The Christian group Mercy Me has a song titled simply “Greater.” I wanted to share it with you.
7 Ways to Welcome Young People to the Mainline
Rachel Held Evans, a “disenfranchised” evangelical, has a post up about how mainline churches can welcome young people to the fold. It seems to me that many of them would fit us pretty well. I would encourage you to go over and take a look. Are there things we can/should be doing?
Link: bit.ly/1LdiZ3I
Stumbling Into Controversy
I am no good at predicting what posts on this blog are going to be controversial. There are entries that I have posted with great trepidation that have turned out to be completely uncontroversial. There are others that I’ve posted that have turned out to be more controversial than I could ever have imagined. That last post, “Are Christians Serving an Imaginary Jesus,” has turned out to be one of the latter. Feel free to respond with your questions or comments. My one suggestion would be that you watch the video twice to make sure that they actually said what you think they said.
Are Christians Serving an Imaginary Jesus?
Are Christians serving an imaginary Jesus? The question is being posed not by atheists, but by two distinguished United Methodist pastors, Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter.
Podcast: Dancing Before the Lord
A podcast version of my sermon of July 12, 2015. My textual reference was 2 Samuel 6.1-21, which tells the story of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. I explored the passage verse by verse and lifted up several points, including: the necessity of remembering that God is not safe, but rather holy; the fact that we should be more concerned with what God thinks than what other people think; and I finished by encouraged the congregation to rejoice whenever possible.
If you have an Apple product you can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.
Link: bit.ly/1JZWn6f
Men’s Prayer Breakfast Tomorrow
The Men’s Prayer Breakfast is tomorrow morning at 7:30 am. All the men of the church are invited to come for prayer, food, and fellowship.
Voice of the Day: Sara Miles
I’m listening to sermons and lectures from the Festival of Homiletics, and I came across this quote that I wanted to share with you:
“Churchly legitimacy so often gets in the way of the crazy hospitality, extravagance, power, and genius of Jesus,” — Episcopal Bishop William Edwin Swing, related by Sara Miles in the lecture “In the Weeds: How to Be a Street-Corner Evangelist
I plan to discuss the need to get beyond “churchly legitimacy” in my sermon this Sunday.
This Coming Sunday
This coming Sunday, July 12, 2015, I plan to preach on 2 Samuel 6.1-5, 12b-21 and our need to follow David’s example. This is the passage in which David dances before the Ark of the Covenant as it is brought into Jerusalem and his wife, Michal, is neither impressed nor pleased.
Board of Stewards (Church Council) Meeting
A reminder to everyone on the Board of Stewards (Church Council): we will have our quarterly meeting this coming Sunday, July 12, 2015, at 6 pm.
Annual Conference Laity Report
The following report was received from Pam Jackson, who attended Annual Conference on behalf of Abilene First UMC, and lightly edited for increased clarity:
Great Plains Annual Conference Report
June 10-13, 2015
This year’s Annual Conference, “Though many, One”, was held in Wichita, KS, at Century II Conference Center. The theme of the Opening Worship Session was “Unity”. Bishop Scott Jones, now in his 11th year, gave the sermon. He will serve 12 years. He said that technology has allowed the conversation to become more shallow. He said, ”We have become much more polarized and it has made it easier to demonize those who do not agree with us.” He said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” The Unity theme continued as the three Great Plains Conference Mission Partnerships with Haiti, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria were discussed. An offering was taken for these missions.
Camp enrollment is up with kids, conference wide. There was a decline from 2013-2014 in professions of faith, average worship attendance and small groups. Overall apportionments paid increased from 86.13% – 87.04. The Bishop said, “if a church is not meeting it’s apportionment obligation, it is financially unhealthy”.
- The average age of clergy is 56 and in the next 10 yrs., ½ of clergy may retire.
- Increased number of young people including 33 interns serving in various ministries.
- Bridges to the Future raised more than 8.7 million dollars to expand Hispanic ministry, Campus ministry and new church start-ups.
- Imagine No Malaria raised by GPC = $623,000. Total of $66,000,000!
- United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) 75th Anniversary. Called to be “the hands and feet of Christ”. Serve 80 Countries worldwide. UMCOR donations = $8,939,720.
- The Great Plains Conference UMW (United Methodist Women) was second in the nation in Mission Giving last year and 1st in the So. Central Jurisdiction in Mission Giving.
- The UMM (United Methodist Men) celebrated its 26th year of awarding scholarships to students who are pursuing degrees in Christian Leadership or related fields.
- Personnel Committee – proposed to retain the minimum compensation for clergy. Proposal carried.
- Clergy will continue to obtain their own insurance with an allowance of $14,232.00.
- Congregational Excellence – New feature on website called local church toolbox to help find resources to help further ministry. You will find it online at, greatplainsumc.org/toolbox
- There were three formal Worship Services: The Memorial Service with Communion celebrating the lives of 42 departed clergy or spouses from the Conference; The Retirement Service also honored 42 retiring clergy and The Ordination Service with Bishop Bruce Ough, from the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area delivering the Sermon, “Who Was I That I Could Hinder God”.
