Dealing with Disappointment

The Christmas Hoopla is over. The New Year's celebrations have drawn to a close. That easy week between the two holidays has been met with this morning's day back in the office.

I was reflecting this morning on the fact that for the last 8 years, I have filled this time between Christmas and Easter and between NFL and MLB (yes, I live my life by the Church and sports' seasons) with ardent preparation for our adult mission trips to Juarez where our church would typically build four homes in an impoverished area outside of Juarez known as Anapra. The preparation would include recruiting, fundraising, prayer, making travel arrangements, building arrangements, paperwork, more prayer, collecting donations of school supplies and toys, writing devotions, planning ahead on worship, brushing up on my Spanish, etc. And in the process of planning and implementing, in the preparing and in the traveling, the success of every trip would be evident in the lives transformed, community built, homes completed, relationships rekindled, faces remembered, gratitude embraced, and love won.

But this year, I will have to find a new way to full that time, or better explained, a better way to fill that hole. We will be building two homes there this month, hiring Mexican labor to do so

The two trips had to be canceled this year due to the growing violence that finally hit too close to our daily route to and from Anapra. Now, this may not come as a surprise to many....especially if you pay attention to national news coverage. This border city across from El Paso, TX, has been the subject of media coverage and has earned the titles of "Murder Capital of the World" and "World's Deadliest City" as it eclipsed 3,000 murders in 2010. The events of this city was also the topic of an AP story that ran yesterday on the cover of our local newspaper in Champaign. While I can defend most of the violence as targeted (cartel on cartel, gang on gang) or isolated (at night or in the Valley of Juarez), it is the unexplained tragedies that stem from attempts at vigilante justice and the random attacks due to a lack of due diligence from law enforcement. The attack on the main thoroughfare from our team house to Anapra was enough for me to give in to the constant question of whether or ongoing involvement was too much a risk.

I made the decision on December 17, moved through the Christmas season, and enjoyed the break after Christmas. But coming back to work this morning, the decision is hitting me hard and disappointment is casting a shadow over my own understanding of who I am as a pastor. In the midst of the wonderful benefits that the families, the team, and the church receives from our commitment to Juarez, I walk away from every trip with the reassurance of my calling as pastor. More than any other venture or responsibility that occupies my yearly calendar, it is those two weeks every year that remind me more than any other that I am called to be in a local church to build community and to form disciples to transform the world because it takes the whole church to make this ministry in Juarez such a success.

So there is disappointment this morning and a hole that needs filled. I was told recently that I needed to perhaps develop a passion for something else rather than Mexico. Yet, everything I know about passion or feel in passion says that passion doesn't work that way. So "finding a different passion" isn't the answer. But in the midst of this disappointment ... there is hope. Because I know that "greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in that city." The place that was once bustling with business and tourists, that once was a place of amazing color, will again find its peace. And the groups that flooded the city in mission through the many organizations will return to the poor and hungry who will still be there ...waiting for us.

In many ways, hope is all we have. But on the other hand ... hope has an amazing sustaining power in our lives. I hope for the city. I hope for the church. I hope for the people. In that hope I know that peace will again one day reign and the love will win. I pray that I will be a part of such great things to come.

So About That Dream...

I caught grief from my mother yesterday (who was in church) indicating, "this is the first time I ever heard a preacher who didn't finish his sermon." That's what moms are for! So about that dream:

Saturday nights, rather than a full night of sleep, I end up taking a "nap" as I usually find myself awake the whole night wondering about the sermon and what changes need to be made. This weekend was no exception. I decided to lie down around 1AM as I was still discerning how this sermon would come to an end. Yet in the three hour nap, an amazing dream unfolded that perhaps answered my concern.

I dreamed of a Sunday morning. It was the Faith congregation, but the venue was my home church in Galesburg. The Galesburg First UMC is an old downtown church with a large traditional sanctuary (with at least 60 foot "cathedral" ceilings and a bell tower where bats love to live. A little secret about that church is that above the sanctuary and below the bell tower is a "corridor" (I am not sure of the correct architectural term) that allows maintenance to walk above the sanctuary and lower the lights to the floor of the sanctuary to be changed.

