Through a Mirror Dimly

Advent devotionals

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:44:00 +0000

I love Advent. It is my favorite season of the church year. If you love Advent too, then I want to recommend to you an excellent Advent devotional that you can use during this season of waiting and preparing. It hosted on the blog of Christine Sine and features a different author every day. Check it out. http://godspace.wordpress.com/

Rise of the Secularists: 1 in 4 Millennials Don't Identify With Any Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:16:00 +0000

I subscribe to blog called "Good," but I didn't find anything good about the following post. It makes me sad to read that not only are people of my generation (I'm a Millennial, barely) less religious than ANY generation in history, but that the author of this post sees religious people in such black and white terms. It seems that she equates religiosity with bigotry -- the more religious you are, then the more bigoted you are. Her logic follows that if you are less religious, then you are less bigoted. But she leaves no room for a third way - the reality that you can be a religious person and not a jerk or a hypocrite or a bigot or any of the unpleasant labels that can be imagined. We must find ways to reveal this third way to a world that only sees in black and white. The practice of our faith results not in closed-mindedness or violence, but in peace and justice and love. What has gone so wrong that this isn't apparent, and what do we do about it?

Rise of the Secularists: 1 in 4 Millennials Don't Identify With Any Religion:

For all the attention paid to religious zealots from America to the Middle East, there's another religious trend that should perk our ears up: More young people than ever don't identify with religion at all.
A major new Pew Research study, meant to track voting trends among generations, found that 26 percent of people ages 18-30 said they were unaffiliated with a religious tradition. That still leaves a lot of pious Millennials, but the percentage is the biggest number in history—and the biggest of any generation. An increasing number of young people are no longer banking on church to help our country through the recession, either. Forty-six percent of Millennials see religion as the "key to the nation's success," as opposed to 64 percent of Generation X, 69 percent of Boomers, and 78 percent of the Silent generation (ages 66-83).
This is a big deal, one that could fundamentally change who we elect and how we govern. There are periodic news stories about how many Americans think President Obama is a Muslim, and countless surveys about whether Mitt Romney's Mormon faith will get in the way of his chances to become president. But only about 40 percent of Americans can identify Romney's religion. Among the younger generation, the question may be whether we care about a candidate's faith at all.
I'm part of the 26 percent who isn't religious, and for me, how religious candidates are matters more than to what religion they subscribe. Do they use their faith to prop up bigoted views about gay marriage or reproductive rights? Will they use government funds to favor one religion over the other? The less religious they are, the more likely I am to vote for them. When the Christian right was squawking about Obama's less-than-showy commitment to Christianity, I was ticking it off as a plus, and I wasn't alone. As younger generations become progressively less devout, we may tilt back to a timeworn but often-ignored core American value: the separation between church and state.

The original headline was changed from "atheists" to "secularists" to include agnostics and people of faith who reject organized religion.
Photo via (cc) Flickr user Atheist Bus Canada

Dance of the starlings

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:46:00 +0000

One of my friends shared this on Facebook today. It's a video of a flock of starlings in Ireland on the River Shannon. Scientists don't know why the birds fly in this beautiful, complex dance. It looks ordered and spontaneous at the same time. I thought it was just an absolutely beautiful example of how nature can take our breath away!

Occupy the Kingdom of God

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:29:00 +0000

This morning I read the following article about what it means to occupy God's kingdom. I thought this was a provocative way to describe our calling as Christians. Here's a quote and an link to the full article:

No political protest or government policy or economic system can do what God’s mercy can do. God’s mercy is the only thing that can change the world because it converts us from self-reliant, self-centered people who clutch tightly to what is mine into brothers and sisters in Christ who share freely what belongs to God. We occupy the kingdom of God when we understand that the denarius coin God holds out for each of us is a gift rather than a reward, when we learn that having a job in God’s vineyard is itself a gift and the discipline and skills that we use in that job are also gifts that God gave us.Nothing that we use to earn anything was not given to us by God. We occupy the kingdom when we stop living in the world of earning rewards and start living in the world of sharing gifts.

