Open letter to my friends at General Conference…

Dear United Methodist Friends and Acquaintances attending General Conference,

First, I want to thank you for enabling me and many others to have a glimpse into this week in Tampa.  I’ve been casually following Facebook statues, blog posts, twitter feeds, and websites that many of you have shared, and it has been helpful in knowing how to pray for the gathering.  I also want to thank you for your hard work.  I don’t agree with everything I am seeing and hearing so far, but it does seem clear that you and many others are working hard under some challenging circumstances.   So thank you…

I spent 45 minutes tonight watching the end of the General Administration committee meeting (via iPhone live stream while following the GC twitter feed).  I’m still searching for the right words to describe what that was like, honestly, lol.  My favorite tweet during the whole thing was “at what point does a meeting become a metaphor?”

It seems to me that institutions are – in their very nature – committed to self-preservation.  And I think people formed by those institutions, and elected by those institutions to attend those institutional gatherings, all of whom are deeply committed to that institution…of course they will have a difficult time trying to reform that institution.  We have collectively decided that “conferencing” still means gathering with (mostly) strangers every 4 years to legislate via Robert’s Rules. And many of these strangers try hard to be at this gathering specifically because they have strong passions about particular opinions they already hold regarding certain areas of our shared institutional life.  They are there not so much to conference as to advocate.  And our recent institutional narratives have been so dominated by decline (in the U.S.) and differences (age, theological, etc.), that people in that institution…part of that narrative…are of course going to come to Tampa expecting mistrust and resistance to change.   Because if that is how we are formed as leaders within the institution, then that is the institution we will experience.

So I want you to know that I don’t hold you responsible for failed restructuring plans or difficulties in crafting particular language or making guarantees about my job or anything else being discussed in Tampa.  If you feel that pressure, it’s not from me.  And I don’t expect General Conference or its delegates to renew the UMC.  Only a deep and abiding commitment to prayer, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, prophetic and anointed leadership in our local fellowships and at every level of our connection, and Methodist people everywhere seeking greater depths of relationship and faithfulness with Jesus…only in these things will we experience renewal, revival, and ultimately, restoration…

But I do expect that we will be Christian to one another.  I do expect that we will follow the kenosis [self-emptying] example of our Lord, that we will be humble with one another, be willing to put aside our own selfish desires and interests for the sake of one another and the larger body.  How we talk to (and tweet about) and treat one another matters.   That is something the General Conference can do.  GC can try and set the tone for how we have conversations.

General Conference can also help me understand how I can further join God already at work in the world.   I want to hear more stories from our non-U.S. brothers and sisters about the Spirit growing their part of our fellowship!  I want to hear more talk of how we as Methodists in America can divest ourselves – empty our storehouses of properties and pension investments and financial reserves – for the sake of supporting the work of the church overseas and the mission of Christ beyond our specifically United Methodist institutional walls.

And I want General Conference to inspire each of you to be a better leader for our church…not make you more hardened or more cynical or more despondent about our church.  There is already so much that we read and hear that pulls us in that direction.

At the end of the day, our risen Lord reigns.  A world with – or without – a vital movement of the people called Methodists is still a world Jesus loves and saves and ultimately will restore.   So I’m not in this to save the present day American incarnation of the United Methodist Church.  I’m part of this Methodist movement because we have a message of deeply transformative grace and practiced discipleship and a call to personal and social holiness and a prophetic and evangelical gospel that – when preached and embodied – is the best contemporary picture of the gospel of Jesus I know.  I bet the same holds true for many of you.  So somewhere in the midst of these couple of weeks, I hope you are reminded of why you are Methodist, and I hope there is time and space (not governed by parliamentary procedure) to truly conference about how we rediscover who we are…

Continuing to pray for you and our fellowship.  But more importantly, continuing to hope and expect Jesus’ kingdom to come and will to be done…

Peace, Paul

Why I need Lent

I really need Lent this year.  I really need a season of intentional prayer, fasting, and time in the Word.  I really need to turn off my TV, pick up some deep reading, do some more thinking and reflecting and blogging.  Normally, I try and make a big deal about this season for people connected to my ministry (whether in a local church or more recently with my students).  But this year, I think it’s going to be very personal for me…

…because I know I need to draw closer to God.  Several things just in the last week reminded me of how deeply in need of continued growth and transformation I am.  A fairly nasty email exchange with a colleague the other day…very little patience recently with my youngest, Michael….not wanting to take time to pray…frustration with one of my staff that boils over into saying some things I probably didn’t need to say.  Even as I was writing that last sentence, Amber came in and reminded me of something I needed to do…and I rolled my eyes…