In that dream it was 8:15AM and my sermon was not complete for the 9AM fusion service. I was procrastinating, as usual, finding reason to explore the building where I once roamed as a child. As I made my way up the remote back stairwell, I came to a steel ladder that was attached to a wall. I climbed the ladder and came to a wooden door above my head, about the size of a manhole cover. I was convinced that this was the "corridor" above the sanctuary that I knew existed but never visited. I pushed open the door and climbed through. The room was more than a corridor, but a great hall with beautiful wooden arches of a light oak color and a lot of light.

There were people up there in this great hall watching down through the light fixtures watching the congregation below. They greeted me with a smile and welcomed me by saying, "We have been wanting to see you for a long time" (like a scene out of Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail). They were the faces of my Sunday School teachers and mentors from long ago who once attended mu home church but who are no longer living. We talked for a few moments, only to realize that it was now 8:45AM and I needed to descend the stairs and return to my responsibilities.

But it was one older woman who I revered as a child for her dedication to the church, who placed her hand on my shoulder as I began my descent and said, "Bradley, you are needed by the congregation. Stop worrying about how it all ends ...they love you for being the you God created you to be."

I woke up before I returned to the sanctuary. But as I turned off my alarm and headed to the shower, I thought about what was going on. My "Egypt" is my ongoing fear of failure. At times it renders me powerless. That idea of letting people down hold me captive and enslaves me to the perceptions of others. And if I ended the sermon in a rather weak manner, than I was also failure in my own eyes.

Yet in hearing those comforting words from that cloud of witnesses (though in a dream)...I stood before the congregation this morning at 9:58AM and said, "I could go on ... but time has escaped us."

And as I write this to share with you and officially end the Sunday sermon, I think this is one of those transformative moments in faith for me that has drawn me deeper in trust with the One I have wrestled with mightily for a number of years now. In my own deliverance of fear of failure ... may my weak ending be one of hope for you.

In Jesus Name, Amen.

Ten Years

It is amazing how things have changed in ten years. Paper is out and paying our bills online is in. The SUV is out and the environment is in. Processing film is out, digital photography is in. Facebook has helped us renew old high school relationships. Skype lets us talk face to face around the world. Our houses are harder to sell and first time buyers have a harder time getting credit. We learned words such as "unfriend" and "google" and re-learned words such as "terrorism" and "war".

Sitting on the back porch this morning, I am feeling a moment of deja vu. Forgive my nostalgia. It was on a beautiful June morning, much like today, when the moving truck pulled up to Curtis Road to unload our belongings in this quiet neighborhood on the southwest side of Champaign. I was 24 and had been married four years at that point and expecting our first child any moment. I was less than a month removed from seminary and had brought with me three years experience as a pastor; experience and education in a traditional model of worship and ministry. Here I was appointed to Champaign Faith and charged with the responsibility of growing a contemporary worship service in a church (unlike my home church or previous parishes) ready to be on the move in structure, ideology, and theology.

Ten years later...Curtis road is no longer a quiet, rural place, but a busy four lane road with an interstate exchange and commercial development sprouting up around us. (Thank goodness for the state of tranquility on my back porch!). I am now 34, been married fourteen years and have two very interesting sons and an insecure St. Bernard that follows me around the house. Passionate worship has found me as, despite the venue or context of worship, we have felt a deeper connection with God through diving into scripture and functioning in the early church tradition (Acts 2). Been to Juarez (the deadliest city in the world) 15 times and have built 15 houses, among other projects. We built a huge addition on the building and have seen the fullness of the theological spectrum come together as one community. And now by the grace of God, the willingness of Faith UMC and the vision of the cabinet, I will be starting my eleventh year at Faith UMC on July 1.

But yet, have I changed?

I have been leading the congregation in a worship series on the seven letters to the seven church in the book of Revelation. In each of those letters, Jesus (according to the author) is perhaps asking each of the churches to do a little self reflection. If Revelation was written by an exiled "John" in the late 90's C.E. to churches formed around 40 years prior, perhaps the timing is excellent. In that 40 years they would have heard of the Apostle's death, seen the fall of Jerusalem, and know of the growth of Christianity through the Diaspora to the further reaches of the continent. The particular rebukes that Jesus emphasized with each church seem to both draw them back to their foundation while also kicking them forward by casting vision for these churches in Asia minor.

