Why not a Back-to-School Sunday?

Another summer is closing as the new school year is here. Why not mark this transition by having a special Back-to-School Sunday?

Your Back-to-School Sunday can be a poignant time in asking the congregation to partner with families to bless the children with health, safety, and a year of growth. Your students will start a new school year (some for the very first time) knowing there is a whole community of people cheering them on. Here are some elements to consider.

Back-to-school video
A great way to kick off a service is with a fun video. There are plenty of content companies producing video for worship services, and you can most likely find a themed video that will fit your needs. You may also find a clip on YouTube. Use social media to crowdsource for suggestions and links. Remember, it is best practice to ask and receive permission from the content producer before using their content. When permission is in doubt, it is best to assume you do not have it.

A great alternative to having to find (and possibly purchase/license) a video is to produce your own content. It may be easier than you think. Have a youth pastor or children’s pastor—anyone with a quick wit and great repartee with children—interview children about going to school. Ask about favorite activities, something funny that has happened at school, why they love their teachers, etc. Keep it short, 2-4 minutes, add some fun music underneath, and you will have a nice homegrown experience to use in your service.

If you do not have the technical means to show/produce/license a video, a special song presentation or entertaining skit could serve similar purposes.

Charge to students
Have a youth leader to address students returning to class. Encourage your students to remember who they are in the community of faith and who they are in the community of God. Be encouraging! Charge them to be the best version of themselves and to remember their church family is there to celebrate their accomplishments, encourage them in defeat, cheer them on to do their best, and support them in whatever they do.

Charge to parents
Offer a charge to parents to remember that their students are learning who they are in the world. Do not make the school year about the measuring stick of accomplishments or comparing them to others. Also, practice hospitality during the school year by having your kids’ friends in your home getting to know your children’s friends and their families. Honor those who are teaching and coaching your student’s. Remind parents to never hesitate to reach out for guidance when facing challenging situations—we have all been there.

Present Bibles to new students
A nice gesture for students entering school, or at least kindergarten, for the first time can be to present them with a Bible as a gift from their church family. Have the senior students write a note of advice in the Bibles for each child to have and read. Wouldn’t it be cool if this became a tradition and at each subsequent back to school blessing featured a senior sharing the advice from the Bible they received when they entered kindergarten?

Lesson to students
Have the lesson for that morning geared to encourage students to remember who they are in the story of God. Just because they are young, it does not mean they do not have a part to play. Encourage them to make the most of their time, to enjoy life, to enjoy others, and to make the world a better place.

Prayer for students and school staff
Have your students—and teachers, principals, coaches, and other members of your congregation who work in schools and with students—either come to the front of the sanctuary if space permits, or stand where they are. Let them know how much you love them and are cheering them all on. Pray over them for a safe, fun, and successful school year.

Also, don’t forget to be hospitable and invite your neighbors and the new friends you made during the summer at VBS to join you. Follow through with your pledge to these students and educators. Look for creative ways to support the schools in your community and as always, support the students, educators, and families that call your congregation home.

Five Books That Will Change the Way You Pray in 2018

One month in, this is the point in the new year where we begin to realize how committed we actually are to our resolutions. How many of us told ourselves on January 1st that this is the year we will be dedicated to meaningful and frequent prayer? If you feel like you need help reshaping your prayer practices, we have five resources that can make a difference.

Pray Like Jesus: Rediscovering the Lord’s Prayer

You already know The Lord’s Prayer by heart and can easily recite it…and that may be the problem. We know those 70 words so well most of us rattle them off never thinking about their meaning. In Pray Like Jesus, pastor and author Don Underwood reexamines the content of the Lord’s Prayer, helping you to discover insightful spiritual guidance for developing a rich devotional life. Plus, at the end of each chapter, you’ll find ideas for making the prayer a part of your daily spiritual discipline.

