It’s Thursday morning at General Conference and I’m exhausted. Now I have to admit that I’m probably nowhere near as tired and emotionally drained as our voting delegates. The worst part for them, however, is that perhaps, the worst is yet to come.

I’ve been here primarily in my role as the co-chair of the United Methodist Campus Ministry Association. We came to advocate for UM campus ministries and college students. UMCMA supported a handful of petitions that would strengthen campus ministry. Some passed and others did not, but overall we were happy with the results.

Many of us, however, have some questions and concerns relating to the restructuring plan that passed yesterday. Many of us are also shocked that the removal of guaranteed appointment passed without formal debate. The blow of losing guaranteed appointment may have been a little softer, however, GC also voted to retain lifetime appointments for bishops. This GC has become all about accountability, yet it now it seems that only some will be held accountable.

Speaking personally, the most concerning thing for me is that there have been some things happening at GC that put a fragile Western Jurisdiction into further peril. We’ve lost even more representation in the decision making process and even though we may be a drain on resources, a majority of the Church sees us as the primary cause of decline and not as a mission field. It seems that they would be happy to let our jurisdiction fade or split away so they wouldn’t have to pay for us or deal with arguments over inclusiveness anymore.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not here with a huge group of campus ministers. However, there are some of us from each jurisdiction. There have also been some other clergy and lay persons who have been here to help us in our advocacy work.

Over these past two weeks many of us somehow ended up being closer to the restructuring process than we thought. At this point, I don’t have to tell you that it wasn’t a pretty process. In fact, it was down right nasty. Some came together in an honest attempt to compromise, some people and groups were used to achieve someone else’s agenda, some gave up and walked away from the table, while others rolled the dice, ignoring the atmosphere of change, and they lost everything.

This is all on top of a hurtful debate, on the floor, over whether or not God’s love is available 100% of the time. “Thank God,” that 54% of our GC delegates agree with this core theological tenant of Wesleyanism .

My heart also breaks for the imminent debate over homosexuality that will be taking place today. It’s more than clear that we will affirm, perhaps more than even, that we are an exclusive church. The worst part is that, during this debate between progressives and conservatives, we will grow to hate one another more.

Perhaps, though, there is hope.

The other night I was hanging out with my colleagues and some other folks who came to help us with our advocacy work. At one point we discovered that one clergy person who was with us was a graduate of the more conservative Asbury seminary. We informed him that he was currently in the company of two Claremont School of Theology graduates. (You know…the school that some are trying to kick-out of the UMC for being too progressive.) However, instead of hurling insults at one another we didn’t care. We had all been having such a good time with one another, it didn’t matter who went to school where and then we talked about how we refused to buy into the myth that we all have to choose sides. We initially joked and then seriously considered how we could get one of us Claremont grads and the Asbury grad to get a moment of personal privilege on the floor of GC so they could each announce where they went to seminary and then, grabbing one another’s hand, lift them together in the air as a sign of unity.

Okay, so this was some stupid and probably insignificant conversation between some campus ministers. But more importantly, this led to conversation about how, no matter what way the UMC is restructured and no matter how divided we become, we are going to continue to love and fight for one another. Many of us talked about our ministries that are made up of both conservative and progressive students and that these students somehow don’t realize that they are supposed to hate each other.

This GC has also been about false choices. The biggest false choice is about picking sides. There is a third way and it comes from this thing called “The Holy Bible.” I know, it’s scandalous, but I just can’t stop thinking about these words of Jesus from The Gospel of John, chapter 15:

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant* does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

What if we “suspended the rules” and decided that we would all agree to be friends? I’m sure as United Methodists we can all find at least a few things in common and I’m willing to bet that if we put a little effort into it we would find that we have more reason to be friends than to be enemies. Besides, even if we do decide to be enemies, I have it on good authority that we are supposed to love each other anyway.

Okay, so now that I’ve convinced all of us to be friends, step two is going to be a little harder. Now we need to try and love one another.