I have been told that I have changed, but that has been said to me in vain. Perhaps that is what Jesus is saying to the churches, you have changed, by getting away from your first love and foundation.

Perhaps I need to do some self reflection and asked if I have grown (yes, i have gained weight). Has the church grown? Have we build upon the spiritual foundations of who we are? Have I grown deeper in love with Jesus Christ, our first love? Have we allowed God to use us in ways that transform the world? Have the hardships of injury, loss, and brokenness, helped me to grow in my understanding of faith in community? Has the changing of the world helped Faith UMC to grow in ways that reach new people?

It is good to be back with you (online) and in your community.

Faith Through the Decades: The 1960's

(preached on Sunday, September 13)

I remember being elementary school and sitting in the bank drive through with my mom. It was 1983 and the voice on the radio was sharing a this day a history moment. It happened to be the 20th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My mother just started to gaze off into the distance. The DJ went on to say that in honor of the day, the song, Abraham, John and Martin would be played. As the music started, my mother’s distant gaze became soft tears. Abraham, John and Martin, written in 1968 and performed a variety of artists is a tribute to the memories of icons of social change. But in particular, the icons of social change in the 1960’s, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. It was written as a response to the assassinations of King and the younger Kennedy in April and June 1968.

As we drove away and the song came to an end, my mother started giving me a history lesson on the assassination events and the powerful memory of knowing where you were when you heard about the assassination of JFK. Along with the other assassinations in that decade, the turbulent times around the civil rights movement, the red scare and cold war, and the entry into the Vietnam war not only proved to be an eventful decade, but for baby boomers like my mother … the 1960’s was the most influential decade on her in shaping her outlook, her politics, and even her faith.

Now if you were to look at what decade was most influential on you as you developed as a person, what decade would that be? Now I know that some of you have many decades to choose from and others of you the choice is rather easy thus far. But given the historical events you have live through, the tragedies and the politics, the societal movements and the wars, what decade has most shaped your outlook, politics, and faith? That’s the question I would like you to consider as you share with your neighbor this morning. I will give you about 30 seconds.

We starting a new theme in here this weekend known as the Decades of Faith, starting today with the 1960’s. This is something we have been wanting to do for a number of years here, not only from a music standpoint, (has the band been great, or what?) but also from the perspective of how the events of a decade and our own American mindset has influenced the movement of the church and our own faith. But the reason for the timing of this theme as we head into fall is due to the 50th anniversary of Faith UMC. This weekend marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first worship service at Faith, the sixth birthday of fusion, and the third anniversary of being here in the Worship and Life Center and Education wing. With a whole calendar of events this year celebrating 50 years as a community of faith, we will kind of culminate everything on November 22 when our Bishop, Bishop Palmer will be joining us and leading us in worship.

But the 1960’s is where we start as we consider the very formative time for the Faith community during this time. Up until the 1960, Christianity was successful in its growth across America. After World War 2, after troops returned home and started to build their families, church membership and involvement became a central aspect of the American life. Champaign is no different. Many young families were settling on the west and southwest side of town and First Methodist Church downtown saw that need and wanted to expand out this way and a vision was cast for a congregation on S. Prospect Ave. Faith Methodist Church is what it would be named.

But as the 1960’s unfolded, the religious climate in America started to change. Prayer and Bible reading were removed from the public schools; nuns and priests started leaving their orders for secular lives, While these issues aroused much emotion, other, deeper social currents concerning race, gender and sexuality, war, and the role of churches in society changed the religious landscape of the United States. The apparent religious revival of the postwar period ground to a halt in the course of the decade. According to one historian, people stopped talking of a new revival and began to discuss decline. Look at America’s perspective on Faith; in 1957, 14 percent of the Americans polled said religion was in decline in the United States. In 1970 that figure had increased to 75 percent believed Religion was in decline and the numbers from church reports support that data.

