Member or Disciple?

It is unfortunate that the term “member” has become synonymous with the word disciple. It is unfortunate because being a disciple requires that we apprentice with people who have let their Hearts be Opened to Jesus, and their Minds be Enriched by Jesus whereas being a member might only mean showing up on our membership rolls. Being true to the Great Commission (Matthew 28), means we must first be concerned with disciple making, and make means that as a Church, we take this responsibility seriously.

My friend Rev. Paul Gravley, who is pastor of Hutto United Methodist wrote:

The word disciple, best translated, means apprentice. An apprentice is part student and part follower, with the goal of learning from the teacher in order to be as good at what they do as their teacher. In the case of the 12 disciples, they studied and learned under Jesus so that they, to the best of their ability, might be able to do what Jesus did! Then, at the end of his ministry, Jesus offers this incredible edict to the disciples: “go and make more disciples, and teaching them…” Jesus apparently thought that the 12 could actually do what Jesus did and not only that, that they could pass on to the subsequent generations that they can do what Jesus did.

This doing what Jesus did has been passed down to each of us so that each of us, through God’s grace, in Christ, and through the movement of the Holy Spirit, we too can do what Jesus did when people come Home to God, at St. Philip’s United Methodist Church.

The word Home is incorporated into our logo at St. Philip’s Logo. H.O.M.E. - where each letter has meaning

H – Hearts

O – Open

M – Minds

E – Enriched

When we welcome people into our church our hope is that they will come H.O.M.E. to God, that is become disciples of Jesus Christ with their Hearts Open, and Minds Enriched. But this has not been an articulated, or disciplined hope. Instead, it has been our practice to get people involved in choir or a Sunday School class, or in one of the committees of the church, and hope that they would figure out what it means to be a disciple. Disciple-making is too important to be left to chance. It takes training and intentionality – just as Jesus trained the first Disciples, so too we must be trained to be disciples of Jesus.

It may not be how we in the church today became disciples, but I submit to you that the world is very different than what it was, and we too have to adapt and change. Paul Gravley writes:

Consider that families move. Often, on average, once every five years. As nomadic people if who live on average to 80, we would have moved 16 times. In the community that we find ourselves in (the greater Williamson County area), that rate is probably much higher. This fact has major implications for the church, particularly with regards to disciple making.

Quite simply, St. Philip’s has a small window in a person or family’s life to help create disciples out of seekers, and it is time we become intentional about our disciple making process.

Over the next few weeks and months you will hear about an intentional disciple making process Connecting Ministries has been working on called HOMESteading, our local answer to the practice of intentional discipleship.

Coming Alive in Passionate Worship

This week as we talk about Passionate Worship around the St. Philip’s community, and I have been reminded of a conversation I overheard this summer, on a bus in Ghana. We were packed in pretty tight so I couldn’t turn around and see who was talking. For three hours I listen to these two Peace Corps volunteers talk. I wrote this in my personal blog when I was in Ghana. These two women are on their way to join volunteers from around the country for a 4^th of July Celebration.

They catch up on each other’s lives, discussing everyone in the program and who they are currently “with”. I can’t avoid listening; they talk non-stop for three hours. One boy they talk about extensively, “like when you’re talking with him, he looks all thoughtful, and he gets that like far off look, like he’s thinking deeply about what you are saying…” the other jumps in, “but he’s not” she says. “There is like nothing going on inside.” I’m sure I’ve dropped a couple hundred usages of the word like. These women are such verbal processors, but their words burn in my ears. Am I like that? What would they say about me if they knew me? For three hours I hear them analyze their friends and colleagues, and that boy. “He’s passionate about nothing,” they say. Not that he isn’t passionate, its just that his passion does not have an object. Its talk without action, music without expression, art that can’t evoke an emotion. Passionate about nothingness except looking or feeling passionate. I think about myself, my situation, and wonder what makes me come alive, or back to my current situation, what would I jump across the crevasse to do, ignoring the danger of possible failure?

Someone once said “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” [Howard Thurman] So have been compiling my list of things that make me come alive…

And one of the things on my list of passions is worship and that alone raises many questions. (If you want to read about the other two, here is the link to the complete blog post [click here]).

Being passionate about Worship, I wonder is that the same as Passionate Worship (AKA loving God in return)? Or is Passionate Worship the act of loving the love of God, that is the emotion of love without the object of it.

