Opening our Hearts
It almost went by without fanfare in our Staff Meeting Tuesday as we did our check-ins. Stacy reported casually that over 60 people in blue hairnets packed 10,584 meals in about an hour for families in La Moskitia, Honduras, as part of our support for Send Hope and Reach out Honduras. Mardi began to give her report when I interrupted.
Me: “Stacy, how many of those 60 people registered beforehand, and how many came spontaneously?”
Stacy: “We didn’t have any pre-registration.”
Me: “Wait, on a summer Sunday, after the 11:00 service, and over the lunch hour, 60 people spontaneously decided to stick around, delay their own lunch, put on aprons and hairnets, and pack 10,584 meals for others? That’s nearly a third of everyone in worship at that service!”
Stacy: That’s right.
I was amazed.
One could say that planning for 33% of your worshipers to stick around for work over the lunch hour was a bit short-sighted without a back-up plan, or at least a plan to serve lunch to those who do stick around to do work that would have taken longer.
Or one could observe that God did something beautiful Sunday morning – right there in our midst: calling forth by heart the exact number of people God needed for this massive feeding of others. I chose the latter, and I was moved.
Photo by Heidi Lawrence (Facebook)
I thank Sharon and Tom Brian for enabling this significant mission through Send Hope. I thank Heidi and Tommy Lawrence for championing our support of Reach Out Honduras. Most of all, I thank you – our church – for being a people who open your hearts to the needs of others. Our time for feasting came a bit later last Sunday. This Sunday our feasting will come a bit earlier, at the rail together, thanking God for God’s abundance and sufficiency as we open our hearts to the Spirit’s calling. Blessings!
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
Peering into the Future
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations ...”
When Jesus gave these marching orders to his disciples/church, they took off by foot, pack animal, and boat. Now we go at the speed of the internet.
When I began a conversation with an ad hoc communications team from our staff and asked the question what needs to be our top emphases to reach people with the gospel. Here is what they suggested and how these items were ranked:
Add variety to our website, show inclusiveness, and add links to social media.
Teach the congregation how to witness digitally.
Show playfulness.
Intentionally grow our number of followers.
Create video shorts.
Deliver all of the above in the highest quality.
This is a far cry from going by foot, pack animal, and boat. It is the world we live in now. Churches that thrive will be those that adopt, adapt, and expand these avenues. Our Futurist Team’s work is underlining these directions.
To that end, I gave our staff a heart attack when I told them as a last piece of business that Ephraim Nitanga had accepted a new position … with us. Ephraim is now our Director of Media, a program-level position by which he will work with leadership and volunteers to cast vision and help us develop our online presence more fully for the growing number of people we are reaching with our excellent livestream and other digital offerings. As Ephraim has done in his first two years here, so he will do still more: enabling us to digitally connect God and grace to self and community.
More announcements on new hires coming; stay tuned. See you Sunday, from wherever you are!
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
Deconstruction vs. Demolition
Watching the man in the excavator systematically demolishing our old west parking lot so that dirt moving can begin, I am reminded that very often, things have to be deconstructed in our lives before new construction can thoughtfully begin. There is a difference between demolition and deconstruction. Demolition breaks up into a pile of messy rubble. Deconstruction dismantles and recycles what can be repurposed for something new.
Deconstruction is a term used often now by people who have been hurt by the church in their lives and are wary of ever stepping back into that world. Sexual assaults and perversions that make the news are only the most visible kinds of hurt that too many people have suffered from pastors, priests, and laypeople who claim to follow Jesus Christ in their lives. Countless numbers of laypeople have been hurt by messages overt and covert that say, “your kind is not welcomed here” or worse, “God is sending you to Hell.” No wonder a record percentage of people in the United States claim no organized religion for themselves.
On the other hand, when basic, loving tenets and experiences of the faith can be found not only in that hurting person’s past, but also in a new church setting, then new construction of that person’s faith can begin and be built upon. In these last months we have received several people into membership who are finding here at FUMC Plano the grace and unconditional acceptance that was, for the most part, lacking in their earlier experiences of church. The love they experience in our words and in our people remind them that here they are “halfway to heaven instead of halfway to Hell.” That always was Jesus’ message; wherever he was, there was the kingdom of God, open-armed and embracing. Those who experienced that grace – more often than not– were moved to continue building a new faith that was “built on a rock.”
