How to Save a Life

Last night I was at a home improvement big box store when a song came over the PA. I immediately recognized it as a song I had first heard on my favorite TV series of all time, Scrubs. The song was “How to Save a Life” by the Fray. I’ll talk about Scrubs more in a minute.

This morning I was surfing the interwebs trying to find more information about this song and band and discovered some interesting things. First, the song (according to wikipedia) was written from the lead singer’s perspective and experience as a camp counselor for troubled teens. There was a particular teen that seemed unreachable, and he was struggling (without a manual) on how to save a life. This resonates deeply with me as a camp director.

Another interesting thing that I learned was that even though the song was intentionally written from a particular perspective, addressing a particular issue, (in a specific time and place)  it was written in such a way that it had broad resonance across a spectrum of issues and situations (as many works of art do). The band recognized this, and opened it up to interpretation, inviting others to upload self-made videos of the song. How cool is that?

Now back to Scrubs. The aforementioned episode (and the following one) also resonated deeply with me, incredibly so. In the first episode, “My Lunch” three patients die from rabies infected organs they received from transplants. All three transplants came from Jill, (the “annoying patient”) who has died from what J.D. mistakenly thinks is a drug overdose, and he’s beating himself up for not paying attention to the warning signs because of his annoyance with her. Dr. Cox (J.D.’s abrasive mentor) kicks him out of his funk by chastising him: “The second you start blaming yourself for people’s deaths, there’s no coming back.”

Only later in the episode do we learn that Jill actually died from rabies, as a second transplant patient develops issues and dies. Dr. Cox realizes that by rushing the transplant decisions, he has made a grave error. It is then that Dr. Cox gets the call that the third transplant patient, his friend, is in trouble. After unsuccessfully trying to save his friend, he loses it. J.D., in an effort to return the favor offers Dr. Cox his own advice: “The second you start blaming yourself for people’s deaths, there’s no coming back.” The always gruff and tough-exteriored Dr. Cox, with tears in his eyes simply says, “Ya, you’re right.” and walks out of the hospital.

The following episode, “My fallen idol,” picks up with Dr. Cox being so consumed by his grief that he goes on a bender. Elliot, Turk, Carla, Jordan, Dr. Kelso, even the Todd with Ted and his band all take turns standing 24-hour vigil with the now perpetually inebriated (and assumably suicidal) Dr. Cox. It is only through this constant companionship that Dr. Cox is able to emerge from his long, dark night of the soul.

Both of these images, the camp counselor seeking to break through to a troubled teen, and the community of friends surrounding a loved-one with sheer compassion and simple presence are emotionally powerful, but then I watched the music video and found myself in tears.

As I watched this video, and the many images of teens who are hurting, it was a stark reminder to me that we are living in a world full of hurting hearts. Teens, Twenties, Thirties, Eighties. Everywhere we turn, people are carrying thinly veiled grief and pain, and when it becomes so unbearable, meltdowns  happen, and if left alone with our hurt, terrible, even unspeakable things can happen.

But when surrounded with community, when we pour our love upon one another, healing can begin. Even in the deepest, darkest grief, the blessing of community can bring about wholeness.  And the writers of the music video above get that. Watch the video again, and watch the expressions shift and change at the end.

Pain and difficulty are very real part of this life. But so is the good news of life, love, and community, if we are willing to risk ourselves, if we are willing to carry another’s burdens and feel another’s heartache. It is the paradox of life. In our willingness to be broken for another, with another, we ourselves can be made whole.

Try and Believe

This morning my six year old son approaches me and says, “Dad, can you pull these apart?” and proceeds to hand me two of the smallest Lego(TM) pieces you can imagine. Now mind you, I’m no Lego(TM) novice. I remember well the days of my parents hopping around on one foot, hollering at me to pick up my Lego-landmines. I have to admit, when my son gave me the two pieces, I wasn’t all that hopeful I was going to get them apart without the aid of a pair of pliers and vice-grips.

