Judging By Your Appearance

   We remember the good ol' days when children moved about in a community under the watchful eye of adults everywhere who knew exactly whose they were. Our parents warned us that our actions would be reported back to us because people knew us. Those were good days, but by and large, those days are gone.  Towns have become cities, and some folks can go about their business all day without running into someone they know. Our lives are much less connected than they used to be. We are even surprised now when we come across someone we know, or who knows us.

   Standing in line at the office supply store recently, I was greeted by some surprising words. I can hear your best guesses right now: Would you like to add an extended warranty to this pocket protector? or Did you know we're offering a two for one special on slide rules today? Wrong.  The woman checking me out said, "Are you a pastor?  You look like a pastor."

   I have heard these words before, and on occasion, under very similar circumstances. Yet for however often I hear them, I always seem to walk away with unanswered questions in my mind.

• Donning no clerical collar or embroidered shirt, what about my appearance makes me look like a pastor? Surely it is not the attractive hairline, for both Charles Stanley and Billy Graham looked very much the part with their full heads of hair.
• If I was correctly identified with some office that is generally considered one of good morals and ethics on a day I'm acting on good behavior, then what is my behavior like in all of the other moments when people take me to be something else?

   I'm less interested in how she correctly knew my vocation than the larger principle for all of us: How will the world recognize us? Do all Christians walk through life this easily recognizable? Should we?
   Parks Cousins is quoted as saying, "How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us." I think he speaks the truth.  If we are seen on the outside for what we are carrying around on the inside, then what are people seeing when they observe us? My thoughts return to song written a few decades back that proclaims that they'll know we are Christians by our love.
   Instead of longing to return to a time when we were all known around the neighborhood by appearances given us by our parents, let us pray to reach a day when we in the church are know for our greatest possession: the love and hope we have in Jesus Christ. They will know we are Christians by our love. Grace and Peace.

50 is a Good Number

   Vacation Bible School is bigger. Vacation Bible School is about singing, dancing, running, jumping, praying, learning, doing, undoing, making, talking, learning, listening, and lots of fun. 

   It is noteworthy, living in a world stricken with financial fears and concerns, that nary a nickel will come into the church coffers in the next decade from any of the children who attended this week's Vacation Bible School. Jesus speaks in Matthew 25 about the 'least of these' around us: those whose outward appearance regularly causes us to look past them or ignore them altogether. In many ways, children most perfectly describe the concept of the least of these. They take up more time, money, and energy than they give back in the short-run.  So, why would the 50 folks listed below give up the better part of a week to be present and active at VBS? 

   Vacation Bible School is bigger than any short-term payoff. VBS is about winning in our long-term mission: to make disciples of Jesus Christ of all ages to help transform the world for God's Kingdom. Help me this coming week by saying a word of thanks to these volunteers who helped accomplish our mission in a big way at VBS.

Alyssa Morris
Amanda Morris
Andrea Carbaugh
Barbie Morris
Ben Hale
Blake Waters
Brittany Farmer
Buddy Dunn
Carolyn Gambill
Cheryl Jandreau
Debra Ledbetter
Diane Champagne
Diane Morris
Dot Merritt
Elizabeth Ledbetter
Frances Phillips
Fraser Woolridge
Gary Ledbetter
Harold Morris
Hayden Minix
Hayden Newman
Helen Howard
Helen Pharris
Jackie Jenrette
Janie Nellums
Jean Morris
Jeanne Guilbeault
Josh Simmons
Julie Hagan
Kyle Jackson
Leslie Morris
Lyn Pharris
Margaret Gosden
Maria Hale
Martha Conklin
Matthew Ledbetter
Melonie Phillips
Natalie Morris
Nicole Farrar
Payton Mobayyeni
Reese Phillips
Regina Bridges
Robert Conner
Sara Renner
Scott Hagan
Skylar Smith
Susan Dunn
Suzy Revell
Vicky Griffin
Walter Champagne

Annual Conference 101

John Wesley, founder of Methodism

   In the very beginning of Methodist history (the 1700's) there were no local Methodist churches, only Methodist preachers who traveled from place to place preaching to crowds a message of Repentance and Good News. Methodist preachers would then organize small groups for the new believers to stay connected and learn both to study the Bible and make offerings to support  ministry. Eventually local churches were started, and within a couple of decades Methodism came across the ocean and spread like wildfire across the American colonies. Back then, Methodist preachers met annually at a conference with leaders, like John Wesley in England and Francis Asbury in the colonies, to give reports of their ministry, to be held accountable, and to be inspired. 

   The first annual conference in America was held in 1784. Ever since then, regional groups of Methodists have gathered every year for Annual Conference. The South Georgia Annual Conference met this Sunday through Thursday at the UGA Conference Center in Tifton, Georgia. Laypeople and clergy from every charge are represented. Epworth and the Columbus District were represented by Jeanne Guilbeault, Lillian Wooldridge, Becky Britton and myself.

