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Pete Blinkilde shared a brief review of recent pastors in his October 8 sermon. He spoke about having the right pastor at the right time for the needs of the Church. It was a review he did genuinely and with integrity.

I responded on the pastor side of things that being a pastor does not make sense apart from a congregation. MY being a pastor does not make sense apart from Beverly, my wife. Her love and grace and ministry are amazing. Our compatible vocations (medical social worker and pastor) are also a blessing.

As a congregation you shape what kind of pastors we are as we cooperatively figure out what works best in this time and place. Together we discover what gifts we bring and what gifts are needed. Which means in one sense you also are the right congregation at the right time for me.

As we enter November with All Saints’ Day I see Pete’s phrase in an expanded way to understand that saints are the right people at the right time for God’s purposes. It is a wonderful time to remember and give thanks like we do in this worship prayer:

Everlasting God, this day revives in us memories of loved ones who are no more. What happiness we shared when they walked among us. What joy when loving and being loved, we lived our lives together.

And isn’t this a helpful and inspiring way to think about the birth of Jesus? Right person at the right time for God’s purposes for the world that God loves?

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children (Galatians 4:4-5).

With Christ God makes the time right all the time. Sometimes we show up for each other with gifts of mercy or compassion to listen to grief and pain. Sometimes we show up for each other with gifts of joy and peace to rejoice in healing or restoration or forgiveness. By faith we understand that what God does with us right here in Greenville is what God does all over the world. And we have the encouragement of the writer of Colossians to act accordingly:

Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone (Colossians 4:5-6).

May God bless us to be the right people at the right time with Christ during this All Saints – Thanksgiving – Advent – Christmas season. Praise God from whom all time and blessings flow.

“God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, including the depths of God…We haven’t received the world’s spirit but God’s Spirit so that we can know the things given to us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10,12)

Today someone may hear the Good News for the very first time. And today someone may hear the Good News for the very last time.

We are coming through trying times in our congregation and, as Pastor Jane Duffey preached earlier in August, we are “braving a new wilderness” in the Church.

I believe that when we gather for worship or fellowship or discernment about disaffiliation, what’s at stake is that we are seeking a spiritual home with feelings and memories and wondering, Can I belong here? Some of us are listening for how God’s Word is handled and presented in worship and by the preacher. Some of us may hear a call to repentance and find the room to change that God has been providing for us all along. Some of us may not even be able to say why we are here as we carry great grief and deep questions into this sanctuary.

What we discover time and again is that in this house of prayer, this Body of Christ, we imperfectly hold wisdom and passion, follow Jesus, love our neighbors, and seek God’s guidance in the Word and God’s presence in the Holy Spirit.

On Sunday, August 27, we took a straw poll after worship about whether to remain in The United Methodist Church or to disaffiliate. After The Way Forward question-and-answer document from the Leadership Board, two Town Hall meetings, a financial report from our Treasurer, and countless scattered conversations, membership inquiries, phone calls, email threads, text messages, and letters through the US mail, 94 votes were cast:

56 (60%) votes to remain United Methodist
38 (40%) votes to Disaffiliate

Per our conditions for the vote, the Disaffiliate choice needed at least 60% for the disaffiliation process to continue. So, we remain a United Methodist Church and the disaffiliation process is done.

We have learned more about the relationship of who we are and who we think we are in this process. In some ways, this is a natural and continuous discovery process. It is a type of ongoing revelation. But our journey of considering staying United Methodist or disaffiliating is filled with soul-searching grief and will continue to unfold in the coming days and weeks and months.

In his book, The Active Life, Parker Palmer writes: “There is the experience we commonly call disillusionment, when a trusted friend lets us down, an institution we had relied on fails us, a vision we had believed in turns out to be a hoax, or—worst of all—when we discover ourselves to be less than we had thought. Many of us try hard to avoid such experiences, and when we are in the midst of them we go through a kind of dying…As our illusions are removed, like barriers on a road, we have a chance to take that road farther toward truth.

