Andy's Blog: A Personal Word
June 2008 Archive
June 24, 2008
Jun. 24, 2008St. Paul was what we would call a bi-vocational pastor. He saw himself as a preacher, a teacher, an evangelist – proclaiming the gospel and starting new churches. But in order to do all this, he had another paying job. He was a tentmaker by trade. He does not talk much about his job. For him, making a living wasn’t the same as making a life. His vocation, his calling, was to preach. His work supported his vocation.
If we are lucky, our jobs and vocations mesh. We get paid to do what we love to do – what we feel called to do. But this isn’t the case for everyone. Lots of people find themselves unfulfilled by their jobs. Many folks are bi-vocational. They work to make a living but do other things to make a life.
Alan Webber says that all of us need to feed the “three hungers” of life. First, we need to connect with the creative spirit of life. This doesn’t mean we all need to be artists or musicians. What he is talking about is connecting with the creative energies in the world. Being a part of shaping something new, bringing something into being, or taking part in God’s creation.
Second, we all hunger to know and express our gifts and our talents. Most of us feel that we are gifted in some way, even if we don’t fully know what that gift is or how to use it. But we know there is something within us that we can contribute.
Third, we hunger to know that our lives matter. We all want to make our mark in life or leave behind something of value. We would like to think that the world is a better place for us having passed this way.
Fulfillment in life, Webber contends, comes from feeding these three hungers. Sometimes that can happen in our workplace, but other times we must seek other outlets and opportunities to fully express who we are. I suspect, like Paul, most folks need to be bi-vocational to fully live the life God has given them.
One of the things we are working on at Trinity is helping people discover their strengths, their gifts and natural inclination, and explore ways these can be put to use.
June 17, 2008
Jun. 17, 2008For many Methodist Pastors in North Alabama, this is “moving week.” While there are no pastoral moves at Trinity this year, this week always stirs up memories of other times and other moves. Trinity is our sixth appointment. Six times our family has picked up and moved to a new place. Every move has been a mixture of excitement and anxiety, and each has taught us something about hospitality.
In the Old Testament lesson from last Sunday, there is the story of Abraham welcoming three strangers to his tent. He provides water for them to wash their feet from the journey and bread for their hunger. Little did Abraham know that these strangers were messengers from God, and what a message they brought. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, would bear him a son in his old age. It was a message he would have missed had Abraham not welcomed them.
When we have moved, we have had an advantage. People in those new churches knew we were coming. We were not really strangers. We were met with smiles, graciousness and food. Those simple acts quieted our fears and made us feel like we had found a new home.
One of the root words for hospitality means to “equalize/compensate.” Hospitality recognizes that there is an inequality between hosts and guests. To be hospitable is to compensate for this gap; to make strangers not feel so strange.
At the heart of the ministry of Jesus was the practice of hospitality. He welcomed tax collectors and sinners. Diane Butler Bass reminds us that “hospitality holds special significance: Christians welcome strangers as we ourselves have been welcomed into God through the love of Jesus Christ. Through hospitality, Christians imitate God’s welcome. Therefore, hospitality is not a program, not a single hour of ministry in the life of a congregation. It stands at the heart of a Christian way of life...”
Each week at Trinity, we have dozens of visitors who find their way into our church.
It takes courage to walk into a new place as a stranger. They have taken the first step – just showing up. The next move is ours. How will we receive them? Will we bridge that gap and make them feel like this is a place where they can be at home? Will our hospitality reflect the welcome of Christ?
Be alert on Sundays for our guests. Take a moment to speak, to see if they need help, and to extend the hospitality of Christ.
June 17, 2008
Jun. 17, 2008For many Methodist Pastors in North Alabama, this is “moving week.” While there are no pastoral moves at Trinity this year, this week always stirs up memories of other times and other moves. Trinity is our sixth appointment. Six times our family has picked up and moved to a new place. Every move has been a mixture of excitement and anxiety, and each has taught us something about hospitality.
In the Old Testament lesson from last Sunday, there is the story of Abraham welcoming three strangers to his tent. He provides water for them to wash their feet from the journey and bread for their hunger. Little did Abraham know that these strangers were messengers from God, and what a message they brought. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, would bear him a son in his old age. It was a message he would have missed had Abraham not welcomed them.
When we have moved, we have had an advantage. People in those new churches knew we were coming. We were not really strangers. We were met with smiles, graciousness and food. Those simple acts quieted our fears and made us feel like we had found a new home.
One of the root words for hospitality means to “equalize/compensate.” Hospitality recognizes that there is an inequality between hosts and guests. To be hospitable is to compensate for this gap; to make strangers not feel so strange.
At the heart of the ministry of Jesus was the practice of hospitality. He welcomed tax collectors and sinners. Diane Butler Bass reminds us that “hospitality holds special significance: Christians welcome strangers as we ourselves have been welcomed into God through the love of Jesus Christ. Through hospitality, Christians imitate God’s welcome. Therefore, hospitality is not a program, not a single hour of ministry in the life of a congregation. It stands at the heart of a Christian way of life...”
Each week at Trinity, we have dozens of visitors who find their way into our church.
It takes courage to walk into a new place as a stranger. They have taken the first step – just showing up. The next move is ours. How will we receive them? Will we bridge that gap and make them feel like this is a place where they can be at home? Will our hospitality reflect the welcome of Christ?
Be alert on Sundays for our guests. Take a moment to speak, to see if they need help, and to extend the hospitality of Christ.
June 11, 208
Jun. 11, 2008We used to talk about a “summer slump” when it comes to church. You know people are out of town, busy doing other things – they don’t have time for church. As a result, some churches cancel Sunday School during the summer, reduce worship services, and tread water until fall rolls around. And for some churches, that is wise. Attendance does plummet.
But Trinity is not one of those churches. Our average worship attendance for the summer months is only down about 10% over the remainder of the year. But overall, if anything, there is a kind of summer surge here at Trinity.
• Our Youth Choir has just returned from a successful California tour.
• Student ministry will be sending mission teams to SOS in Memphis and South Alabama and they will celebrate the annual Youth Week, as well as carry on the normal Sunday activities.
• Children’s ministry will go into high gear with art camps, music camps, basketball camps, day camp, Vacation Bible School and Sumatanga Sleepover.
• Our mission group will send a team to Bolivia and continue with in-town service through the Birmingham Hospitality network and Firehouse Shelter.
• New small groups for adults are meeting in the summer.
Take your vacation – but know we are here every Sunday worshiping, growing, and serving. We will keep an eye out for you.
Also, summer is the time when people move. Keep an eye out for new folks in your neighborhood, meet them and invite them to a great church.
June 4, 2008
Jun. 4, 2008$4 a gallon for gasoline! What is the world coming to? Of course, ask people from other parts of the world, and you will find that they have been paying this much and more for years. As a result, other countries have developed more fuel efficient transportation and effective systems of public transportation. America has the highest per capita energy usage in the world. If there is an upside to the present rise in energy costs, it may be that it presents us with the opportunity, even the demand, that we develop more sustainable lifestyles.
This is not just an economic/political matter, it is deeply theological. How we use the world’s resources is a question of stewardship. Our United Methodist social principles state:
All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings. God has granted us stewardship of creation. We should meet these stewardship duties through acts of care and respect.
In relation to energy, the statement goes on to support energy policies that protect the future of God’s creation.
We urge wholehearted support of the conservation of energy and responsible development of renewable energy sources, that the goodness of the earth may be affirmed.
If we are faithful to the biblical understanding of the stewardship of creation, we must:
• Recognize that creation is God’s – “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” It is not simply ours to do with whatever we please.
• Second, as stewards, we are to look after the earth, not as we please, but as God wants it looked after.
• Third, we have a responsibility to the rest of creation as ones who stand in the place of God. Our stewardship of earth is to be carried out with a dependence upon and partnership with God.
• Fourth, we are accountable to God for the use/misuse of that which he has entrusted to our care. May the time come when we will hear, “Well done good and faithful servant.”
I remember back in another time of energy crisis, President Carter asked that we turn down our thermostats. He was ridiculed for the suggestion. Maybe we are finally to the point that we recognize the stewardship of God’s creation is not a laughing matter.
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