Occupying the In-Between Time

"And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints." - I Thessalonians 3:13


There is probably no more frustrating or misunderstood time for Christians than the season of Advent.  We tend to be an impatient people by nature; and when your pastor continually tells you that it’s not time to sing Christmas carols yet, most of us think that the theological splitting of hairs has gone too far.  After all, everyone else is celebrating the Christmas season – Why can’t we?  Why spend four weeks talking about the coming of Christmas, rather than just celebrating it like the secular world does?  Why don’t we just put the baby Jesus in the manger, sing about that blessed morning until we’re tired of the same old songs, and then move on to the New Year and the rest of our lives?


The longer I do this, the more I come to appreciate the theological reasons and meanings for the things that we do, especially when it comes to the liturgical calendar.  While the secular world sees the Christmas season as the end of the year; for us it is the beginning of a new year of hope and promise.  We look forward to the coming of the Christ child, because it reminds us that God has visited us once and will do so again.  In fact, our recognition of the Advent season begins with the realization that we are living in the in-between time: after the first coming of Christ and before the second coming of Christ.  It is a time to be celebrated, but also a time for introspection and preparation.  After all, the second coming of Christ means judgment and the end of this world – not very happy themes for most people, but causes of joy for those who are expecting the promised conclusion of history.  Early Christians waited with eagerness and expectation for Christ to return in their lifetime.  They spent their time in prayer and worship, sharing the time together and being with one another when at all possible, teaching, preaching, healing, and spreading the Gospel to anyone who would listen.


The difficulty for modern Christians is how do we occupy this in-between time?  Do we go about with business as usual, trusting in God’s grace that we will be ready when Christ does return?  Do we spend our time putting our affairs in order, so that everything is neat and tidy when the inevitable happens?  Do we live life to its fullest, knowing that the ultimate Christmas gift is that our salvation has been granted by the baby whose birth we now celebrate?  And what do we mean by living life to the fullest?  Perhaps we should take our cue from those early Christians, and at least for four weeks, we should live our lives as if we expected Christmas Day to be the second coming of Christ, rather than focusing on celebrating the birth.  After all, we have all of eternity to do that!

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

A Time of Thanksgiving

"Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."  -  Philippians 4:6

As I have grown older I have found that this time of year has an increasingly special meaning for me.  How often do we neglect to take the time to think about all the things that God has provided for us and enabled us to provide for ourselves?  It seems a shame that we have a tendency to confine our thoughts of thanksgiving to a particular month, or even season of the year.  And even then, we seem to bury Thanksgiving in the crush between fun of Halloween and the preparations for Christmas.  The Pilgrims took time out from the business of settlement and the adventure of creating a new world to acknowledge the hand of God in their endeavors.  And so should we take advantage of this opportunity to set aside the demands of our everyday lives and revel in the goodness of the Lord.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul strikes a particularly joyful tone in acknowledging the fruits of God’s work among them, and the concern they have shown for him in his time of imprisonment.  Even with the threat of death hanging over his head, he exhorts them to continue to celebrate the power, presence, and purpose of the Lord in their lives, just as he does in his.  In Philippians 4:5 Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say Rejoice.”  Our prayers to God should include acknowledgement of our joy and thanksgiving, even as we continue to ask God for his blessings.  For it is what he has already done for us that allows us to confidently petition him for those things we feel that we still need.

Over the years, the spirit of Thanksgiving has become more vital to me than the anticipation of the Christmas season.  In fact the promise of Christmas is one of the things I am most thankful for.  Because it reminds me that God has never abandoned me; has blessed me far beyond what I deserve in this life; and has much more in store for me if only I give it all over to him.  So rather than skipping over this celebration of the gifts of God, I exhort you as Paul does, to take time to sit back, take a deep breath, and prayerfully rejoice in the goodness of the Lord.  Thank God for your life, the people in your life, and the purpose and security he provides for your life.  Take a moment to leave behind your worries and your cares, and simply bask in his presence.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:7

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

Reaching Out by Reaching Up

For the last month, a group of us here at Shiloh United Methodist Church have been discussing the notion of how we can reach out to the broader Holts Summit community through the avenue of worship.  If you remember last month I challenged us to pursue a Christian life of reaching out through outreach and mission, reaching in via greater fellowship, nurture and education, and reaching up to God through the passion of our worship.  These are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  In fact, if we seek as closer relationship to God in everything that we do; these three areas will become much closer to one another.  At the September Administrative Council meeting, a group was given the task of pursuing two goals: the creation of a more complete Sunday School program, and the development of an additional worship service to reach those who are not part of our Sunday morning congregation.  With that goal in mind, a Monday evening group has been exploring what we might do in each of these areas.

The first task was relatively straight forward.  We have recently failed to hold on to two of our younger families because we had nothing to offer their children in the way of an educational program that teaches the faith to those who are not yet aware of many of the stories, principles, and beliefs that go with being a Christian, and which many of us take for granted.  With that goal in mind, we will be starting a Sunday School program designed to reach all ages on Sunday, November 1st.  In addition to our current Adult Bible study after worship, we will begin at least two Sunday School classes aimed at children and youth to meet during the same time frame after worship.  We hope that these offerings will enrich our educational program as well as our post-worship fellowship, by showing our commitment to learn what it means to call ourselves disciples of Christ beyond the current offerings of worship.