God’s revealing work through the Spirit will keep us going into a future filled with hope and disillusionment. So we can join the Psalmist in affirming as a Body of Christ: Make your ways known to us, Lord; teach us your paths. Lead us in your truth—teach it to us—because you are the God who saves us. We put our hope in you all day long (Psalm 25:4).

One of the strong and appealing affirmations of being United Methodist is the invitation I am privileged to give each time we celebrate Holy Communion. It is the invitation to an open table. The communion table does not belong to us – it is the Lord’s Table and the Lord’s Supper that we share. All who desire to know the forgiveness, love, mercy, and salvation that come in Christ Jesus are welcome.

It is an understanding of Holy Communion as both a confirming and a converting ordinance that leads United Methodists today to practice an open Communion. All who desire to live and lead a Christian life, regardless of age, ability, or denomination, are invited to the Lord’s table for the holy meal (The Meaning of Holy Communion in The United Methodist Church, 23).

Another part of the invitation is to speak about who we are or what we bring to the Lord’s Table. A lot may be going on for us in the celebration of Holy Communion. In the New Testament, at least six major ideas about Holy Communion are present: thanksgiving, fellowship, remembrance, sacrifice, action of the Holy Spirit, and eschatology (This Holy Mystery, 8).

So, coming to the Lord’s Table may be an experience of:

CONFIRMATION – Your walk with God is strong and time in the Word is enlightening. You come to the Table saying, “Yes.”
CONVERSION/CONFESSION – John Wesley called open communion a “converting ordinance.” You come to the Table saying, “It’s time to change.”
CONFUSION – God’s grace or personal events have called into question beliefs or perspectives you hold. You come to the Table saying, “I need help understanding.”
CONCERN – There is a burden on your heart or distress in your soul. You come to the Table saying, “I need resolution, relief, or peace.”
CURIOSITY – There is a desire to pursue knowledge, wisdom, or a deeper experience of grace. You come to the Table saying, “Show me more.”

As a means of grace, Holy Communion is a vital part of knowing God’s love no matter our condition. It gives all of us the opportunity to receive what God most wants to give us for faithful and fruitful lives in our part of God’s world.

See also An open table: How United Methodists understand communion.

(April 2023 Greenville First UMC newsletter article)

Inside, the high priest began asking Jesus about his followers and what he had been teaching them. Jesus replied, “Everyone knows what I teach. I have preached regularly in the synagogues and the Temple, where the people gather. I have not spoken in secret” (John 18:19-20).

Jesus’ transparent life and public teaching confronted and revealed the sins of the world and led to his death. The excruciating drama of Holy Week and the exuberant joy of Easter lead us step by step through his arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and the Easter morning discovery of the empty tomb and risen Christ by the women. I am moved to tears every year that we go through these stories.

These stories are public and held by communities of faith, where the people gather. Our communal study, recital, and remembrance of them express faith in God as so much continues to be destroyed in our world and in our lives.

Holding the grief and trauma of late-in-Holy-Week stories and the exuberant joy of Easter stories we can discover their saving grace. That’s the image of the broken mirror in the glass jar, a friend’s gift when Beverly and I left campus ministry at Wesley of Kalamazoo in 2002. The jar allows us to see jagged edges of human experience and process our grief and joy. It also is a helpful image for the growth and struggle in the educational process.

I am deeply grateful and profoundly biased in favor of campus ministry. Our campus pastors, students, and local Board members are examples for me of the faithful pursuit of transparent living and public teaching in Jesus’ name where the people gather. We are present in the most concentrated populations of young adults in our culture.