During the first couple days of GC, delegates were asked to participate in a “holy conferencing” exercise. Delegates were broken into small groups and were asked, moments after they met, to have a civil and Christian conversation about sexuality. When I heard about that I thought, “Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!?” Did we really think that at the end of those conversations things were going turn out alright? Well, they didn’t. They were a disaster. People were bullied and people were angry and they left those conversations more confused than when they went in. I’m thinking there was probably a better way this could have gone down.

Let’s take Jesus seriously for a minute, though, and go all out. Let’s just agree that we are all going to lay down our lives for one another. That means laying down our agendas, laying down the false narrative of “us vs. them,” and all the hateful and hurtful rhetoric, and actually put our lives on the line. I’m not saying we need to compromise our identities and core convictions, but what if we emptied ourselves of our stereotypes and fears and took the time to learn deeply about each others lives. What if we shared our dreams, our goals, our best moments, our worst moments, those things that make us laugh, and the things that scare us to death? I think these questions would have led to some truly transformative conversations and if we are able to have these kinds of conversations then I think then that we would have the potential to not just change GC, but to change the Church, and dare I say, the world.

I woke up this morning literally crying for our church. Partly over the fact that we will continue to be an exclusive church, but mostly over the realization that I can’t live without the UMC, everyone in it, and those who are not yet a part of it. I can’t live without the progressives and conservatives, because I can’t live without the possibility that God is not done with us yet, that God will still reconcile us, and that God will continue to call us to love one another and to lay our lives down for each other.

Today I will cry for The UMC, but I will refuse to give up on loving all of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

On Wednesday night at General Conference, Rev. Adam Hamilton presented the Interim Operations Team/Call to Action Report. During the report, Hamilton, other speakers, and a series of videos laid out a dire and desperate situation for the UMC. The message: accept the IOT recommendations to restructure the UMC or die. Many believe, however, that there are alternatives to the IOT recommendations, such as those supporting “Plan B,” and others who are supporting a plan set forth by MFSA. Plans range from a drastically different restructuring of the UMC (CTA) to a closer preserving of the current structure (MFSA).

I’ve been observing the General Administration legislative committee where these proposals are being discussed and debated. As information has been put forth over the last year on these proposals, many in the UMC have voiced a number of concerns. For the sake of simplicity, I will only address the IOT/CTA recommendations, as they were the original ones and the ones that Plan B and MFSA were developed in reaction to. My concerns relate primarily with CTA’s failure to properly address the issue of reaching younger generations for The UMC. They are:

How does CTA address young adults who are statistically not interested in attractional church models? How does it address missional and non-traditional ministries? How do metrics measure those?

Who will determine how youth/young adult investment money will be spent? Can a group/task force of youth and young adult clergy/laity be appointed to best determine how to use allocated funds for their demographic’s leadership development? Currently youth/young adults are lumped onto the same committee.  Can this be divided into two committees? Would campus ministry fit under this committee?

It seems that CTA has no interest in campus ministry. How do campus ministries fit under the CTA?  Will CTA encourage a shift away from independent Wesley Foundation’s and toward local church based campus ministries?

How does CTA make room for creative ideas and innovation and room for failure in trying new ministries?

How does one “super agency” keep our church from being too narrowly focused?

After the IOT report the other night, some of my colleagues and I expressed these concerns to one another. We had also been following the #gc2012 Twitter feed and noticed many young clergy and laity were skeptical towards the report. As I was walking through the Tampa Convention Center lobby with two colleagues, we found Rev. Hamilton standing there talking with a member of his COR staff. I seized (errr… was pushed by Alissa Bertsch Johnson) the opportunity to meet Rev. Hamilton and ask him if he would be willing to listen to some of our concerns regarding CTA. Rev. Hamilton was extremely friendly and gracious yet indicated he needed to get to another meeting.  However, he would be happy to talk with us the next day. Following this brief conversation I tweeted my appreciation for Rev. Hamilton and noted that he had agreed to meet with young adults to discuss concerns. The next morning Rev. Hamilton tweeted that he would be taking questions from young adults, regarding the CTA report, during lunch time. We were excited to see that Rev. Hamilton wanted to address concerns in a very public way that would include a number of voices and perspectives participating in the dialogue.

