connection – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

You Are the Body

Posted on March 11, 2012Leave a comment

Description of my Christmas tree: White lights, built into the tree. Part of a strand wasn’t working. Had to go through and replace every single light down the row to find the right one that was loose or had burned out. Scratched face and arms. A lot of work! But when it is finished and the hard work is done and everything is untangled, that tree looks amazing!

I got to thinking about how a strand of Christmas tree lights is like the body of Christ. Every single one of those bulbs is important. They might be small. They might shine with different colors and brightness. Some might twinkle and others might not. But if you take one light out – the strand stops working.

Each one of us is an important member of the body of Christ. We may be simple, ordinary people, but we are necessary. We shine with different colors and brightness. Some of us twinkle and others do not. But if you take just one of us out – our strand stops working.

As we continue deeper into the twelfth chapter of Romans today, Paul tells us what happens when we not only hand over our ordinary lives to God, but also let God’s will transform our hearts. We find our place in the Body of Christ. We find that we are individuals in community. We find that God not only has a purpose for us – but that God has already given us everything we need to fulfill that purpose.

I keep all of our Christmas stuff in a large trunk that we store underneath the stairs at our house. And in the bottom of that trunk (which is why I didn’t get a chance to drag it out and bring it this morning) is a small box. And in that box are replacement light bulbs. They are just ordinary little bulbs – much like the ones here. Some of them are twinkle bulbs and cause the whole strand to blink on and off. Some of them are twinklers themselves. Some of them are clear and others have color to them. But you know what – inside that box, not plugged in or connected to anything, they are really good for nothing.

I got to thinking about those spare light bulbs when I read our gospel reading for this morning: Jesus spoke to Philip and Andrew and said:

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Unless a light bulb is connected to the strand of lights, it remains simply a spare bulb; But if it dies – it if is connected – it if gives up its role as a spare part, a simple individual bulb – then it gives forth light. And not just its own individual light… it becomes a part of a greater light that shines forth and brings joy to the world.

Who knew you could learn so much from light bulbs?!

In many ways, we are like those spare parts. We might have great color or potential for twinkling or steadfast shining… we might have the ability to bring joy and warmth into the world… but unless we recognize who we truly are – and whose we truly are… unless we let go of our individual lives and give ourselves over to God… we might not ever discover the beauty and the power of walking in the light.

As Jesus goes on in this gospel passage from John, we are reminded that discovering our gift and our role does not mean that everything will be easy. Jesus recognizes that his journey takes him straight to the cross. But he also knows that this is why he is here. This is why his light shines. He understands his purpose in the larger picture of God’s will and in gratitude he is able to say – Father, I do this to glorify your name.

Every one of us has the opportunity to glorify his name – to serve him, to follow him, to honor him. And we do that when we are aligned with God’s will and connected to the Body of Christ.

When we become connected to God’s will and the body of Christ we:

A. understand our individual role – an essential and yet same part of one Body

each of us has different gifts… sharing of the results from our spiritual gifts inventory.
The church needs you… your particular gift was given so that you would help this strand of lights to shine.
But you also need need the church – we need to understand our part in the bigger story.. we need the gifts of others to encourage us, teach us, pray for us, serve us. We need to church to connect us with the power of god… even when we are broken and our individual lights don’t work. One of the amazing things that I discovered with these strands of Christmas lights is that even when a light is broken, it is still necessary. The power still flows through it, even if it will not light up. But take it out – then the whole strand suffers. In the Christian faith, we talk about how sometimes the community of faith carries our faith for us. When we baptize a little child, we are committing to hold the faith for them, to raise them up in the faith, until one day they are ready to claim that faith for themselves. In the same way, when we are burn out spiritually – the last thing we need is to leave the church. We need to surround ourselves with those who can love and care for us and continue to help the Holy Spirit flow through our life until we are ready for transformation and new life and faith.

B. understand our communal role

in many ways our church is like one light bulb as a part of the worldwide body of Christ – so we ask a similar question – what is our church’s gift? What do we uniquely offer this community? How can we manifest God’s will and glorify his name?
In our church, we have discerned that our unique offering is to help reflect the light of Christ in three ways: Care, Grow, Send
In looking at the spiritual gifts of people in this church, the top gifts that God has blessed us with are healing and miracles… so how does that translate into our Prayer/Healing ministry: sharing the good news, bringing hope, walking with people… being a beacon and reflecting the light of God to this community
Soon, our new prayer site will go live

C. Practice needs to be consistent with our gifts. We need to honor them. We need to care for them. We need to serve in ways that glorify God.

