"Love" Pastor Mike

This week Pastor Mike was the featured spiritual leader in a new column in our local paper, the Rochester Post Bulletin. Here is his article.

I love Rochester. I have been blessed to be surrounded by people from all over the world. The homes immediately surrounding our house are a global gathering of languages, cultures and religions.

While my neighborhood is rich in cultural diversity, I notice a number of casual similarities. During the day, the landscape is alive with children playing together and filling the air with their joyful sounds of life. The sound of joyful children seems to be universal to every language. Couples venture out for an evening stroll. This is a similar habit that my wife and I enjoy as well.

What would happen if we all decided to take a huge risk? What if we all remained silent and listened to the voice of God together? What language do you think God would speak? I think God speaks the language of love. It is a universal language that focuses on people. The language of love hears prayers of the heart rather than just hearing sounds from the mouth. It is a language that transforms lives, reshapes communities and unites entire cities. It is a language that loves our neighbors even as we love ourselves. It is the language that God speaks best. Can we learn this language of love?

How might Jesus vote?

A quick post this week, but an important one.

As of today there are 12 days until we will cast our votes for leaders in our community and nation. I urge you all to pay particular attention to the local races for city officials and school board members. Be an informed voter. One place to begin is the Rochester Post Bulletin.

The United Methodist Church has a resource for this year's elections. It is a booklet covering dozens of issues a national candidate will have to address. . . things like poverty, war, and economic justice. The resource lists the United Methodist position on these issues, as expressed in our Social Principles and Book of Resolutions. Then it lists the official position of the Democratic and Republican parties. You can download it from the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society here.

Here is the summary from the agency that put the guide together.

Who would Jesus vote for in the upcoming election? Only the foolish would hazard a guess. But the New Testament itself is a picture of Jesus’ priorities amid all that clamored for His attention.
Christ’s mission of justice and compassion was extended to all people. As United Methodists, we are called to transform the world. Part of that transformation is made through faithful advocacy, community involvement and holding our leaders accountable.

This guide is intended as a discernment tool for you, your church and your community to evaluate potential leaders and political agendas of the two major parties as they relate to the Social Principles and Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church. As you read through the guide, ask yourself: How do these party platforms align with Church priorities for addressing human need and the integrity of God’s creation? What action might that call us to? What confession must we make about our own selfish priorities?

The United Methodist Church does not advocate a two-party system and we encourage you to seek out details on the variety of political parties and candidates. We have provided highlights based on party platform information available at the time.

The Accidental Time Machine

I listened to an awesome book on CD this week, The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. The book opens in about 2058 with an MIT graduate student who discovers a time machine. The problem is it only goes forward- 12 times farther in the future each time. It goes forward 12 seconds, then 144 seconds, then 27 minutes, then about 4 hours. . . you get the picture. Soon he is hundreds of years in the future in a world hardly recognizable as earth. He also lands in a slightly different location each time.

In one future, in one location, Jesus has returned- or at least the people are absolutely convinced that Jesus has returned. History has been completely rewritten to begin in 1 SC (Second Coming.) To a time traveller, this is very confusing. The people know nothing about their own history, even 100 years ago. (The traveller ends up in about 70 SC.)

One of my complaints against Dan Brown's writing (Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons) is his open hostility to the church. What I liked about The Accidental Time Machine is it doesn't make the church into an evil caricature- but it does suggest the possibilities of the abuses of religion. For the people in this time it seems to be a utopia. To the time traveller it seems serious out of touch with reality. Later, he ends up in a different kind of utopia, and the people there think they are happy, but again, to an outsider it's boring.

This book made me laugh, gasp, and think. I highly recommend reading/listening to it- even if you don't normally choose to read science fiction. It is worth it. (And if you do decide to read it, please let me know- I'm really looking for people to talk to about this book!)

Rethink Church

I am very excited about the new advertising campaign for the United Methodist Church. It is called "Rethink Church" and it will air next spring. You can read more about it here.

I'm excited because it starts by asking the question "what if church were a verb, rather than a noun?" I feel the same way about worship- it isn't a place we go to, it is something we do. Is church a noun or a verb for you? To be perfectly honest, sometimes for me church is work- often that's when it becomes a noun for me. Church is church for me when it's a verb, the doing, the being, the changing the world types of things we do.

This campaign fits right into something I've been thinking about since reading They Like Jesus but not the Church . I've been thinking if only people knew that there are churches that want people to think!

Yesterday I was reading The Great Awakening by Jim Wallis. In it he quotes someone who says, "Don't you hate it when some one's views are 180 degrees out of sync with yours and yet they are called your spokesperson?" (Great Awakening, 40.) One of the stereotypes/ characterictures of the people have of the church is "it tells weak-minded people what to blindly believe. "I hope this new campaign will help people see that the UMC is a place for Christians who want to think and be challenged. The UMC churches I've been a part of haven't been afraid of teaching people how to think, rather than what to think.

The campaign is going to present a challenge for the UMC as well (a good one.) Right now we track a church's success by numbers: the number in worship, the number in Sunday school, and the number of professions of faith. The article introducing the new campaign defines success differently. It reads,

Graham suggests that the church population, institution and hierarchy will need to understand and embrace the idea that it is OK for “church” to start out as day care, a youth-group ski trip, a men’s basketball league or something that solves a secular need, such as Habitat for Humanity.

“Whatever entry point is comfortable for someone who may find the idea of entering church daunting, an act of courage or a moment of high vulnerability – that’s what church needs to be,” he said.

First, I think we need to ask, is Christ Church that kind of church? If the answer is no, we need ot ask a second question: are we willing to become that kind of church?

Cross posted at the young adult blog.

Going off the Grid

For a few days this week I was without email. The room I was in was kind of like a cave and didn't have cell service. I was pretty hard to get a hold of. I had to tell people I was "off the grid." In reality I was at a monastery, doing a continuing education course on family systems.

Certainly in my lifetime we've seen a heightened ability to locate people, contact people, and know people's information. I can only imagine how different this is for older generations. Are you more patient than me? I hear from family if I don't return a message within a couple of hours. I get impatient when I can't be checking the updates of my friends on Facebook. I worry that people will wonder what's happened to me.

Several weeks ago I asked the 11:15 worship community if they found it harder to ask people or God for help. In the God column there was appreciation for being able to stay somewhat anonymous in exhibiting vulnerability. In the human column there was gratitude for a more immediate, consistent, visible response to requests for help. Is it possible our views on this are changing because of our increased ability to have rapid communication with others given cell phones, Twitter and Facebook? Did people used to be more patient with God?

I think it's quite possible that impatience is a universal phenomenon- We see in the Bible time and time again how the Hebrew people complained to Moses about God's pace and provision. But, I do think our tolerance for waiting probably has grown less and less as our ability to find others has increased. It's an interesting question. What do you think?