Response by Tim Van Noy to the Pastor’s Blog posted the week of September 20

I take a little offense @ the blog concerning keeping your children from becoming good Christians by participating in sporting events on Sundays.  Our family is very involved in our church activities:  Sunday school, church service, youth activities, and extra activities at the church.  We hate to miss when we have out of town games, but they are very few throughout the year.  I am teaching my children to be well rounded in all areas of their lives from school work,to mannners, ethical issues, world issues, and christian values.  I think it is wrong to make people feel guilty for occacionally missing church because of an event;  especially if the family is together and having good quality time together.  I am the coach of my son's traveling team and teach all of my players life skills such as respect, team work, discipline, hard work, friendship, and have even tried to intorduce religious topics and discussions with some.  Several of my players are from broken homes and this can be some added structure for them.  We do not practice on Wednesdays because of church and have come to early church to be able to get to our games, or have changed in the church bathroom after church to maximize our time at church and still be able to get to our games.  On our last trip home from a Winston game (that was on Sunday and we were at church) another family rode with us and we listened to 106.9 the christian music station and my son and his teammate were singing the words out loud.  My daughter Lindsay has just joind FCA (the fellowship of christian athletes) at her school and my son will when he gets there.  We do a lot with our children to encourage them and ourselves to be better christians.  If they or we do miss, it is rarely because of sleeping-in or being lazy.  Rather it is for doing something they love and sharing time with family and friends(teamates).  My son and I pray when we have games that we will all be healthy and will make it safely both to and from the event.  Again that is my son praying.  I love it when my son prays(and he prays about everything a lot) even if it is for a sport.                                    

Thank you for listening, Tim Van Noy

Response by Marjorie Wiggins to the Pastor’s Blog posted the week of August 30

Chris, I commend you upon your response to the current relationship between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and The United Methodist Church.  As you already know, I am deeply grieved that our conference did not approve the amendment to our constitution which states that all persons accepting the vows of membership are eligible for membership in our Church.  I am troubled that the Good News Movement was allowed to hand out voting advice to delegates (outside Stuart Auditorium).  This advice was not identified with its proponents, but, rather, presented as truth.

It is interesting that the Good News proponents put all of their emphasis on the 'awfulness of welcoming homosexuals'.  Our mutual good friend and your fellow pastor Ed McKinney made an empassioned plea for openness and love.  His wonderful statement was ignored by so many.

You are also to be commended on your posture on welcoming all professing Christians to our church.  I beg our membership to support you in this.  I pray that we will welcome all, and that 'all' will truly mean all.

And, I further pray that our relationship with our Lutheran friends will continue and improve, whatever the orientation of any clergy or member.

God bless you.

Marjorie

A response by Danny Reece to the Pastor’s Blog posted the week of August 16.

I appreciate your efforts to highlight these attacks on the body of Christ. What should be our response? Obviously, we should pray. I also believe we should pray in an organized fashion. Many local churches seem to be able to come together for a national day of prayer. Would an international day of prayer highlighting the plight of these communities be beyond us? I also believe that physical & legal support for these Christian communities should be an obligation for all other churches, including the United Methodist Church. We must resist the inclination to re-fire the historic crusader mentality that has led to so much violence in this area through out history, although I admit to feeling the impulse. The more radical forms of Islam enjoy religious freedoms in western civilizations while denying, or at least impeding, the same freedoms in traditionally Islamic countries. That said, we must also remember that blaming Islam for this persecution is akin to blaming Christianity for slavery or anti-semitism. The entire topic is a witches’ brew of historic distrust, monolithic over-simplifications, and suspicion bordering on paranoia.

We must look to Christ for creative, love-driven responses. We must look to the example of Christ in prayer and in scripture. I think we must prepare ourselves to recognize and take advantage of any opportunities God may provide us for more fully realizing the presence of his Kingdom, wherever it may be.

Peace,

Danny

A response by Lori Burke to the Pastor’s Blog posted the week of April 5.

