In memory

I found out today that my former boss Marlin Reissig had passed away. Marlin was a wonderful boss who when he wanted something would pursue it with tenacity. He recruited me from the mental health center I was working at as a clinical social worker and director of the Alcohol/Drug department to work for him. He and I had known each other previously and I admired the way he was directing Blue Valley Mental Health Center. He wanted me to be the director of their substance abuse program. Over time and many life experiences, I admired the work that he did even when I choose to leave the mental health field. My prayers will be with he and his family during this time.

reflections on Jesus

I was cleaning my office and getting ready for this Sunday and was reviewing some of the old sermons that I kept a copy of. I came across a copy of quotes that I wanted to share with you. One was either something I heard though where I do not recall but in essence was the Jesus did not want to make a difference in the world but to make the world different. Somehow that was a powerful statement to me as I was preparing for the sermon this Sunday.
Reflect on this. It is about creating a new world that is what kingdom work is. This Sunday we will be looking at the scripture from Isaiah 55:1-5 and Matthew 14:13-21. The title of the sermon is "Don't send them away but feed them." Without going into what the sermon will be about, I believe it pairs up with the quote above. What are we doing to live our life is such a way as to make the world different. I want to share with you two other quotes. William Carey “Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God.”
Teresa of Avila “Christ has no body on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”
Each of us becomes the body of Christ in this world. How are we acting as the image of Christ among each other and especially to those around us. When was the last time you reached out in love, compassion, and mercy to a stranger? Do you see the world as a world of limitations and scarcity or a world of unlimited posssibilities and abundance? The choice that we make is either to send them away or to feed them. Stay tuned.

going the distance in church

I have to share with you an insight that I had at 2:00 am this morning. It was one of those dream insights that I believe comes from the Holy Spirit. I have been thinking about our church and where we are heading. As we prepare for our ecumenical service at our county fair, we were including some of the goals that we had set from January of this year. The combination of those and of thinking about what we can do led to God's discernment for me. You will have to pardon the image that came but I believe it is important for us as a church family.

The image I had that woke me at 2 was wondering why a golf ball can travel almost 2-3x further than any other baseball, football, basketball, or soccer ball. I know you might be thinking what has this to do with church and its structure. Hang in there. As I was thinking about this, one image came to mind was the golf club that strikes the ball. There have been improvements in the equipment that one uses but even using old equipment many amateurs can still strike the ball over 200 yards on average which would be 600'. So the equipment does not make the entire difference in the distance that the ball goes. What also makes a difference is the ball itself and how it is made that is different than other balls. The golf ball is designed to travel further based on its structure which consists of three layers that interact with one another (think of the Holy Trinity interacting with each other).

What the insight I had was that any church that goes any distance needs to have this interaction within its structure. The golf club that imparts the force that begins to move the ball is God's Spirit. But to get distance requires the ball to be structured in such a way of interacting with that Spirit and within itself. The golf ball has an outer layer that allows the ball to fly in the air with little drag. But like the wiffle practice ball having just an outer layer will not give you much distance. What makes the difference in golf balls and in church is that there is an inner core and that inner core is surrounded by a supportive core that transfers the force of the club to the inner core and also receives the transfer of energy back to the outer core.

Over the last year we have been discerning who we are as a church and our purpose for being. We celebrated our 125th anniversary of ministry and began to look forward to another 125 years. As part of the discernment process we decided to participate in the Church Vitality Inventory. From that survey, we discovered that experiential worship and being welcoming were two driving forces. I will talk about them later but I believe that just putting all of our resources in these two areas would be like the practice golf ball. We would get some distance but nothing compared to our developing our inner core and supportive core in combination with this outer core. Worship and welcoming are vital but not the total answer.

So what is our inner core. As we began to ask who are we as a church, we came up with an acronym the IDEAL life. What that stood for was the idea that the purpose of our church was to: identify our spiritual gifts, discover our passion, engage in mission, advance our faith, and to live as a disciple of Christ. For our church to be able to go the distance, it is important that this inner core, if indeed this is who we are and who we want to be, be developed and strengthened. The concern is how are we going to do that and who is going to provide help in doing that. As I was reviewing the goals of our committees, I began to question what we could be doing and assigning these five principles to the various committees of our church. Like many churches we have a committee structure that can provide the means and resources to make this core strong and vital. I want to share where I believe each committee can be used most effectively. I also believe each committee needs to focus their goals on the five principles that we have discerned about our church family. I know that we cannot accomplish everything right away but we need to have a plan for the next three to five years in place.

Identifying our spiritual gifts certainly seems to fall under two of our committees. One being our Committee on Lay Leadership and the other our nurture or Education committee. The challenge is what goals can we determine that would help our family of faith discern their gifts that have been given to them by God. It is more than just general goals but we need some specific ideas of how we are going to accomplish this principle both short term and long term. Just knowing the goals is one part, the other part is using those gifts in ministry.