The simple truth is that I am a sinner.  I deserve the ashes on my forehead that remind me death is inevitable, a consequence for my selfish and sinful nature.  And so I need the season of Lent to help draw me back to God…to help draw me into a place where the Spirit can once again cleanse and fill and renew me.  I’m reminded of the words from the old hymn “Come thou font of every blessing”…

O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;

here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

Lent is the season for all of us who are prone to wander to be brought back, bound and sealed to the God who loves us and never leaves us…

Tebow Mania

I am on the record saying I don’t think God cares about the outcome of football games, and that I am skeptical of much “spiritual talk” that comes from the mouths of athletes [see my blog from November, 2010 titled "God + football = silliness"].  Maybe that’s why I haven’t blogged about Tebow until now.  But I feel like I want to add my two cents to this tsunami of opinion flooding sports media the last few months.  So here are a few brief thoughts as a sports fan, a parent, and then as a Christian…

As a sports fan, I like watching Tebow play.  It’s great to see a quarterback run over a linebacker rather than slide five yards before he gets hit.  I like the passion on the sidelines and the optimism at the postgame podium.   But I recognize Tebow’s (current) limitations as an NFL quarterback.  Tebow specifically, and the Broncos offense more generally, were hard to watch at times this season.  It was just ugly.  But of course there were glimpses of brilliance too – the 4th quarter comebacks, much of the Pittsburgh playoff game, etc.  Given another offseason of work, maybe that gets better and more consistent.  I hope so…

As a parent, I’m absolutely thrilled with Tebow.  In a professional sports world filled with self-absorbed egomaniac millionaires….Tebow is known for praying and inviting special needs guests on to the field.  In an NFL that features QBs imprisoned for dogfighting and charged with sexually assaulting young women…Tebow doesn’t even curse, lol.  So if my boys want to be like Tebow – want to be clean cut and self-effacing and grounded in faith….want to be a great athlete and good teammate with an incredible work ethic who starts a foundation that grants wishes to teenagers with life-threatening illnesses and builds hospitals in the Philippines – then that’s great with me as a Dad…

As a Christian (and pastor), there are so many aspects of Tebow-mania that have been fascinating to me.  I’ve never heard so much spiritual conversation on sports radio – commentators and personalities talking about religion in the locker room, athletes believing in God, and even sharing their own religious affiliations and experiences.  It’s been incredible, even if the constant Tebow-talk gets a little annoying.  I also can’t remember ever seeing the Christian community be so excited about an athlete…maybe even too excited.  There have been moments when I have been concerned about the reverent esteem some Christians hold him in, and the blind vehemence with which they defend him against perceived attack.  I’m also concerned for the height of the pedestal he is being placed upon and the weight of hope and expectation he is being asked to carry.  In some strange way, Tebow seems to have become a leading Christian warrior in a culture war many Christians feel the church is losing.  That’s a lot of pressure to put on a young guy in his mid-twenties…and a huge distance to fall if (or when – he is human, after all) Tebow ever has a moral slip-up…

But maybe most significantly, I think Tebow has challenged Christians everywhere to look at their own lives, their own faith, their own spheres of influence….and ask, “Am I being a good witness for Jesus?”  Christians are called and commanded to share their faith with the world; it’s an expectation of everyone who claims to follow Jesus.  Tebow is doing that.  When you listen to him, he talks about having a “platform” from which to make a difference.  And he is making a difference.  Jesus is more of a part of the cultural conversation right now because of Tebow.  As a world-class athlete, he has tremendous visibility and thus a very significant sphere of influence – and he is using it intentionally to share the love of Jesus.  He’s taking seriously the call to be a witness.  And as a Christian, he should…

So what about the rest of us?  Are we being intentional in our spheres of influence to share our faith, to share Jesus with others?

It would actually be great if we all talked about Jesus as much as we are talking about Tebow.  I think Tim would approve of that…

Paterno and Penn St.