   Most actions taken by the 'body' will be expected and the unexpected ones will be talked about for a few days and then be forgotten. Some of the reports will bring applause, some tears, and a very few will bring debate. We will also be voting for delegates to represent us in 2012 at General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference. But the best stuff of conference is not in the legislative action or the balloting; the best stuff comes elsewhere. We will begin each day with a Bible Study, and pause for worship a couple of times a day. Monday night a new class of preachers, some young and some not, step forward to be ordained as Elders into the traveling ministry of the United Methodist Church. And in between every session and around every meal that the over 1500 persons in attendance enjoy, there will be exchanged fellowship, encouragement, and more than enough grace to send us all back to another year of great ministry together.

   Conferencing is one of the cornerstones of how we Methodists practice our beliefs. We remember Jesus' promise to be present with us when we gather (Matthew 18:20). Grace and Peace to you.

A Good Rain...

"Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." Deuteronomy 32:1-2

   Any number of my neighbors drove by in cars, rode by on bikes, or passed by on foot that evening I was out in the front yard. I waved to everyone I made eye contact with but probably missed some. I was otherwise occupied. I was pulling weeds from the lawn. I was doing it right: pulling them up by their roots. There I was, stooped over the lawn plucking weeds from the grass. I was using a tool, basically a long metal spike with a curved handled, but my efforts were not made easier and effective because of any man-made device. There was something more going on. You could say it was just below the surface.

   It had rained earlier that day, and the ground was still soaked from the downpour. It was the kind of rain that soaks in, and stays around. It was the kind of rain our yards needed, but more importantly for the task I was undertaking, it was the kind of rain that loosened the earth and allowed me to easily pluck weeds with roots and all. It was a good rain.

   Is this a translatable principle for our own lives?  If a good rain has the power to loosened the soil in order for weeds to be easily pulled, are there events or circumstances in our lives that can also loosen our souls for the good?  Don't we know that over time our inner-being has a tendency to harden? We get jaded to surprises, we get dulled to grace, and even resent those moments when God is working to change us for the better.  I wonder if there is an equivalent good rain for our souls that can help us go about the spade-work needed to root out the evil that finds corners in which to hide.  I am thinking about jealousy, animosity, gossip, arrogance, lust, laziness.  What items would you add to the list?  What weeds have taken root in your life that need to be addressed?  I know I have mine own, and have been working in the past three months to address some of them.  I've even enlisted the help of others in the work.

   The high temperatures and stifling humidity outside will keep most of us from the hard work of pulling weeds in the coming months in our yards, but what is stopping us from working on our hearts? May God send a good rain, a conversation with a friends, a passage from Scripture, or a moment in your day, that makes the hard work of living an abundant life a little easier.  Grace and Peace to you.

It All Started To Remember John

Decoration Day, circa 1927

   It was on a spring afternoon nearly 150 years ago that the family stepped off the wagon bench and made their way across the cemetery to find the crude marker erected for John. He would have been brother, son, maybe even husband and father. However he was related, on that afternoon, he was being remembered. John would have been one of the hundreds of thousands that were similarly remembered at cemeteries planted on the very soil of the battlefields of the Civil War. John, William, Robert, Levi, Archer, Josiah, Ralph, Lemuel. Just a few of the names of those memorialized in cemeteries after that war.

   One story is told of three women in Columbus, Mississippi in 1866 who decorated the graves marking fallen from both sides with flowers. The US Department of Veteran Affairs even gives our Columbus, Georgia a nod as possibly being one of the first cities to observe the day - a distinction that apparently is hotly debated. By 1868 the practice of decorating soldiers' graves had become widespread in the North, with the first official observance probably in upstate New York in May 1866.  It is noted that in both the North and South the earliest Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the day and attend to local cemeteries.  It was known as Decoration Day for the first many decades of its observance.

   Regardless of the name of the day, or the soldier memorialized, the tradition that was started for one war has been extended to the wars and conflicts since. It has also been extended out from the families of fallen soldiers to families of thankful Americans everywhere. No longer can we leave the work of Memorial Day only to those most closely affected. My prayer is that the memorials we offer last longer than cut flowers.  My prayer is that we would be unfailing in our prayers of thanksgiving and efforts for peace.

   The church joins in this weekend to remember and say thanks. We say thanks to those who have served, to those who are serving, and we remember those who gave their lives in our nations efforts at establishing freedom. The Scriptures use the word Remember over 200 times. Apparently GOd knows that even the command to remember is something we will forget. It is a theme and an action we must continue to pick up and carry on. Grace and Peace to you.