Discovering our passion also seems to fall under Lay Leadership. I have witnessed in our church the excitement and energy when we are able to connect ministry opportunities with a person's passion. This is not only just for the person but becomes contagious with others. We need to find ways of helping people articulate their passion and how we can use that to help others.

Engaging in mission is under the primary leadership of our Mission committee. This committee needs to begin to explore what mission opportunities that exist and be able to connect people to them. They are not primarily responsible for doing fund raisers for mission though this can be secondary to mission education. Working with other committees they can connect gifts, passion, and treasure.

Advancing our faith is the primary task of the Education committee. This is for all ages not just Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. We talked about faith walk and that we are all on a journey of faith that begins as an infant and continues until such a time that we are in the presence of Christ in the New Jerusalem. The goals of the committee need to reflect ways of reaching all ages and in all areas of our lives. This can include not only Discovery Station, but bible studies, adult faith formation, UM101, parenting classes and support, etc.

The last principle is living as a disciple of Christ. All of our inner core committees as well as supportive core and outer core bear responsibility for this principle. I believe this particular one is one that needs the most work. We have a tradition that helps us be able to use ways of being more faithful as a disciple. The early Methodist movement was based on small accountability groups that met weekly to support one another in their faith walk. We have a number of small groups that arise from the grass roots of our family such as M&M's, Gen-X, and maybe the Boomers group. I don't want to interfere with such outpouring of Spirit but we can be more aware of our need to live a disciplined life.

That is just the inner core. For us to be able to go any distance we also need to have supportive core. Again we have committees that can provide that support. The first is the Administrative council. Often the Ad Council becomes one of governance. I would like to see the council explore a more supervisory role. Often the inner core committees will focus on their primary principles, I believe that the Ad Council can take a more big picture and keep the pulse of the web of inter-relationships of the entire church. Communication is key but also holding committees to accountability is important.
Another supportive core committee is finance and stewardship. For any of this to work we need the fiscal resources to make it happened. The committee needs to know what the needs of the inner and outer core are and develop means of supporting those ministries. This is more than a once a year process and more than just developing a budget for the next fiscal year. They also have to be willing to hold committees accountable for their use of resources and plan for the future.
Trustees are another supportive committee. All of the committees needs to have a physical and safe environment to be able to do ministry. They are important in maintaining and planning for such an environment. One goal is to begin to look at the physical facility we have and begin to plan for the future and suggest what we can do with a capital campaign.
SPRC is another supportive committee. Their primary responsibility is to make sure that we have the best staff that can provide leadership to all three core layers of our church. They are also responsible to identify those who may be called into pastoral leadership and to help them in that process of discernment. They are to hold those who are staff accountable for their work.

The outer core is made up of worship and welcoming. The outer core receives the momentum and transfers it to the supportive core and inner core. The committees that of course are responsible are the worship committee and the welcoming committee. They provide the outer and enclosing environment that supports the other committees. Without that there would be no purpose for what we do nor would we have invited others to participate in being a part of our family.

I wanted to share with you what came to me early this morning. I believe that what we have done and what we want to do is not only conceived in the Holy Spirit but is scripturally sound. I hope that we can discuss this at a future Ad Council meeting prior to our Church Conference. These are the insights that I had. It is important that all three cores interact and support each other or we will not be able to go far. Let's go all the way.

Sanctification

I have a confession to make. Throughout the last few Sundays and in our Bible studies of Matthew there have been overlaps. I have continued to know that often times there are coincidences that seem to defy common reasons. That has been true for me in the last few weeks. The sermons that have been given have dealt with helping us remember what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Through our studies, we have also been reflecting on putting our faith in action and this week I will be asking us to reflect on who is absent from our family both friends, neighbors, and those who are marginalized. As I was preparing for the sermon, I read my daily devotion by Stookey, This Day, A Wesleyan Way of Prayer. He was talking about Sanctification and what that might be in our lives. The scripture that he based his reflection on was Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect...as your heavenly Father is perfect." I wanted to share with you his reflection found in his book page 37.
"To be told by Jesus that we are to be perfect as God is perfect is a terrifying thing, a command so intimidating that we snatch it from our memories--unless we think of it in terms of capacity, not identical quantity. A pint jar can be as perfectly full as a ten gallon jar, even though the amount each holds is vastly different. We are not expected to have the infinite capacity for goodness and grace that characterizes God. But we can be and are expected to live up to the human capacity God has put within each of us (in varying measures), just as the Almighty lives up to full capacity of deity.
Further, the process of fulfilling the capacity given to us involves divine assistance. Sanctification (as the process is called) is not a good work we do for God but a good work God does within us when we open ourselves to the One who made us, who know our capacity, and who brings us to fulfillment when we allow it. Before this Holy One we present ourselves not as burnt offerings on an altar, but as living sacrifices in the world (Romans 12:1)."
For me sancfication is that process that John Wesley discussed about going onto perfection. And it is in that process that we become transformed as a disciple. If we go forth shouting from the rooftops about God's love, we are enabled to do that from the grace within us.