For the last several days, I have followed with great interest – and great disgust – the unfolding revelations surrounding the Penn St. football program.  For those of you who are not sports fans or who have somehow been living on an island without media coverage the past few days, you can check out espn.com or any number of other places to catch up.  The basic story is this: allegations have surfaced of a former longtime Penn St. coach sexually abusing numerous boys, and leaders within the football program and the university administration – at the very least – did little to address the situation.  More probably, emerging details seem to indicate an institutional culture complicit in covering up these horrible crimes, which may have resulted in further abuse that could have been prevented…

Before I go any further, I should acknowledge that at this point, these are just allegations.  What has been made known publicly is based on limited grand jury testimony from particular individuals.  So there is much more that needs to come out, and there are many others who still need to share their side of the story…

That being said, I think it’s very important that we are clear on the core moral issue here. Children were being sexually abused, and adults in a position to intervene did little to stop it.   It simply doesn’t matter how many games a coach has won or how generous he has been to the university.  It doesn’t matter how good of a friend the predator is or how precious an institution is that you want to protect from scandal.    It doesn’t matter how many millions of dollars a football program makes or how “important” a team is in the lives of its fans.  Students and others who are rallying in support of Joe Pa or their school or people already thinking in terms of “managing fallout” for the football program in its recruiting of athletes and search for a new coach….please, please take a pause and confront the reality here.  Children… were… being…raped….     

Incredible negligence.  Deeply disturbing.  Profoundly sad.  Gut-wrenching anger over all of this…

At the very least, details seem to point to negligent and incompetent leadership who didn’t handle a very serious situation with any sense or urgency.  I think what is more probable is that people – both consciously and unconsciously – were protecting themselves, their friends, and their institution from allegations involving poor and troubled kids who were easy for a predator to take advantage of and easy for others to devalue and ignore.  We will see as more information comes out.  But I think this story is going to get much, much uglier…

In a larger sense, it is simply heart-breaking how little our world seems to value children….and how deeply our world can traumatize them.  In some parts of the world, they are kidnapped and brutally beaten and forced to carry automatic weapons to terrorize and kill others.  In many parts of the world – including the U.S. – children are exploited through human trafficking, child pornography, and sex tourism industries.  They become playthings for our most deviant desires.  In many of our own neighborhoods and communities, kids are beaten and abused and abandoned, right under our noses.  And you and me and the world often do so little…

Abuse destroys the spirits and lives of children.  It maims their futures and cripples their souls….

I work at a university.  I am in a leadership role that is responsible for shaping young adults into men and women.  It is simply unthinkable to me that people serving in such an environment with such a mission could presume to do the work of character formation of young men and women while turning a blind eye to the evil in their midst.  Talk about a lack of integrity…

On a related note, it would be remiss of me as a Christian minister to not at least acknowledge the striking parallels between what is happening and the recent scandals involving pedofile priests in the Catholic Church.   Someone could have written the previous paragraph about the Church…and been absolutely right.  We who are supposed to be a light in the darkness, we who are supposed to have the moral authority to speak to corrupt institutions and speak in meaningful ways about terrible acts such as these…we seem so utterly compromised ourselves.  At least Penn State has started firing people…

I’ve been distracted all week by this story.  The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.  So I guess I want to end with a plea…

If you witness abuse, intervene…

If you suspect abuse, tell someone…

If you are an abuser, stop it…come clean….get help…

If you are a parent, step up to the plate and take the responsibility to love and care for your child…

If you are a human being, then speak up for and protect those who cannot protect themselves…

 

Radical and Weird

I had the pleasure and privilege to be on a retreat last weekend with students and young adults connected to the Wesley ministry I lead here in Miami.  The theme of the weekend was “Radical Faith”…and it was really challenging.  For starters, preparing the messages and discussion points for these young adults about what “radical” faith actually looks like made me feel….well, not very radical.  Then to be on the weekend and share these messages and lead these conversations…and then talk with several who were challenged and moved and “messed up” by various things…I felt doubly humbled and convicted that much in my life was much closer to “comfortable” and “complacent” than anything resembling “radical”.  And all of that has had me thinking this week…

One of the video clips we used on the weekend was a 4 minute youtube clip entitled “Weird” by Francis Chan (a preacher and author).  In the clip, he basically makes the point that, when taken in the wide view of church history, the last few decades of “church” as we know it in American culture…what Chan calls the “consumer age” of church…have just been weird.  Weird that people could be part of the church for years and never actually lead anyone to Christ or disciple anyone.  Weird that parents would think it was someone else’s job to disciple their kids or witness to their neighbors.  Weird that people (who are generally so ignorant of the Word and doctrine) would be so picky about what preacher to listen to or what style of music to sing in worship.  Weird that believers in the richest society in the history of the planet could be so consumed with wanting more.  Weird that, somehow, entire generations of Jesus followers could come to believe the community of church was primarily about meeting their needs rather than about God’s mission in the world…