If there is a purpose to Passionate Worship, then is it to evoke passion in us?

Is Passionate Worship’s affect to increase our passion for God? Or is it like what I heard someone say about art, “I’m not sure what it is, but I know it when I see it,” or in our case experience it.

Here is I know about being passionate about worship:

Worship - I’m not just saying that because I’m a pastor, and should include something religious on my list (how sad would that be?) I do love worship, I love planning it, attending passionate worship services, feeling the playful love that goes into the service when everything works together, the danger when someone calls an auditable. I love being lost in the experience, as the work of worship helps me approaching the divine. This work can’t be measured by minutes, but only what that experience does, where it takes you. I love a well structured sermon, singing hymns I’ve never sung, connecting words of the hymns with the message, being lead by a talented lead worshipper, or listening to the perfect song following a sermon, like a good cup of coffee after dessert. I love that feeling after the benediction when I feel changed, encouraged, or challenged. I love it on Wednesday when my mind is still working through a “some assembly required” aspect of the sermon, or when I’m wondering years from now, about a particular point or story I heard.

So maybe I can adapt that Howard Thurman quote to look like this

“Don't ask yourself what your church needs. Ask yourself what makes your faith come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people of faith who have come alive.”

Radical Hospitality - You Are Welcome

There is this expression in Ghana that everyone new to the country grows to understand.

“You Are Welcome!”

Even now as I write these words, they sound perfectly normal to me, but I remember when we first moved there, how odd they sounded, like the response to someone saying thank you. But what these words “You Are Welcome” mean is just that, that you are welcome in this place, be it our home, our church, or in our company.

The practice of radical hospitality is generally considered a keystone to a church’s success, of making people feel welcome. In his Oct. 6, 2009 blog posting, “The Battle is Won or Lost in Your Lobby,” Bishop Schnase reflected on a talk given by Claudia Levy at the Leadership Nexus event in Shreveport, La., in September.

“She said a preacher may preach the best sermon since the Apostle Paul … but if someone walks in your front door and is ignored, neglected, rudely treated, pounced upon in an overdone fashion, or welcomed in a mechanical and perfunctory manner, then you will likely never see the visitor return.”

Schnase responded: “I’m not suggesting every usher, greeter, staff member and volunteer must be perfect. But they must be authentic, hospitable and attentive. Directed by the right motivations, sustained by a right Spirit, attentive in a right and caring way, we can do this right. We have to look at the guest experience through the eyes of a visitor,” or how we would hope to be welcomed.

“Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:7)

For the past year United Methodist Churches have been challenged by figuring out what Radical Hospitality means to them in their ministry setting. We wonder where does Radical Hospitality lead, and I believe that if it does not lead anywhere, that is OK. The blessing of Radical Hospitality comes from its practice in our lives, in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and in our church is enough because of what it does to us, not to where it leads or it’s affect on the people around us. Practicing Radical Hospitality makes us better people, a better church, it helps us become more like what we were created to be, and that my friends that is reason enough.

Archbishop William Temple once wrote, "The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members." And as long a we remember that, we’ll do OK at extending Radical Hospitality, but when we shift our thinking to believing that it exists for us, we’ve lost any context for Hospitality.

There is another expression in Ghana, “Am I Invited?” that one will ask when waiting outside a room one wants to enter. This lesson came to us in a hospital where our daughter Grace was being treated for Malaria, and the chief nurse stood outside the curtain saying “Am I Invited?”

I think that is the implied question that guests to St. Philip’s ask, “Am I invited?” Are the people here going to invite me into their lives, their practice of faith, their community? Is St. Philip’s a place that has room for me? Its not only our gests asking, “Am I Invited?” is the question that I think God asks us every day. Am I invited into your life, into your relationships, into the joy and pain of a believer’s life?

So if the question is “Am I Invited” then as we grow in faith, and practice Radical Hospitality, our unspoken answer to God and those around us will be “You Are Most Welcome!”

The Left Hand

Well we are back after a month in Ghana, West Africa where Suzanne (my wife) and I lived with our family from 2006-2008 when she served as a Fulbright Scholar. Ghana is like our second home, a place that feels as natural to us as Central Texas, though as you would expect, life there is quite different. This summer Suzanne taught at Ashesi University College (www.ashesi.edu.gh) for seven week, and I took Anna (our youngest), and joined her for the month.