On a wider scale are these examples of the power of faithful prophetic higher education communities:

Rev. Dr. Chris Momany’s book, “For Each and All: The Moral Witness of Asa Mahan,” details the life of the founding president of Adrian College. Rev. Dr. John E. Harnish in his article on this book writes, “Rev. Dr. Chris Momany, former professor and chaplain at Adrian College, has made the life of Asa Mahan and his commitment to the ‘intrinsic worth’ of all persons a hallmark of his ministry on and off campus. He connects Asa Mahan with the current issues of racism and human trafficking in a way that gives depth to the discussion and a historic anchor for our social witness.”

Another example is Philander Smith College which was founded in 1877 and chartered in 1883 as a four-year coeducational liberal arts college in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is a United Methodist-related college like Adrian and Albion.

The heritage of Philander Smith College is deeply rooted in faith. Philander Smith College’s mission statement echoes its first mission by The Methodist Church to provide an education during “conflict and social change,” by educating current students to become “advocates for social justice.” (https://www.philander.edu/about-us/the-united-methodist-church)

Terrance Roberts is one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who were the first black students ever to attend Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Roberts spoke at Philander Smith in 1997 and shared these memories:

During the three-week period as we awaited the outcome of the legal wrangling over states’ rights versus federal rights, Philander Smith College faculty and students tutored us in the high school subjects being taught to our future Central High classmates…They continued to do this for the entire academic year of 1958-59 as well when all Little Rock public high schools were closed in the name of “segregation forever,” and African-American students were in need of educational resources (Philander Smith College Remarks, September 27, 1997 in Lessons from Little Rock, 168).

I am inspired by the leading role that belongs to higher education communities and their willingness to pursue transparent living and public teaching. And I am inspired by the educational thread from Jesus’ public teaching to schools like Adrian and Philander Smith Colleges to local congregations and our own congregation.

We study, recite, and remember Holy Week and Easter stories where the people gather to keep learning during conflict and social change, and for the sake of being witnesses to God’s redeeming love in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

(March 2023 Greenville First UMC newsletter article)

We are coming out of our recent ice storm and the power is still out at the parsonage as I write this.

This morning at Men’s Breakfast I received this text: Spectrum outage message graphic

 

That is true for so many things.

We are constantly adjusting our expectations about the work we or others do. Business leaders talk about renegotiating our agreements with ourselves and each other as things change in the course of doing our work.

I worked for two years in public accounting before going to seminary. In that first professional accounting job I learned so many things. One rather vivid lesson was about estimating the time for completing the audit of a particular financial section like Cash or Accounts Payable. Fred, my supervisor, asked me to give an estimate for auditing one of these sections. I did and he said to double it and that is how long it should take; then double that estimate and that is how long it will actually take me to complete the work.

It turns out we can be pretty unreliable estimators of our time and projects. And we have this similar condition when it comes to our expectations of God.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence. (Isaiah 64:1)

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Psalm 13:1)

In our Lenten worship series Practicing Lament, we are learning that God’s absence is a primary complaint in lament. For example, Isaiah’s cry for God to open heaven and get down here! Or the Psalmist who cries, “How long, O Lord?”

Dr. Christopher Davis offers a challenging perspective on this experience:

Another implication of waiting is the reality that God reserves the right to keep us waiting; time was made for humans, not for God. Thus, God is not in a hurry. Another implication of waiting, which is probably the least popular yet the most applicable to the text, is the reality that while God is great, God can also be gradual. When it comes to God’s moves, God’s methods, and God’s miracles, God can be slow (Dr. Christopher Davis, Working Preacher).

One special quality of Lent is the invitation to slow down, not because things are not urgent but because we want to respond in the deepest and most effective ways to the urgent needs.

Kara Swisher interviewed Tim Ferriss on her podcast Recode Decode about this concept:

Kara: …fast has always been looked at as important. That you have to move fast, break things, and all the different things you read about. How does that change when you don’t get to move fast or is there a way to move fast in this environment?

Tim: So you practice doing things very slowly. And if you do things slowly without making mistakes, you can later optimize for speed.

