As the Associate Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Hutchinson, KS, I write a weekly article for the newsletter article. I invite both members of the church and other visitors to my blog to share their thoughts!

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Are there any Christians in your life you disagree with?  In my experience, Christians who think differently from one another have a tendency either to avoid one another or to try to “convert” one another.

But doesn’t Christ call us to love one another?

The United Methodist Church is a truly interesting group of people.  There are conservative evangelicals and far-left liberals who all call themselves “United Methodists.”  (Did you know that George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton are both United Methodists?)  We don’t always get along like we should, but at the end of the day we all love God and claim the amazing act of Christ’s death and resurrection for our faith.

I think we all find ourselves around a Christian we disagree with from time to time– maybe a family member or a coworker or other friend.  What do you do in a case like that?  Do you avoid the topic of religion?  Do you assume a superior attitude?  Or do you simply love them?

This topic is nothing new…  Christians have thought differently from one another since the beginning of religion itself.  But that doesn’t change God’s love– I don’t believe God cares nearly as much about the details of our belief as he does about how much we love God and neighbor.

This Sunday I am going to preach my own version of one of John Wesley’s (our denomination’s founder) most famous sermons on this very topic.  If you’d like to check out Wesley’s version ahead of time, you’ll find a web link on my blog, http://ministrygeek.net.  Your thoughts and questions are always welcome.

Here is the link to Wesley’s “Catholic Spirit” (remeber that he’s using the word “catholic” to mean “universal,” not to refer to the Roman Catholic Church.)

I have been reading many bogs in the past week about General Conference, the national body of the United Methodist Church that meets every four years– big stuff.  Blogs are a fantastic way to get news from afar.  Many are less than objective, of course, but you get a rich kind of overall picture that traditional journalism simply can’t grasp.  There was one post I read today from a member of our own dlegation, Mark Conard.  Check it out; I’m seriously honored to be serving literally just down the road from him in Hutchinson.

http://www.7villages.com/post.asp?p=42977&i=1353

As the Associate Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Hutchinson, KS, I write a weekly article for the newsletter article. I invite both members of the church and other visitors to my blog to share their thoughts!

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Pat has talked about the upcoming international gathering of United Methodists known as General Conference.  It happens only every four years, and it is where we as a denomination set our course, determine our priorities, and take care of our business.  Of the eight delegates from the western two thirds of Kansas, two are from our church, Pat Ault-Duell and Kim Moore.  By the time you read this, they will be in Forth Worth, TX engaged in this important work.

Many people have attended United Methodists churches for some time, yet have never heard the term we use to describe how our churches and people relate to one another: connectionalism.  We don’t see ourselves as individual churches minding our own business.  Instead, we strive to have a rich connection between every church and among all our denominational organizations.  The result is that many diverse resources and viewpoints are brought together and we all end up being closer to God for it.

I think this is a wonderful concept, and a good example for how we should live our lives.  For the next two Sundays while Kim and Pat are away doing this work on the national level, we are going to explore what it means for our “everyday lives” here.

I also plan to bring up any major issues from General Conference and talk about anything that makes the national news—it’s part of who we are as a church, and it’s important to be informed.  If you want to stay updated through the week, visit http://umc.org.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on my blog, http://ministrygeek.net.

As the Associate Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Hutchinson, KS, I write a weekly article for the newsletter article. I invite both members of the church and other visitors to my blog to share their thoughts!

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The past few weeks, Pat and I have been joining some incoming members of our church in conversation about who we are as United Methodists.  In the past decade or two there has been a resurgence of interest in John Wesley and in what makes the United Methodist tradition different from others.

So what makes a United Methodist?  That’s way too big of a topic to go into here…  We agree with most Christians on most of what we believe, things like Jesus and the resurrection or how God works in the world.  The differences are in what we choose to emphasize.  For instance, we emphasize the fact that God is working in people’s hearts and lives even before they are aware of it.  We also emphasize that it is God’s grace that saves us—but that grace continues to work in us afterwards, too, making us a better person.

We also emphasize that faith isn’t just something that happens in a church building—faith is something we live out in every day of our lives.  John Wesley wasn’t happy just preaching to the people who came to church every Sunday; he realized that the people that really needed to feel God’s love were the ones who weren’t there.  And so he took the gospel out to the coal miners and the field workers.  Talking about this made me wonder if maybe that isn’t a lesson we need to learn again today.

If you’re interested in learning more about Methodism; I’d be happy to talk your ear off sometime.  Or, there are some great resources on the internet.   It’s hard to print long web links in the newsletter, so if you find this article on my blog, http://ministrygeek.net, I will add some good links there.  May you experience ALL types of God’s grace this week!

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Here are the links:

For more on United Methodists beliefs…

For more on United Methodist history…

For more on how we are organized…

My wife Amy and I just had a fun little IM chat about matters emergent. I joked about it becoming a blog entry, then thought, “What could be better than just sharing the conversation?” So, with her permission, here it is. Names have been changed/removed to protect the innocent.

If you’re not used to IM conversations, know that sometimes thoughts appear slightly out of order (they make more sense in the moment). Bear with it, though; you’ll figure it out.