At 12:40 p.m. a number of young adults (I didn’t count but some report that 100-120 were present) gathered in the bleachers in the main hall of the convention center. Rev. Hamilton took questions for about forty minutes and answered each one. During this time, a number of my concerns were brought up, in addition to concerns over legal issues, diversity and inclusiveness, and concerns over who helped to draft the CtA report and what groups and demographics were consulted during its creation.

You can read a story about the conversation here: “Young Methodists React to Call to Action” and you can watch the video below.

From my perspective, it seemed that Rev. Hamilton conceded that very few young adults (possibly the two or three who served on the report’s design team) were consulted during CTA’s creation. He noted that this was because there was simply not enough time to solicit feedback from various groups about the proposal.

Many of Rev. Hamilton’s responses concerning the lack of various items in the CTA (youth and young adults, elimination of boards and agencies, missional ministries, campus ministry, and central conferences) hit on a similar note, namely that the IOT was charged primarily with addressing the decline in membership and the strengthening of “vital” congregations. Rev. Hamilton’s phrase was “this is not a silver bullet.”

Between our conversation with Rev. Hamilton and my observation of the information presented by IOT, I was able to hear their response to some of these concerns.

In response to concerns expressed by Central Conference delegates the IOT shared that the research that led to their report was overwhelmingly focused on the United States. The reason for this, apparently, is because our Central Conferences are booming, however, our US congregations are “sick” and the IOT report aimed to address the “sick” member of the body of The UMC.

Regarding the concern over a diverse make-up of new boards, executive and leadership teams, it was noted that the goal in making up these groups is to focus on building them based on experts who can help make our denomination be more “nimble” and flexible in decision making and resource management, especially in-between General Conferences.

Many of these responses suggested that we need to be running the UMC like a local congregation or even a mega-church.

Rev. Hamilton also indicated that our concerns over missional ministries and campus ministry would be addressed once the CTA proposal was passed. He indicated that there was just not enough time to include detailed information and that a more strategic direction would be developed under the new “super agency” that would be created.

In my opinion, If strengthening ministry with young people is one of the focus areas, then it is a topic that should absolutely be addressed in greater detail and with more young voices involved in its creation and implementation.

If our church is dying in part because of our inability to reach young people and because we are on the cusp of a clergy crisis and are in need of additional young clergy, then CTA should absolutely address the need for new creative and innovative ministries that will reach a generation not interested in even stepping foot onto our local church properties.

Also, if we are a global church and if this restructuring aims to reorganize the entire church then global voices and the future of the global church should have been taken into account in the IOT recommendations.

The CTA has the right idea and I affirm some of its recommendations, specifically around revitalizing local congregations, giving greater freedoms to annual conferences to do contextual ministry, and investing in youth, young adults, and young clergy. However, the rhetoric and reasoning behind CTA is so focused on the local congregation that I fear this focus will dominate our restructuring efforts, and while not mandating, will heavily influence the way annual conferences strategize for the future. I worry time, focus, and resources will go disproportionately to strengthening local congregations while campus ministries, new forms of ministries designed to reach the millennial generation, and other non-local church based ministries (present or future) will be weakened, ignored, or removed entirely as we pull in tighter to local churches.

Rev. Hamilton believes, however, that strengthening local congregations will essentially have a trickle down effect (my use of the phrase) on the demographic and forms of ministry I am concerned about. Essentially, he argues, if we strengthen local churches, our members will themselves become more missional and will lead more people to our congregations.

I have used Rev. Hamilton’s name a lot in this post. My intention is not to criticize him as a person or to disrespect the amazing work he has done in his role as lead pastor at Church of the Resurrection. He is an important leader and voice in our denomination. However, as I have seen here, folks can often be “star struck” with Rev. Hamilton. I am referring to him here in his role as a member of the IOT, specifically as the lead presenter of the IOT report, and not in his role as a pastor. I cannot thank him enough for his hard work and leadership during this process and for his willingness to listen to and respond to concerns from young adult United Methodists. He is a class act and we have much to learn from his example.