Sometimes when I go too fast through a situation or try to answer a question too quickly I lose my balance or perspective on the issue at hand. And I usually miss additional information that helps make sense of the matter.

Intentionally allowing time for second thoughts can be helpful. Second thoughts may refer to doubt, like, “I’m having second thoughts about some decision/matter/question, etc.” However, what if we 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. Further contemplation can bring out better understanding and allow for meaning to emerge over time. The late Howard Thurman, a theologian/pastor/author, referred to the need to allow our decisions and questions to “simmer.”

This Lent let’s develop our capacity to respond when important things take longer than expected by practicing our faith slowly.

I was Beverly’s +1 at an out of town conference where she taught community mental health workers about suicide awareness and prevention. I found a wonderful local coffee shop and settled at the front window table with a cold brew coffee and blueberry scone. I was ready to work on editing our live stream worship service to create an audio version of the Scripture and sermon.

The young woman was sitting at a corner table in the open room. Then her phone rang. She answered it on speakerphone and proceeded to talk in a voice such that all of us could hear both sides of the conversation. What became immediately uncomfortable for me and made me sad was that she was talking about her mental and physical health history with a potential new therapist. She spoke openly and very personally about specific events and conditions in her family in a fairly relaxed manner.

 

He asked her where she was and she said a coffee shop because it was the only place around where she could get a strong enough signal.

 

My sadness became prayer as I heard her open her heart and share her history publicly in search of help with a potentially new mental health professional.

My prayer moved into reflection. Do people get a decent signal at church? At our church? Or do they have to keep moving because the signal isn’t strong enough?

I believe we are called to organize and maintain and grow our congregation by receiving God’s signals for connection, compassion, healing, and forgiveness in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are to learn and confess the noise of judgment and condemnation that too often are expressed instead. I care so deeply about hospitality and clear signals of welcome because that is my story of coming to faith in high school. I decided to follow Christ through the hospitality of the Three Oaks United Methodist Church and Pastor Larry Irvine.

Are we set up for good reception here or do our activities and witness block God’s signal? This gives new meaning to the term reception or reception area and prompts the question, How do we improve reception here?

I don’t know what else has happened for that young woman. I pray she has found a connection that is life-giving and supportive in her search for help and health. And I appreciate and renew my commitment to the openness we share to be our best for Greenville and offer a clear signal of love and compassion and grace.

As we break bread together in the coming year, let’s also think and plan and do.

I am inspired by exploring the intersections between ideas and opportunities and actions. I want to encourage all of you and be encouraged by you to creatively respond to our time in the history of our congregation.

What helps you generate ideas? Here are two suggestions from the Forbes Agency Council of successful PR, media strategy, creative and advertising executives, and Indeed.com career services.

Ask Questions And Don’t Rush Your Solutions
As we age and establish routines, we rarely stop to ask if those are still the right things to be doing. Start by asking questions about why a meeting is needed or if a process is still relevant. Challenge the team to clarify the business problem or opportunity you are trying to address. Then push the team to identify all the questions that need to be asked in order to find the best solution. – Lisa Gearhart, St. John & Partners (SJ&P) https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/04/10/10-brainstorming-strategies-that-work/?sh=312e77875da7)

Think aloud
Saying your thoughts aloud makes the brainstorming process feel natural and conversational. Thinking aloud can help you feel more comfortable sharing your thoughts before they become fully developed ideas. Talking out your thoughts with colleagues as you have them can inspire productive conversation and naturally enable others to build on your ideas. Even if you’re brainstorming independently, verbalizing your thoughts can make it easier to recognize good ideas and talk through any challenges. (https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-brainstorm)

We are created in God’s image to be creative; to respond and interact with God’s world and God’s people to find the best possible ways of living.

In Matthew 13 Jesus tells a bunch of parables: the Sower, Wheat & Weeds, a Mustard Seed, Yeast, a Hidden Treasure, a Pearl of Great Price, and a Net & Fish. Then he puts the disciples on the spot about what they have heard.