John Westerhoff: As stewards of God, we are invited to join God’s action, God’s mission in the world. We are Christ’s body, God’s sacrament, so that God can be present in human life and history. It is for this purpose that God calls us into the church.”
Our witness is our witness – we can serve all we want, but if we do not do so with gentle hearts, it comes across as cold. If we tell the good news but we do it shouting from the street corner, we seem to be better than others. If we tell the truth about God but neglect the truth of our own lives, then we come across as hypocrites.
We are Christ’s body. Sometimes we are the only Christ that this world ever sees… in the gospel of John we are reminded that when we spent time in the light – when we spend time with Jesus – when we believe in him and follow him and serve him – then we ourselves become children of the light.
As the familiar hymn goes: I want to walk as a child of the light. I want to follow Jesus. God set the starts to give light to the world. The star of my life is Jesus. In him there is no darkness at all. The night and the day are both alike. The lamb is the light of the city of God.

Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus. Shine in our hearts, Lord Jesus. Lead us deeper into this community. Connect us with one another so that we might share these amazing gifts that you have given us. Transform us into children of the light so that we might share your love and grace with this community and this world and truly glorify your name. Amen.

a time and a place (#1bread1body)

Posted on September 8, 2011Leave a comment

I am a child of my age. I carry my cell phone with me everywhere. I check facebook at least five times a day. In between episodes of my favorite streaming television shows on netflix, I hop onto an online forum to chat about what I just saw. I blog. I tweet. I sometimes play MMORPG’s.

All of that means I am connected to hundreds of people every single day. Sometimes superficially… but sometimes on a really deep and intimate level.

I got to thinking the other day that the only time and place that I do not have my cell phone by my side is when I am at the front of the sanctuary next to the pulpit.

First of all, it would be totally embarassing if my cell phone went off during worship. Egads!

But second of all, what would people think if the pastor, the one who is leading it all, casually glanced down to see what was happening in the twitterverse, or heaven forbid, played angry birds during the offeratory! (we actually have a really amazing pianist, and I would never dream of doing anything but listening to her play… really – she’s awesome)

It is a strange disconnect, however. For the rest of my life, I am connected electronically to other people, but for that small chunk of time it is just me and the people I can see/touch/smell in front of me.

75% of me thinks that is a good thing. We need to disconnect every now and then. We need to spend time with people in real and authentic ways – without being distracted by the next buzz from a phone. And afterall, worship is our response to God. The holy is the center of worship… not what my neighbor’s dog had for breakfast.

But the other 25% of me believes there is a time and a place for everything. That in the right way, under the right circumstances, with the right intentions, some things just work.

Like painting a mural during the reading of scripture to illustrate the creation story.

Or dancing wildly with hands clasped together with the children to tell of the perichoretic nature of God.

Or telling jokes for an entire hour as we laugh in the face of death.

Or cussing from the pulpit.

We have the entire globe at our fingertips through social media… and it would be a shame to let those connections sit idly by on a day like World Communion Sunday when we celebrate our unity.

A friend of mine, Sean McRoberts and I, dreamed up this thing called “One Bread, One Body.” For one morning, we want to hold our cellphones proudly and watch as the prayers of people all across the world are brought together in our times of worship. We are using the conferencing capabilities of twubs.com to create a live stream of these prayers and pictures that any congregation that wants to participate can use to join us.

There is a time and a place for many things… and I cannot dream up a better way to join together so that all may be one.

time heals all…

Posted on June 24, 2011Leave a comment

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My church has not had a choir for about 10-15 years. And this large brown filing cabinet with boxes overflowing next to it in the church office is full of sheet music and photocopies (oops) and sample scores. For 10 years, we have not used a single piece of music… and in fact, when we brought together a special choir last spring, most of the music was too difficult and too many parts for us to use.

A faithful member walked into my office the other day. She has been working on passing on some of the music to the local community choir, but they are more interested in music with accompaniment CD’s rather than the sheet music with piano scores we have. So she volunteered to pay the postage to send the music to someone who really could use it. With so many tragedies and natural disasters this year in Alabama, Missouri, and even here in Iowa, certainly there were churches who had lost their collections of music.

So I put out a general announcement via facebook searching for a home for this music.