I agree with your proposed new model of Methodism. I feel our church certainly tries our hardest with most of those points, but it is so important to be reminded, and to be put back in our place at times. First and foremost, Jesus should be at the center of everything we do, and we should show a united front, as simply being Methodists, sharing God's love with all people. And then go out and share!

The part about the worship service not being a "show" affected me the most, however. Every time I attend or take part in a worship service, that is what I am there for. To praise and worship God. It is all about Him. When I do a special song or participate in special music, I usually sneak out quickly afterwards before people can talk to me, because the praise should not go to me. The praise should go to God. I sang it for the people to feel somehow closer to Him. I was given a gift, and I believe I have been called to use that gift to His service. It is never about me or what glory I can receive. It is about how I can share the word of God in the best way I know how. Through music.

Danny shared that it isn't always easy to step out of your comfort zone to share the love of Jesus with others. So try to find a way that IS comfortable for you. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. You will find more blessings each time you do.\

Thanks for listening (reading...) and may God bless you, Love Lori

A response to the Pastor’s Blog posted the week of March 17, 2009 by Susan Ringo (Sent to Chris Wilson on March 20, 2009)

I love the idea of a Saturday Sabbath, and I love the ideas you presented in your blog.  Here is my thought:  What if after the Sabbath, you had some guest bloggers write about their experiences that day?  We could all read about how people felt and were affected by this experience.  Anyway…just a thought.

A response to the Pastor’s Blog posted the week of March 8, 2009 by Danny Reece (Sent to Chris Wilson on March 12, 2009)

Good morning,

I like the idea of your blog and hope it elicits good response. Since this is my hope, I suppose it would be appropriate for me to respond.

As you know, I’ve given some thought and read some of the commentary out on the web regarding the declining church. I could not agree more that the time for analysis is long past. What prevents us from action? I believe one contributing factor is good old fashioned fear.

We fear losing the church of our childhood when we should be more concerned with losing our children. We fear stepping outside of comfort zones. We fear interacting with people we don’t know. We fear upsetting the apple cart, rocking the boat and any other cliché you can come up with. We like helping people we know and people far away from us, but we are wary of the person who enters the church from the street or the neighborhood kids in the parking lot. We need those kids.

(Just last night we had a visitor inquiring about the Wednesday Knights. He said he was from the chess club that meets at the library on Thursday nights and that they currently had a child attending who might be more comfortable with our group. He wanted to see what we did. He visited with us and we actually played a game of chess…but the entire time I felt a little uneasy…here was “an other”. I did not know him. My internal dialogue went something like this: “Is he who he says he is? Why does he want to stay with the children? I better be on guard. Should I allow him to stay? ” I managed to invite him to church and also to give him a flyer for the parents of his club member, but I don’t think my demeanor was as welcoming as it should have been. He creamed me in the chess game. Perhaps I digress, but you see the point.)

I believe the theological and spiritual character of the United Methodist Church, with its emphasis on both grace and holiness, reaching out to others and social justice, the head and the heart…is perfectly suited for a generation of young people that will be coming into its own in the next 10-20 years. I believe statistics show a significant percentage of this age are turned off to Christianity…(not Jesus…but Christianity) because it does not speak to them. They see their gay friends condemned to hell when pastors and priests are caught in scandals. They see white congregations and black congregations. They see professing Christians not resembling Christ in the slightest. They view Christians as judgmental at best and hypocritical at worst. They see smiling televangelists saying they can have it all and that doesn’t sound like Jesus. They see small cartoon pamphlets promising damnation left on top of urinals and that doesn’t seem like Jesus either. They see congregations separating over what are basically political issues and that does not appear to be the body of Christ at all. They can socialize elsewhere.

I’m certainly not saying anything that has not been said by countless others. We have to be more vocal and visible about what we believe, about what distinguishes us from other groups. This requires courage. We must identify and nurture leaders among our young people (I think our church actually does a pretty good job of that). We must establish new faith communities and continue to evolve our own. We must act …and we must engage..not fear… our neighbors. Actually, I think we are supposed to love them.

So…that’s my two cents. Happy Blogging!