Ministry Matters™ | Articles | Occupy the Kingdom of God

Consumerism and the church

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:17:00 +0000

I'm a consumer. I definitely spend too much time buying clothes and shoes and books and fancy food from Central Market. I admit this. But I also see the problem with it, not only because of the fights it causes in my marriage ("But honey, it was on sale!"), but also because I see how being a consumer can consume me. I can get so wrapped up in looking for a bargain, in shopping for something to wear, that I become consumed with the task of consuming.

The preoccupation we have with consumption carries into areas of our life that have little to do with money. Here's an excerpt of a blog post I read about how our consumer mindset is translated into the church. It makes me squirm in my seat, because I find it true, but really uncomfortable and unfortunate. This is out of the book "Renovation of the Church" and I found the quote on the missional church network:

"I don’t know how to say this in a gentle way, but we should not assume that those people who are attracted to our church have been captivated by the message of Christ and his alternative vision of life. In truth, most North American Christians are not riding courageously on warrior steeds with swords waving wildly in the air, crying out, “Let’s change the world for Christ.” Rather, they come in the air-conditioned comfort of their SUV or minivan with their Visa card held high in the air, crying out, “Let’s go to the mall!”

We should be more truthful with each other here. They come because their high-school kid likes the youth program, or because their children don’t get bored, or because they like the music, or because the pastor preaches the Bible the way they believe it should be preached, or because they happened to be greeted by a smiling face one day, or because the worship leaders looks like Brad Pitt.
This is the hard, raw reality of life in the North American church. The people who come to our churches have been formed into spiritual consumers. This is who we are. It is our most instinctive response to life. And you can hardly blame us. Almost everything in our culture shapes us in this direction. But we must become deeply convinced that this is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ, the one who invited us to deny ourselves and lose our lives in order to find them. If we do nothing to confront this in our churches, we are merely putting a religious veneer over consumerism and nothing is changed. We offer no real, viable, attractive, alternative way of living. And what is worse, our churches become part of the problem. By harnessing the power of consumerism to grow our churches, we are more firmly forming our people into consumers. Pastors end up being as helpful as bartenders at an Alcoholics Anonymous convention. We do not offer what people really need."

Playing Church: it is just about sitting and listening?

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:29:00 +0000

On Saturday night, my son Jude told me he wanted to "play church." We are pros at playing school, but this was the first time he ever wanted to play church. I was elated - it was totally his idea and it meant that he had been to church enough to know how to play at it! Awesome.

What was not so awesome is what happened next. I intuited that by "playing church" Jude meant that he wanted to pretend to go to worship, so the first thing I asked was which of us was going to be the preacher. He pointed to me. So then I asked him "Jude, what are you going to do?" thinking that he would want to lead a song, or say a prayer or something. Instead, Jude said "I'm going to sit and watch." I was flabbergasted. You're going to just sit and watch? What do you mean? There are lots of things you can do! So I said to him "Jude, don't you want to be a part of it?" to which he innocently responded: "Why?"

This whole encounter made me very sad. My sweet three year old child, who is in worship every Sunday at multiple churches -- mine, Jason's or our parents' -- thinks that church is about sitting and listening. Being passive. Watching while someone else puts on a show. And he's a double preachers' kid! What do other kids think? How could it get any worse?

I decided that in our own family, I'm going to have to make this one right. It's going to be my job to teach Jude that church isn't about sitting and watching, but about participating. It's about us joining our voices with the voices of our brothers and sisters, and with the voice of God, so that together we can speak good news to the world. And a big part of this will happen in the worship that I lead, worship that engages everyone in a transformative experience of God's presence.

The "church play" that resulted on Saturday evening at our house was highly participatory. Together, Jude and I lit imaginary candles as acolytes. Jude led us in singing "Deep and Wide." Jason preached a three word sermon (God loves you). Jude helped me bless a communion meal of chocolate bunny crackers and orange juice. Together we proclaimed "The body of Christ, broken for you" as we snapped a chocolate cracker in half. Hopefully, this will be the start of a new way of understanding church for Jude, and for all of us.