For the next three weeks we will explore Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth and how, in various ways, he encouraged them to open their hearts to a new experience – a new and gracious reality for their lives. All worship participants, in-house and virtual, will have an opportunity to explore with paper hearts where it is we each need some deconstruction and some new construction in our faith lives. I think it will be helpful to all of us who wonder sometimes what will happen after the concrete in our lives has been reduced to rubble. See you Sunday!
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
“I have submitted to be more vile.”
This is what methodism’s founder, John Wesley, wrote in his journal in 1739. It was a decision made thoughtfully and intentionally by one of the most educated persons of his time, having graduated from Oxford University. It was a decision made thoughtfully, intentionally, and faithfully by a pastor, the son of a pastor. The decision was to step beyond the walls of his Anglican church building to preach. This simply was not done nor condoned. It was radical, heretical, and “vile.”
Yet for Wesley it was an essential step that those who could not attend a church on Sundays might hear the saving grace of God for themselves. I wonder if we are in such a different place all these years later. Could it be that we have become too building-centric in our thinking about “church”? Could it be that, while we think of meeting people where they are with the grace of God through Jesus Christ out in the world, we unconsciously think that the endgame is for them to be in our building with us?
Wesley came to the conclusion that persons who had to work in the fields or in the coal mines or as indentured servants simply did not have that luxury. So, he decided that he and his brother Charles would take the good news to them – where they were – and a Protestant revival began in England and spread to the American colonies and across our continent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Circuit-riding pastors like Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury, and Freeborn Garrettson rode their horses taking the gospel to the people where they lived, before a church building was ever constructed.
I think there are lessons for us more than 200 years later. Our “frontier” is our neighborhood where new people move in, at the local pubs where people gather for drinks and discussions, and in the homes of people who cannot get out due to health reasons or who live great distances – even states away from FUMC Plano. I am convinced that it is to these places that we submit to be more “vile.” Our Futurist Team continues to learn and dream out loud of what our changing world and mission field will look like five and ten years from now and what we must do now to meet people where they are and not where we wish they were. As you think of the ways and places that we might consider taking the gospel, let us know. You can send your ideas to the church (office@fumcplano.org).
In the meantime, we will be celebrating Father’s Day with the always popular John Wesley Ramblers from the Wesley Foundation at Texas A&M and the reception of a new father and his baptized family into our church family at the 9 a.m. service. It’s going to be a great day. Blessings to all our fathers and especially our heavenly one!
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
The Depths of Discipleship
Left: Rev. Melissa Helms was ordained as an Elder in the United Methodist Church this week at Annual Conference. Right: Matt Gaston donning his scuba gear illustrating how God’s friendship is for everyone at VBC this week.
It is a long way between standing in a robe and red stole laying hands on the head of a woman ordained by our bishop as a new Elder in the United Methodist Church and “swimming” in some scuba gear against an underwater backdrop for Vacation Bible Camp. Yet, the distance, apart from the clothing, is not as far as it might seem.
Both events had to do with discipleship under the call and lordship of Jesus Christ. Ever since God called Abraham, well into his Medicare years, to birth a great people, God has been calling people with what John Wesley called “prevenient grace.” It’s that nudge, that prod, that unexpected awareness of something beyond ourselves and deep within ourselves that compels us toward a greater awareness of God and God’s great love for us and all of creation. This is the first step of a lifelong process of being made more into the image of Jesus. That never-ending process is discipleship – the same process Jesus called his friends to be about:
“Go into all the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
For a few, it entails the call as a pastor to set-apart ministry. For many, it entails learning experiences like Vacation Bible Camp, mission trips, retreats, choir tours, and summer camp. For all, it involves regular worship, scripture reading, prayer, communion, the giving back to God with our financial gifts, Christian fellowship, and service. These are the essential elements for a vital Christian life just as surely as oxygen is for a scuba diver.
We had some 400 laity here for the Laity Session of Annual Conference on Sunday.
We had over 1000 people attend Annual Conference at FUMC Richardson this week.
We have been blessed to reach some 160 children this week with our SCUBA Vacation Bible Camp.