I’m so tired of Christians in this country being weird, probably myself included.  And I’m afraid my life and my commitments don’t embody the kind of faith and trust and abandon and sacrifice that we might call “radical”…but Jesus seems to simply expect…

Hmmm Lord….I feel some changes coming on…

I’m Back

It’s been more than a month since my last venture into the blogosphere.  Since my last post, I have…

• Taken my leadership team to Key West for a retreat…
• Preached about a dozen times, including 5 times in one 9 day stretch…
• Attended my first ever “Spoken Word” event…
• Driven more than 1150 miles in 4 days, working in other parts of the state…
• Filed my first ever police offense report…
• Served as a guest pastor at a family camp for Hispanic churches…
• Spent countless hours dealing with legal, administrative, and financial issues (we are fine; no more details needed here)…
• Become a certified U-10 soccer coach and run evaluation practices for Gabe’s first ever competitive team…
• Celebrated Michael’s 5th birthday…
• Helped launch a new intentional Christian community…
• Had my car backed into – twice – in parking lots…
• Started a new school year with the campus ministry on three campuses…
• And of course…it’s the busiest time of the year at work and family in town and sick kids and church stuff and Amber traveling too…

It has been….intense.  Some seasons are like that.  But I’m back now.  Hopefully, more to share – and more time to share it – in the days to come…

Rhythms of Rest

We are on vacation in the Bahamas.  I love this place.  Our daily rhythms here are simple…

• Wake up early, put a movie on for the boys while the parents lazily stay in bed or spend time reading or praying on the porch, looking out over the Sea of Abaco…
• A light breakfast, all together…
• A morning water activity – snorkeling on the reef, tubing behind the boat, swimming in the lagoon, wave-jumping at the beach, cruising around in the sea kayak, fishing off the dock or in the marina, etc.
• Everyone having lunch on their own whenever they get hungry, followed by everyone having a “quiet time” – either a nap or just some time reading…
• An afternoon water activity (something we didn’t do in the morning)…
• Dinner together on the porch overlooking the Sea of Abaco…
• Putting the boys to bed…
• More quiet time for the adults to read, sit on the dock and look at the stars, etc.
• To bed early, falling asleep to the sound of the surf outside…

Mixed in to this routine are walks or tennis, an occasional trip to a neighboring island, lots of playing cards or chess or checkers, visiting with others on the island, hunting for hermit crabs and sand dollars.  When it rains, we watch a movie, usually the original Star Wars trilogy.  There is lots of genuinely quality family time, lots of sleep, lots of fun.  Notably absent in these rhythms is anything resembling a firm time commitment or obligation.  We don’t ever have to do anything or have to be anywhere…

Our normal lives at home are ordered in particular rhythms that center around “have to’s” – the commitments of work, school, church, soccer, scouts, etc.  Those rhythms are monitored by things like alarm clocks and iphones and calendars on the refrigerator.  Not here though.  Time here is measured in the ebbs and flows of daylight and moonlight, the rise and retreat of the tide, our bodies feeling tired or refreshed or hungry or satisfied.  It is Sabbath time filled with the rhythms of rest.  And I am grateful for this time and these rhythms…

Some common sense

Solving this debt ceiling/budget crisis thing isn’t difficult.  Seems like common sense to me…

To reduce debt and move towards balancing a budget, there needs to be some combination of increased revenue and decreased expenditures.  That’s simple…I learned that as a high school student with a part-time job and my first checking account.  So..part of increasing revenue is closing tax loopholes and increasing at least some taxes on some people, which means the Republicans have to give on their “no-taxes” hardline.  And part of decreasing expenditures is that at least some entitlement programs need to be on the table for cuts, which means Democrats have to be willing to discuss those things too.  I would also suggest that both parties going forward need to commit to decreasing defense expenditures, which is the other major component (along with entitlement programs) of the federal budget….

So both parties give in on their “sacred cows”…both parties commit to some common sense restraint and needed reductions going forward with our military commitments…and we are a long ways toward reducing the debt and having a budget that makes some kind of sense…

That’s not too complicated.  So what am I missing here?