26 Ways to Pray the Alphabet

In the book Mercy & Melons, each letter of the alphabet calls forth two words: a word that celebrates an ordinary thing, and another word that names a holy quality about God. Those pairings speak to each other. For those who pay attention to those pairings, they discover something about prayer and about God. 26 Ways to Pray the Alphabet, a companion guide to Mercy & Melons, offers a practical guide to living and exploring and praying those pairings in our daily life–as we look for beauty and hope in the “ordinary” things around us. Use this companion along with Mercy & Melons or as its own guide to prayer, for a retreat, for Lent, or anytime you want to explore praying in new ways.

The Book of Not So Common Prayer

The Book of Not-So Common Prayer is a handbook that combines spiritual insight with practical action steps you can take to change your prayer habits—and change your life. In describing her own transformation from a person who prayed on the run to a person who prays four times a day, Linda McCullough Moore builds a compelling case for a life founded on prayer. Drawing inspiration from the ancient practice of meditation, Moore shows how any time spent in prayer will transform the time you spend with your family, at work, or in play. She then delivers a well-supported methodical process you can follow to experience more depth, meaning, and joy in your prayers.

Ultimate Reliance: Breakthrough Prayer Practices for Leaders

Adding a Breakthrough Prayer Initiative to the teamwork of your church or ministry’s leadership will change everything—and transform what may have become routine administrative work, into riding the exciting rapids of a God-led spiritual adventure together! Each chapter includes discussion questions, application ideas, a breakthrough prayer practice for the week or month. Ideal for use with your church council, board, leadership team, class, small group or entire congregation—whoever longs to build prayer practices for breakthroughs and new God possibilities as the ultimate foundation for everything else.

Prayers For People Who Say They Can’t Pray

Did you know that honest prayer doesn’t require belief or trust? Nor does it need constant satisfaction. You think you don’t know how to pray, but maybe you’ve been praying without knowing it. This book introduces new ways to think about what prayer really is and includes heartfelt, genuine prayers that don’t sugar-coat faith or dismiss disbelief, but invite you to pray as you can—or even as you can’t. Whether you are someone who believes, hopes to believe, almost believes, or simply trusts that offering a prayer means something, this book is for you.

Call to the church to observe Global Migration Sunday

Brothers and Sisters of The United Methodist Church, Grace and peace to you in the compassionate name of our Lord Christ Jesus. I write to you on behalf of our Council of Bishops to invite you to observe Global Migration Sunday on December 3, 2017. This is the first Sunday of the season of Advent, a time when we remember the coming birth of the Christ child who himself was a migrant. From Asia and Europe to Africa and the Americas, the plight of more than 65 million men, women and children forced to leave their homes and migrate to places unknown calls all Christians to remember what God requires of us. Wars, natural disasters, persecution, economic hardships and growing violence around the world are the major root causes of the unprecedented global migration we witness with grave concern today. As if these deadly forces were not enough, migrants also face myriad problems including hazardous travel, cultural barriers and the physical and emotional costs of arriving in strange lands where they are not always welcome and they often face persecution. For most of these migrants, the decision to flee their homeland comes as a last resort effort to live. We are reminded of Joseph and Mary as they sought to save their lives and especially the life of the Christ child as they fled to Africa to escape the wrath of King Herod, who (threatened by the birth of Jesus) ordered the massacre of children (Matthew 2:13‑14). As United Methodists, we believe that the prayers of God’s people can cause the outpouring of God’s mercy and justice. As your bishops, it is our fervent hope that on Global Migration Sunday on December 3, United Methodist congregations in all the places we serve around the world will join our voices to pray for our brothers and sisters who are suffering the journey of forced migration. In addition, as a people who pray and act upon those prayers, we ask that all our congregations gather an offering dedicated to the human suffering inflicted by forced migration. Offerings collected should be sent to the Migration Advance No. 3022144. We are grateful for our general agencies who have prepared excellent resources for Global Migration Sunday in English, Arabic, French and Spanish — including the prayer that we ask all pray on December 3rd. Jesus said, “When you welcome the sojourner, you welcome me.” (Matthew 25:35) Let us welcome our migrant brothers and sisters with compassionate care, pray for them without ceasing and give generously that they, too, may have life. Grace and peace, Bishop Bruce R. Ough President, Council of Bishops