Finally, I believe the fatal flaw with the CTA that led to its (by a 2-1 margin) rejection in committee was due to groupthink. The endorsement of the proposal came primarily from The Council of Bishops and pastors of large UMC’s. It was largely opposed by the general boards and agencies, young adults, campus ministers, and many more.  It seems to me that CTA was rejected because the COB and the IOT failed to open the legislation up to debate and criticism and because they failed to make the case that CTA was good for everyone else. They created solutions to our many problems and said “trust us, we know what we are doing.” I’ve tried that a few times with my congregants and with my superiors and it has never worked. They have always made me go back and do my homework: provide all the facts, answer all the questions, and provide as many details as possible. It was my responsibility to alleviate concerns and provide a clear path forward. The CTA failed because “trust us” was an inadequate reason for passing this proposal.

Those who support CTA are right, we cannot do nothing. However, whatever it is that we must do must maintain a structure of shared power that includes all the voices at the table and provides a way forward that will help us reach new generations who have no interest in institutionalized religion. We must move forward with a plan that streamlines our church but does so using incentives and a vision of hope in Jesus Christ, not solely based on metrics and quotas, and certainly not based on fear.

I don’t know what will happen over the next few days at General Conference, but I do hope that we don’t just do something for the sake of doing something. I hope we do the right thing. I hope we move forward to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world inspired by love, hope, and resurrection.

Since I first began preparing this post, the General Administration committee voted to substitute the CTA motion with what is known as the ”Plan B” or “Plan UMC”  proposal. Plan B/UMC is currently being “perfected” by a sub-committee and will be brought before the full committee for debate. However, petition writers will oftentimes adopt a “minority report,” which, if it gets the requisite number of signatures can be presented to the body of the General Conference and considered for debate and adoption. It is fully expected that CTA will be brought back to the floor of the General Conference as a minority report. This will give the body a choice between the final form of Plan B/UMC, or the CTA minority report. The body could vote one proposal down and adopt the other, but probably not without one or more amendments. The body could also vote both proposals down. A post addressing the pros and cons of Plan B/UMC is forthcoming.

On Wednesday night, April 11, it was announced, during worship, at The Wesley Foundation at Arizona State University, that effective July 1, 2012 I will be starting a new church in downtown Phoenix, AZ. I will be partnering with my very good friend and colleague, Rev. Brian Kemp-Schlemmer, on this endeavor.

Let me be clear, I do not believe I have become ineffective in campus ministry nor have I become less passionate about campus ministry. In fact, this new church has everything to do with my love for campus ministry and working with young adults. About a year ago I became aware of some United Methodist churches around the country that were trying a different model of ministry. These churches were all in urban areas primarily serving young adult (18-35 year olds) populations. Most of these churches were also started using two ordained pastors.

As someone who gets the honor and privilege of working with students during their college years, I many times get asked, by students, “where do I go to church after I graduate?” This is a question that, at times, has been difficult for me to answer.

So the question Brian and I started asking ourselves was could we create a new kind of faith community in Downtown and Central Phoenix that would be relevant to not only young adults, but also those who felt marginalized and disenfranchised for the church, those who are “spiritual but not religious,” and those looking for more than a traditional Sunday worship experience?

We began doing research on successful models like Urban Village Chicago, The Table UMC (Sacrament0), Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community (Pittsburgh), and The Gathering UMC (St. Louis). All of these are United Methodist, target young adult populations, are located in urban areas, utilize multiple clergy, and most of them are multisite.

After much prayer and discernment we felt that God was calling us both to begin a similar faith community in Phoenix. In December, we wrote a proposal and submitted it to the cabinet. We worked with them to do some more research and some tweaking of our proposal and then on March 27, 2012 we got the call informing us that our bishop intends to appoint us to start this new faith community, beginning July 1, 2012.

