If But For God...

"Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."  - Psalm 73:25-26

Why is it that we modern Christians live life as if God doesn’t really exist?  We pay lip service to him in worship, and I know that we all hope that he is there when we are in need, or when the end of life draws near.  But when it comes to living our lives as if we truly trust that God is present, we are more often likely willing to trust in ourselves than we are to put faith in him.  After all, God helps those who help themselves, seems to have become the slogan of modern American Christianity even though it appears nowhere in the Bible.  In fact, a search of the Holy Word reveals that one of Jesus’ primary messages was to place our trust in God for everything that we need and he will provide.

As I have been studying and preaching about the prophets of ancient Israel over the past few months, I realize that their message was one that resonates even stronger today.  In those days, God accused them of placing faith and worship second to the pursuit of power and wealth; of substituting their notions of justice, righteousness, and benevolence for the clear Word of God; of substituting their own forms of worship and social organization for God’s clear instructions; and ignoring the history of their covenant relationship with God which had gotten them through trials, hardships, wars, and natural disasters.  Of course we know that the result of all this was the loss of the kingdoms, exile, and a temporary abandonment by God until the nation of Israel once again remembered who they were and whose they were.

And yet here we are again today.  We act as if we have gotten here by our own merits and efforts.  We ignore God’s instructions to take care of the poor, the sick, the crippled, the alien, and the prisoner because it is no longer convenient or economical to do so.  We have pushed worship into a one hour box on Sunday morning because that is all the time we can spring from our busy schedules to devote to God.  We don’t share our faith outside of the church because that is not how proper people act. We have more faith in our own efforts, science, politics, social organizations, and even lotteries to solve our problems than we have faith in God.  And then we wonder why it is that people don’t want to join the Church.

Have you ever wondered why it is that the church is growing and doing more in those parts of the world that we consider backward and underdeveloped?  Isn’t it amazing that some of the fastest growing and most dynamic churches in the United States are in the areas hardest hit by the current economic downturn?  Maybe it’s because it is only when we have exhausted all the other options that we finally turn to God and place our faith and trust in him.  It took Israel thousands of years to absorb that message; I guess we still have a ways to go.

What would you do in church if you really believed that God was on your side?  The world is watching.  - Reverend Emmanuel Cleaver, Jr (June 7, 2010)

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

Voices From the Annual Conference

This year’s Annual Conference was much more spiritual than many I have attended over the years. There were no controversial issues, no voting that needed to occur outside of the standard order of business, and a commitment on the part of those who set the agenda to return to our Wesleyan roots. On the whole, I found myself inspired, renewed, and strengthened as both a pastor and as a United Methodist – which (when you think about it) should be the point of such a gathering. I thought I would share with you some of the statements and words that particularly touched me.

• When it suits his purpose, God will not remain invisible, indifferent, or inactive. If a cause is just or a ministry is benevolent, it will triumph in spite of our best efforts to sabotage it.
• The devil uses discouragement as a tool against us. We sit around and worry about the bad things that can happen; which either never will, or will happen without our help.
• When a church is on fire, the inquisitive will be drawn to the light.
• No dump truck is going to unload fantasy Christians at your doorstep that look like you, sing like you, and want to serve on the Trustees.
• Methodism was founded on a theology of grace and a methodology of practice. Today’s problem is that we have great theology, but our methodology is broken.
• Sometimes we participate in church stuff, but leave God on the front porch.
• In a post-Christian, post-modern world, evangelism is by compassion and service. What we do carries more weight than what we say.
• As Christians we need to be like sharks. We either keep moving or die.
• Jesus asked us to be fruitful – fruit is new life, fruit is growth, fruit is future.
• While the rest of the world lives in an instant coffee society, we as Christians need to percolate in the aroma of Christ.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

A Perfect Storm of Faith

"No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.'" - Acts 2:17

As I sit here writing this devotional piece today, I find myself running through all of the emotions that go with being a person of faith, as I sort out the events of the last few days. Foremost on my mind is the fact that in the course of twelve hours I have been informed of two deaths within the Body of Christ, one in each church, one sudden and unexpected, and the other expected and yet still difficult, both pillars of faith and models of Christian living. Yet just two days before, we were celebrating the birth of the church on Pentecost Sunday, our Wesleyan roots on Heritage Sunday, and the confirmation of three young people into full membership in the New Bloomfield United Methodist Church. It is humbling to think that in the midst of life, death, and new beginnings, the Body of Christ continues to march forward as it has for hundreds and hundreds of years. The work of the church requires that all of us participate, but it is so much larger than any one of us. Generations come and go, they leave their mark on us all, and yet we must be constantly ready to pass the mantle on to the next generation. We live our lives in celebration of the exemplary lives of those who have shown us the way, while at the same we celebrate the ascension of those who will become the leaders of the church of tomorrow.