A church less than 30 miles away responded. Salem United Methodist Church, three years ago this month, was underwater when the Cedar River flooded. Three years ago, three temporary worship spaces ago, they had a choir room full of music they had collected through the years. And it all washed away down the Cedar. It was all left covered with muck.

Three years have passed and they now find themselves in a new home. And settled, though busting at the seams in their new gathering space, they were eager and excited about the possibility of having filing cabinets full of music once more.

While my mind immediately went to those places that have recently been hurting, when I first got the word about Salem UMC needing music, my heart sank. The churches in Tuscaloosa and Joplin and Varina are not ready for choir music. They are probably still sorting through rubble. They are probably still trying to figure out what to do next. They are still grieving, and they have a long journey ahead of them to recovery.

The thing about healing and rebuilding is that it cannot happen over night.

Whether it is rehabilitation after an injury to your body, or repairing a damaged relationship, or restoring a structure that sustained damage… it takes time.

Just ask the residents of New Orleans… Just ask the people who lived in Czech Village or Time Check in Cedar Rapids… Just ask that neighbor who had a heart attack a few years ago, or your family member who broke a rib… just ask the couple across town whose marriage was strained by adultery or the siblings who didn’t talk for seven years after a falling out.

There are a few places in this world where miraculous healing occurs in an instant… but I know of very few of them. And even when the healing does come – like in the scriptural stories of the leper or the hemmoraging woman or the demoniac – it is going to take a while to figure out what to do next… how to live your life without the disease or the illness or the demons that plagued you. Relationships might never be the same as they were before. You will have discovered something about your self or others that changes who you are and what you value. You may not want to get back to your old “normal” at all.

My church has been through its own ups and downs throughout the years. We have had our good times and our bad. As we are being re-energized by God, we pray that we simply won’t be what we were in the past. And part of that is letting go of past ideas of “success.”

And so, this morning, seven boxes of sheet music found a new home. And a flooded out church choir finds itself, three years later, further down the road to recovery.

Ode to the Book of Discipline…

Posted on June 2, 2011Leave a comment

Oh Book of Discipline, how do I love thee…

Let me count the ways.

I love that when I am confused about how to proceed regarding a new parsonage purchase, you contain orderly directions.

I love that when I wrote my papers for ordination nearly every question could be found within your beautiful pages.

I love that as a new pastor I can use you to add weight to my words… because it says so in paragraph such and such of the Discipline.

I love that as I look through prior editions, I can see how our church has grown and changed.

I love that you contain, without apology, the history and tradition of our roots and that those pages cannot be changed.

I love that you hold the outcome of our shared wrestlings as the people called United Methodist about difficult issues and theological quandries.

I love that as much as I love you, we both know that you are never completely perfect and that each time our General Conference meets we can fix typos and make amendments and add clarifications.

I love that you are dynamic and changing and yet, at the same time the foundation for our shared ministry through time.

I love that in the words of the 2004 edition, you are “the most current statement of how United Methodists agree to live their lives together.”

I am running to be a delegate to our General Conference in 2012. And this afternoon I recieved a phone call from a fellow pastor who had some questions for me. I thought it was awesome that she has taken her own initiative and is doing more research on each person to make an informed decision.

One of the questions that I was asked was whether I will uphold the Book of Discipline as it stands… or something to that effect.

At first, I hesitated. Because as an ordained elder, I am under this particular rule of law. These are the agreements that we have made together about how we are going to live together.

So the first words out of my mouth were, “yes, as a pastor, I will work to uphold the Discpline.”

But immediately, I had to qualify that statement.

Because you see, every four years, the Book of Discipline is subject to change and scrutiny. Every time our church meets together as the General Conference, we “amend, perfect, clarify, and add our own contribution to the Discipline.” (tenses changed, again from the BOD2004)

The Book of Discipline is not holy or sacred. It is a conversation through time. It is the product of our connectional spirit. And while we meet for fellowship and celebration of ministry and worship at General Conference… we also meet to speak on behalf of the church and to figure out how we are going to agree to live together for the next four years.

The United Methodist Church is diverse, global, changing, and – I pray – Spirit led. As such, we adapt to new situations and ministry fields, we attempt to respond to the new problems the world throws at us, and we continue to try to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ in this place and time.

So yes, I will work to uphold the Discipline that I love… but if the case is made, if it will further the work of God in this world, if we will make more disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world… I will vote to change it in a heartbeat.