Facilitating Difficult Conversations

Leading conversations about difficult topics such as race can be a little scary, but anyone who approaches this work with a loving heart and an open mind can facilitate a conversation. You don’t need to be an expert; you don’t even need to have facilitated this sort of conversation before. Holding Up Your Corner: Guided Conversations about Race is a resource to help pastors and other faith leaders address issues of race and inequity in their communities. It’s a six-hour group experience with a leader guide, participant book, and DVD including video content for each conversation segment. Together these resources present key content via brief video clips, activities and guided discussion in small groups around tables, and times for sharing with the whole group.

The tips below can help individuals at all knowledge levels facilitate the Holding Up Your Corner conversation or a similar conversation of your own design.

Getting Started

• There may be someone in your church or group who is better suited to the task of leading this conversation than you are. If that’s the case, ask and empower that person to lead and assist in all the ways you’re able.
• Other faith leaders in your community may have done this before. If you need support or help, ask someone with experience to come alongside you the first time you lead this conversation. Or ask them for advice and encouragement as you prepare.
• BUT, do not spin your wheels in thinking, preparing, and discussing in advance. Know that you will probably make some mistakes or say something not quite the way you intended. That’s okay! Give yourself permission to do what you can, and know that God will use it. The main thing is simply to take the authority you have been given to act.

Prepare

• Get the dates on your calendar! For many of us, just deciding to do something and making the commitment is half the battle. Don’t wait until you’re “ready.” You will never feel ready, but if you believe this conversation is important, you will find that you have what you need.
• Before facilitating this conversation, examine your own biases on the topic to ensure that you can remain neutral while leading discussion. Remind yourself to remain neutral throughout the experience. Model active listening.
• Study the materials thoroughly before facilitating a dialogue. Pastors and other faith leaders should read Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community by F. Willis Johnson and Fear of the Other: No Fear in Love by Will Willimon. These books will provide foundational understanding, empowering you to lead wisely.
• Be ready for the event physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally so that you will have stamina and grace. Your preparation will set the tone.

Invite

• Extend an open invitation to your congregation and the broader community. Include people from education, health care, city government, civic organizations, law enforcement, business, and so on. Make the invitation for all, not just hand-selected people in your community. Or, if that seems too much to take on, hold the first conversation (or two or three) just with leaders in your congregation, or perhaps with your leaders and those from another church in your area. Those leaders can then share about their experiences with others in the church and community, laying the groundwork for you to lead subsequent conversations with a broader group.
• Offer some way for people to register so that you can prepare accordingly. You may choose to set up a Facebook event and ask people to join it.

Guiding the Conversation

• Keep the conversation focused and on schedule. It’s important to address questions and allow participants ample time to process their thoughts; however, as facilitator, you must ensure that the conversation stays on topic and that the timeline of the event is adhered to. Think of yourself as the bumper guards in a children’s lane at a bowling alley. Give the conversation some leeway, but don’t let it get out of the lane.
• Ensure all participants feel comfortable enough to contribute. Invite quiet participants to speak up and/or encourage participants who dominate the circle to listen to others.
• Handle any issues, tensions, or conflicts that arise by moving the conversation. If something troubling is said, give other participants the chance to address it (example: Does anyone have a different opinion?). It may be helpful for you to rephrase comments to achieve clarity (example: I believe you are saying _______. Is that what you meant?).
• Consider providing a Conversation Covenant to keep the conversation productive and grounded in your common faith. (A sample covenant is included in the Holding Up Your Corner: Guided Conversations leader guide.) Review the covenant at the beginning of each session and refer to it when necessary. For example: “Let’s look again at our covenant, which asks us to give everyone a chance to speak before sharing a second time.”
• Ensure that the conversation is oriented around dialogue rather than debate. Debate focuses on winning while dialogue focuses on finding and exploring common ground and understanding. Encourage participants to keep an open mind, to listen to opinions that differ from their own, and to seek to understand rather than influence each other.

