Gen-X Rising

Our Independence Day

2009-07-04T17:30:00.004-04:00

The Fourth of July was always one of my favorite holidays growing up. The City of Paragould hosted a municipal fireworks display on the grounds of Paragould High School, and we'd always head up there with the rest of the town to wait until dark so the show could begin.Like any other holiday, the traditions surrounding the day itself could sometimes obscure the reason you were celebrating in the

An evening at the Mad Pizza Co.

2009-06-30T19:35:00.005-04:00

I made the trek back to Arkansas earlier this month to attend the annual session of the Arkansas Annual Conference. I try to do that every year, as a way to renew friendships and participate directly in the life of the church back home. And of course, this year there was added interest because of the debate over the proposed amendments to the United Methodist Church's Constitution.But while I

Meeting Bishop Eben Nhiwatiwa

2009-06-27T21:34:00.004-04:00

Here in the United States, we often hear stories about the vibrant growth of the United Methodist Church in Africa. There is a desire on the part of many Methodists here to look to Africa for signs of the powerful work that the Holy Spirit is doing in the church. But for many of us, "the church in Africa" exists only in news stories and missionaries' blogs. [I've been to Africa twice - to South

A Voice for the Church

2009-06-23T08:19:00.004-04:00

One of the strange things about being a columnist for the United Methodist Reporter is how little interaction I usually have with the staff and my fellow columnists. The Reporter is published by UMR Communications in Dallas, TX. I live in Durham, NC, and most of my interaction with the folks down in Dallas is via e-mail. That was why I mentioned how nice it was to get to see some of the Reporter

Annual Conference Reflections

2009-06-17T10:48:00.006-04:00

I have been in Rogers, Arkansas, since Sunday night at the Arkansas Annual Conference. Since moving to Durham, NC, I have always looked forward to returning home each summer to reunite with colleagues and friends in ministry. This year has been especially nice, since I had several friends who were either ordained or commissioned into ministry.Since Annual Conference ends today, I wanted to offer

What to do about our 'graying church'

2009-06-13T21:45:00.006-04:00

Woody Allen once said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."Ah, if only. But since Woody's desire doesn't seem to be a possibility for any of us, we have to make plans for what is going to happen to the people and the communities we love after we pass on. In the church, that means making sure that there are younger generations of people who

Why etiquette ain't just quaint

2009-06-09T20:51:00.012-04:00

Cotillion.Growing up in cozy Paragould, Arkansas, it's a word I had never heard until my junior or senior year in high school. But as I got to know people from great metropolises like Jonesboro and Little Rock, I learned about cotillion from boys and girls my age whose parents had enrolled them in lessons given by the Amy Vanderbilts of their towns. They covered everything from how to dance, to

The Church's first mission

2009-06-05T20:07:00.006-04:00

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."That was H. Richard Niebuhr's comment in The Kingdom of God in America about the view of mainline Protestantism on the coming of the Kingdom of God. He was describing the belief that society's natural progress has pretty much done away with the need to understand sin

Which way to a Worldwide Church?

2009-06-01T16:41:00.009-04:00

As I indicated in my last post, I've been writing a commentary that addresses the "Worldwide Church" amendments that annual conferences of the United Methodist Church are debating and voting on this summer. That commentary is finished, and you can download it at the following link:"Which way to a Worldwide Church?"I know some annual conferences have already met. But for anyone from an annual

Amendment 1 (without the baggage)

2009-05-20T16:06:00.010-04:00

Annual conferences of the United Methodist Church from all over the world will be voting on the 32 proposed amendments to the church's Constitution in the coming weeks.The amendments have already generated a great deal of discussion. News articles and blog posts have appeared in print and online. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the whole thing has been the YouTube appeals from figures both

A Blueprint for Discipleship

2009-05-16T21:09:00.008-04:00

Jesus' call to us is to a whole new way of life. That new way of life is called sanctification, and by grace it can become a reality for each of us.As Christian men and women in the Wesleyan tradition, if we aren't serious about sanctification we might as well find something else to do. John Wesley always believed that the peculiar Methodist understanding of justifying grace expressed through the

How we think about abortion

2009-05-10T10:03:00.008-04:00

A few days ago I posted on the trouble with the phrase 'Christian America.' In that post I argued that the goods offered to us in following Christ and the goods offered to us as citizens of a liberal democracy are often (if not always) at odds. And because the secular values of the nation are so pervasive in society, that can mean that we find it difficult to see many important aspects of our