Our work will begin by building relationships and making connections in the Downtown Phoenix area as we build an initial launch team of folks excited about this new community. We will then move into forming small groups that meet in coffee shops, bars, restaurants, public spaces, and homes. We will begin preview services next winter as we work towards a worship launch around Easter 2013. Then from there is perhaps our second riskiest move (our first one is starting this church, in general!) as we will form another launch team and begin planting a second site in uptown Phoenix. From there our plan is to launch another site each year.

Our strategy will focus heavily on multiplication, discipleship, and apprenticeship. We want to build into our DNA a commitment to discipleship, a culture of continually inviting others to join us in this vision, a culture of service and outreach, and a culture of leadership development through training leaders and training leaders to continually be mentoring and training new leaders themselves.

We know we have a huge task ahead of us and we know that we will need to rely on God’s vision for this ministry in order for this to be successful. The threat and reality of failure is terrifying, however, we feel God has called us and that we have no other choice but to move forward with this powerful vision. In preparing the initial proposal for this ministry I talked with Rev. Matt Miofsky, lead pastor at The Gathering in St. Louis. Matt had a similar vision for starting a UM church that would be relevant to young adults (which now has over 800 in weekly worship, between two sites) and he said when he was discerning God’s call to move forward he asked himself these questions: “If not here, where? If not now, when? If not me, who?”

Those questions just kept repeating themselves in my head as I wrestled with God over the decision to leave campus ministry. Perhaps, though, as our leaders begin gathering in Tampa for General Conference to take on the seemingly impossible task of reforming the church, we must all ask the same questions. We must not stop at the asking, however, we must respond to God’s call to do new and bold things and truly begin bringing the message of God’s unconditional love for us, through Jesus Christ, to new places and new people.

If you have questions about this new church start, want to support us in some way, or just want to learn more, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Photo Credit: Flickr User Doug Rauch 

During the second week of this semester I was leading a small group discussion with graduate students and I asked our group if we needed to do introductions. Since everyone in the group had been showing up at worship for at least the past two years, I was ready to move on to our scripture reading when three of them spoke up at once, pointing to someone else in the group and saying, “I recognize you, but I don’t actually know your name.” And all of the sudden I felt like the worst pastor in the world. How is it that these students had been a part of our program for so long and they didn’t even know each others names?

I’m always the last person to find out two of our Wesley students are dating, sometimes many months after the fact. It’s not that I need to know these things, however, I’m always surprised and I know I shouldn’t be, because when college students get together these things naturally happen.

Every other Thursday I meet with a group of graduate students at a local bar. We like to eat, drink, and talk about God. When I asked them what they wanted to talk about this semester, they said “relationships.”

If I’ve learned one thing, then forgotten it, then had to remember it again, it’s that college students are looking to build relationships with one another. Yes, sometimes romantic, though, mostly, they are just looking to make friends.

I’m not going to lie, we had a rough start to the 2011-2012 school year at the Arizona State Wesley Foundation. In May 2011 we had sixteen students graduate, which was a significant percentage of our program. I wasn’t worried, though, because we had a solid Freshman recruitment plan in place.

Well, our plan turned out not to be that solid.

It was a rough fall semester.

Over winter break I prayed and thought a lot about what we needed to do to be in ministry with more students.Then, one day, it hit me like a ton of bricks: We needed to get back into the business of building relationships.

We decided to take a risk with worship. If most of our students were willing to give Wesley an hour or two, each week, then we needed to maximize our time with them.

It was time for me to stop talking to them. It was time for them to start talking to one another.

So, for our worship time, we kept the music and communion, but I scrapped my sermon.

Instead, students are now meeting in small groups for forty five minutes.

So far, the small group model has been a success and, in addition to our worship service, we’re using it to grow an informal lunch gathering we have on campus during the week, another lunch gathering we do on Sunday afternoons, and with our graduate student group. This has already made it easier for students who have been on the periphery to find new opportunities to be involved with Wesley in a meaningful way. It’s also made it easier for students to invite their friends to something less intimidating than a worship service. We plan to add back in a more traditional worship service, but only after we have built a strong relationship based ministry.

So, are we creating programs that we are trying to “attract” students to?

Or, are we creating space where students can be in relationship with God and one another?