This is Discipling

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:56:00 +0000

Debt - Christians and the economy

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:35:00 +0000

I went to the gym this morning and watched the morning news for the first time in quite a while. We usually don't have it on at breakfast time, because it's annoying to have a TV and a 3 year old blaring at the same time. But, as I walked on the treadmill and listened to Good Morning America, I was struck by how many people have opinions on everything. The topics of the morning were the 2012 elections and the economy. 2012 is a long way off still, but we have plenty of opinions about the candidates. The economy is not a future reality but a present one, and one that I know is extremely important. And yet, people continue to scream and shout about what they think our government should do to strengthen the economy. If there was a clear answer, don't you think they'd already have it figured out by now? Why all the rhetoric and the pontificating? And it's the problem a very complex one, something that is more involved than can be explained in a two minute segment with flashy pictures?

I read an interesting article that helped me to put things in perspective a bit, and I hope it might help you too. Check out: Debt and the Cost of Discipleship

Sabbath: Set aside

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:04:00 +0000

This past Fourth of July weekend was an opportunity for me to practice Sabbath. And I did, sort of. I guess I'm still trying to get the hang of it. I'm the kind of person who likes to be busy. On the weekends, I like to have a plan - "Today we are going to do yard work, and run errands, and then meet our friends for dinner." And I'm realizing that having a scheduled day off like this isn't all that different than having a normal workday schedule. The tasks are just different. A to-do list filled day off isn't the same thing as Sabbath.

In his book, Allender addresses this when he critiques other books that make the Sabbath out to be a day to rest and recharge. Recharge for what? Recharge so we can get back to work, and be busy again? I agree with Allender that there is a deeper issue here. He puts it this way: "We are driven because our work brings us power and pride that dulls our deeper desire for delight. We are far more practiced and comfortable with work than play."

I know that is true of me. I'm much better at work than I am at play. So it seems that I've got to start thinking about Sabbath in a whole new way. I need to begin treating it as a holy day. Holy means set aside, not lost in the sea of everything else. It is different than any other day of the week. It should be set apart from those other days that are filled with to-do lists and tasks. And I suppose the hope is that in practicing a holy day, that holiness might creep into the other days as well.

Sabbath: Delight

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:55:00 +0000

Understanding the Sabbath as a day of delight is different than understanding it as a day of rest. We get the idea that Sabbath is a day of rest from the creation story. Genesis says that after God spent six days creating, "he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done" (2:2). Allender writes that God doesn't rest because he's weary from his labor -- it's not like God is taking a nap on the seventh day because he's tired. Some Jewish commentators have suggested that what happened on the seventh day was God creating menuha -- a word that means "joyous repose, tranquility, or delight" (28). On the seventh day, God delighted in his creation.

Allender likens God's menuha to the bonding a family experiences after the birth of their child. "The mother and father gaze endlessly at their child, who is distinct from the parents because she is no longer merely in the mind and the womb of the mother, but external and separate" (28). God is like a mother on the seventh day, gazing in rapture at his creation and thinking "She is so beautiful."

So, that is the kind of rest -- the kind of delight -- that we are supposed to practice on the Sabbath. It is to be a day of joy and celebration, not a day for a nap. Allender goes on to describe four components of this delight, that I'll tackle later.

Sabbath: Commandment

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:01:00 +0000

Rita Martin is one of the saints of our church, and she and the adult library committee recently gifted me the book "Sabbath" by Dan Allender. As I've started to read it, I've realized how little I know about what it means to practice Sabbath. Growing up, I always thought of Sabbath as Sunday -- the day when we'd go to church and argue about where to eat lunch, after which dad would fall asleep on the couch. In my adult life, I'm just now starting to recover the true meaning of Sabbath, which has nothing to do with the aforementioned activities.

As I read Allender's book, I will blog about those ideas that grab my attention and shine light on the intended purpose of the Sabbath.

So, a first insight -- did you know that remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy is the fourth commandment (of the big ten that is)? We don't practice Sabbath because it is good for us -- we practice it because it is a commandment. It is as wrong to neglect this practice as it is to steal, lie, kill or have an affair. So why don't we take it seriously?

