

We evaluate candidates and policies in accordance with these affirmations while living with fault lines all around us. I hold deep and abiding convictions about the positive responsibilities of our secular government and how these responsibilities are denied in cruel, racist, and violent ways.

Jesus and the prophets remind us that our world always has been marred by cruelty and oppression and unjust distributions of wealth and benefits. It’s really hard work to stay engaged in our national and local and Church communities. Jesus also declares that the reign of God is near and by grace, we are capable of change.

Our opportunity as disciples of Jesus Christ and citizens of the United States is to faithfully participate in the governing processes available to us. The responsibility for this comes from our baptism service:

Do (we) accept the freedom and power God gives (us) to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?

According to the grace given to (us), will (we) remain faithful members of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world?

I invite you to confirm your voter registration and make a plan for voting. Let’s make it our fault that there is a noticeably greater turnout in this election cycle and pray for the grace to stay engaged in the church and the world.

After considering several apparel choices at the 2012 ICHTHUS event (annual Christian music festival outside Wilmore, Kentucky), I chose this one:

The simple message is appealing and I am inspired by its directive. In the 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?” The rephrasing shifts the emphasis just enough to hear it in a fresh way.

The Virtual Michigan Annual Conference took place on July 26-28. I am grateful for Chuck Hill, our Lay Member of Annual Conference, for participating with me and bringing some fine Kenyan AA coffee to the parsonage where we shared the morning session on July 27. The theme for this year was Sowing Seeds: rooting-tending-reaping with a focus on Congregational Vibrancy. The Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-9) was the centering story.

We are understandably disturbed and disoriented by our lives these days with COVID-19 and the now pressing decisions about reopening schools, and street protests across the nation for racial justice and against police brutality. Aren’t these things just hardening the ground on which the seeds of the Gospel fall? Or are they breaking up the hardened soil of racism and discrimination and ignorance to receive the seeds of the Gospel?

It depends on what we are willing to do on earth, right where we are. The power of God’s presence in Jesus Christ is that the Word of God became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. Rooting, tending, and reaping in our mission field is what we are called to do even as we learn how we are related to sisters, brothers, and siblings throughout the world.

I am glad to take root and bear fruit here in Greenville and invite you to continue your growing journey with God through 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!”