My first inclination, of course, was to stick the toy in my mouth and use my teeth to pull them apart (a move that any little legoexpert knows well, as evidenced by tiny toothmarks on any well-used set of Danish plastic). I didn’t really want my son trying this “advanced” skill, so I stopped myself, none-to-soon, with my hand raised half way to my mouth.

I fiddled with the pieces using my thumbnails for a few seconds and proferred the plastic pieces to my son saying, “I don’t think I can get it.” He looks up from his newest creation and says, “It’s okay dad, just try.” And here he paused for about three seconds, and adds, “And believe. That’s the secret you know, try and believe you can do it. You have to do both together. Try and Believe.”

I sat there dumbstruck. How the heck am I supposed to get out of wrestling with these infernally small pieces that appear to have been epoxied together when the preacher’s kid is telling his dad: “It’s ok, just try and believe you can do it.” I must have sat there staring at him with a, “You’ve got to be kidding me…” kind of look, because he flashed me his most sincere smile and said very pastorally, “You can do it.”

Out of the mouths of babes. In my current appointment, I’m not serving a local church, but rather as a camp director. As we plan new programs, some succeeding, some failing, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that it’s not just about TRYING new things, it’s not just about experimenting, but it’s also about believing that God will do something through those efforts. Things might not turn out the way we hope when we first start trying, but we have to remember that God is still doing SOMETHING through our work. We must believe that if we seek to bless God in our grace-filled trying, that God can and will work some good from those efforts.

Try and believe. Where in your life are you struggling with this? How can you make a change?

Try and believe. Today I’m thankful for a new year’s perspective and the wisdom of a six-year old.

PS Oh yes, and for the record, I got the tiny pieces apart. Thanks for believing in me James.

Hunger: What can I do?

This past Sunday I preached about our tendency as Americans to over-indulge, while others in this world (globally and locally) struggle with the essentials: clean water, adequate shelter, nutritious food. I encouraged the congregation to consider celebrating Christmas a little differently this year by giving presents that have a Kingdom impact, like fair-trade gifts, or financial gifts to church organizations that are in the midst of the justice work of feeding the hungry.

I’m also in the middle of reading a book from my district superintendent entitled Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism by Martha Grace Reese. She tells the story of a new church member, a construction worker, who goes on a mission trip to El Salvador and is moved by the fact that the local people do not have access to clean drinking water. He comes home, contacts another friend in the construction business who had developed a drinking water purifier. The two of them together “improved it to the point that the system operated with regular table salt, a car battery, and a hand crank.” They raised the money, and now villages in El Salvador have clean drinking water!

This got me to thinking, how am I helping? How am I, beyond my missional apportionment gifts, beyond my support of a few ministries to Haiti, how am I helping to feed the hungry and bring clean water to those who need it?

And then in my aggregator (google reader) yesterday the UMC published perhaps the most clear article on how to engage hunger that I’ve ever read:

12 ways you can fight hunger

While none of the ways listed were new to me, I had forgotten how easy it really can be to help alleviate hunger in our own backyard and halfway around the world. There are things in here we can do with our four and six year old sons, so that we can teach them the values of Jesus by feeding the hungry.

Kate has been suggesting that this summer at Wesley Acres we should have a hands on mission project that all of our campers can be a part of. After months of thinking and praying on it, Lo and Behold, we discover Camp Glisson, another UM camp and retreat facility in North Georgia did this very thing in the summer of 2011 packaging over 100,000 meals that were then distributed in Uganda and Liberia. You can read more about it on page five of their newsletter HERE.

Friends, WE CAN make a difference. How will you help shine the light of Christ during this dark time of year? In the comments below share how you and your family will enjoy the goodness of the holidays AND help others realize the goodness of God’s creation as we share with our sisters and brothers.

Look Out!

A sermon for the first Sunday of Advent

Preached at St Pauls UMC in Jamestown, North Dakota

Mark 13:24-37

One of my favorite activities at Wesley Acres is our high ropes course. I don’t get to climb much, because often I’m the facilitator, the one of the ground, holding the other end of the rope so others can experience the AWESOMENESS of being thirty feet in the air, totally dependent upon the grace of a life-line, and viewing some spectacular scenery. (photo by Jason Currie-Olson)

But there’s one expression on the high ropes course that I don’t like to hear, and that phrase is: “Look out!” Now, when you hear those two words, “Look-out!” What’s the first thing you think? Ya, Uh-oh, something’s falling. So what do we do? (look up, move out of the way, react). Right, when we are looking-out, we react. Our senses are all heightened, and we respond to what is happening around us. Look out!

