Fixing Church Archive

This is the first of a fourteen day blog covering my experience with COVID-19. Since my affliction has arrived just in time to mess up Christmas, I am calling this set of blogs, "14 Days of COVID" 

 

Use this link to get the handout of slides from Bill's "Managing Congregational Anxiety" Workshop -> Handout

The holiday season is filled with teachable moments. As a WASP child, growing up in a white suburb, Tennessee Ernie Ford’s recording of "Some Children See Him was a teachable moment.

“Are you in debt so as to embarrass the ministry?” There is a reason for that question. Integrity is integrity. When we are in severe debt, the temptation to abandon our integrity becomes intense.

I’d like to see the rain come

Gentle and warm

Reviving the chipmunk

Our dog killed last week

Or healing the nation

Grieving its inability to change

I’d like to see the rain come

Gentle and warm

And do impossible things

Like making our dog regret her instincts

Or those in power their lies

And listen to the rain

Gentle and warm

“And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones,

 who cry out to him day and night?”

(Luke 18:7)

In my novel, “Martha Finds Rest,” I retell the story of the first Easter. When I get to the part where Jesus visits the upper room in John chapter 20, my novel dramatizes the events, utilizing the viewpoint of a spying twelve-year old.

I think we have to value compassion, character, and the heart for justice as core biblical values. If we advocate for these things consistently, then entering into the political fray is both necessary and within the pastor’s role. We must support politicians who: 1)Have actually made things with their own hands, or brought healing to the sick, or acted against their own interests for justice to be done...

Unscrupulous people now invite us to believe that hidden cabal or deep state is conspiring to take away our guns, jobs, or daughters. Once we accept one lie it is easy to believe another. This death spiral has ruined the brilliant minds in the past and now may take ours.

Simplistic solutions rarely shift a culture away from violence once it gets headed down that path.

The adopted Traditional Plan will force some members, congregations, and church leaders to leave because the United Methodist Church. Think of this exodus as three concentric circles. There are those clergy and laity who must leave because the church no longer recognizes the loving and covenantal relationships they have entered into, or because they are being asked to accept a gender identity which they feel is false. Surrounding this small inner circle of people who must leave, is a much larger circle of people who may choose to go...

I think of Martin Luther King as a modern prophet. It's been said that if the canon of scripture wasn't closed, his Letter from a Birmingham Jailwould deserve a place beside Isaiah and the Apostle Paul. We are in the midst of a time of mass demonstrations. King wrote that letter to explain why he came from Atlanta to Birmingham to organize the protests there. He wrote it to the clergy-persons, who believed the fake news that those in the streets were being organized by malevolent actors. He writes, "I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C.

The people were gathered for a child's naming ceremony at the Tree of Life. The Torah lessons for the season spoke of Abraham and Sarah's immigration into a new land, and on the responsibility thrust upon them by the children born to them in their old age. In this segment of our shared tradition, Christians, Moslems, and Jews are reminded of our collective responsibility to teach, listen, and learn. For the sake of the child, and our own salvation, we vow together to engage in lifelong learning, religious reflection, and the development of our emotional intelligence. Good religious leaders encourage dialogue and the cultivation of emotional intelligence. Saints are people with empathy.

"On the Pulse of Morning" was written for the first inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993. It cautioned the new leader to think first about the long view of history.

One of the great bug-a-boos of life is our propensity for getting into a rut. As individuals we fall into comfortable habits and become attached to familiar rituals. It may be the routine of eating the same breakfast every day or preferring a particular style of clothing. Our ruts can also have a more sinister side, supporting our prejudices, restricting our generosity, stifling our creativity, derailing our spiritual experience, and instilling within us a reluctance to implement needed changes. Those recovering from dangerous dependencies, such as drug addiction, know how high these walls of routine can be. If we were wise, we would choose our ruts more carefully, for we travel in them a long time.

I think a fish could avoid getting caught if he learned to bite the fisherman instead of the bait. With this week’s shooting we have once again become polarized into two camps; some want to ban machine guns, and some of my friends are going out today to buy a gun because they fear that the second amendment is about to be taken out of the constitution. Both camps are thrashing around in someones boat. Our whole society seems caught in a net of polarized madness. Gun control one of two or three issues that are filleting America. This particular hook is baited by a diabolical organization, the NRA. They have taught their members to only vote for candidates that they have approved. They have collected vast sums of money to buy our democracy away from us.

I once preached about David and Bathsheba on a dare (II Samuel 11). It was during the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. The dare was that I had to preach about the President’s problem at the 11 o’clock worship service where there would be families with young children. The parishioner that challenged me knew that I was the lone Democrat in a congregation of Republican wolves. I don’t recall much of what I said, except that the issue wasn’t sex, but the misuse of power. Whenever someone shows a habit of abusing their status, office, or public trust, they should be considered unfit for that position. That clearly applies to more than just politics. I support all of the victims that are speaking out today.

Abuse of power lies behind: domestic violence, sex trade, lack of political integrity
I discovered this week that I share certain religious views with Steve Bannon (the man responsible for Trump). Like Bannon, I have a religious appreciation for the work of social historians Strauss and Howell who developed generational theory (the bit about boomers and millennials, etc). S&H wrote in the 1990s about how American culture changes as each generation comes into adulthood and then fades away, and that these generations discharge their leadership in a predictable ways. Generations cycle, according to a great 300 year calendar. There is now an Unraveling and a Fourth Turning (our current era). S&H predicted that a wise elder would leads us out of this chaos. Where I part with Steve Bannon is that he believes that Trump is this messiah.
Lately I have been struggling to understand the negative emotion, “aversion.” It is never helpful or right to react with our gut to the appearance or behavior of another person. Their choices may be wrong and their use of power unjust. But we must seek first to understand. We must mitigate evil when we can, but not to descend to name calling or shaming. Some of my Facebook friends express an aversion to Democrats, others towards leaders in the Republican party. The partisan affliction that divides our nation has taken up residence in our guts.

I want to thank the many Facebook friends who commented and shared by recent Facebook posts on why I, a conservative christian writer, am standing with PP against Trump-care. One of friends pushed back with a link to an organization that claims PP’s statistics are inflated and that they are only interested in providing more abortions. This bit of fake news was rebutted by the many women who shared personal stories of how they had been helped by Planned Parenthood, and even given the medical care that they needed to successfully become parents. It hit me as I scrolled through these comments that acts of genuine kindness are rarely reported because of privacy concerns. Stories need to be shared. Hope triumphs over hate.

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