Circuit Writer Blog

I know that this blog is about being a United Methodist and not about technology.  But technology certainly is the vehicle that allows me to blog and use social media to talk about my journey in the UMC.

I’m a long time Mac switcher.  That means I started out in the Windows world and moved to using Macintosh computers close to ten years ago.  For some people the argument about which OS is better takes on religious overtones.

I’m writing this blog right now using the Windows 8 preview release which just came out this week.  I’m running the preview on my MacBook using VMware Fusion, a piece of software that allows you to run other Operating Systems on your Mac at the same time that you are running the Mac OS.  (Yes, Macs are that cool.  I admit it.     )

The brand new Windows 8 has a very different user interface that totally moves away from the usual windows desktop metaphor.  Instead the screen is covered with colored tiles each representing an application or task that you can perform in Windows.  You can get to the old Windows desktop if you like but it is just another application to run within the new tiled environment.

After I played with the interface for a few minutes I kept thinking, “this some how looks familiar.  Why does this look so familiar?”  Well then it dawned on me.  I reached over and picked up my iPad (Yes, I’m big fan of the iPad too.) and it occurred to me that the new Windows interface just looks like a copy of the way the iPad works.

Some windows user will object and say, “No!, the new windows interface is cool color tiles the iPad uses icons.”  But really how different is it?  Generally the new Windows 8 replaces rows of icons on the screen to click on for apps with rows of boxes on the screen to click on to get to apps.  How different is it really?

I have to say I’m not surprised.  Apple has always been the innovator and Microsoft has tended to copy many of Apple’s innovations to improve their system.

So how on earth does this relate to theology?  Well often what has happened with Microsoft is that they have copied an idea from Apple only to find out that it really doesn’t work as well in the Microsoft Windows environment as it did in the Apple environment.  It comes off as lame because it isn’t a new idea it is a recycled idea that worked well on one OS and not as well on another.

I’m afraid churches do the very same thing and are encouraged to do so.  Many books on church growth, change, and church transformation have been written by pastors or popular theological writers who used a program in their church and found it successful.  Everyone buys the book and tries to reproduce the success of what someone else did in their context in their own church to only find out that what works at Saddle Back or Willow Creek very well might not actually work well in their church because their situation (like a  different OS) has different needs, different constituents, different demographics, etc.

So copying someone else’s ideas may be the sincerest form of flattery but the truth is that often a copy never works as well as the original.  And that in the world of church copying what another church does to reach others for Christ also usually does not work as well as finding the vision and direction that God wants for your church and the community your church serves in.

I would encourage any church to find its own nitch for service and ministry in their community, to seek to meet the needs they find around them, and to cast the vision that God has for them rather than try fit square boxes into round icons and be something your church wasn’t intended to be.

Sunday I had the blessing of baptizing another child into the fellowship of the church.  This was my second opportunity to offer the sacrament of baptism to a small child as a newbie United Methodist pastor.  And, again, it was a great blessing!

As I have become a part of the United Methodist Church I have been going through the “official” process of transferring my orders, receiving provisional conference membership, and studying to understand and gain a greater appreciation of Wesleyan theology than I did as someone outside looking in.  But beyond the “official” work of learning to be a United Methodist there has also been meaningful and powerful internal changes which have effected my faith, my understanding of my relationship with Christ, and my spirituality.

In this process the sacraments have become more alive for me, more meaningful, and deeper.  Wesley’s theology of the Means of Grace and the radical openess of the Table makes Holy Communion not just an insider experience with Jesus but a wide open invitation to experience the converting grace and power of the gospel.  The Table is/becomes an open door in which the church beckons all to come and join in the gospel feast.  It is a means of grace, an experience of God’s love, and an experession of the connectedness of the body of Christ.

Now I feel and experience so much more the prevenient nature of Holy Baptism when I take water in the name of the Trinity and bring a young child into the family of God.  I’m not baptizing someone because they have figured God out, because they understanding all the commitments that are being made on their behalf by their parents, or even because they yet know what it means to believe.  I’m baptizing them because God, from the very earliest moment of their life, loves them as God’s own dear child and claims them preveniently for the life of the kingdom. As a parent pours out her or his love on a small child, and as that child learns to respond in love by loving and caring example, so in baptism we experience the love of God and the love of God’s people and learn and act in response to the love and grace given by God and God’s people.

In this Lenten Season the meaning of the Sacraments may be some of the best reminders as to what the church is about.  The church is about radical hospitality, radical welcome, and radical openess.  God through Jesus Christ invites all to the waters of baptism to experience a love and grace bigger than even adult minds can fully understand, God invites us to his table to eat with him, to remember his sacrifice and rejoice that he is coming again.  The invitation is so radical that it knows no boundries.  Come the water and come to the Gospel Feast!

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and pow’r.

Refrain:
I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all..

Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.

Yesterday I had another meeting with my examining committee from the Board of Ordained Ministry.  As a Provisional Member of the Conference I’m required to meet with the committee annually either to apply for continuation of my Provisional status or to apply for a change of status.

The Book of Discipline 2008 requires that you serve as a Provisional Member of the conference for at least two years while serving full-time in a UMC church.  So I know that I would be asking for continuance at this point.