What complicates things is that our “leaders” seem to be more concerned about their own immediate political futures and more in love with their own ideological rhetoric being tweeted and played back to them on talk radio than they are with actually doing the jobs they were elected to do…

Sorry if that sounds too cynical.  I don’t want to be cynical.  But this whole debacle is making it really difficult not to be…

Common sense says that when you spend more than you have over an extended period of time (which we’ve done…the debt ceiling has been raised something like 75 times since 1962)…then things go badly for you and your finances.  There are loads of proverbs in the Bible (and plenty of other sayings elsewhere) that warn about the dangers of debt and borrowers being subject to lenders.  One of the first things you learn in any personal finance course is not to throw your money away on paying high interest on credit cards to service a debt accumulated by buying what you really don’t need with money you really don’t have.  This is all just plain, common sense…

So come on “leaders”…have some guts, make some decisions, and get our country’s house in order…

Sorry for venting.  Thanks for listening…

Mountain Time

I am on my way home to Miami from a few days in the North Carolina mountains.  Gabe spent 3 days at Camp Tekoa in Hendersonville, his first time away at sleepover camp.  Not surprisingly, the highlight was the zipline across the lake, though he also mentioned swimming, climbing trees, praying and talking about Jesus, hide and seek and staying up late with his cabin mates.  Good times…

While Gabe was at camp, I went with a good friend to the Lake Junaluska Conference Center for a couple of days of personal renewal.  In between a little work and sending emails when we had wifi, we also did some catching up, reading, walking, praying, eating out, and playing tennis in the rain.  Again, good times…

So today as I drove down I-26 and then I-95, heading back to Florida, I have to confess feeling a bit of sadness…because I really, really like the mountains.  The beauty of the trees…the clouds hovering near the ground at times…the light rain storms…the coolness of the air at night…the rhythms of ascent and descent as you move along the curves of the earth…the murmurs and flow of streams and rivers…the sounds of birds and insects and other wildlife.  There is an abundance of nature all around even in the towns and villages which I so appreciate…

Being in the mountains is life-giving.  It quiets my soul.  I feel my body relax and breathe more deeply.  I feel closer to nature…even closer to God…

The urban, concrete jungle of Miami is a LONG way from anything that resembles a mountain, lol….(sigh)….oh well.  Beaches and oceans are nice too.  And you can’t beat 75 degrees in January…

But mountain time is good for me.  Need to find more of it…

Holy Spirit Notes, continued…

I am very late in putting these up, but here are some notes from the rest of our recent series on the Holy Spirit…

Week 3: The Spirit of POWER that enables our WITNESS

• The Spirit challenges the world to believe in Jesus through convicting the world of its unrighteousness (John 16:7-11)
• The Spirit gives the church power to be witnesses in the world
• Some possible reasons we don’t experience more Holy Spirit power in our lives: 1) COMFORT (our lives are too safe); 2) VOLUME (our lives are too loud); 3) MOTIVES (we want “signs” more than the SON)
• The Spirit gives believers both WISDOM and BOLDNESS to be witnesses
• The Spirit takes us into mission by demonstrating His power, giving us wisdom and boldness, creating opportunities (“divine appointments”), and making us cross boundaries to be in relationship
• Scriptures used: John 16:7-11, Acts 1:8, Acts 4:13 & 31, Acts 8:17-38

Week 4: The Spirit in the COMMUNITY OF FAITH

• The Holy Spirit creates, desires, and works for UNITY in the community of believers…
• The Holy Spirit gives believers a DIVERSITY of gifts and roles within the community…
• ALL gifts and roles are valued and valuable…
• All of this is for the COMMON GOOD of the community and the common witness for Christ…
• The most important gift the Spirit gives to the community – and the individuals within it – is LOVE…
• Scriptures used: 1 Corinthians 12-14, Galatians 5:22-23

Week 5: The Spirit in the INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER

• The Spirit dwells within believers and grows spiritual gifts within them for the betterment of the community of faith and to further God’s work in the world
• There are a wide variety of gifts; churches disagree on exactly how many, which ones are to be included in the “list”, and which gifts are actually operating in today’s world
• Things that get in the way of spiritual growth and using spiritual gifts: fear, neglect, sin
• Things that help us on the road to spiritual growth and spiritual giftedness: desire, prayer, expectation, knowledge
• We need to be careful and discerning when people claim to be using spiritual gifts, especially the more “supernatural” or “spectacular” ones (i.e. words of prophecy and knowledge, healings, tongues and interpretation)
• Scriptures used: Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 27-28, Ephesians 4:11, 2 Peter 2:1-3, 1 John 4:1