That’s what Jesus is saying in the Gospel passage today – Look out! Watch! Pay Attention. I like the way the New Revised Standard Version renders it – Stay Awake!

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Adventus is Latin and it means “coming,” so Advent is the season we remember and celebrate the coming of Jesus. We remember that God, who so loved the world, came as a child, a helpless infant, to live as we do. To experience our temptations and desires, and eventually to die our death. It is a time of preparation as we prepare to receive the Christ-child. But it is also a season of practice. (Practice makes perfect in love). We practice what it means to be living in the world today, trusting in the hope of Jesus’ promised return. Advent is a time when we remember that we are still waiting for Christ’s coming, his second coming.

And throughout the ages, people have tried to predict when that time would be. Most recently we have heard from Harold Camping, of Family Radio fame, that the end of the world would be on May 21, 2011, and when this did not come to pass, he admitted he must have made a calculation error and that it would in fact be on October 21. But a little over a month ago, this day came and went with little sign of Jesus’ second coming. You see, throughout the last two-thousand years, there have been those who have claimed that the end is near, and that the wars and natural disasters around us are sure signs that Jesus must be at the gate. But this is a mischaracterization about when Jesus returns. God’s intent is not to destroy creation, but to redeem it, to re-create it.

I think that’s what Jesus was getting at with his fig tree illustration here. Who remembers what happened the last time the fig tree made an appearance in Jesus’ teachings? That’s right! When it didn’t produce fruit, and Jesus cursed it, and it withered and died. THIS time, however, Jesus talks about new shoots and leaves appearing as a sign of summer, and likening it to when Jesus returns. He’s not talking about destruction, he’s talking about a return to the fullness of life! Jn 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so that whoever believes, might not perish, but have everlasting life. Indeed, God did not send the son to condemn the earth, but to save it.

The Scripture is clear, “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Jesus himself said, he did not know when the Advent would be. And so we cannot pretend to know, nor can we afford to let ourselves get wrapped around the axle focusing on such stuff. You see, we get so stuck in wanting to KNOW for sure. But having concretely defined parameters flies in the face of hope. Paul writes in his letter to the church at Rome: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes 

for what is seen? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Ay, now there’s the rub, isn’t it? We aren’t very patient people.

We can’t even wait for Black Friday anymore to go out and make all those purchases of stuff for people who already have more stuff than they know what to do with. Stores opened on Thursday evening this year, trying to entice people to spend more money on more people who already have more than they need, all while brothers and sisters in Africa, in Haiti, in our own backyard of Spirit Lake, struggle with issues of poverty. Basic needs of clean water, nutritious food, adequate shelter, go unmet, while we continue to coddle ourselves with our overspending on those who already have too much.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a tech head. I love gadgets and gizmos. I have a Macbook. I have an iPod. I want a handheld GPS (to replace the one I lost years ago) and a laser range finder for my archery hobby. And if I let myself think about it too long, eventually I can convince myself I really need these things. But then I remember that iPod.

When I was in seminary, finances were tight. I was serving a three point charge. Two kids, one income, and tuition to boot. I had really wanted an iPod, but couldn’t justify the expense. A childhood friend of mine posted on Facebook that he had upgraded to an iPhone and wanted to sell his first generation iPod for $100. I jumped on it. I was so excited to have this new tool. I could use it for listening to my music collection. I would download a couple Bible apps so that I could have Scripture with me anywhere I went. I would have a pocket wifi device to watch movies on. And for the first few weeks I played with that thing incessantly. I don’t know when it happened, but it was only a few months after purchasing this gizmo I just NEEDED, that I realized I didn’t know where it was. I hadn’t used it in weeks, nor had I even thought of it. This electronic device that I just couldn’t live without, was MIA, and I hadn’t even noticed.