Continuing the Conversation

• At the end of the session, ask participants to complete a brief evaluation form so that you can improve the conversation for next time. Also plan a time to debrief the session with a few colleagues or participants.
• Facilitate a way for next steps and continued connection to happen. This should be contextual, ways that make sense and are comfortable for your community. You might agree together to set a date for a second conversation, including new people. You might set up smaller ongoing action groups, based on conclusions made by participants at the event. You may ask someone to set up a closed group on Facebook or another social media site where people can continue the conversation and begin to gather around particular actions.

Remember…

• Give yourself—and the participants—permission to do and say the “wrong” things. Be comfortable being uncomfortable, and share that expectation with participants. Be courageously vulnerable! Model it for your community, and invite them to lay down their own assumptions and defenses, too. Know that the conversation will be awkward, and be okay with that.

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F. Willis Johnson is the senior minister at Wellspring Church in Ferguson, Missouri. His writing and lecturing credits range from TIME Magazine, National Public Radio, universities and seminaries, to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History Culture. This article is an excerpt from his book Holding Up Your Corner: Talking about Race in Your Community.

The Methodist Way of Making Disciples: 3-5-5-1

A visitor appears in your congregation and is attracted to something that causes him or her to return. The port of entry varies. It might be a friendship or the worship environment or the message or the lived wisdom of the pastor or the hospitality of the participants or the missional actions of the faith community.

Most church leaders know from experience that visitors as well as loosely committed participants will eventually exit through a back door unless they experience a shared Christian life with others—a discipleship pathway. Some congregations offer a traditional membership orientation and suggest a group. Other churches seem more independent or are attuned to local cultural expectations and thus work on belonging and discipleship before articulating a formal membership commitment.

The early Methodist movement literally began and thrived because of a discipleship pathway articulated by John Wesley, which is based on small groups. The Wesleyan innovation for small groups is a convergence of evangelism and discipleship. A shared and disciplined Christian life together attracts others to this way of following Jesus. The groups (“societies”) attracted participants with no previous religious experience as well as Christians from Anglican, Presbyterian, Quaker, Moravian, and many other faith communities. As the small groups multiplied, John Wesley’s earliest published resources were foundational and established the discipleship practices that formed the Methodist identity. This guidance from Wesley is found or repeated in many writings, but it is crystallized in the following:

1. General Rules (1741)
2. Character of a Methodist (1743)
3. Means of Grace (174_)
4. Wesleyan Covenant for Renewal (1755)

Over the centuries the Methodist small-group movement morphed into congregations, where these foundational practices for discipleship can be overlooked or forgotten by subsequent generations. Now a congregation can recover and standardize Wesley’s discipleship pathway by offering a series of small-group experiences, perhaps to the entire congregation or any given class or group, and subsequently for visitors or inquirers who are encouraged to walk in the Wesleyan way of life together.

John Wesley’s foundational instruction for the formation of a Christian and Methodist identity is updated into four small-group study experiences, which each include a participant book, a leader guide, and brief teaching videos. Each study experience is completed in six weeks and is described as follows:

Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, Rueben P. Job

This study experience is drawn by Wesley from the ministry of Jesus, which is taught as a “rule” (a way of life) for Christians, who are expected to do the following:

1. Do no harm.
2. Do good.
3. Stay in love with God.

If this simple Wesleyan rule for life in your congregation is practiced, it becomes a yardstick for the ministries offered in your mission field.

Five Marks of a Methodist: The Fruit of a Living Faith, Steve Harper

Wesley describes the “character of a Methodist” in terms of the marks or habits or practices that produce desirable fruit from a faithful follower of Jesus. These marks can bridge our differences and produce mature fruit:

1. A Methodist loves God.
2. A Methodist rejoices in God.
3. A Methodist gives thanks.
4. A Methodist prays constantly.
5. A Methodist loves others.