Maybe the problem is that those who take the Sabbath seriously make it so legalistic that the day is no longer holy. If we make the Sabbath all about rules and regulations, things we can and can't do on that day, then we take all the joy out of it. Because, Allender writes, Sabbath isn't only a commandment, but it is also intended to be a day of delight . . . more on that next time.

Fuzzy encounters

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:38:00 +0000

One of the things I love about working at First Arlington is that we are just blocks away from Fuzzy Taco. If you are not familiar with Fuzzy Taco, then please do not be grossed out by their strange name, for their tacos are not fuzzy in the moldy sense, but they fuzz with deliciousness. Today I went to Fuzzy's as I often do to grab some tacos and had a fortuitous encounter.

Walking into Fuzzy's, I saw a guy who had on a shirt that said "iServe." I liked the shirt, and so I walked up to him and said, "hey guy, I like your shirt." Turns out his name is Greg and he is from East Texas and is in Arlington with his church, working at Mission Arlington. Because I'm interested in that sort of thing, I asked him some questions, and learned that his church has this thing that whenever there is a fifth Sunday of the month, they don't go to worship but instead take their worship time to do service projects. That's how they got hooked up with Mission Arlington.

I thanked him for telling me and for coming to Arlington to serve, and we went on our way. Once I was inside ordering my tacos, I remembered how just a few days ago in worship, we talked about the Great Commission and how Jesus sends the disciples out with instructions to "go and make disciples of all nations . . ." Standing there in Fuzzy's, I got to thinking about how Greg and his church are living out the very thing we'd been talking about in worship.

So, tacos in hand, I went back out to the parking lot and asked him if I could take his picture on my iPhone and tell his story to my congregation on Sunday, as an example of someone who is practicing what we'd preached. He was a nice guy and said sure, so I snapped his picture and then we went on our way again.

Now (I'm almost done with this story), just an hour ago, I was sitting at my computer, working on my sermon, and uploading Greg's picture to my computer to use in worship, and I get an email from none other than Greg himself! He wants to continue our conversation and see if our churches can join together for some projects.

So, I'm pretty jazzed. I'm also reminded of how important it is to have the confidence to strike up a conversation with someone you don't know. Sometimes nothing happens, but when you don't expect it, creation and possibility emerge.

Lasagna

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:29:00 +0000

My son, Jude, comes to children's choir with me at church during the school year. He remembers all the songs we sing and will often start singing one of them randomly in the midst of the day. One song the choir learned for Palm Sunday was "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna to the King." I remember talking a lot with the kids -- and with adults in worship -- about how hosanna means "God save us!" It's a word that I love.

Yesterday, my favorite word was done some injustice. I was cooking lasagna and Jude was playing in the kitchen with me. When I took the pan out of the oven, Jude asked me what it was. I said "it's lasagna" and without missing a beat, Jude started singing "Lasagna, lasagna, lasagna to the King!" Poor hosanna got ditched for lasagna.

It makes me wonder how many more "churchy" words are unintelligible to the world. Hosanna, disciple, fellowship, parable, communion, liturgy -- and those are some we'd consider easy. Our words can get even more cryptic -- ecclesiology, atonement, soteriology, theodicy. My spell check doesn't even know three of these four. I know that these words are important to the church community. But as I sit preparing a sermon about how we are called to go into our communities and meet people where they are, I wonder if our time would be best spent trying to teach people about our words, or learning to speak a new language ourselves.

God is good

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:48:00 +0000

This song makes me want to dance

Reminded by friends

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:59:00 +0000

My family and I just returned home from a week of Celebrations. We celebrated my husband's Jason's ordination as an elder in the UMC. Then, we continued to another ordination service for my friend Ray Altman. Weeks like this past one remind me of the blessing of friendship. There are friends who are mentors -- people who have helped us along with advice, guidance, support and critique. Mary Spradlin and Mike McKee, Jason and I give thanks for your mentoring in our lives. There are new friends who are beacons of our life ahead. People that we know we will continue to share life with and who make us hopeful about the future that we will create together. And, most poignantly for me, there are old friends who remind us of where we began and who we were when we started. When I look back through this lens, I see forward much more clearly. If only it didn't take a special event to make this happen! May you cherish the friendships in your life and take time to foster those that need attention and build new ones where the ground is fertile.