That’s how insidious this material-driven consumerism is. In this day and age, we are bombarded by more advertising than ever before. Buy this car and you’ll have sex appeal with all the ladies. Buy this blanket/bathrobe thingy and you’ll never be uncomfortable again. Buy this new and improved smart phone to help you schedule and get back all that time you’ve lost on Facebook…

This consumerism lulls us into a complacency, of being completely unaware of what is going on around us. The more we focus on buying stuff to fill our hearts, the emptier our lives become. To paraphrase David Weber, “This past Thursday we stopped for a short period of time to give thanks, and then we rose, early Friday morning, and left the house praying, “but it’s not enough…”

Friends, “Look out!” We are being lulled to sleep by our incessant drive to buy STUFF.

Advent is a reminder that the Good News of Jesus Christ is the Kingdom has come, on earth like it is in heaven. The Kingdom of God arrived with the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion, and Resurrection of a Savior. The Good News is that God knew that despite our best efforts, we could never accomplish the feat of defeating sin on our own, and so God came, and took on flesh, embraced our material nature, fully human and fully divine, so that we might have life, abudant life. The Kingdom is here, and now, but not yet in its fullness. The Kingdom is not in some heaven light years away. It is here, but it is not yet complete, as marked by the starvation and strife still in our midst.

But therein lies the answer to our Advent struggle. If we are to stay awake, if we are to “Look out!” then we are to be living like we are in and of the Kingdom. If we are to have a heightened awareness of what is going on around us, then we will be seeing those places of darkness in which we, by the grace of God, can shine a little bit of light. Advent, and subsequently Christmas are a time to celebrate God’s unending love for all the earth, a time to celebrate the Kingdom come, and a time when we can partner with God, by all that we say and do, pointing to a more hope-filled reality of God’s overwhelming love for all people.

I admit, I am too easily seduced by my guilt and quest for justice to bang the anti-consumerism drum. I’ve even been tempted to forgo the Christmas celebration altogether, but Advent, the season of “coming” reminds me that we are not called to point, as Judas did, to all the better ways the money could have been used rather than being “wasted” on extravagant generosity and celebration. We are called to point to Christ, and with him, the Hope, the Peace, the Joy, and the Love that he brings for all the world.

I ask you to consider an alternative way of celebrating that hope this year. Rather than buying stuff, like iPods, for people who will soon discard and forget them, consider giving gifts that point to the reality of the Kingdom here and now. Purchase fair-trade items like coffee or chocolate, where the third-world farmers get paid a living wage to support their families, rather than the slave wages that the major coffee and chocolate producers pay.

Consider giving a gift to a church organization that is building water wells in Africa, or feeding starving children in Haiti, or empowering job creation on the reservation.

Perhaps you have a loved one who has been transformed through the camping program at Storm Mountain, or Lake Poinsett, or Wesley Acres. You could give a gift in their name to make sure those ministries continue for generations to come, impacting more lives, making more disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

My friends, this season of Advent, let us remember that our hope is not in some material possessions that we store up in barns, that rot and rust, but our hope is in that which we wait for, that which is unseen. Let our hope be reflected in our living. Let us not be lulled to sleep by consumerism, but let us stay awake, as we point others to the coming of Jesus, this day, and all the days of our lives. Amen.

Prime Directive

I’m kind of a sci-fi nerd. Love me some Star Trek: The Next Generation (or TNG as it is affectionately known as) and Jean Luc Picard and even the all-too-Shatner-like Number One. If you are not familiar with the series, the silky voice-over by Patrick Stewart at the beginning of every episode tells the story:

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

And as surely can be imagined, the crew of the Starship Enterprise encounters all kinds of creatures and races. But through all the encounters, there is one overriding rule, one directive that supersedes all other directives, the Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive prevents Starfleet officers from interrupting the normal technological development of a race, especially a pre-warp technology race. And so, while always seeking to live out their mission, “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before,” the crew is always bound by the limits of the Prime Directive, don’t give a society a technology they aren’t ready for developmentally. The Prime Directive is intended to protect PEOPLE.

I’m a clergyperson in the United Methodist Church, and we too have a mission: “To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” (paragraph 120 of the Book of Discipline). But what is our Prime Directive? What is it that places bounds and limits upon our mission?

The Starship Enterprise endeavors to EXPLORE, to SEEK OUT, and TO GO, UNLESS it violates the Prime Directive. The UMC endeavors to DISCIPLE, and to TRANSFORM UNLESS…  _______________.

Fill in the blank.

If I were to fill in the blank, it appears to me that the Prime Directive of the UMC today is: “as long as it supports the institution.” We as a church seek to make disciples of Jesus Christ, so that the world might be transformed through the love of Christ, UNLESS it undermines the behemoth institution that is the UMC.

These are the thoughts I have as I begin to read: Generation Rising: A Future with hope for the United Methodist Church. In the first chapter, editor and co-author Andrew Thompson makes the case that this is one of the reasons that people of my generation, Generation X, feel so disconnected with the church today. He writes, “What people in the early twenty-first century are against is institutionalism. They want to see evidence that an instituion exists for a larger purpose. And they certainly don’t want to spend their time, energy, and resources supporting an institution whose mission is its own maintenance.”

That’s what a Prime Directive can do. It can supersede a mission, and if we are not watchful, it can REPLACE the mission. Notice that the Prime Directive in the fictional tale of TNG is in force to protect people, and not the institution that is Star Fleet. Ours is reversed. We protect the institution and our mission lies largely dormant, and this is one of the primary reasons we have failed to reach the Next Generation.

So it’s your turn to fill in the blank. What should the Prime Directive of the UMC be? We can’t just “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” without some caveat, otherwise we end up with the racist colonialism of 19th century mission work. Share your thoughts in the comment section below on what SHOULD be the Prime Directive that goes along with our mission statement.

(BTW, Andrew Thompson and the other eleven authors share some great thoughts that I think can be used as an answer to this question. Get your copy HERE.)

Generation Rising

There’s a new book just released that I want to recommend to you. It’s entitled “Generation Rising: A future with hope for the United Methodist Church.”

It is a book written by 12 Generation-X United Methodists, many whom I have read or interacted with via blogs, facebook, 7 villages, even one of them in my own home. It is edited by Andrew Thompson, who blogs at Gen-X Rising. Check him out.

It is my hope that this book will help give fresh theological insights into what it means to BE the church. If ever you’ve had a difficult time understanding those of us who are Gen-Xers, I want to encourage you to read this book.

For a limited time, it is being offered free as an electronic download through the Amazon Kindle store. You can access it by clicking HERE.

You don’t need to own a Kindle to get the free book. Amazon has a free app for Macs or PCs to read Kindle books right on your computer. Click on the link above and you’ll see links for these apps in the lower right hand corner of the Amazon window in your browser.

I plan on blogging my way through the book with points I find interesting and pertinent. I’d love to hear what you have to say too, so feel free to chime in on the conversation.  Happy reading!  ~ajb

Guaranteed Appointment

There has been a lot of talk about doing away with the guaranteed appointment of clergy within the UMC. First, let me start with saying that “guaranteed appointment” is language that is not found in the Discipline, so it’s a misnomer from the get-go. The proposed language change as I understand it would be to shift from “shall be appointed” to “may be appointed” without further caveat. The rationale behind such a change is an effort to deal with “ineffective” clergy. The actual language in the Discipline reads: ¶ 334 “Every effective elder in full connection who is in good standing shall be continued under appointment by the bishop .”

So, if we are looking to create new legislation in order to deal with ineffective clergy, one needs to only look a few lines further down the page, in the same paragraph, for the prescribed method of dealing with ineffective clergy:

3. When an elder’s effectiveness is in question, the bishop shall complete the following procedure:
a) Identify the concerns. These can include an elder’s failed professional responsibilities, vocational ineffectiveness, or refusal of episcopal appointment.
b) Hold supervisory conversations with the elder that identifies the concerns, and designs collaboratively with the elder, a corrective plan of action.      
c) Upon evaluation, determine that the plan of action has not been carried out or produced fruit that gives a realistic expectation of future effectiveness.

4. If an elder fails to meet professional responsibilities (¶ 340), does not demonstrate vocational competence or effectiveness as defined by the annual conference through the Board of Ordained Ministry and cabinet, and/or does not accept the appointment determined by the bishop, then an appointment may be forfeited and the provisions of ¶ 361may be invoked. 

(361 is the paragraph about withdrawal from the order of elders in the UMC)

Before entering full-time ministry, I worked for a large state University, and before that I worked in the retail and supermarket industries. In all of these, if employees were ineffective, a very similar plan to that above, was in place to help employees to become more effective or to seek other work where they may be more gifted or passionate. When I first read this provision in the Discipline, I was overjoyed that the Church actually was following some sound business practices that are not consumerist in nature, but relational. Such policies require intentional documentation and follow-up. They are real work, but they are worth it. I’ve seen “ineffective” employees, when given a proper course of action for change and growth, along with the support system to sustain such change and growth, make miraculous strides in their effectiveness.  Granted, this might mean more work for our bishops and boards of ordained ministry, but isn’t that their role in the connexion?  My fear is that bishops and boards, in general, have abdicated this responsibility and so perhaps we DO have a higher percentage of ineffective clergy, but does changing the language from “shall” to “may” get at the heart of the change that is necessary to build relationships (connexion) and support growth and change in our pastors?

By giving bishops the authority to decide that an elder may not get an appointment, without the due process outlined above, we have created a very unbalanced pairing of authority and responsibility. The Rev. Doug Anderson, who provides our provisional elder training in the Dakotas, hammers on the need to match authority with responsibility. Responsibility without authority will burn people out and make them apathetic. Authority without responsibility will turn even the most altruistic angel into a dictator. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. For all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) Depravity is a very real part of our human condition, bishops not excluded.

Now I’ve been extremely blessed to serve as a lay person and clergyperson under two very sensible and gracious bishops. If all bishops were like these two, perhaps I would not fear so much; however, I have seen the very real power of the unchecked episcopacy at work in other parts of our connexion, and as a result I have witnessed very able-bodied and gifted pastors (one is a dear friend and mentor) forced from ministry without due process.

Now, I also disagree with the notion of the language change because of our covenant of itineracy. I have covenanted to be sent, but that covenant hinges on the knowledge that I WILL BE SENT. I believe that the bishop and cabinet (appointive authority) have the best bird’s-eye view of the gifts, graces, and the growing edges of all the pastors and congregations within the annual conference and are in the best position to match pastors and charges. I am willing to forfeit some control in my location and future, and my FAMILY has agreed to be subject to appointment, but if there is no “guarantee” that we will be sent somewhere, why should we agree to such an arrangement? If we may or may not be sent, the covenant has changed into a contract.

With such a change, what would prevent many of our gifted and talented clergy from leaving and moving to a different polity, with similar doctrinal convictions, that allows them to have more of a say in where they serve? If there is not a guarantee to be sent, then the call system becomes a much more attractive option.

So what are your thoughts? I happen to know that there are a lot of UMC pastors, a number of District Superintendents and at least two different bishops who read this blog. What are your thoughts about the proposed changes? What are your thoughts about what I’ve outlined above? I ask that you please comment here on the blog and not on Facebook so as to concentrate the discussion in one place where all the voices can be heard and considered. I look forward to this electronic Holy Conferencing.

All grace and Peace,

ajb

Save yourselves!

This oft used phrase in stories and movies depicting catastrophic circumstances keeps coming to mind when I read about my denomination’s efforts to curb the decline of membership seen in the past four decades. I would go even further and say that we have been in decline for a much longer period of time than that, but when denominations merge, we get falsely inflated numbers by simply combining two or more groups of people rather than seeing actual increases, but I digress…

I was not able to watch the recent webcast of the Leadership Summit of denominational leaders, so I asked some friends to give me updates via Facebook as they watched it, and I’ve been reading just about every article I see about it, including THIS ONE.