After an individual understands what is expected for this approach to Methodist discipleship, the marks become a powerful habit when the participant practices. One rhythm for practice is to reread a chapter from the book each day of the week (Monday through Friday), which can turn the marks into habits.

Five Means of Grace: Experience God’s Love the Wesleyan Way, Elaine A. Heath

(available for preorder, ships August 2017)

Notice that the previously mentioned general rules and five habits for a Methodist include love of God. The Methodist way of life is thoroughly based on God’s love for us and our love for God. Wesley confirmed our tendency to allow the love of God and others to grow cold so that we drift away from the gift of God’s unmerited grace. So Wesley showed us ways to reorder our lives through the “means of grace.” These means are the ordinary channels that God uses to draw us into a fruitful and faithful relationship:

1. Praying
2. Searching scripture
3. Receiving the Lord’s Supper
4. Fasting
5. Conferencing (worship together)

We reorder our lives by recognizing and affirming the outward signs, words, and actions of an invisible divine grace. Through these “means” we receive God’s gifts together, and we experience the power of a spiritual relationship with God.

One Faithful Promise: The Wesleyan Covenant for Renewal, Magrey deVega

Any discipleship pathway tends to crumble and develop potholes. Wesley saw the need for renewal of the Methodist movement a mere fifteen years down the road. So he pulled together the people called Methodist and taught for several mornings about “the means of increasing serious religion.” This renewal was taught through five steps:

1. Confide in God
2. Compose your spirit
3. Claim the covenant
4. Choose faithfulness
5. Connect to God in prayer

Then they worshipped together and reaffirmed their promise through a Covenant prayer to stay on the pathway. Charles Wesley also wrote a hymn supporting the prayer: “Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine.” Wesley’s covenant renewal can function now as an accessible church-wide campaign that culminates in the liturgical affirmation and faithful promise to love God and neighbor faithfully. The campaign could be

1. used during Advent and culminate on New Year’s Eve with the Covenant prayer committed to memory and resolve;
2. used from mid-September, with emphasis on homecoming and harvest, and culminated with the liturgical event on All Saint’s Day;
3. used prior to Lent and culminate on Ash Wednesday; or
4. used during Lent and culminate during holy week.

Nearly all church leaders yearn to help individuals and groups grow in faithfulness through love and service. The Methodist way of doing this can be instantiated through our three rules, five marks, five means, and one promise. This is a handy way to remember our method.

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Paul Franklyn is Associate Publisher for Bibles, Leadership, and Textbooks at The United Methodist Publishing House. He directed the Common English Bible translation.

The earth has put its hope in us.

The next generation in our family rarely attends church but they grew up in the church, not only attending the usual activities in a local church but also annual conference.  At critical times over the years as they have become adults, a couple of them have called or texted and asked, “Aunt Sally!  What are you going to do about  (fill-in-the-blank) ?!”

Sarah Ehrman O’Connor asked such a question about fifteen years ago as she prepared lessons to teach high school environmental studies.  Sarah was convinced that the church could do something about saving the planet from humanity.  I’ve often said that in some ways she believes in the church and its potential influence more than most of us who attend regularly and might even get a paycheck from it!  Sarah also believed that if Christians just knew the science of environmental issues such as climate change, they would understand the urgency of changing our lifestyles in order to care for God’s creation.

In the last seven years since A Hopeful Earth was published, the climate has gotten worse, the knowledge or acceptance of science has declined or at least been dismissed by many citizens (presumably some United Methodist Christians), but the moral as well as biblical and theological mandate has grown.

There was “hope for the earth” when the Paris Climate Accord was agreed upon in December 2015, led by the United States but in conjunction with almost 200 other countries.  Now the President of the United States has called to withdraw from the Paris Accord even though many CEOs of major companies in all kinds of industries discouraged him from doing so.