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied.

He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (Matthew 13:51-52)

It’s not easy to manage old things and new things. And yet with God’s creative energy it can be inspiring.

As the source of novelty, God constantly calls us to new possibilities, personally and institutionally… What will you have to give up to embrace God’s novel possibilities? What traditions will you need to affirm to be faithful to God in your place in time? In what ways will you join ancient gifts and future lures in this holy moment? (Epperly, Praying with Process Theology, 61).

Here are several things I am considering bringing out of my storeroom for 2023. What are yours?

• Offer “Senior Technology Management” services: 45-minute consultations on how to operate your phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer; less confident on helping with a thermostat, TV remote, etc.

• Launch our new Greenville FUMC phone application. Linda Custer is the champion for this effort.

• Celebrate Grandchildren/Grandparent Month (of our choosing) with pictures, videos, visits, and activities after worship.

• Take pictures of the stained glass windows throughout the Church and use them to tell the stories of our congregation.

• Struggle with a social worker’s observation that in her years of service only one household named the Church as a positive influence.

• Challenge ourselves as a congregation to do one common good thing at the end of each worship service in the coming week.

• Offer a spiritual gifts inventory and make immediate connections with the ministries of the Church.

• With a horizon of 5-6 years for paying off the mortgage, what will our ministry look like then? What will be possible? Let’s begin now to talk and think and plan for that time. I believe God will show us some amazing opportunities as we enter that time of discernment.

Maybe 2023 can be a time to clean out our storerooms and discern what God has in store for us to do.

Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine;
love to God and others,
love for plea and gift and sign.
(Love Came Down at Christmas, verse 3)

My late father-in-law had an interesting way of talking about the church. He described it as having a center with no circumference. The center is Jesus Christ and the lack of a circumference represents a diminished concern for walls and barriers that would keep people in or out.

My religion professor at Central Michigan University, Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly, includes in his book, Praying with Process Theology: Spiritual Practices for Personal and Planetary Healing, this statement:

As a wise teacher, once stated, “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. God’s love encircles our lives and embraces our yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows to bring healing to us and the world.”

In Australia’s vast outback it is impractical for ranchers to build fences to keep their cattle from wandering away. Instead they just dig watering holes, since they know the cattle won’t wander far away from their sources of life (Andrew Ross, as quoted by John Longhurst, Winnipeg Free Press, March 2005) (Jack Heppner, retired educator; Edgework blog). The same concept is explored in a business setting here: https://www.firedupculture.com/the-waterhole-vs-the-fence/.

This is a challenging concept for our faith and our understanding of how and why the Church grows. What if God has established such a compelling and nourishing center of love in Jesus Christ that we can direct our attention to that center more than the fences that we think we need?

Love Came Down at Christmas is a beautiful hymn. While it emphasizes the downward movement of Christ, that love also awakens love in our hearts and communities and congregations, and moves all around the world even turning it upside down as Nick Springsteen, our Missions Team Chairperson consistently tells us.

Christ is both the boundless expression of God’s love for and in the world and the center in which we all can gather for strength to love.

May we be drawn to Christ this Christmas and sent out to love. Merry Christmas.

Carrie Newcomer shared this phrase and song with us at the Michigan Annual Conference this year. She learned that it is based on Thomas Merton’s writings (https://carrienewcomer.substack.com/p/take-more-time-cover-less-ground).

She writes, “Its about living at the speed of our own souls and living with presence.”

I was blessed with a week for spiritual renewal leave in October that I took for the first time in my ministry. Turns out it is something available each year.

Throughout their careers, clergy shall engage in continuing education for ministry, professional development, and spiritual formation and growth in order to lead the church in fulfilling the mission of making disciples for Jesus Christ…A clergy member’s continuing education and spiritual growth program shall include professional formation leaves at least one week each year (2016 Book of Discipline, Paragraphs 350.1 & 350.2).