We don’t even have to create those spaces, we just have to be present in those spaces that have already been created on campus and in the community.

One of the most brilliant presidential campaign strategies ever was used by Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, James Carville, in the 1992 election. He coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!” The economy wasn’t doing so well so Carville had Clinton keep bringing every issue back to how bad the economy was. No matter what, the campaign just kept repeating, to itself, “It’s the economy, stupid!” over and over again. That phrase is often argued to be the reason Clinton won the election.

What does this have to do with relationships?

Well, there’s a phrase that we need to be repeating to ourselves over and over again: “It’s the relationships, stupid!”

In a recent very awesome blog post (it’s so awesome that you should stop reading my post, read his post, then come back to this one), Steve Knight, quoted a New York Times op-ed piece that suggested:

We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious.

After reading his biography, though, it’s pretty clear that Steve Jobs was a narcissistic, vindictive, workaholic, Grade A jerk. Trust me, the Church does not need another one of those. We have plenty, thank you.

However, Jobs obviously had many positive attributes (and of course these are what the NYT author was referring to) that allow us to overlook many of his negative ones, and I agree that Christianity needs an inspiring leader with some of Jobs’ creative and innovative attributes.

I’m a huge Apple fan and back in August I shamelessly worked Jobs into a sermon, shortly after he retired. Here’s what I said:

What do Steve Jobs and Apple have to do with how Christians are supposed live and how they are supposed to treat others?

Well, I don’t think we as the Christians should ever take the lead from anyone other than Jesus Christ, but perhaps the story of Apple reminds us that, as Christ followers, we should remain on the cutting edge of creativity and innovation, in society, when it comes to how we live our faith and engage the world.

The focus of the sermon was on the second half of Romans 12, studying it as an example of how we, as the Church, have lost our creative and innovative edge in the world. Early Christianity was known for it’s radical forms of hospitality and extraordinary grace, however, many Christians today are perceived as exclusive, bigoted, and hypocritical. So it’s not, in fact, a Steve Jobs we need to look to, but it is Jesus and the early Church that can steer us away from being just another brand and product of a consumeristic society, and instead steer us towards new ways of being creative and innovative when it comes to practicing our faith, that will move us closer to realizing God’s kingdom on earth.

One personality trait of Jobs’, that ultimately saved Apple, was his ability to hyper-focus on a project (this is more unflatteringly referred to as “micromanagement,” when that hyper-focus does not result in genius and successful ideas and products). Whether or not we do it as intensely as Jobs did, focusing on one or a few things can lead to better and better quality results and experiences. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about since I finished reading Jobs’ biography.

So, what if we slowed things down and hyper-focused on just a few areas in ministry? This won’t make folks happy who want to try and fix everything all at once and want instant results, but I truly believe that it takes bold, patient, and brave leadership to bring about positive and lasting change.

Over the next six months, at the ministry I serve, we are going to back away from some things and try to focus harder on some other things, particularly our outreach to new students. How would your ministry or even you life change if you refused to be overwhelmed by a mountain of activities, projects, programs, and initiatives? Pick up to three things that are both vital to the success of your ministry, and that you and others feel like need some major attention, and spend some time making those things the very best they can be. I think that’s something all of us can do, and we don’t even have to be jerks about it.

When it comes to the big picture, the early Church seemed to be really good at living out Jesus’ vision of living God’s kingdom on earth, an alternative to an imperialistic and oppressive empire that was gripping the world, at the time. So maybe it’s time to zoom-in our focus on Jesus’ vision and figuring out what it means to be Christian in a Church that seems to stray more and more from its original creator and innovator every day.

The official iPhone/iPad app of The United Methodist Church was released earlier today. My initial impressions of it are not very favorable. It offers features such as, a church locator, a daily devotional, UMC news, videos and photos. Overall it lacks in creativity and innovation. I would love to see an app that includes access to a mobile format of The Book of Discipline, The Book of Worship, The United Methodist Hymnal, access to other UMC web resources such as GBOD’s worship planning helps, a bible feature, and a feature that would help find other UMC related blogs and websites. It would also be great so see some deep social integration that would allow interaction between users and the ability to easily share things using Facebook and Twitter. Basically, I would love a UMC app that I would look forward to using each and every day to interact with other United Methodists, as well as having a one stop shop to easily access UMC resources, in a mobile and easy to use format. I would even be willing to pay for an app/monthly subscription that had some of these features.