Sarah and I were devastated by the President’s action.  But I have to say the next day on social media I saw a conversation among some clergy who said, “I never heard of this Paris Accord.  What is it?”  Following the conversation (without entering in), it was clear that they had heard nothing of it at the time, nothing of it during the election, and nothing of it in any of their reading or conversations.  I wept…

When Sarah and I wrote A Hopeful Earth, we wanted to focus on Jesus’ teachings rather than the Hebrew Scriptures alone (although they are filled with examples of when people are faithful, there is fruitfulness in the land, but when they are not faithful, there is desertification and barrenness of all kinds).  Frankly, our copy editor upon receiving the assignment to edit the book said, “I don’t think Jesus said anything about the environment.”  We hope she felt differently after she dug into the book.

Jesus lived in an agrarian worldview, just as the scriptures come from an agrarian worldview.  When we read, “have dominion over the earth,” we read it from an industrial worldview (and even a post-industrial worldview).  Jesus’ teachings and central theological themes call us to care for God’s earth in many ways that are relevant to our lives today.

As I was working on the book, I came to a new understanding that will forever change my worldview about my neighbor.  My neighbor lives next door and we greet each other when we grill on our balconies.  I also have neighbors who live on the other side of the world; neighbors I will never meet but I know that through my actions and my faith, I have an impact on them.  (My mother taught me that!)  Neighbors are near and far.

But what I came to appreciate was that neighbors are also now and in the future.  To love my neighbor means that I need to demonstrate love—faith in action—to those who will come after me as well as those who live around me—near and far—today.  How will my neighbors in the future find the planet in which they inhabit?

We as United Methodist Christians need to teach and preach on the discipleship of creation care; how to walk gently on God’s earth.  Sarah and I commend this book to you as a study and a guide to get people thinking, feeling, and acting on the scientific, biblical and theological undergirding of our faith and our planet.

The earth has put its hope in us.

 

Sally Dyck is bishop of the Minnesota Conference of The United Methodist Church. She received theological training from Boston University School of Theology (M. Div., 1978), University of Geneva/World Council of Churches (graduate certificate, 1978), and United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio (D. Min., Black Church Studies, 1989). Her upbringing in a Mennonite home instilled in her the understanding that personal piety is inextricably woven to peace and justice advocacy. She has been married to the Rev. Kenneth Ehrman, a United Methodist elder, since 1976. The two have traveled the globe together by plane, bicycle, and on foot.

Is It Time for a Curriculum Change?

It’s fun to try new things.  Modern curricula offer many bells and whistles in the form of graphics, online resources, and music. It’s tempting to move to the next best thing. But how do you really know when it’s time to change? Here are some things to consider.

Your Church’s Mission

These goals are the foundation of ministry with the children in your church and in your community. If you don’t know your church’s mission and ministry goals, it’s time to find out (or to write them!). Now look at your curriculum. Does the curriculum support your goals?

Your Church’s Theological Perspective

Are the teachings about God, Jesus, and the Bible ones you want your children to learn? Are there teachings included that your children will have to unlearn later? Is the curriculum biblically accurate? Are the images in line with your church’s understanding of God’s love for the world?

Biblical Knowledge

Does the curriculum help children discover the whole Bible over the course of their Sunday school years? Does making a change continue a discovery of the whole Bible? Or will the children hear the same stories over again because the next new curriculum starts with the same favorite stories?

Your Children

Have things changed since you started your present curriculum? Do you have more children? fewer children? What are their ages? Do you need to change your educational model to fit your present group or your available space? Do the learning activities appeal your children? Are they age appropriate? Do your children want to come to Sunday school?

We recently made a change in my own church. We’ve been using the Large Group/Small Group model for elementary because we had a small number of children. It was really Small Group/Small Group. We’ve grown! We’re now have enough children to support a change to separate age-level classrooms. We changed curriculum and the children love having the colorful Bible story leaflets and activity pages that go with the new model.

Your Teachers

What kind of feedback are you receiving from your teachers? Are you getting complaints? Is the curriculum easy for your teachers to navigate? Is it easy to prepare? Do they find enough activities and support resources for the amount of time they teach?