As was the case last year, I enjoyed the interview.  The committee was very gracious and supportive of my moving from Baptist ministry to United Methodist ministry.  I had another opportunity to share my reasons for this change and to talk about my ministry at First UMC in Cedar Falls.

Having finished the UMC History Class I am now taking the UMC Doctrine Class and will need to finish that class and the UMC Polity class before next year in order to apply for full connection.  So my hope is to finish both classes during this coming year and apply for approval for membership in the conference in full-connection in 2013.

When I look back the process has gone quickly.  But at the same time it was November of 2009 when I contacted the DS in the Central District to talk about UMC ministry.

I guess time flies when you are having fun.  And time flies when you feel like you are where God wants you to be.

Heading to First UMC for our Ash Wednesday Service. The service begins at 7:00p. Hope to see you there! http://ow.ly/9enuV

I have less than six hours left here in Iowa before we welcome in 2012.  So I thought I’d squeeze in one last 2011 blog post.

As I’ve shared in the past, this has been an eventful year.  Today marks my being the appointed Associate Pastor of First UMC in Cedar Falls for a year and a half.  The time has gone by fast.  The church is busy with renovation and construction.  We moved our contemporary worship to Scott Hall (our fellowship hall), built a new stage, and revitalized the service and chose a new name “Transformation Worship.”   First UMC has also been working on a vision plan for the future through the “TEAM Christ” committee.

Starting January 1 the church has hired Lesley Toma to work part time for the church with our Young Adults.  This year Christina Keller also was hired to serve as our Youth Ministry Coordinator following our former Associate for Youth and College ministry heading off to seminary.

Besides all that has gone on at church I’ve eventful year in my process of becoming a United Methodist pastor.  After preparing materials and examination by the BOM my orders were recognized and I was commissioned as a Provisional Member of the Iowa Conference of the UMC.   Before the Advent Season I finished a course in United Methodist History and just received the packet of material this past week from the GBHEM for the UMC Doctrine class.  My intention is to finish it and the Polity Class in the next six months.

A New Year is in many ways like a blank slate.  People make resolutions in which they strive to do better in some area of their life, make a life change, lose weight, exercise, eat right etc.   I feel quite good about the change I’ve experienced in my life in the last two years.  It is not that resolutions in some other area of my life would not be a good thing for me.  But I have felt blessed and empowered by embracing change in my life.

Happy New Year!

A few weeks back I finished my United Methodist history class having turned in the required study/essay questions.  So this week I sent off the for the next GBHEM course on UMC Doctrine.  This is the next step in working towards full membership in the Iowa Annual Conference.  I was granted Provisional Membership this past June and will be a Provisional Member for at least two years.  During that time I am required to complete courses in UMC history, doctrine, and polity.  I am working to complete the course work as soon as I can.

As part of being a Provisional Member  of the Conference I will be meeting with the Board of Ordained Ministry again in February for a check in meeting.  This is an annual requirement as long as one holds Provisional Membership.

I’ve found the continued conversations with the BOM and the course work to be very informative and formational as I’ve been learning more every day about being a United Methodist.  I also continue to have a great time working at First UMC in Cedar Falls.

In a week I will celebrate the 21st anniversary of my ordination.  If there is anything I’ve learned in the past 21 years of ministry it is that faith is a journey, a pilgrimage in which we seek to learn and grow closer to to God by God’s grace.  When I look back I see a lot of road behind me.  But when I look ahead it is exciting to see plenty of travel ahead of me!

I’ve been in my office today packing boxes of books.  No, I’ve not receive a new appointment.  I’m packing up my office because all of us at First UMC are getting ready to move out of our offices so that our offices can be renovated as part of our building program.  We will gather in the Parlor as the new church office and scatter about the building as we need to do our work.   But it is a good thing!  I’m reminded how often packing boxes is a good thing.  It was a real blessing in my life in July of 2010 to move here to serve at First UMC.  As a Pastor I’ve packed up my office many times as God has moved us into a new ministry, a new church, and a new community.

All the change that goes with moving, be it to a new church or just down the hall to a new office, involve some work and some patience.  Our Senior Pastor, Steve Williams, has regular talked about being positive, patient, and prayerful as our church moves forward in our building program and as we move forward as a church with new ministries and new opportunities of service to the Lord.

Some of those new opportunities I’m excited about include upcoming mission trips with members of First UMC.  In January three of us will be part of a group of twenty-four United Methodists traveling to Puerto Rico to spend two weeks work in the town of Comerio helping two Methodist Churches with renovation projects.  I just seems right that as God has blessed us to be able to renovation our own church building we respond to the opportunity to do the same for another church.

Also this summer a group will be traveling to Red Bird Mission in Kentucky to work there.  Red Bird serves in the Appalachian mountains with needy people in that part of our nation as a mission of the United Methodist Church.  I believe right now we have over twenty members of First UMC going on this trip.

This time of year is my favorite time as we look forward to Thanksgiving and the Advent and Christmas Seasons.  We have so much to be grateful as God keeps blessing us with the Good things that are coming!