The 1960’s was a turning point in history and in religion. The 1960’s was the first decade the history of the United States in which church membership in the U.S. did not increase. What was going on politically and socially had an impact on the church, no question. Fear of communism, the civil rights movement, and the fall of the icons of social change (MLK, JFK, RFK) led to a disillusionment with faith matters and churches really struggled with their identity. Do we or don’t we, as Christians, raise questions about the Vietnam War? Do we get involved in the civil rights movement and work to end segregation? Do we march with Martin Luther King, Jr, or is that too social justiceish for the church? As Christians can we question the government? These were radical questions for an institution that had seen freedom and growth since America was settled by the European Christians. (Pause) In many ways these questions persist for us today as well.

While church historians look to the 60’s trials and tribulations and the influence of music and the freedom of speech against the war and independence of a Woodstock and the Born to be Wild persona of the 1960’s, while church historians point to the 1960’s as the death of God … perhaps the 1960’s was enough to raise questions that helped define the meaning of Jesus Christ in the church more than what historians will ever care to admit. (Pause)

Last Sunday when we gathered in here … we heard Jesus in the midst of dealing with defilement and how the religious leaders became obsessed with the laws of cleanliness. His message last week was one drawn from the Old Testament … Remember that you too were a foreigner in a foreign land and God redeemed you. What that means is that everyone one of us have faced our own struggles, temptations, sins to the point where everyone of us has been on the outside … everyone one of us and if it weren’t for grace … everyone one of us would still be foreigners in God’s kingdom.

From there in Mark 7, we follow Jesus to where he is no longer distinguishing between the children on Israel and the outsiders … but his ministry has expanded to include everyone. It wasn’t just about his disciples but in dealing with the religious leaders and those on the outside of the Jewish faith and outside of the church. Mark 8 is a turning point, in many ways, as we start to see Jesus feeding the “crowds”, responding to challenges by the church as they questioned him and he questioned the church. Mark 8:22, he heals a blind man using his spit to make mud … again shaking the cultural and religious foundations by using something unclean to bring cleanliness and inclusion.

So we pick up right after that. Mark 8:27-38. I invite you to follow along on the screen this morning.
27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" 28 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." 29 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. 31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." 34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life [b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? 37 Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? 38 If any of you are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Jesus is on the road with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asks his followers, “Who do people say that I am?” What’s the word on the street? What are people Twittering about me?

The disciples answer, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets” (v. 28). Then Jesus makes it personal, and asks, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answers him, “You are the Messiah,” a term which means “anointed one,” the divinely chosen leader of the people.” This answer is perfect, but Jesus is keenly aware that many people are looking for a military Messiah — God’s Commander in Chief — to drive the Romans out of Jerusalem and restore the kingdom to Israel. Jesus starts to again counter those perceptions with a teaching that makes it less about the church and more about the world. And that’s why Jesus begins to teach them that the Son of Man “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (v. 31). To be the true Messiah, Jesus has to undergo suffering, death and resurrection — there’s just no way around it. So the role of Jesus requires a cross before a crown.

And he expands his teaching after that to say, if you want to be a part of this … you too will have to choose a cross. You too will have to not only decide what I mean to you, but you too will have to choose whether you are willing to give up your life for the sake of the Gospel. When you discover who I am, when you accept you I am … when your testimony is on your lips, will that translate to your life and are you willing to live it?

This constant growth in the church up until the 1960’s brought some complacency … and instead of people choosing Jesus Christ it became a matter of being Christian because you were born into it. Jose Luis, our missionary contact in Juarez talk about his frustration of being a protestant in Mexico while Catholicism is not only the predominant faith, but it is the only faith recognized politically and socially. He will tell you that people are Catholic in Mexico by tradition, not choice. So the independence and freedom of the 1960’s led many people to question the establishment of institutions such as the government and even their own faith. And there was this sudden sense of choice found in a new found freedom in the Baby Boomers.