Practice makes perfect

2009-05-06T20:27:00.005-04:00

Nature or nurture?That always seems to be the question.Well, actually, sometimes it doesn't seem to be a question at all. Like for instance, I know that no amount of nurture would have made me a great basketball player. Nature (and the flat feet and limited coordination that nature provided) doomed me to enjoying basketball from the stands instead of on the court.But apparently for many things,

Too good to resist

2009-05-05T15:18:00.004-04:00

This is a picture of my good friend Tim Eberhart and his newborn baby daughter, Audrey. I don't post random stuff like this very often, but the 'proud papa' look on his face was just too good to resist. After two boys (Henry and Frederick), Tim's wife Becky will now have somebody to balance out all the males in the Eberhart family. Audrey was born last Friday, May 1st, in Nashville.Tim and I went

The trouble with 'Christian America'

2009-05-01T08:46:00.018-04:00

Jon Meacham wrote a cover story in Newsweek a couple of weeks ago that was titled, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." A title like that is meant to be a little sensational. And Newsweek probably got just what it wanted when Meacham's piece sent Christians all over the country in a tizzy.The article itself, though, really wasn't sensational at all. Meacham is a liberal Episcopalian, and

Things you'll never say

2009-04-25T11:40:00.004-04:00

I sometimes run a little thought experiment with myself. It goes like this:You get to the Pearly Gates of heaven and St. Peter gives you a chance to look back over your life. He encourages you to particularly note those things you are glad you did, as well as the things you wish you hadn't done. And this exercise is not so much about the single events in your life so much as the patterns of your

Role models, on and off the field

2009-04-22T18:29:00.020-04:00

When athletes are in the news for something other than the game they played the night before, usually the reasons are not good. Sometimes it's run of the mill reasons: performance-enhancing drugs, run-ins with the law, and general prima donna behavior. And then, there's the stranger stuff, like illegal dogfighting rings and accidental self-inflicted gunshot wounds in nightclubs.I remember how

Economy's loss, our gain

2009-04-18T13:04:00.009-04:00

The economy's current troubles seem to be so multi-layered. There's the credit crunch that makes it hard for businesses (and even individuals) to get loans. Then there's the bailout that is causing the national debt to skyrocket. The shrinking of the economy is threatening all kinds of small businesses that could never hope for a government rescue, of course. And finally, there's the rising level

Teleprompting prayers

2009-04-14T13:42:00.008-04:00

There are two kinds of preachers in the world: those who write out their pastoral prayers beforehand, and those who pray extemporaneously.Ok, so that's a bit of an oversimplification. But I've found that people (both pastors and laity) can have strong opinions one way or the other.Those who think all prayers should be offered without preparation often argue that the Holy Spirit works best 'in the

Easter Reflection for Holy Week

2009-04-08T23:29:00.008-04:00

It's the middle of Holy Week and the end of a semester. As a pastor and graduate student, that means that I feel like I don't have time to sleep (let alone blog!).As I've been reading through the gospel narratives of Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection in preparation for my church's holy week services, I have been filled with this strange mixture of sadness and hope. Maybe it's not so strange

Hosanna, loud Hosanna

2009-04-05T19:00:00.007-04:00

The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting,"Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord - the King of Israel!"Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: "Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a

Heading into the Weekend

2009-04-03T19:04:00.008-04:00

I've been swamped this week, but I wanted to post on this beautiful Friday evening to share a couple of things:First, I've got a recent column in the United Methodist Reporter that looks at the importance of doing work to preserve and extend the Wesleyan tradition of our church. I mentioned this in passing in a post last week, but I wanted to highlight it here. The column reflects on my recent

It's not what you say...

2009-03-30T16:36:00.009-04:00

... it's how you say it. Or, so the old saying goes.I've thought about that saying a lot over the past few days, after re-reading my last two blog posts and carrying on a conversation about them with a few folks over telephone and e-mail.Electronic communication media - whether e-mail, blogging, or otherwise - is a flawed blessing. It connects us in ways we never before imagined, and it allows

My vision for church reform

2009-03-25T09:11:00.017-04:00

Okay, so this is a pretty long post. But if you were interested in what I wrote last week, you might be interested in this too.My last blog post looked at the viability of the United Methodist Church's future as a denomination. That future is by no means certain. With declining numbers in the American church, an anemic sense of evangelism and mission, a lack of commitment to Wesleyan doctrine,

"Denomination" in the dock

2009-03-19T10:59:00.012-04:00

We live in a pro-confessional, anti-denominational age. For large mainline denominations like the United Methodist Church, that could mean disaster. Follow with me on this:Christians (particularly younger ones) are starting to realize that faithful discipleship and good citizenship do not mean the same thing. There was once a time when the phrase, "America is a Christian country" did not sound so