Prayer at Texas House of Representatives

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 25 May 2011 21:24:00 +0000

Today, I had the honor of giving the prayer of invocation at the Texas House of Representatives. I'm grateful to Barbara Nash for this opportunity! The House is currently struggling to finalize the budget by the end of their session on Memorial Day. With the significant education funding shortfalls, prayer for their work seemed especially pertinent today. Below is the prayer I gave at the House:

Creator God, ruler of the universe, in you we find the way of peace and reconciliation and hope.

We give you thanks for the privilege and freedom of selecting those who govern us.

I pray this morning for these members who have been elected to the task of representing your people.

Theirs is a large responsibility. The issues they face are complex and challenging.

Guide them O God, to see their decisions in the light of your purpose.

Illuminate for them the ways of justice and compassion.

Grant them insight to recognize the needs of those they represent, and remove their suspicions and misunderstandings that they may honor all people.

In this final week of anxiety and stress, sustain and empower them to work swiftly and diligently to serve the common good.

As we prepare for the work of this day, we lift to you our state and its citizens:

Look graciously, O Lord, upon this land.

Where it is in pride, subdue it.

Where it is in need, supply it.

Where it is in error, rectify it.

Where it is in default, restore it.

And where it holds to that which is just and compassionate, support it.[1]

[1] Church of Pakistan, 20^th Cent., United Methodist Church Book of Worship, no. 516.

Fighting Fleas

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:22:00 +0000

I'm sharing another reflection from Inward/Outward today. This one resonated with me because I feel like I've been at war with worry lately. And it isn't even worry over something consequential. I'm worrying about a silly homeowner problem that will be cleaned up and cleared up soon. And yet, the issue (we had a slab leak and our kitchen floor had to be dug up) keeps nagging at me, buzzing around like a pesky flea that won't leave off. Reclaiming a space for peace like the quote talks about is a worthy goal, but not at all easy for me lately. And I think this task is complicated by the fact that not many people around me seem to be at peace either. None of us have very good models of what living with a peaceful presence looks like. Everyone is too busy and swamped by worry and in a hurry to cram everything into their day. It makes me think that maybe the job of reclaiming space for peace starts with simplifying our lives.

Fighting Fleas
Etty Hillesum

We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies. The things that have to be done must be done, and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become infested with thousands of petty fears and worries, so many motions of no confidence in God. Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

Source: An Interrupted Life: the Journal of a Young Jewish Woman, 1941-1943

Prayer: The Soul's Residence

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:57:00 +0000

I receive daily devotional emails from a project called "Inward/Outward" and sometimes they stop me in my tracks. The emails are usually quotes from spiritual souls and often I identify with the mysticism of the writers. Today's email quote is by Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish Rabbi who escaped Poland just before the Nazi invasion and who later marched with Dr. King in Selma. Heschel writes often about the practice of prayer. Inward/Outward emailed this quote of his today:

Prayer: the Soul's Residence

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

Source: The Wisdom of Heschel

How often do we use prayer as a "stratagem" when things go bad, as a refuge that we resort to when we are troubled or stressed or dealing with heavy things? Why do we tend to only turn to God when we need help, and not when things are good and we are at peace with our lives? I love how Heschel writes that prayer should be the residence for our soul. It makes me think of how Jesus says to abide in him, or of the psalmist who writes that we abide in the shelter of God's wings (Psalm 61). I hope that reflecting on this inspires you like it has me to return home to God as often as I return home to my family every day.

Context

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:27:00 +0000

I'm on a task-force in our United Methodist conference that is looking into realigning the conference structure with its mission. The process has been very educational for me and I'm happy to have the opportunity to participate. Our task-force had a meeting this afternoon that really got me thinking about the power of context.

