Out the Door

I'm getting to do something right now that I don't often get a chance to do living in small town Iowa.  I'm sitting in a coffee shop enjoying a Irish Cream Latte while writing this.  The only reason I have this pleasure is because my wife is interviewing for a teaching position as I type.

One of the difficulties of the itinerate system is the pressure it puts on clergy spouses.  Julie has always been able to find a good job wherever we've lived, but the process of formulating a resume, sending out letters of application and interviewing is grueling.  Fortunately, as a special education teacher, she is in high demand.  It's nearly impossible for schools to find a teacher with her qualifications and experience who are in the job market.  She has never interviewed for a job that wasn't offered to her.

Many clergy spouses aren't as lucky.  They are tied down to a specific locale.  This is becoming more an more prevalent as spouses develop professional careers of their own.  There's a need for special education teachers almost everywhere, but many occupations require that a person live in or near a larger city.  Since there aren't many places in Iowa that can be described in that way, it calls into question the  feasibility of the itinerate system as we move further into the 21st century.

I don't have any solutions to offer for this problem.  I'm just thankful I'm not a District Superintendent who has to balance the needs of local congregations and clergy families.

Dream Big

I'm in the process of reading Ultimately Responsibility by Sue Nilson Kibbey, who's one of the pastors at Ginghamsburg UMC.  In her chapter on "Leading a Team," she quotes Peter M. Senge.

In the absence of a great dream, pettiness prevails.

How often have I seen the truth of that statement!  When there is no great dream to bind people together or to give them a common purpose, pettiness rules the day.  As Kibbey notes this becomes evident,

in committees that exist to spend their meeting time debating the flavor of cookies to have at the next event, the color of paper onto which the worship bulletin should be copied, and whether Sunday morning coffee drinkers should be allowed to bring their cups into the sanctuary.  In the absence of vision, teams forget why they were created in the first place, and small-mindedness takes over.

Consider the contrast between Joseph and his 10 older brothers.  Joseph had big dreams, impossible dreams.  He dreamed that one day his family would look to him as someone who was due great respect.  He dreamed of being in a position of ultimate responsibility, a position of influence and authority.  His brothers got hung up on the fact that Joseph dressed in nicer clothes than they did.  Now that's certainly a oversimplification of the family dynamics, but the differences between Joseph with his dream and his brothers with their small thinking become abundantly apparent as the years went by.  Joseph ascended to a place of power and his brothers were reduced to begging him for help.  (See Genesis 37-47)

What great dream do you have for your life or for your church?  Go ahead and tell about it here.

Charity by Proxy

Rob Long wrote a thought-provoking article in last Friday's Wall Street Journal titled, "Charity by Proxy: New reality shows let us feel good by watching others do good."  He talks about a phenomenon he calls the "Thighmaster Paradox." 

Call it the "Thighmaster Paradox": Watching people do things on TV--fight it out on a desert island, say, or sweat themselves into shapelier thighs--often replaces the need to do those things ourselves. After a few hours vegetating in slack-jawed stupor in front of the Food Network, do we really end up in the kitchen, whipping up a wholesome meal? Or do we drag the family to Outback Steakhouse?

Being a regular viewer of the Food Network, I must confess that I rarely put to use the recipes I see the chefs preparing.  I don't have the time, the equipment or the desire to spend hours in the kitchen creating a gourmet meal.  But I will watch someone else do it.  I guess that means I'm a willing participant in the Thighmaster Paradox.

Long goes on to talk about how this paradox applies to good works.  Reality shows like Extreme Makeover allow people to watch others do good deeds and thereby vicariously feeling good about themselves, while exerting no more effort than lifting the remote.

We want to feel good, about ourselves and our neighbors. We want to feel good about the power of a remodeled kitchen.  Mostly, though, we want to watch. Actual, real charity work--as opposed to actual, reality-television charity work--involves a certain amount of bleakness, the risk of an unhappy ending, an occasional lack of gratitude from the recipient, uncomfortable encounters with poor hygiene and a lot of guilt. In other words, a lot of things that would make for a really terrible television show.

Real charity work may make really terrible TV, but it's what separates Christ-followers from cultural Christians.  People who are Christ-followers do what Jesus did.  Jesus did the dirty, humiliating work of washing the disciples feet.  And it's time that more of us who call ourselves by Christ's name, set down our remotes and got down on our knees in service to others.

HT: Steve Beard

New Pastor Appointed to Sumner

Bishop Palmer has appointed Rev. Shirley Hoffman Will to be the next pastor in Sumner.  Rev. Will has an impressive resume.  She holds a BA in Education and a MA in Special Education.  She received her seminary training at Asbury Seminary and has completed the Beeson Institute.  She comes to Sumner with 18 years of pastoral experience.

Julie & I got to meet Shirley and her daughter last week for the first time.  We found Shirley to be a very personable individual, who has a passion for ministry.

I will admit that the thought of giving over my congregation to another hasn't been the easiest thing.  Like many pastors, I've poured my heart and soul into this church and letting go makes me anxious.  Then I remember it really isn't my congregation, it's Christ's.  And just as Christ was working in this place before I arrived, so He will continue when Shirley arrives. 

This has got me thinking, how much ego does a pastor need to have?  If I didn't believe that I was the best person for the job, how well could I do my job?  It comes back to how I see my calling.  I believe that I have been called by God to full-time ministry.  That calling has been confirmed by the Church through my ordination.  Further, I believe I have been called by God to this place at this time through the appointive process. 

It is this understanding of calling that allows me to let go and give the leadership of this congregation over to Shirley, for her calling is as real as mine.  Thus I must conclude that she is the best person for the job for upcoming time in the congregation's history.  This understanding also enables me to go with confidence into my new appointment.  This confidence doesn't arise so much out of my abilities, but rather out of my sense of calling.  I know that without the help of the Holy Spirit there's no possible way I could do this job. 

So what are your thoughts, how much ego does a pastor need to have?

Maundy Thursday

Many churches around the world will be hosting Maundy Thursday services today.  When I was a kid, I thought it was Monday Thursday.  Never did quite figure out why this day was called by two different names.

Though my extensive education (I double checked myself on Wikipedia) I've learned the true meaning of the word. 

The word Maundy is derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ( A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John (13:34) by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet.

Today is the day the Church has set aside to remember Jesus' commandment to love one another.  Each year during our Maundy Thursday service, we do a hand washing.  This is a less intimidating reenactment of Jesus' washing the disciples feet.  Though as one who has participated in an actual foot washing ceremony, I must say that it doesn't evoke the same emotions.

To have someone kneel before you and bath your feet in water is a humbling thing.  I can understand why Peter didn't want Jesus to wash his feet.  He had a profound sense of that this act was completely undeserved.  And so it was.  Yet it is a lesson on love that the disciples never forgot and Christians everywhere still remember 2,000 years later.  And though we remember this lesson, we often fail to act upon it in our own lives.  The other day, Greg Hazelrig asked, "What do you believe divides Christians more than anything else?"   

No one or two line paragraph can adequately answer that question, but here's mine.  We don't practice the lesson of Maundy Thursday.  We fail to love and serve as Jesus did.

Let's all pray that as Christians around the world gather to remember and celebrate Jesus' last supper, that we begin to live out his new commandment.

The Case for Christ

I just read the last five chapters of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ.  Four of these deal with the evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection.  In the final chapter Strobel tells how his own quest for the truth about Jesus led him to believe and receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

Strobel's brings his book to a close by quoting C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.  It is one of my favorite quotes from this great writer.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God."  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic....or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.

Each one of us must answer the question Jesus posed to His disicples "Who do you say I am?" (Matthew 16:15).