What do you think of the UMC app? What do you like? What don’t you like? What would you add/delete/change? Leave a comment below!

 As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

This past Sunday, our youngest son was baptized, by our bishop, at North Scottsdale United Methodist Church. After the baptism, Rev. Nancy Cushman, the senior pastor at NSUMC delivered a powerful sermon about what it means for the Church to affirm God’s love for us. She talked about the recent suicide of a teen who, for years, had been constantly bullied, because he was gay. Nancy pointed out that it isn’t a secret that the church is not a safe place for LGBTQ teens (or adults for that matter). Instead, it is celebrities like Lady Gaga and TV shows, like Glee, that confer love, value and affirmation on these teens. It’s embarrassing any time the Church takes a back seat to pop culture, however, it is especially deplorable that, regardless of where we fall on this issue, the Church is often the last place to tell these teens that God loves them, they don’t deserve to be bullied, and that their lives matter.

This is not a Church I want either of my sons to grow up in. This is not a Church where its leaders, including myself, can choose to remain neutral or silent on the issue of bullying.

Recently, a college student came out to me, and when he did, he admitted that I was one of the last and hardest people to come out to. Even though he knew that I would love and support him, and that our ministry would do the same, he still felt like the Church was not a safe place to be the person he truly is. That moment was truly heartbreaking for me and made me realize that even when we think we are inclusive, we may not be doing enough to show that we are serious about it.

There are a lot of people who disagree with me on this issue and I realize there’s not much I can do to convince them otherwise, however, there are a lot of folks out there who are afraid to speak out in support of the full inclusion of LGBTQ folks in the church. It’s to those folks that I challenge to make your faith community a safe place for all people, a place where people know that they are loved by God. And to my brothers and sisters who are struggling with coming out: I hope and pray, that one day, the Church will be one of the first and safest places you can share about being the person God created you to be. Until then, we must continue the struggle to truly make the Church a place for all people.

Congratulations to all those who made the brave decision to come out, today. May we all be as brave to love and embrace you, just as wonderfully as God loves and embraces you, exactly as you are.

Have you ever had to leave something you love? Sometimes we don’t have a choice in the matter. For some reason we are forced to uproot because of a conflict, a job, family situation or a crisis. Some people are forced from their homes and loved ones by violence or political situations.

Over the past few years I have paid particular attention to those students who are undocumented citizens and are attending college. These students came here with their parents at a very young age and it wasn’t until they were teenagers that they realized they weren’t even citizens. I’ve met some of these students who are aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, and non-profit directors. Many of them only remember Arizona as their home. Some students in similar situations, however, are facing the threat of deportation and some of them have already been deported.

In a recent article published by Arizona State University, a graduate student reported the results of her research on the effects on undocumented Mexican children when they are sent back to Mexico from their home in the US. She found that even if these children are accepted into their extended family, they are often ridiculed, rejected, and bullied at school, even by the administration. They are not seen as Mexican, but as American.

Leaving your home, your family, your friends, your comfort zone is one of the most painful things to do, especially when you don’t have a choice in the matter.

This brings us to Luke 5:1-11:

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

In this scripture passage, the disciples experience something with Jesus that is so powerful, they would voluntarily leave everything and devote their lives to him and call him Lord. They are not being forced, but invited, to be a part of a new movement, a new community that would proclaim the coming of a new kingdom on earth. Can you imagine some guy coming up to you at work and saying, “Hey I’m about to change the world forever, how about you drop everything and help me do that?”

For me this call to discipleship came while sitting on the edge of a mesa in southern Utah, watching the sunset. I was reflecting on the summer I was spending working on the Ute reservation working with suburban church youth groups repairing homes on the reservation. While sitting there, all of the sudden, the stories and teachings of Jesus made sense. Jesus wasn’t calling me to go to church every Sunday. He was calling me to serve and to be part of a movement to change the world.