We will reach another 300+ in worship this Sunday and twice that many online.
The common denominator of all these is God’s lifelong call upon each one of us to grow in grace and grow more into the image of Jesus and what Jesus would have each one of us do – today.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
Broken Branches, Broken Hearts, and the Cross
Driving around various neighborhoods and churches, like you, I have been struck by the damage done by the storm of this past Tuesday. The branches and leaves litter front yards and streets. Sometimes a whole tree is uprooted or snapped in half, but more often it is branches that have been broken and strewn. When it’s a tree that has been part of your home or other special place for years, it breaks your heart to see the damage. But after the storms have passed and the chain saws have been put away, we witness new growth that we would never have seen otherwise – sometimes more beautiful than the original tree. The cross reminds us to count on that truth. A storm blew Jesus into the hands of angry religious leaders and a frustrated procurator landed him on a cross where criminals legs were sometimes broken in order to speed up the death by asphyxiation. But from that damage, that death at the top of the cross, came the new life we could not imagine through resurrection.
My study group is reading Turning Points by Noll, Komline and Komline. It is a very good primer about the turning points in Christian history that I can recommend for our library as it is not academically stuffy. Speaking about the brokenness of papal leadership within the Catholic Church in the 16th century, the authors state, “Later Protestants would also come to learn from their own experience that failures at the top, however discouraging, are never fatal to a church.”
I think that line is prophetic. It speaks a great truth about the resilience of Christ’s body, the church – you and me. Beyond broken hearts over broken trust at the top, the church rises with new hope and new growth from the strong roots and trunk below. I think we are in such a time as that now in the United States.
This Sunday begins the last Annual Conference of our over 100-year-old North Texas Conference. The pandemic and disaffiliations have broken branches and hearts in our churches and conferences nationwide. It has hurt. Yet out of that comes the opportunity to begin again as we vote whether to unite with the remnants of the Northwest Texas and Central Texas Conferences to form a new Horizon Texas Conference. Your elected Annual Conference members – Jill Stoel, Kevin Clanahan, John Shell, Gavin Cox, Joyce Craig, Gayle Landis, Judith Reedy, and I all have the opportunity to pray, discuss, and vote on this historic decision. We will vote for hope and new life, just as we did as a local church to sell property and right-size FUMC Plano to be nimbler and more sustainable in God’s next chapter for Christ’s church. I am counting on it because I count on God’s saving grace through the brokenness of branches, hearts, and the cross. Amen.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
P.S. We will have a Town Hall Meeting on June 9 following the 11 a.m. worship service to answer all of your questions about the land sale, next steps, General Conference, Annual Conference, and anything else that is on your mind.
Blow Spirit, Blow
When people came to worship this past Pentecost Sunday, many expected the rightful honoring of our high school seniors and even a witness from Sydney Anderson and William Messer. But few outside of the planning team knew what to do or think when they heard a babble of voices processing in as red banners soared above. You couldn’t make out what anyone was saying; it sounded like loud gibberish coming from a collection of people with smiles on their faces. They were, in fact, praying as they came in. I bet our congregants asked the same question as arose with the believers in the upper room on that first Pentecost when they asked, “What does this mean? (Acts 2:12)”
It became only a little clearer when the people approached the altar and stood in a line. Each spoke a portion of Psalm 23 in her/his native tongue with the closed caption in English on the screen. A total of ten members of our church spoke in their native language across no less than six cultures. It was a perplexing and powerful moment in worship.
This beautiful variety of people and cultures – all members of our church – represented the kingdom of God and our future well as we become gradually more diverse. And as different as we are, we are all linked by our relationship to God through Jesus Christ and Christ’s love for all persons everywhere. It can be a little perplexing at times, to be sure. But it also can be reassuring as we come to realize that our witness of love and inclusion can move observers to say, as the church Father Tertullian said of the early Christian church, “See how they love one another.” Blow Spirit, blow!
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
The Flame Still Burns
It began at Jurisdictional Conference a year and a half ago in Houston when three new bishops were elected and without any acrimony.
It continued when Bishop Saenz Jr. was assigned to the head both the Central Texas Conference and our North Texas Conference with joint fanfare.
