Power Near and Far

   Our toilet started running about a week ago. Not all the time, of course, but every few minutes the sound of flowing water would indicate that more water was needed to keep the float at the right level in the tank. This is not the way it is supposed to work. It wastes water and keeps people up at night. People like me!

   While I know a couple of things about toilets, everything I knew to try did not apply. The flapper was not warped due to age and there was no water leaking onto the floor. I was stumped.

   I saw Billy Bullock, one of Epworth’s newer members (he and Alison joined in December), in a meeting about serving at Rose Hill this week and asked him. Billy is one of those guys who can fix lots of things. Lots. He told me two things to consider - check the flapper again and maybe reduce the water flow at the wall because the pressure could be too high. Then, about an hour later, he called me because he thought of one more thing to try. You guessed it, that third thing worked. If you’re wondering, he had me pop the plastic cap off of the float stem, with the water turned off at the wall, and then turn it back on slowly to knock any sediment out of the supply line that might have kept it from filling all the way every time. Honestly, I have no idea how it worked, but it did! Billy has that kind of power.

   People like Billy impress me. And, Epworth has lots of people like Billy. People who are good at stuff. People who have expertise and gifts and who are willing to share them. Epworth is filled with people who serve and give generously. This phrase is the last line of our Missional Measures, Epworth G.L.O.W.S., that define what Epworth people look like when our ministries have been successful. We believe that God intends for all of us to shine the light of Jesus.

   Along with having a quiet commode, I also love the fact that Billy’s power was exerted from afar. Sometimes we can have great influence from a distance. The Gentile Centurion that approaches Jesus in Luke 7, knows that Jesus can heal from a distance and Jesus marvels at his faith. Our prayers and our gifts are two obvious examples. Then, there are times that God’s power through us is best offered up close. We have to draw near to make a difference.The youth people are doing that this week, having driven twelve hours to Washington D. C. It is also what happens every week in our church when adults offer the power of God’s love and care to our children. 

   We are called to draw close to serve and bring about God’s Kingdom. Our Vision for Epworth in the next eighteen months is to help every person become actively engaged every month in ministries that are transforming the community. Imagine seeing God’s power at work near and far when that happens! 

   Grace and Peace, Scott

God is Good

   I shouted this down the halls of the church earlier today when a call came from someone with news that I had prayed would happen for them. I repeated it in the parking lot earlier today when two people walked up at the very moment another was walking out and they were able to meet and introduce themselves. I had literally thought about how I could get them to meet just minutes before and there they stood together. God is good. How else can we explain the small, serendipitous moments when everything lines up and good happens? I believe God is good even in the midst of the bad stuff, but it sure is nice when good things are happening. I think Romans 8:28 affirms this when Paul says, “That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (The Message translation)

   We could have ended Tuesday night’s Church-wide meeting with shouts, “God is good!” For indeed, months of preparation, countless prayers, generations of generosity, and the Spirit of God were all moving in and around the two reports that were offered.

   First, the Building Committee presented a report of what has been done. The hallways and entrance areas have been updated and refinished. It is amazing the difference that wider, smooth walls and higher new ceilings make, isn’t it? The rear parking lot was paved this week and that project will be complete in a week or two, after the last touches of landscaping are finished. These little things mean a lot to our members and visitors who attend Epworth every week. Then, the Building Committee presented two projects for the immediate future. Both were adopted with a unanimous vote by the large crowd that was gathered. The first project, set to begin next week, will renovate the Children’s Ministry wing. The second project will involve updating the ceilings, lights, walls, and floors of the Fellowship Hall. Then, later, a new external, adjoining storage room will be added.  This will provide some desperately needed space for the good stuff we use often, but have no place to keep.

   Second, the Vision Team presented the work of their six months together. Eleven members worked to capture our mission, our values, our definitions of success, and our vision for the next 18 months. We will talk more about this at length, but for now, I leave you with the new Missional Mandate that gets to the very heart of how God is using and wants to keep using Epworth for God’s Kingdom. It says this:

Epworth connects and equips

all kinds of people

to seek, serve, and share Christ.