Context matters in ministry. For years, the Central Texas Annual Conference hasn't taken much account of the local church context when developing mission and ministry. This isn't saying anything that everyone doesn't already know. The local church was the lowest level on the totem poll, with clergy above it, then conference office staff, then district superintendents, then the bishop. The local church was always told what to do from the top-down. "Do this program, collect this offering, parcipate in this mission of the conference." None of this was terrible, especially because United Methodists are connectional -- our churches are bound together in a web of mission and administration and purpose. And connectionalism is a good thing. But no one ever asked the local church what they thought about all the programs and initiatives the conference asked them to implement.

Now things are changing. What the task-force I'm a part of is trying to accomplish is turning over the tables so that now what matters is not what the leadership of the conference push down the pipe, but the ministry that is happening in each local church. We're contextualizing. No longer will the conference be program driven, but resource supportive. What matters is the grass-roots, organic ministry that is happening in the local church. So, if a local church finds itself in an area with a high need for divorce counseling, the conference won't push marriage-enrichment seminars upon them, but resource the church with appropriate ministries.

I know that not much of this matters to most anyone who reads this blog. But, what I find really interesting is that not only have I heard about the importance of contextualization in a church setting, but I've also heard lots about it lately on an individual level.

This past Sunday, our Scripture lesson was Jeremiah 1:4-10 -- the story of Jeremiah's call to prophecy. Jeremiah's call was very specific -- go to the unrepentant people of Israel and pluck up and plant. Get rid of the refuse and help them start over. God's call of Jeremiah was contextual. God says to Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you" (v.5). God created Jeremiah to be the prophet he needed to be. God creates each of us to be the people we need to be in this world. God creates us with a context in mind. And part of discerning our calling, our vocation in this life, is taking a good long look at our context, at where we find ourselves, and asking how we fit into the larger picture and reflect God into it.

At our meeting today, Bishop Lowry kept emphasizing that the outcome most desired by all this "realignment" is the fruit that the local churches produce. Hopefully, this new structure of empowering churches from the bottom up and not the top down will help produce the fruit of transformed lives. And so, in our own individual context of calling, what is the fruit we are each producing on our own? Are we making a difference? Are we bringing hope to people? Are we helping others transform into the people God created them to be?

Gospel dance in Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:35:00 +0000

Yesterday I was listening to an "All Things Considered" interview on NPR. The interview was with a MTV host from Africa named VJ Kule who spoke about a popular song that is sweeping through east Africa. The song is called "Tobina" and it is a blend of drums and guitar and singing that makes people get up and want to dance. The interviewer, Michelle Norris, asked Kule what the lyrics said and he replied:

"Well, he's talking about praising God when things have gone well, thank God for the beautiful life that you're living, thank God for your health, thank God for your family. And once God has sorted all of that out, the only thing left to do is to dance and to praise him."

This song is a pop culture hit in Africa, and it is essentially a gospel song. Kule said that it is played at nightclubs -- that actually a lot of the songs played at clubs in Africa are Christian. Some people are unhappy about this mix of sacred and secular, but it is reflective of what is happening with young people and the church in Africa. Churches are springing up all over the place, and they are full of young people, who come and spend 6 hours at church on Sunday morning, singing, dancing and praising God. Really?

At one point in the interview, Norris asked:

NORRIS: If I were to drive by one of these churches on a Sunday morning, this [song] is what I would hear rocking out the windows?

Mr. EKIRAPA: You would hear this. You would hear live bands. You'd hear the youth screaming. There'd be it's loud. Churches have become louder than clubs, truth be told. I'd never believe I would see the day when a church would be more jiggy than in the club.

A few weeks ago I preached about young adults in the U.S. who are in the minority of people who come to worship on Sunday mornings. After that sermon, I'll admit I was disheartened at my own words. But this interview gave me some hope. It gave me hope that the Spirit is moving and enlivening hearts in places far away from here. It gave me hope that, if we in the U.S. can learn to live in tune with this Spirit, then our energy might be renewed.