We felt it at Annual Conference a year ago when it was evident that everyone there wanted to be there and move forward together in mission for the gospel.
We saw it again at General Conference just completed when global efforts passed by 80% and 90% margins.
We have experienced it locally as new faces, families, baptisms, and hope populate our growing optimism.
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit ...”
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, and we will, in some special ways, be made aware of the Spirit’s presence among us:
An increasingly diverse people will gather to praise God;
Different languages among us will be heard;
Young women and young men will dream and see visions of grace and possibility (Joel 2:28).
It is, I think, what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ. As it was in that upper room, the presence of the Spirit disrupts as it energizes until the community finds its new footing and its way forward together. Much like a flock of birds starting to fly quickly in several directions before finding formation and a flight path forward – together. These are exciting times for our young people, for our church, and for our denomination because the flame of the Holy Spirit still burns.
Blow Spirit, blow. See you Sunday in FUMC Plano’s “upper room.”
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
Trusting Mom, Trusting the Spirit
With my dad working on the marketing side of the oil and gas industry, we moved a lot when I was a small child – five times across three states by the time I was in third grade. For me it was always an adventure: new house, new school, new play places, new friends. The central reason why I held that optimism was my mom, who held that optimism of possibility. While Dad was on the road 3-4 days a week, Mom was the anchor and loving constant who gave us dependable grounding for the next new thing in front of my sister and me, so we were always hopeful.
Mom died nine years ago but I still carry with me that sense of grounding, optimism, and hope which I now name the Spirit of the living Christ. To listen to Cammy and other returned delegates from our General Conference, that same Spirit of grounding, hope, and optimism was palpable in Charlotte at our concluded General Conference. Take a look at Bishop Saenz’s Conference Wrap-Up below.
Jesus was clear with his disciples that he would be leaving them, but not alone. He would send another, which would be the Holy Spirit – the same Spirit we will celebrate on May 19, Pentecost Sunday. But before we do that, we will remember and celebrate our mothers this Sunday who, more often than not, are the incarnation of grounding, optimism, and hope for most of us. With all of the changes and movement ahead into new territory by our denomination and our local church, I am extraordinarily grateful for the Spirit who is moving ahead with us.
Thank you, Mom, for personifying that grace ever so well.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
And the Wind Blew ...
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8
When Rev. Cammy Gaston addressed about 100 people in our Sanctuary two Sundays ago, she explained how General Conference works and the emphases of “3 Rs” that our North and Central Texas delegations would be focusing:
Regionalization
Removal of the restrictive language around sexuality
Revision of our Social Principles
Few thought confidently that all three could be achieved in one General Conference given that we had been unsuccessful in four previous General Conferences spanning 20 years. Now we are one vote away from affirming a whole new set of Social Principles. That vote is expected to be as large as the votes were for regionalization and removal of the restrictive language (see Bishop Saenz’s video below) – about 90% in favor! How do we explain this tsunami of sea change? Disaffiliation of churches and delegates who would have voted, “nay” explains some but not nearly all of that shift of position by our United Methodist Church. I believe it is the movement of the Holy Spirit.
In John’s text above, the learned clergy Nicodemus is befuddled by how in the world a person can be “born again.” He knows – really – that you can’t crawl back into your mother’s womb. So, if not that, then what? That is where Jesus teaches Nicodemus about the Holy Spirit, who is forever beyond our ability to predict or control – just like the wind – but you sure know it when you feel it!
It was amazing to hear from Cammy that starting the very first two days of Conference last week, decisions both small and large were being made by an 80%+ margin that seemed to keep building on itself with shocked surprise, positivity, and growing momentum. Now there are two days left and those present would tell you that the Spirit has most startlingly been blowing in ways that have brought numerous gasps and tears of joy that we are finally acting like the church of Jesus Christ with “faith, hope, and love” (1 Cor. 13) instead of the alternatives our culture too readily offers up and even celebrates.
This first Sunday in May we gather for the same holy communion that we did in April, but when we say that ALL are welcomed at this table, we now mean it ... officially. As our Church Council stated after our church-wide discernment process a year and a half ago around the issue of human sexuality, “We are proud to be a United Methodist Church.”
Blow Spirit blow.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,