It is simple, yet important. It is a statement about what happens inside our church and what our people do outside our church. It is something we do now and something we will strive to live into even more. What a way to start our fifth year together - God is good!

   Grace and Peace, Scott

John 10 - "I am the Good Shepherd"

"Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 

Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. 

- The Gospel According to John 10:1-10

   Who do I follow? What voice do I recognize? What distinctive sound can elicit my obedience?
   In Jesus' time, this was a powerful illustration. Everyone knew that sheep were raised from their very first days to respond to the unique call and command of the master that guarded and provided for them.
   Alas, those days are long gone and the details of this illustration  - sheep, pastures, gates, gatekeepers and shepherds - are possibly lost in a world consumed with electronic mail, gasoline-powered motorcars, portable electronic devices, and moving pictures (or email, cars, iPhones and movies for those below my age). Yet, those initial questions remain with me. Who do I follow? To whom do I respond?
   It strikes me that the forces from within dictate a lot of this. What drives me? How do I define my life? What does success look like? Where do I turn for affirmation? The Henri Nouwen piece that Sister Chris shared with me over two years ago is so helpful. Nouwen begins by asking, “Who is this person that lives this little life?” Then, after listing the two most common subconscious answers - I am what I have or I am what others say about me - he says:

What I want you to hear is....Jesus’ whole message is saying you are not what you have, nor what people say about you even when that’s important and even though it makes you suffer and even though it makes you happy, that is not who you are. I come, Jesus says, to reveal to you who you truly are. And who are you? You are a child of God. You are the one who I call my child. (Now, child doesn’t mean little child, child means son or daughter.) You are my son, you are my daughter.

- Henri Nouwen, in a lecture entitled, "Who are We?: Exploring our Christian Identity"

   Do I follow someone or something that is fleeting and cares nothing about my life? Or, do I recognize the sound of the voice of the one who calls me child and loves me like family. Because I am. You and I are children of the Great Shepherd. Grace and Peace, Scott

Savannah

   The earliest followers of God, YHWH as the ancient Israelites knew him, obeyed God as sovereign. Laws mattered to them, and the highest law was that there was only one true God. They were different than other peoples and tribes who believed in many Gods depending on the place, need, or season. Yet, God's people continued to be very aware of and concerned with location. In addition to the commands of God, they believed that some places were more important than others. This plays out in that powerful conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well in John 4. She believed in God, came to believe Jesus was a prophet, but wanted to know if God could still be worshipped in her home country once the Messiah came. This was important to her.

   Of course, Jesus responded that true believers worship not in place but in Spirit and Truth. I believe that. We can experience God everywhere, and should be ready for divine appearances and moments to happen anywhere. Yet, there is something powerful about some places, isn't there?

   I was reminded how true that is for me this week at Annual Conference in Savannah. I have vivid memories of milestones happening there from middle school, through high school, and then into adulthood. It was in the Johnny Mercer Theater that I first helped out at Annual Conference in the summer I would start seminary. On that same stage in June 2006 I knelt down to be ordained by Bishop Watson and have the stole, a symbol of ordained ministry in the church, placed on my shoulders by my grandfather, Carlton. My thoughts returned to that night a few times this week with joy. God is sovereign everywhere, but there is something special about that place for me. 

   I witnessed a similarly special moment from the second row on Monday night, as our own Ben Godsen was ordained an Elder in the UMC in the very same spot. With Katie by his side, and family and friends in the congregation, he took on the mantle of serving and leading God's people. I snapped a photo of it as it happened. Savannah takes on even deeper meaning, as Ben and Katie and Olivia Kate will move there next week, as he takes his first appointment after being an associate in Macon. 