You can hear the whole interview here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129258724

Drive

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:13:00 +0000

The following video had me mesmerized for the full ten minutes. Fascinating to hear and fascinating to watch. And it is somewhat related to my last post about starting with why -- this video is about the source of human motivations. Enjoy!

Start with Why

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:53:00 +0000

Last week, a group of young families at church got together for what is becoming our monthly dinner and dialogue. We've met twice now and I am grateful for the friendships that I am making! The purpose of our get-togethers is to grow in our spiritual lives along with other Christians.

My thought is that if our goal is spiritual growth, then we have to figure out where we are starting from. This month, we tried to get our arms around our individual starting points by asking the question: why? Why am I a Christian? What is my purpose? What makes my soul-sing?

These are big questions and we don't all have answers yet. The basic question is prompted by a book my husband Jason and I are reading called "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action." It isn't a spiritual or religious book -- it actually has more to do with leadership and marketing. But it has implications for everyone. The basic premise is that most people make meaning by starting with "what" -- a description of what they do. But great leaders, people who inspire and provoke creativity and innovation, start with "why" -- why their organization or product exists. They start with a solid understanding of why they do the things they do.

I think Christians are really good at starting with "what" -- we understand our spiritual journey in terms of what we do -- pray, worship, read the bible, etc. But rarely do we think about why we are Christian -- why we are called to do the things we do. One question that Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS asks that I think is right on target here is: "why do people need the church?"

What difference does being a Christian make?

One reason I think it is so important to have some kind of an answer to this question is that other Christians are much better at answering this question than Methodists. Other Christians can be in-your-face with their answer to this question, the typical response being something like -- "Being a Christian saves me from hell." And then they try to save you too. And they believe this so strongly that they push it a little too hard, and many people are turned off of the whole church.

We need to do a better job at giving our reason for believing. And I think the reasons of people who find themselves in a United Methodist church are much more nuanced and complex. Why are you a Christian? Why do people need the church?

Another interesting piece of this discussion is that it is difficult for our brain to answer the question. In the book, author Simon Sinek describes how our limbic brain controls our feelings, our behavior and our decision making. However, this part of our brain has no capacity for language. That’s why it is hard to put our feelings into words. He gives the example of explaining why we married who we married. We have a hard time putting our reasons into words, so we rationalize it and describe the person instead – “I married him because he’s funny, or smart,” etc. But the real reason isn’t just this – there are plenty of smart, funny people in the world. If pressed, we might say something that doesn’t sound rational like, “she completes me” or “because I love him.” We have a hard time getting to our true motivations for our decisions; we have a hard time explaining why we do what we do.

But I think as Christian people living in the world we are living in today, we’ve got to try! It takes work, but we’ve got to find ways to articulately express ourselves so that others might hear and join us.

So, there's a challenge for you. What's your why? What gives your life purpose? If you go to church, why do you go?

If you are interested in this, you might want to watch this video of Simon Sinek, the author of the book I'm reading, explain things in his own words:

Listen eagerly

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:11:00 +0000

This morning I was reading Acts 16 - the story of Paul and Silas going to Macedonia and speaking to a group of women, including Lydia, the woman who was a purple cloth merchant. In the story, it says that Lydia sat "listening eagerly" to what Paul had to say -- presumably the good news that he was sent to proclaim.

As I read through the story, the phrase that struck me was this description of Lydia, how she listened eagerly to what Paul had to say. It makes me wonder how often I eagerly listen -- to anything really. Yes, I do an okay job at just listening, but am I eager to listen, am I engaged, excited, and truly interested?

As I think about Lydia and why her act of listening was "eager" instead of just complacent, I think of the content of Paul's words. They aren't recorded in Acts, but I imagine that Paul spoke of things Lydia had never heard before. He probably told her of a poor Jewish peasant whose care for others was radical and violated every social norm of his culture. Paul probably spoke about Jesus' concern for the "least of these," how he was more focused on reaching out to those who were hurting, who were outcast, who were lost than he was to dogmatically arguing about matters of belief. In short, I imagine that Paul probably said little about what Jesus believed and much about what Jesus did.