One of the things that is difficult in our transition back to the US is the use of the Left Hand. In Ghana, the left hand is culturally not used for receiving, or giving items. Historically known as the toilet hand, one is becomes very sensitive to not using it, or if you must, then using both hands, or apologizing for its use, “pardon my left…” Coming back, it feels awkward when I use my left hand, I am conscious of its use, telling myself it is OK, I can receive something with it and not offend.

One time when we were volunteering at an orphanage outside of Accra, the capital city, I watched as our kids played a game of duck-duck goose. Her name was Gloria, and she was a bit disabled so it was difficult for her to run around the outside of the circle, compounded by the fact that she had to pat everyone on the head, and then with her right hand, crossing over her left, because she was running around counterclockwise. How deeply ingrained this tradition is, I thought.

I was already thinking about my left hand when in my devotional I read Psalm 16:8

⁸ I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken. (NIV)

I wondered how that verse reads in Ghana, how it might be different from our understanding, and was surprised to see that in Biblical times, the left hand also had negative connotations at end of time when the nations have gathered before the son of man, who will come to divide them like a shepherd,

“And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” (Matt. 25:33)

Those on the left he shall say

“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).

I wonder if this traditional use predates the introduction of Christianity, or was it an early adaption to scripture? What I do know is that I think about which hand to use, to wave, to accept, or to give a lot these days.

VBS Week & God's Word

Well its VBS week at St. Philip’s. VBS or Vacation Bible School is this annual event, that this year welcomes some 250 kids onto our campus in order to expose them to the word of God, and start a relationship with Jesus. I have such a clear memory of my first VBS experience way back in 5th grade when I didn’t so much meet Jesus, as have my first schoolboy crush on Holly Young, who was my crew leader that year. Actually, the whole Young family got into VBS; it was something John, her older brother, and Lisa, Holly’s younger sister did each summer together. What a great experience it must have been, Mr. & Mrs. Young and their kids hanging out at the church and teaching us about Jesus.

I’m working in one of our three storyteller’s rooms along with Lauren, Becca & Tyler, and my daughter Grace when she can get off work. Together we act out the story as best we can, complete with spray bottles of water, crazy sound effects, and makeshift scenery. The kids are good sports about it, though restless sometimes, trying to suspend disbelief enough to get into the story. We conclude the lesson by reading the whole account straight from the Bible, word for word and the amazing thing is… the kids listen, and seem interested.

It has been a good reminder to me to never discount the power of the God’s Word. The word doesn’t need our help or enhancement, it has a power all on its own, and anything we add to it, might just be distracting from it.

Memorializing Memorial Day 2010

Today is Memorial Day, actually today is the day after, but I wrote it on Memorial Day. It wasn’t always called Memorial Day, in fact, my mother always called it Decoration Day, and in Kansas where she grew up, it was a day of remembrance for those who had died in our nation's service, and to decorate their graves. There are stories in my family from the depression era about gathering hollyhocks, which grew by the house, and yucca blossoms, which grew in the pasture, and taking them to the graveyard to decorate her ancestors graves, those who fought in the Civil War, and The Great War. It was a big deal then. Hollyhock and yucca were about the only flowers that could survive the Kansas dustbowl days, when grasshoppers & drought took most everything else that bloomed, my mom would tell me. After decorating the graves they would eat cold fried chicken, and boiled potatoes and make a day of it out at the cemetery.

Memorial Day doesn’t seem to have the meaning it once had. Part of me wonders if that was just the period, these days there is so many more distractions, and the people remembered are so many generations back, and we have not told their story enough. We are a people who like memorials, who seek to feel something beyond ourselves. In almost every town, in every state, there are memorials. Sometimes they are to people who have gone on, we call them cemeteries, graveyards, or memorial parks. But other times they seek to remember greater events, like battles, wars, or places where a great many people died. Who can visit places like Gettysburg, Ground Zero, or the Vietnam Memorial, and not feel the mass (or weight of the souls lost there) that point to a greater beyond, an unimaginable sacrifice. In ancient times people remembered too. One time in the Bible, in the book of Samuel there is an account of a great battle against the Philistines, when only by God’s protection were the Israelites not slaughtered. Twenty years earlier, on that very battlefield, the Philistines had slaughtered the Israelites and took their Ark. But on that day, at this place called Ebenizer, on the same battle field, Israel called upon the LORD defeated the Philistines and so to remember, a memorial stone was erected by Samuel. The Bible says: Then Samuel took a stone and set on end, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, "Thus far the LORD has helped us."