   God's power extends beyond this valley or that mountain. Our God created the heavens and the earth. There is no other. For all of the special places that carry meaning in my life and yours, there is great comfort in knowing that the same God is present there and anywhere our journeys take us.

   Grace and Peace, Scott 

Personal Perspective in a Selfie World

   If we ever make it to Mars in the next five decades, there is a NASA spacecraft waiting there to greet us! Despite being built to stay in service for only two years once it landed in 2012, the Curiosity has performed so well NASA has extended its mission indefinitely, saying it could operate as long as 55 years. "We've already decided with this plan that we will continue to operate Curiosity as long as it's scientifically viable," says John Grunsfled, NASA's associate administrator for science. The nuclear-powered rover has enough plutonium on board to last 55 years, says Grunsfeld.

   That is a long time. What will it do, alone on a planet? It will be working. Along with sending massive amounts of data from the Red Planet, the Curiosity is able to send photos and videos. But like an American teenager, Curiosity is using the camera for something else: selfies. A selfie is a picture you take of yourself. This image was taken by Curiosity not long after it landed on Mars. 

   The only thing with the photo it took of itself - it couldn't do it alone. Because of the short distance of its arm and the particular lens it was using, the image required lots of work to 'stitch' it together. A team of NASA engineers spent hours using software to turn this image into something that actually looked like reality. 

   Are you with me? Sometimes our perspective is too close.  Sometimes we look through the lens and what we see is distorted. Most of the time, we are not able to gauge reality on our own. Actually, all of the time. It is a part of our human condition. We are fallen. We have blurred our vision and can no longer see things as they are. Like the Curiosity on Mars, we need other people and their software to help us. The people who do that are Christians (it's up to you to allow them to help) and the software is found in God's Word (the Bible is the most accurate lens through which we can see reality). 

   We believe that Epworth's mission is to connect you to others and to equip you with what you need to keep reality in perspective. Not every idea you have is right. Not every impulse brings God glory. Our personal perspective is sometimes poor. But, together we can see things clearly and continue to operate for good for decades into the future!

Where Will Your Name Appear?

   One of the great and enduring joys of my childhood started on one trip to visit my grandparents' home in Brunswick. I was probably in middle school, back then, when my grandfather introduced me to one of his favorite pastimes: reading Louis L'Amour westerns. He had nearly every one of them and dozens of duplicate copies. L'Amour wrote novels filled with action that taught me invaluable lessons about right and wrong, tough choices, courage and, most important of all, never sit with your back to the door of the saloon!
   Jokes aside, the L'Amour books I loved reading the most were from his seventeen-novel series that follows the Sackett family from the British Isles to Colonial America and then across the Wild West. So, when my oldest came looking for a book the other day, I was delighted when he accepted my recommendation of Sackett, first published in 1961.
   When I went online to find reviews that might jog my memory of any content too adult for my son (it turns out they are fine for teenagers), I stumbled upon a note I never knew: his first books were written under a pseudonym that he never claimed to have used. He was commissioned to write four books in 1950 for a series called Hopalong Cassidy. Originally published under the under the pseudonym, "Tex Burns," L'Amour denied writing them until the day he died, refusing to sign any of them that fans would occasionally bring to his autograph sessions. It seems everyone knew he wrote them, but he said, "I just did it for the money, and my name didn't go on them. So now, when people ask me if they were mine, I say 'no.'"
   This is fascinating to me. A famous and influential writer - Ronald Reagan gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 - would not claim books that he wrote because of the original intent he had in writing them: just for the money.
   What about us? Have we ever created something to which we we later did not want our names attached? Have we ever written something, spoken something, or done something that we would later want to distance ourselves from?
   The good news, really it is the Gospel, says that we can move forward and past the things and places from our past. Our names might be attached, but we don't have to be defined by them. And L'Amour wrote that very thing once in a book when he said, "The way I see it, every time a man gets up in the morning he starts his life over. Sure, the bills are there to pay, and the job is there to do, but you don't have to stay in a pattern. You can always start over, saddle a fresh horse and take another trail."
   May we be about the creation of words, actions and lives that are worthy to bear our names and the Name of the One who created us. Grace and Peace, Scott

Do We Need Jesus in Our Death Penalty Conversation?