It truly was a week of renewal and rest. Part of the time I was with family (daughter, son-in-law, and grandson near Disney) and best friends in Ft. Myers. The main part of the week though I was in solitude in the home of our son-in-law’s parents. I went at the speed of my soul through sleep, meals, reading, journaling, praying, and exercising.

My focus was on mindfulness. One of the three books I read that week was Right Here Right Now by Amy Oden.

“The goal of Christian mindfulness is . . . an experience of our lives in God, our true home.” Christian mindfulness leads not only to greater physical and mental well-being but clearer discernment of divine activity and guidance, both personally and collectively (Oden, Right Here Right Now).

These are some of the insights I had during the week.

• I actually lose sight of the dimensions, textures, and abundance of the world and my being when I am anxious and afraid.
• I rediscover the joy of writing each time I do it.
• I appreciate the wisdom that we write in order to find out what we are thinking.

Jesus urgently calls his followers to grasp this reality ruled by love, already embedded in our lives. Often in the Gospels Jesus describes God’s reign as today, near, or at hand: “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom!” (Mark 1:15) and “the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 10:7) (Oden, Right Here Right Now).

In a recent sermon on Sabbath as a sanctuary in time, I shared the insight from Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, “Sabbath is an unspoken prayer for the coming of a new sanity shaped by the power and graciousness of God.”

John Wesley called “upon Christians who truly want to deepen their life in God to be ever watchful, going so far as to list watchfulness as a general means of grace” (Oden, Right Here Right Now).

I like the affirmation that we can live in a reality ruled by love and embedded in our lives. Slowing down or being still enough to ask what is guiding my sense of the present moment can be a helpful corrective to being so outwardly focused that I exceed the speed of my soul.

Spiritual renewal may seem less important in the face of so many threats and burdens in our lives. We are tempted to hurry up and cover more ground. Yet, devoting time to seek more of God’s strength for today can be one of the best ways to move at the speed of our souls and keep us present in the ongoing ministry of Christ’s outreaching love.

Our automatic garage door opener wouldn’t work.

Then Art fixed the parsonage garage door. It’s kind of like his superpower. He shows up, gets to work understanding the problem and reads the manual (who does that??) or contacts customer service, and takes action. Then things are fixed or start working again.

In my attempt to diagnose the problem, I only looked up at the drivetrain. I even manually operated the door for several days based on that assumption.

 

He found the problem in the ground sensors. One of them had been knocked out of alignment probably when I moved the trash and recycling bins inside the garage instead of behind the house. Out of alignment, they would not work. He reset them and the door worked!

I only looked up and Art fixed things on the ground.

 

Ground sensors can also refer to our bodies and our faith. They are very important God-given abilities built into us. It’s just that some of us develop them more than others. This also is one way to think about the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

One of my seminary professors was known for saying, “Don’t be so heavenly-minded that you are of no earthly good.”

Another ground sensor reference is from Alpha, an evangelistic course that introduces the basics of the Christian faith. Founder Nicky Gumbel told the story of a Japanese woman learning English phrases. She revised the statement, “What on earth are you doing?“ to “What are you doing on earth?” The shift in emphasis helps us understand it differently.

Our Wesleyan heritage encourages us to proclaim and practice “practical divinity.”

Hannah Brencher in her Proverbs 31 ministries blog writes, Be where your feet are. “Be where your feet are” is a constant reminder, a way to keep saying to myself, “Hey, look around. Don’t be freaking out about the future or worrying about the past. God wants to teach you something. Today matters. This matters” (https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2018/05/29/be-where-your-feet-are).

I missed the solution of the parsonage garage door by looking up instead of looking at the ground sensors. Hannah tells us that we can miss the importance of our current position or condition by looking too far ahead or too far behind us instead of being where our feet are.

I am grateful for the diverse gifts God has given each of us and the Church to do as much earthly good as possible. Servants and friends like Art show us how this actually works.