To live a life of faith means that we are called to be visionaries, dreamers, and prophets. We live according to the vision of what the church can be and what Christ calls us to be. We dream of a day when God’s work will come to fruition, just as those who have finished their journey of faith now rest from their labors and become part of that great cloud of witnesses – the saints that watch over us and continue to inspire us through the lives they have lived. Our lives are a constant time of prophesy as we live our faith through our actions, words, and deeds; proclaiming the risen savior in all that we do. We are not the first, and we will not be the last; but while we are here we are the church, and the success of Christ’s mission and ministry are in our hands. With the privilege of salvation granted through our faith in Jesus Christ comes the awesome responsibility of being the vision of Christ for those who do not yet know him. As it is said, of those who have been given much, much is expected.

So let us make this time one of celebration: a celebration of the assurances and promises of God, a celebration of the examples of Christian lives well lived by those who have shown us the way, and a celebration of the promises and possibilities that lie before us and those who will become the church of tomorrow. Let us continue to be a people who live in the world of visions, dreams, and prophesy; all the while celebrating not only our past and our future, but also the one who makes it all possible.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

Whose Church Is This?

"If then God gave them the same gift that he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" - Acts 11:17

I don’t know how many times in my years of ministry that I have heard someone say, “Well not in my church,” or “We just don’t do things that way here,” or “Those people can find their own church.”  We have a tendency at times to look at our church family as a rather exclusive group – one in which we find comfort, familiarity, and security. And all of those are valid desires, and things we should seek in a church. But if taken too far, they become an instance of the congregation defining the church rather than our faith defining the congregation. And that in itself begs the question, “Whose church is it, anyway?

As we move through the Easter season toward Pentecost, the lectionary once again has us turning to the book of Acts as we recount the development of the early Church in the wake of Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. As I look through the stories this year, I am once again struck by the continuing work of the Holy Spirit as it moves the Church forward to the message of universal salvation in Jesus Christ, in spite of the desire of the apostles and the early disciples to keep it safe, comfortable, and familiar. While the Church is the primary subject of the Acts stories, it is not the Church that is making the decisions. Rather, it is God at work through the Holy Spirit who is shaping, defining, pushing, pulling, and in some cases shoving the Church in directions in which it sometimes does not wish to go. Whether it is Peter initially resisting the call to the Gentiles, or the disciples in Jerusalem who criticize him for associating with “those people,” or Ananias questioning God’s call to Saul/Paul, or Paul continually trying to go to Asia even though the Spirit directs him to Macedonia; the Acts stories are full of instances in which the followers of Christ think they know how to fulfill the great commission better than he does. Yet the end result is always the same: the Church accepts the Spirit’s direction, and continues moving and growing and thriving. Our presence here today is testimony to the success of that calling.

Yet even today, we have a tendency to resist the call of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit toward an expanding and inclusive ministry. We do that every time we try to define who a proper Christian is, or determine what valid worship should look like, or restrict our mission efforts to those who are acceptable or worthy recipients of our God-given gifts. We do it every time we see the Church as ours to do with what we please rather than as a gift from God which comes with certain strings attached – including being the earthly extension of the Body and Ministry of Jesus Christ.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave

Chosen to Make a Change

"…but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses…He commanded us to preach to the people… "
- Acts 10:41-42

In his post-Easter sermons, the apostle Peter continues to point out that those who witnessed the Christ during his life as well as those who had the privilege of witnessing his resurrection were a called and chosen people. Yet we continue to ask ourselves what it means to be a chosen people. For the Israelites, it meant that they were God’s favored race, his special children who had a special relationship with the one true God. They also were given a charge to share this faith with others and to proclaim in their hearts and with their lives the nature of their God. At their best they led by example and preached the power and gifts of their God. At their worst, they withdrew into a type of holier-than-thou cliquishness which incited anger and resentment amongst their neighbors. Rather than spreading the word of God, they secured it within the temple and hid it under a mountain of religious laws and rules for daily living that only the most holy and pious among them could ever hope to follow. When they saw their chosen status as a vocation rather than a location, they sought to actively live God’s word as opposed to hoarding and hiding it.