I like that perspective on memorial: thus far the LORD has helped us. It recalls me of who came before us, what they might have hoped for, who we can still hope to become, and of course their strength: thus far the LORD has helped us. Their sacrifice; our duty; God’s help.

I’ve seen a trend lately that I am having trouble quantifying. The trend is in these sort of remembrance -infomercials whose point seems to be to evoke an emotional response fueled by a pinch of guilt and unarticulated anger. Sometimes they come in the form of emails, forwarded from my Dad, or short clips seen during political campaigns, or just passed around on YouTube. Topics are memorial-like, for example, September 11, returning Veterans, rage against the government (you pick the policy), or how the news media is biased. I’m not completely questioning the validity of the topics, but I am wondering about the point of effort. I watch and feel something stir, but it is an internal stirring, not the call to action kind. It doesn’t feel like a movement like I am connected to anything larger than myself and these things don’t ask me to do anything more than to just forward this on, or visit this website. It is almost seems like the whole point is to evoke a feeling and the content of the remembrance-infomercials is secondary to asking people to forward it on, and to feel guilty when we don’t. As I said I am having trouble quantifying this; I don’t know that to do with it. Part of me questions the data, is it accurate? Part of me questions the source, what is their agenda? Part of me wonders about the person sending it, why to me?

And yes, I realize that I this blog entry has the same trouble as these remembrance-omercials.

Tourists, Travelers & Pilgrims

Its Rick Steves’ Fault

Blame it on Rick Steves, he got me thinking about it again about the institution of the church, and what happens to the people who pass through its doors.   Maybe its not entirely his fault, my home church, the one from which I answered my call to ministry,  has closed its doors after 101 years.  It is a sad moment for many,  but for me this was the one place I knew I could always go home to, and always be loved and accepted, and now it is gone.  Well, not completely gone, the buildings are still there, soon they will be Trinity United Methodist’s.

Long time member Charlie Lancaster (who was my Walk to Emmaus sponsor) reminds me that the church is not a building, nor its pastors, but the particular assembly of people who gather to worship God in that place, and while the assembly known as Hyde Park United Methodist Church will not gather at 40th and Speedway again, another will. 

He said this the same week my sister-in-law Mary ran across an interview with Rick Steves in The Christian Century.  Steves hosts a travel program on PBS.  In the article he says travel should be a “spiritual thing,” and how he tries “to create an environment in which people will feel free to consider the effects that travel has on their spirituality.”   I think it’s a fine goal for the church too, not traveling through the church building per se, but the actual affect of being in the midst of an assembly that has gathered to worship God.  Could that be the goal of the worship leaders?  To create an environment where people will feel free to consider the effects that worship will have on their spirituality?    In other words to help worshippers be open to the possibility that they might be changed by their worship experience?

Tourists, Travelers & Pilgrims

Rick Steves writes about the difference between Tourist and Travelers.  He says: 

You could go to Africa and take in all the finest golf courses and come home having learned nothing. Or you could go to Africa and drink tea with local people, help them out in different ways and gain empathy for them. You'd come home changed. That's being a traveler. Travelers and pilgrims are people who are connecting, learning, challenging themselves and not doing what's predictable.[1]

A few years ago I took a cruise ship down the Nile.  It was an amazing cruise, we saw so much and from such comfort but it was nothing like riding the train, or taking a taxi, or walking the streets of Cairo.  It made me recall a poster I saw a few years back:

"When the Church becomes a Cruise Ship...

God mourns....

He designed it to be a Lifeboat."

The Church has the possibility of being its very best when its leadership understands what type of boat they are commanding: Cruise Ship or Lifeboat. The Cruise Ship’s only mission is those already on board, and for their comfort and entertainment.  The Lifeboat's only mission is to get people in danger to safety.   I remember the lifeboats on our cruise ship and it looked like they had not been used in a very long time (a good sign) and painted to the ship under many layers (a bad sign).

So I’ve decided to name my St. Philip’s blog: Tourist, Traveler & Pilgrim.  I guess I could have named it Cruise Ship or Lifeboat, but it seems to me there is something missing between those two extremes, and that is my hope for this blog, as together we explore the being Tourists, Travelers & Pilgrims on this ship called St. Philip’s United Methodist Church.

---

[1] http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8191