Amy: here’s food for thought: Emergent Church for country music fans.
me: Absolutely! What brings this on?
Amy: [name taken out] was in the mood for some music and put in Dolly Parton singing some gospel. For this group that is contextual music.
me: Yup. Get used to it.
Amy: I wonder if that’s an area we tend to ignore.
what if we’re already doing emergent with rural churches, but don’t call it that because it’s not “our” culture.
me: Yup. They always loved it in [my old, rural churches] when I’d pick something country-like for a hymn.
me: I think that’s a big element, at least in the worship style sense. Their culture in terms of TV/newspaper/etc. is still becoming increasingly postmodern, though, and we still need to adapt our theology.
Amy: good point, emergent isn’t just style, there’s theology too.
me: “Praise and Worship” would not be contextual in [my old churches].
Amy: But the theology of my congregation is still VERY modern.
me: For me and my high thinking mind, theology is the starting point. Worship style flows out of that.
Is there a disconnect between their theology and their culture outside the church? Maybe not for older folks…
Around here, especially in the contemporary church, I get the feeling that many “check their postmodernism at the door” so they can do church.
Amy: if you stick with [the area I’m in] then no, it’s not different, but if you consider the wider area, then perhaps yes.
me: That whole “check your culture at the door” thing is what I used to do. I think it explains a lot of the disconnect between secular and sacred– and it explains why many reject it simply because they “get nothing out of church”
Amy: yeah, but what about the people who go to church b/c it IS the culture they identify with as is? How do you meet both groups? Can you?
me: There are emergenty-type folks who would give you an adament NO and then stop listening. I give an adament I HOPE SO.
I think postmodernism needs to respect it’s “father and mother” more.
But how to do it? Beats me…
I’m still working on how to be postmodern in a modern pulpit my own self.
What do you think? Respect for father and mother, or emergence can’t happen unless you “move out of the house” for a while?
Amy: quite a challenge for both of us. too often my postmodern theology is interpreted through modernity and they hear something completely different.
me: Wow, that was a very modern/two-choice question I just asked…
Amy: hmmm… it’s a good metaphor, though.
I think most adult children in that situation would say “both”.
of course, do postmoderns have any affection for moderns?
me: It is hard either way, but somehow it turns out ok either way, too.
Do most teenagers have any visible affection for their parents?
(I like this metaphor… It may end up a blog )
Amy: good point. Maybe we’re in that rebellious teenager part and in another 200 years or so we’ll have emerged as mature adults at peace with our parents.
me: I hope so; we need to.
Amy: this is a fun conversation!
me: Very much… I needed it.
…plus it helps me procrastinate writing a sermon I haven’t done enough thinking on yet.
Amy: he he

As the Associate Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Hutchinson, KS, I write a weekly article for the newsletter article. I invite both members of the church and other visitors to my blog to share their thoughts!

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A short while before Easter, my wife got the call from our District Superintendent, Rick Saylor, saying he had found a church for her to serve in the Hutchinson District. Since we are both graduating from Seminary this Spring, we knew she would be moving, but now we know where: she will be the pastor of Stafford United Methodist Church, about 40 miles to our west. I will of course be continuing here at Trinity, but changing to full time status once I graduate (I can’t wait!)

The life of a United Methodist pastor is a bit nomadic—we expect to move every several years, but are always aware that we COULD be moved even when we don’t expect it. It can be a bit of a nail biter for “clergy couples” especially, for fear that the two churches might be far apart.

I love Trinity, and will be glad to have more energy to devote to it. Stafford seems like a wonderful community, and Amy and the church fit each other well. We will be living in the parsonage in Stafford and I will drive into Hutch daily—I was wondering what I would do with myself once my weekly commutes to Kansas City were over!
Officially it’s the Bishop and District Superintendents who make the decisions about appointments, but there is no doubt in my mind that God is ultimately behind which pastor ends up where!

I welcome your comments on http://ministrygeek.net.

If you haven’t heard, United Methodist leadership professor Lovett Weems has written a new book called The Crisis of Young Clergy. I haven’t read the book yet (I’m planning to buy it today if the campus bookstore has it in stock), but I have read many of Weems’ thoughts here and here.

I’ll admit to a little bias here: I’m always apprehensive when a (respectfully said) old guy tries to define young people today. However, I also respect wisdom and know that those voices are important, too. A few of his observations are indeed insightful, especially in the UM Portal interview link above. But I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a fundamental assumption he’s making that’s flawed: what if God isn’t calling the UM clergy base to look like it did in decades past?

It seems a given to me that the denomination will look drastically different in twenty years than it does now. The change isn’t coming from the church’s failure but from systems much larger than us. I can’t help but notice that the old age skewing in our clergy mirrors the old age skewing in our membership quite well. Bluntly put, once our congregations are so much smaller and fewer due to the natural death of members, why will we need such a large supply of clergy?

What I’m really doing here is stepping on one of the big assumptions of our denomination right now– that God’s call for us is to remain a large, mammoth of a church. Is it really so bad of a thing if God calls us to be a smaller group? Does that make us somehow less blessed?

Anyway, there’s my “pre-review” revealing my prejudices. I look forward to reading it (among all the other books I have/want to read! )