The apostles’ initial reaction was to do just that; to hide in the upper room and keep the stories, the teachings and the community they had isolated from the rest of the world. But then a risen Christ gave them a commission to spread the news and be the chosen people once again – to show God’s love for his creation by living it with their lives. To be an apostle was not a badge of separation, but rather a charge to share what they had heard and seen. Peter referred to his ministry as something for all to see, it was not to be hidden, but to be shared. As witnesses to the risen Christ, the apostles once again became God’s chosen people, just as the nation of Israel had earlier been singled out. Yet the point of that chosen status was not to be exclusive, but to create an inclusive people of God by sharing the message and spreading the word.

For us today, there is the temptation to wear our status as disciples as personal gift of salvation to be put away for that time when we can claim it as our ticket to the eternal life. Yet God’s people are not chosen to be separate, but they are charged to continue the witness; with their lives, with their faith, with their worship, and with their love. It is our job to continue to preach the gospel just as those early disciples used their personal experience with the Christ to share God’s word with Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Romans, slave and free, male and female. This Easter I am going to ask you to step out in faith to preach the gospel with your lives and in your relationships. I want each of you to invite an un-churched acquaintance of yours to church before Pentecost. That gives you seven weeks to witness to those who have not seen, heard, or felt the risen Christ in their lives. We have been chosen as witnesses to make a change for the better in someone’s life. Let’s not hide in the church, but share in the daylight. Give the gift of Easter joy to someone who doesn’t even know that they need it yet.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave 

The Beauty of the Desert

"The desert wilderness is the place where nothing grows and where our very existence is threatened.  Yet it is also the area especially chosen by God as the focus of his revelation." – Alan Jones

We often think of the desert as a bleak and foreboding place; a place best left to those of God’s creatures meant for such a desolate environment such as scorpions, vultures, or lizards.  Certainly it is not a place where any decent human being would find themselves unless by accident or the most extreme case of bad luck.  We generally think of deserts as lacking in all of those things that make life possible – like water, food, shade, shelter.  And yet, over the centuries various people have made the desert their home, and in fact have thrived in it.  Those who do will tell you that there is a beauty to the desert which is evident only if you can get beyond the initial reaction to what is not there.  In some respects, the sparseness of it is the key to its attraction.  It is an uncluttered environment where nothing unnecessary or redundant is found.  Its simplicity is a source of its beauty – a place where the brilliant color of a cactus’ flower is unchallenged by other more colorful attractions; or where the view of a sunrise or sunset, or even the horizon is unimpeded by anything unnatural.  Its stark emptiness is part of its overall attraction.

Perhaps this why the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert wilderness as he began the preparation for his three year journey of ministry which would lead to the shame of the cross, followed by the glory of the resurrection. There is a sense of purity, clarity, and silent peace which has made it a favorite destination for some who have sought one-on-one time with God.  There is a lack of distraction and a necessary oneness with your environment which heightens the senses and tunes one into the essential elements of life, or more importantly, causes us to rid ourselves of the distracting the superfluous, and the luxurious.  For centuries, pious disciples have ventured farther and farther into the desert seeking to leave civilization behind and thereby find a unimpeded view of and experience with God.  During the season of Lent, we are asked to find our own deserts: to seek places of solitude and clarity within our lives and within our souls which allow us to open a door for God to come in a start a conversation with us that is not disrupted by the extraneous things that inhabit our daily lives.  Lent is a season when we make a commitment to creating scarcity, and hence a simple beauty in our lives which allows us to see the world in a new and different way – perhaps more like God would like us to see it.

As you embark on your Lenten journey, seek to find that desert in your lives in which you will be able to clear your heart and mind and soul of all the clutter and distractions which impede the Word of God.  Whether it be through fasting, prayer, service, or meditation; attempt to free yourself of the things of this world, and focus on the beauty of God’s simple revelation.  Join Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and the desert fathers and mothers who have found strength in simplicity and the stark wilderness of God’s world.  It just might help you to accept the task of bearing a cross, as well as the resulting grace of Easter resurrection.  Have a happy Lent!

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave 

Love: The Alpha and the Omega

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."   - Luke 10:27

It never ceases to amaze me how the Spirit of God seems to work through what we might normally refer to as coincidence.  As I look upon the last three weeks, I have seen an outpouring of love, support, and Christian spirit for those who faced the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti.  We have been bombarded by the pictures, the film clips, the stories, the news updates, the pleas for aid; indeed it has been hard to get away from it.  And yet through it all, we have responded through prayer, through contributions, and even through sacrifice.  It is ironic that three American United Methodist pastors died amidst the rubble – two officials with UMCOR (The United Methodist Committee on Relief) and a volunteer who were all there to discuss the plight of the Haitian people and what the church could do to help, even before the earthquake hit.

Was it coincidence that they were there?  Was it coincidence that the lectionary took us into the 12th and 13th Chapters of First Corinthians at the same time? After all, Paul was addressing a church that was being torn asunder by disputes over issues that were as much secular as they were theological in nature.  As I listened to the political commentators debate the value of giving aid to Haiti, and whether or not they deserved our help, I was astonished to hear the same arguments being raised within the church.  And I found reassurance in Paul’s assertion that the Church is the Body of Christ which celebrates both a unity of spirit and the diversity of peoples, races, situations, gifts and graces, while being held together by the preeminence of love.  He ends Chapter 13 with the words “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (13:13)  I was struck at how relevant Paul’s words to a Greek church almost two thousand years ago, are to us today, as we continue to ask how we are to live out our mission and purpose in today’s world. 

I also found myself drawn to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke, in which the one who had the least commitment to assist, but showed the greatest compassion was the one Jesus singled out as being the true neighbor, and thus fulfilling the greatest commandment.  For in Luke, the statement to love God and neighbor is not separated into two, but contained within the same commandment.  No matter how much we try to avoid it, or create loopholes for ourselves, it is impossible to get away from the fact that as Christians we are commanded to love, and that part of that love is to be active in assisting those of God’s creation who are in need.  If there is one commandment which dominates the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the commandment to preach, teach, practice, exhibit, demonstrate, and exist in the love of God.  As Paul asserts, all the faith piety, sacrifice, proclamation, and knowledge in the world are meaningless if not driven by the overriding presence of love.

As Christians we are called to be a people of love; indeed, we cannot escape the fact that if we seek to serve a God of love, love has to be the beginning and the end of our faith, our life, and our very being.

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave 

Moving Forward While Looking Back

"Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you."  - Philippians 4:9

As we watch the end of another year, there is always the temptation to look and see how far we've come.  The New Year offers an opportunity to assess our past efforts in light of our desires and goals for the upcoming stretch ahead.  Looking back on what we have accomplished, I see many things to give thanks for.  We created a feeling of revival with out Holy Week of Worship, which I look forward to continuing and expanding this year.  We have started new Bible and book studies which have allowed us to develop opportunities for small group interaction outside of worship which bring us closer to our Wesleyan roots.  We have reached out to the surrounding community with greater efforts at compassionate care for those in need, a block party for our immediate neighbors, and our partnership with SERVE in the monthly food pantry.  The new website has made our church and what we do real to a whole group of people we may not even know yet.  Our Advent Worship series helped to develop a broader sense of what worship can ne, while our midnight Christmas Eve  service brought in six people from the community who had never been in our church before. 

Yet the temptation to rest on our current accomplishments is tempered by the realization that we need to continue to build on these efforts.  Just as the New Year signals that God's time continues to march forward, so it compels us to ask what new things can we do in order to keep the momentum going.  As I was cleaning the office to make room for the new equipment for the evening worship service, I ran across a number of items that drew my attention back to the past accomplishments of this church.  I found scrapbooks and assorted pictures full of prior activities such as VBS, an active youth program, a banner making group, and remembrances of the Cedar City congregations which gave me a new sense of where we have come from.  Some of them are lying on tables in the Fellowship Hall, and I would suggest that everyone take the opportunity to go down and study our heritage.  For me it serves as a catalyst for continuing to move forward in the accomplishment of God's work in our current community.  The spirit of the Cedar City United Methodist Church is alive and well in Holts Summit, and it is our charge to keep that flame of Methodist renewal burning bright.

In the spirit of those who would not let the flood waters overwhelm the rich history that is part of our legacy, I encourage all of us to draw on that determination to continue to move forward in proclaiming the saving grace of God to our current community.  As we continue to reach out, and reach in, and reach up, may we grow in faith and hope and love.  I wish you all a happy and productive New Year.  May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Yours in Christ, Pastor Dave