Your Families

Is ministering to parents one of your ministry goals? If it is, what does your curriculum do to support that goal? Are resources easily available? How are the family faith resources delivered? Does the delivery method make it easy for you to get the resources to your parents and grandparents?

 

Choosing new curriculum can add energy and excitement to your children’s ministry. And it’s an opportunity to redecorate! But taking a hard look at these five areas will help you make a change when it’s right for your church.

 

Daphna Flegal is the Lead Development Editor of Children’s Resources at The United Methodist Publishing House and a happy grandmother.

 

 

 

 

 

Esther: She Persisted

Queen Esther was encouraged by her uncle Mordecai that “it was for a moment like this” that she became part of the royal family (Esther 4:14 CEB). She persisted in her efforts to convince the King to spare the Jewish people “the evil plot” of Haman, a royal official (Esther 8:3 CEB).

The Rev. Marti J. Steussy, PhD, who wrote the commentary for Esther in our new #CEBWomensBible, said about the book: “We tend to read scripture silently or in a very respectful, serious tone, perhaps because we assume that its job is to inform and instruct. But Esther’s drama and comic exaggerations may aim to cheer and encourage rather than instruct us—to touch our hearts rather than our heads (some of the Psalms work this way, too). Ancient people would have expected the book to be read aloud with lots of expression and probably audience participation.”

Who will you speak out for today? How will you persist?

Here, But Not Yet: The Feeling Of Advent

During Advent, Christians sing songs such as, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.” These songs anticipate the hope that God’s people felt as they waited for this Savior. Congregations light candles of hope, peace, love, and joy, like an emblazoned clock counting down to God’s intervention. My family has an Advent calendar with hand-sewn Nativity story characters, which travel daily from numbered pocket to numbered pocket on a red and green felt background.

Waiting for something that has already happened is a curious practice. Explaining the season of Advent was quite difficult for me until my wife and I were pregnant with our first child. When a child is in the womb, the child is certainly real even though you can’t hold the baby in your arms. A mother’s body changes, subtle flutters soon become kicks, and ultrasounds reveal a profile, leading someone to say, “She looks just like you!” or “Are you sure you aren’t having an alien?” The child is certainly real, but not yet born. It’s kind of like recording kick counts as the baby’s due date approaches. Ask any mother — the baby is already here, but not yet born.

The Advent season plays with our notion of time. The church gathers in the present to ponder the past for a future hope. A Christmas Carol is a beautiful story for the Advent season because it is a tale in which the past, present, and future all come together in one transformative night. Certainly this story is about Scrooge’s love of money and his altruistic failures, but it is also a story about how Scrooge cannot let go of his past. Early in the story, after establishing that Marley had been dead for some time, Dickens writes, “Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley” (Stave One). Scrooge seems to cling to the past because his (only?) friend Marley represented the only things in which Scrooge trusts: hard work, frugality, unwavering discipline, and action that can be weighed, measured, and counted.

One of the reasons I love the song “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” is because it’s difficult to count. The time signature is common time (four beats per measure and the quarter note gets the beat), but each measure seems to flow into the next without a structured beat or meter. Rarely does a phrase in the song begin with beat one, and words are extended past measure breaks. The song also talks about the promises of the past coming into fruition. The words and music together suggest that the past and future unite in an ambiguous but blessed present. Scrooge is stuck in the past, and he can’t move forward because one can only count what one’s already been given. If your world is only what can be weighed and measured, Advent’s “here, but not yet” mantra makes too little sense for a merry investment.

Jesus came to save us from counting our past as our only reality. It’s like when Moses led God’s people out of Egyptian slavery into the wilderness. Before they reached the Promised Land, the Book of Exodus says, “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt … for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger'” (Exodus 16:2-3 NRSV). Because living in the wilderness was difficult and they were caught wandering between where they were and where they were heading, the people complained and wished they had died as slaves. The people became stubborn and bitter (see Exodus 32:9), almost “Scroogelike” in their relationship with God and one another. Instead of moving forward in faith, trusting that God was with them, the people kept looking over their shoulders, hopelessly lamenting over the way things were.

Advent is like living in the wilderness between what was and what will be. Living into this tension, remembering God’s promises, and depending on faith become spiritual disciplines that keep us from becoming Scrooges ourselves. Even though the Promised Land may seem far off, we hold tightly to the promises of our God, for “he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23 NIV).

 

An excerpt from The Redemption of Scrooge by Matt Rawle.

Matt Rawle is the Lead Pastor at The Well United Methodist Church near New Orleans, Louisiana and a graduate from the LSU School of Music and Duke Divinity School.

Staying Focused on Older Adults

The future of our churches, in whatever form they may take, will depend upon today’s young adults. We’ve learned through countless studies, as well as from personal observations, that our congregations are growing older.  The realization seemed to hit us out of the blue and in a somewhat-frenzied effort to make up for lost time, we changed our communication styles, our worship services and our outreach efforts. We did good, right? Not if our newly acquired vision ignores those who are right before our eyes.

 

Don’t Turn a Blind Eye

“Of course it’s extremely important for churches to do what it takes to attract young singles and couples. It always has been,” says Rev. Dr. Jeff Wilson, a minister at Brentwood United Methodist Church (BUMC) in Brentwood, Tenn. “As churches, we noticed that there were a lot of older folk in our congregations, but just because we gear up to attract and serve a younger crowd doesn’t mean we ignore the old one.”

Wilson, a pastor in BUMC’s Caring Ministry, created the church’s “older adult” ministry just over a year ago with little-to-no fanfare.  “It was kind of a quiet roll-out,” says Wilson. “We didn’t need a logo or a catchy tagline to create awareness; our target audience was already here.”

Instead, Wilson holds quarterly events that highlight concerns commonly shared by older adults. “For instance we had a half-day gathering that focused on what you need to think about as you approach retirement. Mentally, physically and spiritually”, he explains. “We have another gathering planned on to how to handle grief … and not just the kind of grief you experience over a death. You can grieve the loss of a career and the loss of purpose.”

 

Seeing God at Work

The four, yearly events are an important component of BUMC’s older adult ministry, but Wilson says it is through hospital, nursing home and shut-in visitations, a flower-delivery ministry, in-home communion service, a prayer shawl ministry, an Alzheimer support group and weekly caregiver respite activities that he gets to see God at work in the ministry on a daily basis.

“Of course building people’s relationships with God … that’s what this is all about,” says Wilson.  “Wherever they are on their spiritual journey and however they came to this point, it’s an opportunity to be with people in this stage of their lives – to walk them home.”

 

Coming into Focus

Announcements about events and classes are listed in the bulletin and other regular forms of church member communication, but Wilson says he also uses email when he wants to target just a portion of the church’s older adult database. “Rarely do I come across someone who does not use email,” he says. “So, we can sort within our older member database and direct the invitation, event information … directly to a specific list. “

Wilson also communicates to the entire older adult ministry through a weekly email/blog called Jeff’s Foot Notes. “I really just talk about what’s on my mind each week and tie it into a spiritual lesson or observation,” he explains. “Because I, too, am an ‘older adult’, members seem to relate to my experiences, and it’s a way for me to continue to build relationships.”

 

Using a Wide Angle

Typically, a targeted ministry doesn’t have generational crossover … something many churches are trying to change, but Wilson says that’s not the case with older adult ministries.

“You have to remember that there are older adults and then there are older adults,” he smiles.  “So even at a smaller church, you’re going to have people in their 60’s as well as people in their ‘80’s and even 90’s.”

Wilson won’t actually define the term “older adult” saying it doesn’t really matter. As long as the members are being spiritually fed, he’s happy. “I guess I figure that if you have to wonder whether or not you are an ‘older adult’, you’re an ‘older adult,’” he chuckles.

 

Judy Bumgarner is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee.