Why do United Methodist pastors move?

Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.

-Hebrews 11:1

This past Sunday, March 12^th, the SPRC of Grace UMC in Pickens announced that there would be a pastoral change in June. Both Ashley and I will be serving as pastors in new appointments.

After hugs have been shared and tears shed, I have been asked an important question – a question that I believe deserves an answer. “Why are you moving/leaving us?” At the heart of the answer lies a truth that is at the core of our faith.

Upon hearing the news, one of Ashley’s friends commented (something to the effect of) “what a wonderful example for your children! So many people talk about what they believe and what they will do for God. Your children get to see what it looks like to live your faith.”

I think I understand what she means. We live in a world where people are willing to argue with others for what they believe. A Facebook post or a bumper sticker touts what they adamantly believe. They will shout at others and shun those who think otherwise. But, when it comes to actually living, that is an entirely different subject. (For example, I know people who spoke out against a lottery in SC but who have been willing to buy tickets.)

Fatih isn’t about what we feel alone. Another James correctly stated that “faith without works is dead.” Our faith must have handles. People should be able to see the evidence of our faith in our lives. This is what makes our faith become alive and bear witness to others.

Look at the evidence in Hebrews. So many are listed who had faith: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah to name a few (Hebrews 11:3-11). How do we know that they had faith? They offered, they walked, they built, they followed, and they bore (a child). Faith is described by pointing to the faithful actions of those who believed.

This is why United Methodist pastors move. We believe that God works in and through our connection. We have faith that the same God who called us into ministry will lead us and move us according to the right timing. Every United Methodist elder promises, before the conference and before God, that we will go wherever we are sent. Those words may spill easy from our lips as we recite the vows of ordination, but those words carry great meaning.

Why do we move? We move because we say that we trust God. We believe in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us. We say that we will take up the cross of Christ and follow him. Our words of faith are empty if they are not joined by actions which seek to live out that faith in all that we do.

We move because we have faith. We move so that we may continuously grow in our striving to be like Christ who said, “not my will, but thine be done.” We move so that others may see that the words that we say are not merely words, but they make a difference in our lives.

So, please pray for us during these days. Yes, there will be sadness as our time at Grace draws to a close. God has been faithful and has been present in powerful ways through our years here. We also look forward with anticipation and with joy, knowing that God who brought us to this time and place in our ministry will be faithful and has already prepared another place for us to serve.

We know this without question, for “faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.”

Grace and Peace,

A Change for the Better

Be glad in the Lord always! Again I say, be glad! Let your gentleness show in your treatment of all people. The Lord is near. Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. From now on, brothers and sisters, if anything is excellent and if anything is admirable, focus your thoughts on these things: all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise. Practice these things: whatever you learned, received, heard, or saw in us. The God of peace will be with you.   

--Philippians 4:4-9

 In my previous blog, I wrote about challenging assumptions that drag us down and keep us from achieving the kind of future that God envisions for us.  We need to go one step further.  We do not need to just challenge and put aside our false assumptions, we need to embrace something different.’’

Paul describes a life to the church at Philippi that focuses on the true, holy, just, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise. He encourages the church to rejoice and to be glad even in the face of hardship and persecution.

Why should we be so concerned about feelings?  Does it matter how we feel as long as we are faithful? Actually, it matters a great deal.  How we feel directly impacts the decisions we make and our ability to think creatively.  Robert Quinn, in his Deep Change Field Guide cited Barbara Fredrickson’s research into the impact of positive emotions on openness and learning.  She described something called a “positivity ratio” which is the frequency of positive feelings divided by the frequency of negative feelings for a specific period of time.(DCFG 132)

“Fredrickson found that there is a tipping point around with the effects of the positivity ratio change dramatically.  When we experience fewer than three positive feelings for each negative feeling, we tend to spiral downward and become increasingly rigid…Above the ratio of three to one, we are pulled upward…[becoming] increasingly open and creative.” DCFG 132

For those of us who are naturally cynical, this can be quite a challenge.  What can we do?  I know people who keep folders of positive notes and cards they receive to read when they need a lift.  Others take time to journal a specific number of things each day in which they have been blessed.  Imagine if, as part of a mealtime routine, we shared the blessings we anticipate for the day or the blessings we received!  Small steps help us to see that God is at work and that God is Good (All the time!).  It reminds me of an old hymn that I miss being in the United Methodist Hymnal called Count Your Blessings:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,

And you will keep singing as the days go by.

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,

Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Refrain:

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

--Public Domain

Let’s open our eyes and see the ways in which God is at work today.  How God is using all things, every thing, for good.  Then let us rejoice that we are constantly surrounded by God’s…

Grace and Peace,

Stinking Thinking

¹¹ Then the Lord’s messenger came and sat under the oak at Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. ¹² The Lord’s messenger appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!”

¹³ But Gideon replied to him, “With all due respect, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his amazing works that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Didn’t the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and allowed Midian to overpower us.”

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to him and said, “You have strength, so go and rescue Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not personally sending you?”

¹⁵ But again Gideon said to him, “With all due respect, my Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I’m the youngest in my household.”

---Judges 6:11-15

Many of us get to the place where we are tired of things the way they are, but we don’t have any other options. Someone asks us why we are doing what we are doing and we tell them, “I don’t have any choice,” or “I have to do it!”  If so, then we have become victims of an assailant that attacks millions of people every day.  It is the same person who conquered Gideon in the scripture above.

Gideon knew the truth in the world; he had seen it every day in his life.  A foreign nation had power over Israel.  They were taking their food and resources.  Obviously, God must have abandoned them.  ‘Not having any other choice’ Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress. Why? Who would think to look for grain where you would process grapes?  He was hiding from those who had taken over.  Gideon had found a way to deal with the new normal in Israel; it was just the way things were.

 

The messenger of God spoke to him and tried to explain that God was actually getting ready to set the people free and that Gideon would lead them.  He looked around, saw the reality of his world, and stated firmly “with all due respect,” that isn’t true. He was so certain of God’s abandonment that it was an indisputable fact.  The messenger responds that God is actually going to use Gideon.  Again, he just doesn’t see how that could be possible.  Most of Gideon’s story as judge is a demonstration of just how much our thinking can impact our ability to see the ways in which God is choosing to work in the world.

In The Deep Change Field Guide, Robert Quinn says it this way, “When we accept the world as it is, we deny our innate ability to see something better, and hence our ability to be something better.” Our perception helps to form the reality in the world around us as we use our assumptions to interact with others. 

But there is always the possibility to see something better.  Even in the worst of times, there is hope. The Apostle Paul saw it when he wrote to the church in Rome and said,

“But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Our thinking is powerful.  God does not want our thoughts stuck in the same ruts in which the rest of the world spins.  Instead God challenges “don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.” (Romans 12:2)

Let’s let go of our bad assumptions, give up our stinking thinking, and allow God to do a new thing in our families, in our churches, and in our communities!

Grace and Peace,

No Longer Normal

The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. 43 A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. 44 All the believers were united and shared everything. 45 They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. 46 Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. 47 They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.   

--Acts 2:42-47

I have often asked myself how it is that a community had gotten to the place where they could share their resources so completely. How could they be so mutually focused?  I realized that the ‘secret’ is found in verse 42 and unpacked in Robert Quinn’s Deep Change Field Guide. 

We are used to normal.  That is the reason we call it ‘normal.’  Normal leadership tends to be driven by reacting and problem solving, by listening to others’ perceptions, by putting self interest first, and by staying in our comfort zone (DCFG 101).  We have experienced problems in the past and we assume that the good choices we once made will see us through the future.  Unfortunately, some might say, things are constantly changing.  The whole universe seems to know that we are all part of the dance to an almost inaudible song played by our Creator heard briefly in moments of Incarnation.  Whether we hear the notes or not, the rhythm pulses through every moment of every day giving life, and creation cannot help but sway.

With everything moving and changing, what was excellent yesterday has become ‘normal’ today. We replay past successes not realizing that we are now out of step with the tempo.  When things are different, we find ourselves reacting to life.  We feel that something is out of sync, so we look to the approval of others so that we know we are okay.  We even qualify the Good News by saying ,”and if we don’t first love ourselves, then how can we love others?” Our defense mechanisms shut out signals calling for change as we lie to ourselves saying things like, “I just didn’t have a choice.”

Christ didn’t come to give us life that we might be okay.  Christ gave us life that we might have abundance and joy. He gave this good news to be shared through the disciples who had lived with him for 3 years. They knew firsthand what his leadership was like. And “the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers.” The believers were not worried about comfort, they were centered in the resurrection of Christ that gave meaning and purpose to their lives. In the apostles’ teaching, they would know about Jesus’ call to “love one another as I have loved you” being willing to lay down their lives for another. By being so focused on others, they could nurture trust and put the common good and welfare of others first (DCFG 103).  They had formed a creatively adaptive system which could adjust to our constantly changing world.

When we are no longer normal, can put vision and purpose before self, we find that the extraordinary is possible.  Starting with the apostles, the change would have moved throughout the early Christians as their normal lives were transformed into something so abundant that their lives overflowed to others.

May we be so transformed that the world will look at us and be amazed at the power of God’s grace that moves among us.

Grace and Peace,

Seeking Approval

While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person.  But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

--Romans 5:6-8

Why is it that we constantly are seeking approval from others?  Why do we change the way that we act because of others’ opinions?

The truth is that we want to be liked and loved and work to make others like and love us.  We have assumptions about the type of person we should be in order to fit in.  This spills over into our work, into our families, into our friendship, and even into our relationship with God.  We have a certain set of assumptions about what is appropriate and the way in which things should be done.  We know what clothes to wear, we understand the order for getting things done, and we realize that people have been doing things this way for years.

What if we were driven by something else?  What if we accepted the fact that we are loved and liked as we are.  Christ did not wait until we had completed a specific list of chores before dying for us.  God did not wait until all people were listening to send Jesus.  The Holy Spirit does not wait until we are perfect to work in our lives.  God moves and works in us where we are.  All that we must do is find a way to capture God’s vision and let it guide us.

It seems too simple, but it’s true.  Once we have captured God’s vision and understand God’s call, we can begin to work in ways that are fulfilling and powerful.  We were not created to respond to crisis after crisis.  We are not made to check off multiple items from a check list. We weren’t even created to work hard enough and accomplish enough so that we get a pat on the back when this life is through.  We are called to join Jesus in being a servant to others.  To help them embrace their God-given call in life to serve others in the name of Christ.  We are to draw others into active participation and build bridges based on trust.  We are to value and stay connected with the community.  In his “Deep Change Field Guide,” Robert Quinn calls this “the script of collective fulfillment.”  (DCFG 79).  Only 18% of leaders choose to lead in this way.  And yet it leads to high satisfaction and adaptability. 

Reading through his materials made me realize that he has discovered the Jesus model for discipleship.  We are empowered by a vision beyond ourselves and gain satisfaction that does not rely on other people.  Instead we rest secure in our relationship with Jesus Christ and experience joy in inviting others to do the same.  Everything else flows from this.  Nothing else really matters.  May we begin to see ourselves as God does and shed any assumptions that do not ring true in Scripture and in

Grace and Peace,