   A leading voice in the Southern Baptist community, Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, responded to the tragic botched execution in Oklahoma earlier this month with this statement to CNN this week:

"Should Christians support the death penalty today? I believe that Christians should hope, pray and strive for a society in which the death penalty, rightly and rarely applied, would make moral sense." 

His 1200-word opinion piece went on to say that he worried that the use of the death penalty would decline in the US and that Christians should stand up and work to defend the death penalty. Read the entire piece on CNN.com. His argument included some references to Scripture - he mentions that Moses, David, and Saul (later Paul) all committed murder, but were not executed - but he leaves out one notable, and often very quotable source: Jesus.
   Before I go on, I should say that I have personally been against the death penalty for a couple of decades now. The evidence, as I see it, points to the overwhelming slant based on personal economics and race. That doesn't even mention that the latest studies find at as many as one in twenty-five persons executed are actually innocent! The United Methodist Church's official stance, crafted at the quadrennial General Conference, includes this statement:

We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings. 

   It was Shane Claiborne's take on all of this that caught my attention this week, though. He was the first to note Jesus' absence from Mohler's statement. Here are snippets of Claiborne's article:

Consistently, Jesus said things like “I did not come for the healthy but for the sick, not for the righteous but for the sinners”…“blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy”…“inasmuch as you forgive you will be forgiven”…“judge not lest you be judged”…“You’ve heard it said ‘an eye for an eye’ but I tell you there is another way....” We dare not forget the story – of a God who so loved the world that Jesus was sent, not to condemn the world but to save it.   We must not forget that much of the Bible was written by murderers who were given a second chance. Moses. David. Paul. The Bible would be much shorter without grace.

   What do you think about the death penalty? Since it's return in the US in 1977, is murder down? Does it work. And finally, do we need Jesus in our conversations about the death penalty, gun rights, healthcare, taxes, Little League baseball, and all of the other stuff that occupies our attention? I think yes.
   Grace and Peace, Scott

God Is Big Enough

  One conversation at the church earlier this week involved the capacity of roll-off dumpsters. You know, the large containers used by contractors to hold the materials left over in a demolition project. One person suggested that one size would be adequate, while another was wondering if we could save a few bucks by going with a smaller size container.
   The parking lot expansion project has started this week. The first phase is to remove some trees, but before that can happen the "past-its-prime Eagle's Nest shed" that has been home to many an insect and spider for decades now needed to get removed. A word of thanks to Jimmy Bridges and his crew for making quick work of the task. Some of its contents were kept, others are being offered to local churches who could use them, while the rest were placed in the 30-yard capacity container that will be hauled off later this week.
   How much can a container hold? The answer depends on its size.
   How much can God hold? That answer is given in Scripture. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." Another translation says cast all your cares, while another says put all your troubles, and still another says give all your worries to God. God is big enough.
   Oh, what a promise. Can it be true? Is there a limit to God's capacity to take on our worries, troubles, sins, fears, anxieties, and suffering? There is no limit. The God who spoke a word and created galaxies and constellations a billion miles wide, has more than enough room.
   That is a word I need to hear. I need to hear that I can give my grieving to God. Your fears are welcome in Him. God welcomes your doubts and even your anger. He cares about you and about me.
   Grace and Peace, Scott

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   While the demolition and construction of the new driveway and parking lot in the rear of our church got started this week, we anticipate that we can park there one more Sunday (this May 11). We are making plans for the following Sundays. We will have greeters out front to offer help and volunteers in the porte-cochère (our fancy word for the covered driveway) to valet cars to safe places on the streets. We do not want anyone to stay away from worship because of this week. Please let us know how we can help.