And maybe Lydia listened eagerly because it was all so new to her. Paul presented to her a way of understanding her relationship with other people that was vastly different than anything she had ever heard. And she was intrigued -- and she listened.

This just makes me think - how often when we speak of our faith do we focus on the same tired truisms that everyone has heard and that makes little difference in anyone's lives? How often do we tell a new story -- or even tell the old story in a new way? How often to we provoke people to think bigger?

With my own two hands

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 01:12:00 +0000

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the latest sermon series at church - "Be the Change." We took that title from a quote by Gandhi - "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (which is coincidentally the title of my husband's blog).

As I was singing my son to sleep tonight, I realized that the song I sing to him is a play on this quote. The song is about doing something for the good of the world with your own two hands -- changing the world, bringing peace, making the world a better, cleaner, safer, brighter place.

Although neither the quote nor the song are overly theological, there is deep meaning about the relationship between God in humanity in each. A newer school of thought called process theology asserts that God calls human beings to be "co-creators" with God in the process of creation. Such thinking imagines creation as a dynamic, on-going process that humans can participate in. It also believes in the interconnectedness of all things, that no one is an island, but that the choices made by one affects the whole.

There are lots of details I could go into, but in its most basic form I find this thought beautiful. It affirms that God created me for a purpose - for the purpose of "co-creating" with God, the purpose of working to make the world a better place, to bring about the kingdom of God "on earth as it is in heaven."

Here is Jude's lullaby in case you want to sing along:

Thin Moments

noreply@blogger.com (Estee) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:19:00 +0000

I was listening to a podcast today by a woman named Cathleen Falsani. In it, she talks about her understanding of grace which she describes as God reaching God's hand into the world (she takes that from Rob Bell). She uses the Celtic idea of "Thin Moments" to flesh out her understanding.

She says:
Have you ever had a moment that was so spiritual, so sacred, that you could actually feel God? And I mean really feel God. A feeling that is undeniably life-affirming, breath-stopping, mind-tingling, goosebumb-motivating, heart-melting, soul-quenching, and wonderful. And by wonderful I mean truly full of the wonder, the awe, the mystery, the otherness of God. Celts talk about two worlds that exist in one place - thin places. This world, the here, and the other world, the more, the one that's just on the other side we mostly can't see now because now see through a mirror dimly. Celts believe a veil exists between the two worlds. The veil is like a thick wool army blanket. But every once in a while the blanket gets worn down so you can see through it, like gossamer. Those are thin moments. Grace moments. When for just a second you glimpse something that's greater than the present moment, something that connects you to everyone else.

I had a thin moment this past Sunday. We were baptizing three sweet siblings at the 11:00 service. Baptizing kids is always like herding cats in front of an audience -- there is always comedy. We baptized the first sister and brother, and then David took the littlest sister in his arms. She was only about a year old and had watched her sister and brother go before her. Although they were wiggly, she was very calm and took everything in with big blue eyes. David baptized her and then we all laid our hands on her to say a prayer.

As we prayed, that sweet baby girl watched me with an earnest intensity that I cannot describe with words. I could not close my eyes to pray but was locked in the moment with her. As David prayed that the Holy Spirit would move in her so she would grow in a life of faith, she and I starred at each other and I felt a deep sense of grace and peace. It was truly a thin moment like none I've ever experienced.

Have you ever experienced a thin moment? A moment that you tangibly felt connected to something greater than yourself -- tangibly connected to the source of life?

It isn't something that has happened often for me, but one other time that I experience thin moments is during Ash Wednesday services. As a minister, I feel very fortunate to participate in the sacramental moments of life with other people. It is a privilege that I deeply cherish.

On Ash Wednesday, worshippers come forward for the "imposition of ashes." The ministers dip our fingers in a bowl of ashes and smear them on people's foreheads as we say "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." To look into the eyes of friends and say these words is humbling and raw even. And especially putting ashes on the smallest foreheads -- to look into children's eyes and say these words -- takes me to a thin place. It is an act that reminds me of my shared humanity and the bittersweet grittiness of life and the God who created us for this beautiful, fleeting existence.