The second task presents us with more of a challenge, and will call upon all of our resources to create a worship environment for those who for whatever reason cannot join our Sunday morning service.  We have tentatively identified Thursday evenings as an alternative time of worship, and are shooting for the middle of January as a time to begin a second worship service geared towards attracting a different group of worshippers. We are planning to present to the Administrative Council at the November 15th meeting a proposal that addresses this need.  We hope to build upon some of the lessons learned during our Holy Week of Worship last Easter to reach out to our community through praise and worship.  Over the next few weeks we hope to open a dialogue and discussion of what this would mean and what it can be.  Our purpose  is not to change what we currently do, but to expand our  relationship with God, with one another, and with those who are “somewhere out there” as a way of fulfilling our mission of spreading the Gospel and making disciples of Jesus Christ.  I encourage all of you to engage each other in the passion and power of praising and worshipping our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as we commit the coming Advent season to the sharing of the Christmas story just as the shepherds did so long ago.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

Reaching Up, Reaching Out, Reaching In

"In James, worship is what you do inside and outside of church when you do the word." -  The Wesley Study Bible, page 1501

For the past few weeks I have been playing with ideas about how to encompass what we should be about as a church.  Part of that has been driven by my desire to develop a theme around which we can actively reach out to our community as we begin the process of connecting with those of our neighbors who are not worshipping with us on Sunday mornings.  Part of this has been the inspiration I felt coming out of Annual Conference as we were challenged to go back to our churches and our communities thinking about the people, issues, needs, and missions that are “somewhere out there,” just waiting to become part of the life of our church in such a way that we can make a difference for God in our world.  Part of that has been influenced by my intensive reading of the theology and life of John Wesley as I get ready for school in January.  And part of it has been fueled by my reading of the letter of James as I have begun to get ready for the next month of worship by reading ahead in the lectionary.  It is no wonder that while some consider James’ letter as dangerously overemphasizing the role of works over faith in our Christian life, Wesley saw this letter as central to Christian faith and life.

Too often, we use our faith as an excuse to withdraw into ourselves and focus on that personal relationship with Jesus Christ that defines our life as Christians; or into the community of faith with which we identify.  All of this is done with an emphasis on the personal salvation that we seek in order to ensure that “when the roll is called up yonder we’ll be there.”  But Jesus himself put us on a different path when he commissioned his disciples to get out of the upper room, to baptize in his name, and make disciples throughout the world.  He called us not just to a ministry of contemplation, but one of action – a ministry of doing, as well as hearing.  He asks us to use our faith to reach out to the world and share that faith.  James’ letter calls us to faith and worship which are active in the world.

I have been toying with the notion of reaching up, reaching out, and reaching in as a way of symbolizing this totality of the Christian life.  Reaching by itself denotes action and effort.  The reaching up is our constant desire to connect with God, which is shown in our praise and prayer, and in our need to continually study the Word.  The reaching in is our desire to connect with the family of faith, to nurture one another, and grow as the body of Christ.  The reaching out is the desire to share to share our faith with others and to teach, heal, and serve as Jesus did during his life of ministry.  All of these are manifestations of our worship, our expressions of praise and thanksgiving to God.  We can’t really do one without the other.  I invite you to think of the ways that we, as Christians in Holt Summit, can reach up, reach out, and reach in.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave 

Somewhere Out There…

"The church is the only cooperative society in the world that exists for the benefit of its non-members." - William Temple


Service to the lost and the least – Luke devoted an entire chapter of his gospel to it, Jesus lived his entire life in pursuit of it and went to the cross in order to fulfill it, God sacrificed his only Son to accomplish it, and countless prophets risked their reputations, their families, and their lives to preach it.  Is it any wonder that mission is one of the key pillars of the life of any church?  While we exist to worship God, as well as to feed and nurture one another; we often find that the best way to accomplish those things that is to serve those who are not with us.  Mission gives us a sense of purpose, makes us feel good about ourselves, and takes us out of our own cares and concerns to focus on the needs of others.  The amazing thing about missions is that by doing mission well, we end up with a stronger, more vital, and more lively church internally.


As I mentioned last month, the theme of the 2009 Missouri Annual Conference was “somewhere out there…” which was designed to get us thinking less about the people inside of the church than those outside of the church.  Because the people inside exist to serve the people outside.  If we only serve one another, how are we different from any other civic organization or club?  The difference should be that the center of our being is being disciples of Jesus Christ, and being a disciple means embarking on a perpetual search to find more disciples.  No matter how we cut it, our mission is to seek, to find, to serve, and to love those who are out there somewhere. 


As I have been reading about the life of John Wesley in preparation for next January’s classes, I find myself once again drawn to his conclusion that the dichotomy between personal holiness and social holiness; between personal piety and social mission; between personal devotion and service to others, is a false one.  As Wesley sought to live a more pious and holy life, he found himself increasingly drawn to service to others, in soup kitchens, prisons, hospitals, factories, and schools.  He viewed these activities as his true Christian vocation, as opposed to focusing on Sunday morning worship. 


We seem to be moving in that direction here at Shiloh UMC.  I was pleased to see all those who helped with the Block Party, as I was equally pleased to see all the neighborhood children running around with smiles on their faces.  This month we will launch our partnership with SERVE in an effort to make a dent in the need for food in Holts Summit.  Who knows what we will embark upon next?  After all, the future is out there, somewhere.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave