Pastor’s Blog for the Weend of February 15, 2010

Walking the Labyrinth

I have offered during Lent to give church members a tour of the labyrinth and then their own time to walk the labyrinth. So far no one has taken up my offer, but I am hopeful. I had never walked a labyrinth until we got ours when the Youth Arena was put together. At first I thought of the labyrinth as being a spiritual experience for those who were attuned to that sort of thing, I not being one of those. I did not have a spiritual experience the first time I walked it. Nothing happened, or at least nothing I was aware of.

I did not walk the labyrinth for many months after that. In those days I was having my prayer time on my knees in the chapel. As I gradually found myself praying a little less, as my knees got a little worse, I decided to move to the Youth Arena. One day, while not having a very effective prayer time in the Youth Arena, I decided that since it was there, I would try walking the labyrinth again. I relaxed. I did not focus on anything. I just followed the path. I’ve been doing it ever since.

One of our parishioners once in my hearing referred to our labyrinth as “the maze.” I jumped to correct her. A maze is the opposite of a labyrinth. A maze is something you get lost in. A maze abounds in wrong turns, confusing paths, and creates the fear that you will never get out. A labyrinth has only one path. You can’t get lost. The one path leads to the center every time. All you have to do is follow the path. All the turns are the correct turns. You always end in the center.

A light with a separate switch and rheostat is directly above the center. I turn off the Youth Arena lights and turn on only the center light. When I reach the center, I close my eyes and bow my head, then I gradually lift my head toward the light. When my head is bowed and eyes closed, it is very dark. As I lift my head, my closed eyes perceive more and more light. It is the light of Christ shining into the darkness.

For me the labyrinth is not so much a spiritual experience as it is a spiritual discipline. Every time I walk it, which is usually twice a week, I feel His presence more and more keenly.

Would you like to try it?

Faithfully,

Chris

Pastor’s Blog for the Week of February 7, 2010

A Passionate Worship Service

Passionate Worship is one of the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations that we will be involved with in our upcoming church wide study.

Yesterday, February 7, we had a passionate worship service here at First UMC. So many things were different from what we were expecting and what we had planned for. On Friday, I was lamenting what seemed to be a fairly sure weather forecast that would necessitate our canceling services Sunday—for the second consecutive Sunday. By Saturday morning conditions looked good enough that we would be able to have one service, although I expected very low attendance. Norma and George had much more snow than we did. I told Norma that it was best for her not to try to make it through to church Sunday. With no organist and what was likely to be a very small attendance, I decided to have the service in the chapel. Wiseman’s View graciously accepted my invitation to provide the music. We postponed Boy Scout Sunday for a week. Since my sermon was geared to Boy Scout Sunday, I had to construct another sermon on Saturday afternoon. Although I didn’t have nearly as much time as I normally use to prepare a sermon, I figured that it would be okay, since it would only be a small, informal gathering.

Weather got better Sunday morning. The chapel started filling up well before the time of the service. People started cramming into the pews. We were not in a position where we could move to the sanctuary. Just as it looked like no more people could be crammed in, another family would show up. I prayed that God would not let us fall into a situation where we had to turn someone away. People brought in chairs. Everyone got in. I was afraid some would complain or even leave because it was so crowded. Then I quickly saw that people were loving being here and loving the service, even loving the packed chapel. Singing was really good. There was a sense of warmth and love among us, and sense of God’s love among us that was palpable.

Sermons are part God, part Bible, and part preacher—but another important part is the hearers. I’m not sure whether the sermon was very good (the Duke Institute of Preaching Congregational Committee will tell me that tomorrow), but the listening of the congregation was great. Everyone seemed to really want to hear a word from the Lord.

Afterward I had numerous people tell me how much they loved the service, and I heard no one complain. It had been a wonderfully serendipitous blessed-by-God hour for us. I heard two women, who are neighbors, talking about how they loved worshipping together, something they had not done in a long time, because one of them is an early service attender; the other, late service. I had several people tell me how much they enjoyed the warmth and closeness they felt in the service. I think we all felt good to be back worshipping together, after having missed last Sunday because of the snow.

Lenten Devotion Books

This year we have a book of devotions for Lent, all written by our church members. They will be available at various places in the church this Sunday. The devotions begin with Ash Wednesday, which is February 17. There are a lot of beautiful thoughts and stories in these devotions. Read them every day as a part of your Lenten discipline. Not only will they help you know God better; they will help you know your brothers and sisters in our church better.

In Christ,

Chris

Pastor’s Blog for the Week of January 17, 2010

Being with Younger Pastors, All Techies: Can I Adjust?

I was in Orlando Monday through Wednesday with the Duke Institute of Preaching. We have 21 UMC pastors and two leaders, both of whom are clergy in the Institute. I’m the oldest person there. Jim Harnish, one of the leaders, is 62; the rest, much younger. I noticed that Jim and I were the only people who had regular cell phones. All the younger pastors had either Blackberrys or i-phones, most of them i-phones. Now, the Florida pastors have to do both Facebook and Twitter. I learned that any church without a Facebook page is doomed to become young-adultless.

First NW does have a Facebook page with currently 56 fans, a good number of whom are out of town, but most are here and most are young adults. I am on Facebook, though I normally look at it only about once every six weeks or so. I have about 130 friends, but I’ve never friended anybody. I have written messages on Facebook only a few times on the church’s Facebook page. I had concluded long ago that I was too old to grasp Facebook, but my preacher friends in Orlando convinced me that I’d better make a stronger effort.

My puzzlement comes at several points: First, I don’t understand why anyone would want to know what I’m doing at this moment, or what I ate for lunch, or any of the other day to day things of my life. Second, when I read my Facebook page, I sometimes learn more about a person than I want to know, or that they probably want me to know. I think they may have 600 Facebook friends and forgot that I was one of them. I’m asking myself, “why would they want me to know this?” I feel as if I’m invading their privacy. Third, I have trouble thinking and writing a complete thought in two sentences. Facebook is hard enough for me. I think the 140 character Twitter tweet would be impossible for me. Blog writing, however, works very well for me. Fourth, on the few occasions when people I haven’t seen in forty years have friended me on Facebook, I’ve found it a little frightening.

I should note that during the entire Orlando meeting I did not reveal any of these Facebook misgivings to any of the other pastors (I also kept my simple cell phone hidden from their view). They were favorably impressed that someone as old as I was actually on Facebook. I even impressed them with one observation. I said that Robert Estienne, the French printer who in 1554 divided the entire Bible into verses—the verses that we still use today, was ahead of his time. My guess is that if we took the tens of thousands of verses in the Bible and found out the average number of characters per verse, it would probably be about 140.

I did come away from the meeting with the resolution to write something on the church’s Facebook page once a week. I wrote something on it earlier this afternoon. Within seconds one of the 56 church fans instant-messaged me. That was a little scarry. We chatted for a few minutes on IM. It was the first time I’ve IM ed with anyone in five years.

I also resolved that my self-denial practice for this upcoming Lent will be read my Facebook page every day throughout Lent (excluding Sundays).

So, people who are younger than I, I need for you to educate me as best you can about Facebook. I think I would be embarrassed to go to B & N and buy Facebook for Dummies. I do realize that, like a lot of things in life, the only way really to learn it may be just to do it. Still, I have so much to learn:

I’m not sure what a “wall” is. Can someone explain?

I don’t understand why I no longer get the comments of some people who have friended me. Have they unfriended me?

I used the word comment in the last question. I know that for Twitter it’s a tweet. What is the word for Facebook comments? I feel sure that it is not “comments.”

I got Happy Birthday wishes from some Facebook friends. Two of them are not close friends and probably have over a thousand Facebook friends each. Did they have something that automatically popped up my birthday and sent a generic birthday greeting?

I do like the pictures, but would I need a 25 inch monitor to be able to see them well?

Do people with a thousand friends read all those comments every day? How much time must that take?

The Facebook etiquette appears to me to be that you write only a couple of sentences. Is that correct? What would happen if I were to write a whole page?

I asked my 39 year old son whether he thought anyone my age could learn an i-phone. He thought for a few seconds and said, “No, I don’t think so.” Do you agree?

Is i-phone spelled I-phone?

Faithfully and Hopingly,

Chris

Pastor’s Blog for the Week of January 11, 2010

FIVE PRACTICES OF FRUITFUL CHURCHES

At our Church Council Retreat on January 9, Council was introduced to Five Practices of Fruitful Churches, both the book and the church wide program by Bishop Robert Schnase. Council voted to adopt the program for a church wide study. The study will be for the six weeks of the season of Easter. Adult Sunday School Classes will be invited, but not required, to join in the program. We will also provide another six week class during the Wednesday evening 6:45-7:30 time slot. The worship services during Easter season will revolve around the five practices. I will be preaching a series of sermons, one on each of the practices.

The Five Practices are: Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity.

You will be hearing a lot more about the program during Epiphany and Lent as we look forward to Easter. It’s a program whose ideas could powerfully strengthen our church for years to come.

PASSIONATE SINGING

When Church Council was presented with the Passionate Worship section of Five Practices, I asked Council members whether they as individuals would commit themselves to singing more passionately in worship in 2010. About 75% of the Council members made that commitment.

At 10:55 service, when I came down the aisle at the end of the choir procession, I was struck by our congregational singing, which was clearly better than I had heard it in quite a while. I should stress that I was not listening specifically for such an improvement. As usual, I had a dozen other things about the service and the sermon running through my head during the processional, but our singing really grabbed my attention.

Thanks to Councils members who made the commitment. You can make that commitment too!

Faithfully,

Chris

Pastor’s Blog for the Week of December 20, 2009

Snow

I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas. I’m one of those relatively few people who really dislikes snow and would be happy never seeing it again. Last weekend’s snow was the first measureable snowfall we have had in N. Wilkesboro since January of 2005.

In our blended family the Saturday before Christmas has always been the time of our family Christmas dinner. Not so good, this time. My mother told me early Friday she would not be coming. Our son, John drove Jessica, Madeline, and Jack through the worst of it late Friday afternoon. They made it in Friday night about 7:00. Our daughter April was supposed to fly in from her home in Philadelphia Saturday morning. Obviously that did not happen. Philly had 23 inches of snow. It was the first time that April has ever missed a Christmas dinner. Then we had to call off church Sunday, for what is usually one of our biggest attendance Sundays of the year. The Phone Tree was down. Despite my punching in all the right phone codes, I don’t think my message ever made it to WXII. I was getting depressed.

John and Jessica left Sunday afternoon. They called when they got home to Carrboro. No snow there at all. The kids wanted to play in the snow. Marianne didn’t. I, who haven’t played in snow for at least 25 years, had to take them. It wasn’t fun for me, but—it was fun for them. I thank God for the joy on the faces and in the voices of children. Their joy far outshines my grumpiness.

Christmas is about the joy of a child. It is a holiday and a holy day. It is for children and is for that one child who began our faith, a baby in a manger. Think of Him in the joy of His season.

In Christ,

Chris

Pastor’s Blog for the Week of December 6, 2009

Joseph, Husband of Mary: A Historical Monologue

For the past couple of years I have been doing one or two sermons a year that are technically not sermons but historical monologues. The first three were what I called the Caesarea series, set in the city of Caesarea Maritima, the Roman provincial capital of Judea, 35 miles west of Jerusalem. The three monologues were on Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate, and Paul.

On Sunday, December 20, at both services I will be doing a new historical monologue, this one on Joseph. The basic text for the monologue is Matthew 1:18-2:23, with additional information from Luke 1-2, and smatterings of information from other sources, Biblical and non-Biblical ancient writings.

Although there are numerous stories in apocryphal literature about Joseph and Mary, there is little reliable historical information to be gleaned from them. I have sought to be judicious in my use of them. I have focused on the Matthew texts, because Matthew tells the story through the perspective of Joseph. Luke tells the story through the perspective of Mary. I have sought at every point not to claim more than history and the texts can justify. I have prayerfully sought to get into Joseph’s mind, to think what it seems most likely that he was thinking, and to write it and act it.

Joseph’s story, as I tell it, may be a bit shocking to some folks who are more accustomed to happy nativity scenes and the sweet romance of Christian legendary lore. The real story is stark and scandal laden. Matthew tells it sparsely but with gaps that are easy to fill. Luke’s story is fuller but avoids the scandal and avoids the horror of slaughter of the innocents. Popular Christian imagination uses both but prefers Luke. The monologue will reveal a Joseph whom, I hope, accords more closely with the Joseph of history.

In Christ,

Chris