- There were a total of 23 Resolutions that were presented for approval at Annual Conference. Most of them passed with some being tabled for further consideration. Sadly the first 7 were regarding Church Closings.
- The Finance Committee presented the Budget which passed without issue. The Audit balanced to the penny and there is $75,000,000 in reserve (the vast majority of these reserves are designated for specific uses).
- There were 7 Petitions presented. Three on No Fossil Fuel Investments were defeated. Three regarding Geographic Consideration for the Election of Bishops, Holy Conferencing for the Election of Bishops and Limiting the Number of Bishops From Individual Annual Conferences all passed.
- Petition #7 – Acknowledgement of Diverse Beliefs Regarding Homosexuality, which would amend the wording in the Book of Discipline, passed 496-363 votes. There were (5) arguments for and (5) against this Petition before the vote. (No action until it is voted on at General Conf.)
- All controversial votes were cast by electronic hand held devices to ensure anonymity with the voting decisions.
- The 4 Petitions that passed will be presented at the General Conference in May 2016. No action is taken on the Petitions at the Annual Conference level.
- The most time consuming part of the Conference was the election of Delegates to represent our Conference at General Conference. There were a total of 30 elected. 6 Clergy, 6 Laity and 3 Alternates to General Conference and 6 Clergy, 6 Laity and 3 Alternates to Jurisdictional Conference. (You may be pleased to learn that the Laity completed their voting before the Clergy!) The electronic devices proved to be a bit arduous which forced an evening voting session from 7:30PM – 9:30PM on Thursday Evening cancelling some of the Social events.
- There were numerous vendors with the largest being the Cokesbury booth where a few purchases were made by most who attended.
- The music, prayers, committee reports, worship time and networking with each other was a wonderful part of the Conference time.
It was a good Annual Conference with an opportunity to see friends from Nebraska and Kansas. It was good to see Pastor Rick Saylor and his wife. They extended greetings to Abilene FUMC. Annie Ricker and Ava were there and are moving with Jason to a church appointment in S.E. Kansas. I also got to see Bob Clemence which was a nice surprise. I am not going to mention others as I will leave someone out.
I appreciate so much being allowed to serve as a Delegate to Annual Conference, representing Abilene FUMC. I thank the church for giving me this opportunity to serve on your behalf.
Respectfully submitted,
Pam Jackson
Toward a More Christian Love of Country
Warning: what follows is a post in the vein of the Old Testament prophets. You may want to skip it and for that I do not blame you, but I feel compelled to write it.
I have heard our love of country compared to our love of our parents. When we are children, we love our parents as only children can. We love them without being aware of their flaws and shortcomings.* As adults, we recognize that our parents are fallen human beings, and yet we love them still. (This is Christ-like in that it is also the nature of God’s love for us.) I believe that the love we have for our country should be like the love of an adult child for his or her parents. This means that we have to acknowledge that our country, however much we love it, is not perfect.
To that end, I want to share two links. The first is a historic address by Frederick Douglas titled The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro. The following passage is considered one of Douglas’ most moving:
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
The second is a contemporary blog post by a Native American titled The Dilemma of the Fourth of July. It’s author, Mark Charles, highlights the reference to Native Americans as savages in The Declaration of Independence and then writes:
“This is the dilemma that Native ‘Americans’ face every day. The foundations of the United States of America are blatantly unjust. This land was stolen. Native peoples, Africans and many other minority communities have long been recipients of systemic racism. And the roots of it are right there for the entire world to see, printed in many of our founding documents; like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and United States Supreme Court case rulings.”
My hope is that by confessing the sins of our nation’s past, we might move forward to a better, holier future.** Like the hymn America the Beautiful, I want to extol our nation’s virtues and ask God to “mend [our] every flaw.” Mark Charles feels the same way, writing:
“You can still light your fireworks and eat your BBQ, but please remember God’s incredible mercy upon our violent and unjust nation. And at the end of the day, I humbly ask you to conclude your celebrations with the following prayer.
‘May God have mercy on the United States of America and give us the courage necessary to create a common memory.'”
I understand “common memory” to mean an accurate understanding of our past that is shared by enough people that it helps to shape a more just future. I will pray that prayer.
Links:
The Meaning of the Fourth for the Negro: to.pbs.org/1M1bUQv
The Dilemma of the Fourth of July: bit.ly/1C9J93Q
*My apologies to my own parents for the use of this comparison. I should note that my mother has very few shortcomings, and I share all my father’s flaws.
**Credit where credit is due: In 2009 Sam Brownback helped lead a successful effort to get a formal apology to Native Americans approved by Congress and signed by the President. Sadly, he could not get it passed as a stand-alone bill and it had to be slipped into an appropriations measure.
Vacation Bible School 2015
This year, Abilene First UMC will be partnering with Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church for Vacation Bible School (VBS). The dates and times are July 20-23, 2015 from 6 pm to 9 pm. Dinner will run from 6 – 6:30 pm. Kids from pre-k through fifth grade are welcome. This year’s theme is G-Force: God’s love in action. Online registration is open at 2015.cokesburyvbs.com/abilenefumc.