We follow Jesus so that one day we no longer have to live in a world where people are forced from their homes and their families, whether that be undocumented college students or those escaping famine and violence in the Horn of Africa, or anyone else affected by similar situations. Many of us who are called to follow Jesus have the luxury and privilege to make decisions that will radically change our lives. We can choose to leave the things we love for something bigger, to give our lives for God and for others, however, we are rarely forced to. This is perhaps the biggest cost of discipleship. However, it may also be the biggest privilege of discipleship and it comes with a huge responsibility.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading the blog posts from Shaun King, a successful new church start pastor who had everything going for him, until he realized that what he was doing wasn’t about making disciples, it was about putting butts in pews. So, he quit.

In his post titled “3 Extremely Hard-Earned (Trust me) Lessons on Starting Something New, Change and Discipleship,” King writes:

Few disciples of Jesus Christ actually exist in the world.

I’m not even saying I am one and nobody else is. I have to fight the battle for my own discipleship daily. What I am saying is that church attendance, Sunday morning services, sermon-listening (or even sermon preaching), song-singing, hand-clapping, amen-saying and all of the things that “Christ-ians” have lifted up so high look so little like Christ himself that I am utterly convinced that we are completely off base with what discipleship means.

Considering all of this, I think I have given up on church as I knew it. Big buildings. Huge crowds. Few disciples. I’m not with it. It’s inefficient and just doesn’t feel right with my soul. This is not a rejection of big buildings or huge crowds, but an indictment on how few disciples are being made in the process of it all. A better way has to exist.

To me this is a Jesus calling the disciples moment. How much courage must it take to walk away from something the American Church sees as extremely successful, because that thing you created has nothing to do with Jesus or being a disciple?

I think we have to ask ourselves: Do we have what it takes to leave what is safe and comfortable to join Jesus on a journey of discipleship, a journey where we proclaim good news, liberation, healing, a new social order to a broken and hurting world?  Are we willing to take a risk to leave “business as usual,” behind and start something new, something that looks, feels, and sounds more like the type of discipleship that Jesus is calling us to? If Jesus came up to you on a Sunday morning while you were sitting in your seat waiting for worship to start and said, “follow me, let’s leave this place forever,” what would you do?

The question and perhaps even the answer, many of us would give, is terrifying.

This fall I have been asking students in our ministry the question “Who is Jesus?” As we continue our journey through Luke, in this passage we see Jesus as liberator, healer and Messiah.

Luke 4:31-41 (NRSV)

He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, ‘What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!’ And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.

After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

Here, Luke’s Jesus goes directly from proclaiming his mission statement to directly doing what he says he is going to do. He basically walks onto to the scene in Capernaum and he is immediately recognized by a demon, and then, later on in the story, more demons recognize him as the Messiah. Jesus, however, is concerned not only with exorcising these demons and healing the people they inhabited, but he is also concerned that these demons don’t give away who he is. Some biblical commentators and scholars suggest that this is because Jesus didn’t’ want people to get the wrong idea about his role as Messiah. In Jesus’ context, when most folks heard the term “Messiah,” they would have thought of a mighty military ruler coming to liberate society from its oppressive rulers through a violent battle. Jesus, however, already told us earlier in chapter four that this was not his mission. Jesus was coming as the Messiah who would bring liberation, healing, justice, and a new kingdom brought about, not through military victory, but through God’s love and forgiveness.

In this passage, Jesus is putting the forces of evil on notice, their ways of death and destruction are coming to an end. Jesus is proclaiming that God is doing something new and a new social order is about to be established. Jesus is not just proving who he is through these exorcisms, he is showing that he is serious about what he said he was going to do.

When Jesus comes into our lives, he shows us that God wants to set us free from the things that demonize or bind us, so we can become whole again. Jesus puts our own “demons” on notice that their time is short and that God is about to do something new and transformative in our lives.

Where do you need liberation and healing from the things that bind and demonize you in your life?