What We Call Change Graduates Call Normal

   For this week’s graduates…email has always been the preferred form of sending a message. Michael Jordan is really only known for his line of Nike shoes and apparel. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess in England. Wired telephones connected to the walls exist in case your cell phone battery goes dead. Czechoslovakia has never existed. American companies have always done business in Vietnam. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space. Cold War? A slide show involves a computer...Kodachrome what? Computers have always come with CD-ROM disk drives.  Gasoline has never sold for less than a $1.50...

   It is amazing how things change. The truth is, every one of us has a list of things that have always been normal that would have astonished previous generations. Considering how assuredly things do change, we should be more amazed that people are amazed at change in the first place.  
   The same is true for our church, of course.  The normal we know now was new and cutting-edge not too long ago. Bulletins on the website? Pews in the Sanctuary? Sunday School books people could take home? A Fellowship Hall large enough for everyone to fit into? 

   The same is true for worship, too.  Not very long ago, Methodist churches did not have organs, did not sing from hymnbooks, did not recite creeds, and certainly did not have sanctuaries.  All of those moderns changes have come about in the last 100 years for most Methodist Churches.  The normal we know would have been unheard of to the folks who came before us.
   Jesus included the need for change in his teaching when he said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3).

   The prayer for our church extends to those graduating from high school and college: that we stay current and true to ourselves by clinging to what matters most and letting the rest pass away.  Like acid-wash jeans or mullets as a hairstyle.  Grace and Peace, Scott

One Last Word Is Not Enough

Ben and Katie Gosden, Emory University 2011

   I was blessed and humbled to be present as Ben Gosden walked across the sanctuary on the campus of Emory University this week and receive his diploma from seminary.  I was blessed to return to a place that meant so much to me, and to so many before me, and to watch the joy on the faces of graduates and their loved ones as they experience the achievement of dreams, goals, and callings.  I was equally humbled to sit there as one who represents many: for our church rightly takes pride in Ben's ministry and the ways God is using him even now to advance the Kingdom.  Sitting alongside Ben's mom, his wife, and other family, it was a great day.

   Of course, graduation ceremonies entail more than just passing out diplomas.  At Emory that means prayers offered by Bishops, scripture read by professors, anthems sung by choirs, and...the proverbial keynote speaker.  We sit and listen to someone give their very best effort at summarizing what this day means.  It is no easy task.  How can you capture such an event in ten minutes.  Or even twenty?

   The truth is that one last word is not enough.  There is nothing profound enough to linger in our minds.  There is nothing witty enough to capture our attention, especially over the sound of fussing babies.  There is no one word or thought that can sum it all up.

   Jesus, who was the very Word of God come to life with flesh and blood, knew this.  Each of the four Gospels offer something of Jesus' parting word to us. One last word is not enough. John's Gospel takes those last words and stretches them out over five chapters in John 13-17, but even that is not enough as Jesus picks teaching again on the lake shore in John 21. Which is why Jesus promises and delivers on the Holy Spirit, God present with us now that Jesus has ascended to heaven.  By the power of the the Holy Spirit, God is present with us tomorrow.  God is present with us after the party is over.  

   The last word I left Ben with on Monday was that we were proud of him.  But by the grace of God that is not the last word.  God's is still speaking to Ben, still speaking to the the churches he will serve, and still speaking to the church that helped to shape him.  May we listen for the new Word God has for us this day.

God's Truths Burst Through All Around Us

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.

Matthew 28:1-6

      
   We had a great group gather on Sunday evening to watch one of Disney's latest hit movies, Tangled. We invited the families from Allen Elementary to join us, and many of them did!  What a privilege to be host to our neighbors for a night of fun.

   Near the end of the movie, when things are still in doubt, there comes a moment when the only thing that will save the day is a miracle. Evil seems to be winning and the good guys need something divine to happen. Just then, when all hope seems lost, a ray of light begins to shine in the darkness.  Death is conquered, and light burst forth into the room and into the life of the hero who previously lay lifeless.  I turned to Lillian Woolridge, sitting next to me, and asked, "Have you ever wondered what the moment of Christ's Resurrection looked like?"  She looked back at me, thinking I was crazy, and we continued watching the movie.
   I cannot help it; the themes of God's Holy Scriptures seem to appear in the most random, and often most divine moments. Redemption, forgiveness, peace, creation, discipleship, faith, doubt, fear, plenty, sacrifice...these are the truths and concepts we read in the bible, and see lived out around us.  For a moment on Sunday night, sitting in a crowd watching an animated movie, I was drawn closer to God’s grace on that Easter Sunday morning that Matthew captured with the verses above.
   We claim that the Bible is the Living Word of God.  Maybe this is one part of it: the truths of the Bible are alive because they continue living on in our lives. I pray that as we move outward from Easter, we do so with eyes wide open to the amazing stories of redemption and triumph God is delivering around us, even now.