What my viewing friends noted most is clearly what interested this UM Reporter staff writer. “What is God’s vision for the UMC in the U.S.?” One friend said that the looks on the faces of the panelists was priceless, as though someone asked them the question in French. The answer eventually came in the form of what could have been a pre-recorded sound bite of the denominational jargon from paragraph 120 of the Discipline. Now don’t get me wrong. I use this phrase ALL the time when out visiting churches and preaching. Our mission IS to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, but the fact that our leaders had to sit and seriously think about it before coming up with that answer betrays the fact that so many of us give this mission lip service rather than the service of our hands and hearts.

So often we spend all this energy on trying to figure out how to save ourselves, how to turn around congregations (Turnaround Bootcamp, NCD, 5 Practices, etc), how to reinvigorate annual conference and general church programs and agencies. We look to consumerist business models of marketing rather than the messy, dirty, hard work of building authentic relationships with the people we are in community with, our neighbors.

What could the United Methodist Church look like if we quit trying to save ourselves, but rather gave ourselves up for the sake of others? What would it look like in our communities if we quit worrying about how many people are on the rolls and started worrying about how many lonely and broken-hearted folks there are within walking distance of our own homes? What would it mean for us to stop the panic about our denomination dying and and begin rejoicing at the notion of what new life God is hoping to resurrect in our very midst?

If we give ourselves up, if we start living our mission, the mission that Jesus gave us, to GO into the world making disciples, I have no doubt we will see the kingdom transformation that ensues. If we keep trying to save ourselves, well, I think we all know where that will lead us…

All grace and peace,

ajb

Shifting Gears

So it turns out I’m not alone. My friend Ben, from Group Workcamp days, is also undergoing a paradigm shift in his blogging. You can check out his stuff HERE.

So I’m going to change gears. I’ve received a lot of suggestions both in public Facebook comments and in private messages for the direction my writing should take (thank you all!), but in the end I decided that the stuff I need to be working through these days is not theological. Don’t get me wrong. I know we are called to wrestle with what we believe doctrinally all of our lives, but it’s not doctrine that has me down these days, it’s polity and ecclesiology – that is, how we structure ourselves to be the Body of Christ and how (and WHY) we do what we do as the church.

So, in the coming days you’ll get less doctrinal talk out of me, and more practical – which I realize may cause more arguments, but lately it’s where my heart is. I really do believe that Jesus is a whole lot less concerned with our orthodoxy (correct beliefs) and a whole lot  MORE concerned with our orthopraxy (right living). The former is not indispensable, but is meaningless (and downright harmful) without the latter. Read the second chapter of James to see what I’m getting at here.

All grace and peace,

ajb

Absence

I have not been writing here lately. I think about adding to this blog everyday, but I can’t make myself sit down and write.

And so I’ve been wondering why. Why can’t I bring myself to muse theologically these days?

And the answer I came up with just yesterday seems so obvious, I can’t believe I missed it.

I’m sick of the rancor.

I’m tired of the vitriole.

This space once helped me to think through what I believe. There is a lot of stuff that I have written once upon a time that I don’t necessarily believe anymore. There’s plenty more that I’ve written that I do believe, more than ever.

But after watching the debacle unfold over Rob Bell’s new book, I became heartsick over the state of the church, and how quick we are to cannibalize one another over any slightest difference of perspective of theology.

And quite frankly, it reminded me of the anger and pain and downright nastiness that I received after delivering a sermon (about a year ago now) on a contraversial, but relevant subject: what happens to us after we die?

So I have to say, I’m tired of it. I don’t want to fuel the fire of doctrinal debates, and so I’ve been reluctant  to post any of my thoughts for fear of opening the flood gates of argument, which serves nothing other than our own egos as we seek to be “right.” Whenever we want to be right more than we desire to love and serve others as ourselves, we fail to follow Jesus.

So what will I use this space for? I don’t know, but if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears. And if you want to muse theologically with me, there are two conditions: 1) We do it in person (preferably over a beer.) 2) We agree that it’s okay if we don’t agree, that Jesus still loves this world he created – including you and me and all humanity.

Seeking grace and peace,

ajb