But this is no different than what we find in the Gospel. Jesus comes forth and says you know … there is a line now … if you want to follow me … you have to make a choice and live it. We have heard Jesus tell us over and over to take up your cross …what that perhaps means for us today is that deeper discipleship is found when we choose the cross for ourselves to carry. Which is fantastic for the sake of the church. So membership declines? What we learned from the 1960’s was that the church needed to be in the mode of making disciples rather than members and that the church was to be about doing the Gospel in the world as opposed to being the Gospel and expecting the world to come to us. Some look to the 60’s as the death of God .. I see it as a rebirth of discipleship that allowed those born to be wild to discover who Jesus Christ was for them.

It’s no wonder that Faith UMC, here found success in it’s first decade because of the openness of the church and the willingness to allow people to be guided to discover Jesus Christ for themselves. And that is in our DNA today as a congregation because the social and theological and political scale is so diverse here that it is something to be celebrated today. Who do you say I am? Not by tradition, or by what others tell, but how have you chosen to follow Jesus Christ?
So when we hear about social change and after the assassination of a social change icon like Martin Luther King, Jr …then there is a touch upon our hearts.

For my mother, these people questioned an establishment that she felt took her own independence. My mother’s parents, especially her father represented an establishment that my mother truly struggled with. On matters of racism and sexism, my very white grandfather ruled the roost. Every Sunday morning, when she was in grade school, a white bus pulled up to the front of the house and my mother and her siblings filed onto the bus and were in the Pentecostal church a good part of the day until the bus brought them home. There wasn’t any independence for her and when she graduated … her dad got married and found their own place in life.

But it wasn’t until much later in life when her faith started to mean something to her. My father was the same way …put on a bus to attend church .. but he had no siblings to go with him and it wasn’t until shortly before his death that he chose Jesus Christ.

Who do you say I am? We have to answer that question for ourselves … and there is a freedom around that which is found in our experiences as spouses and children and parents and employees and in servanthood. Who do you say I am? That Jesus calls us all to different passions and places of servanthood and discovery in our faith. Who do you say I am? Is a question that tradition can only partially answer, but our profession found in experience raises our faith to a new level. Who do you say I am? The lives we live in our geographical locations and the history of events that surround us lead us to not only question who God is …but also leads us to live a life that is dedicated to Gospel living and doing.

May God grant us … a grace and dedication and profession this day as we discover for ourselves … who do we say Jesus is.

In Jesus Name, Amen.

Anti-Clergy (How is that for a title? Wait, it gets better...)

I can remember sitting at the McDonalds at the Bone Student Center at Illinois State University. It was the summer before my freshman year, and I was there for summer registration. During a break we stopped for lunch and the conversation unfolded as my mother questioned as to why I was going to major in History and not History Education. It was suggested that I add the Education endorsement, "because the ministry may not work out."

For the two years prior, I had pursued the ministry for my future. It was my focus, my desire, my passion as I had visioned it. But while I had to reach an obstacle (and I don't consider this an obstacle), from that conversation forward the ministry became less a divine calling as events and conversations revealed that ministry was not as glorified in the minds of others. I met pastors who felt that I should not go into ministry because I was too young. I heard the criticism of the church and clergy by those in my dorm. I heard a campus minister talk about retiring as soon as possible. I heard of scandalous pastors and their zipper problems, money problems, control problems, and struggles with their uncertainty of their sexuality that left churches upset. I heard the stories of clergy from other denominations who had "issues" with children well before the media outcry earlier this decade and the abuse that ensued in other traditions. I served as a youth minister in two different churches with pastors who would not accept responsibility for their own actions.

I can remember lonely rides down the puke filled elevators at Watterson Towers on Sunday mornings and wondering what people were going to think of me as a pastor and whether I should even pursue ministry. As time unfolded, the perceptions of others and anti-clergy feelings became my perceptions and feelings as well. Until I reached a point of breaking down and I found myself kneeling at a cross at East Bay Camp seeking answers and direction as I was only a few months away from graduating from ISU and preparing for seminary.

I was reminded of those anti-clergy feelings again recently as I sat and listened to another clergy who spoke ill of me several years ago go on his verbal tirade about how if one pastor was speaking poorly of another pastor then there was reason to press charges (not legal, but in our church law). I wanted to stand up and confront. I wanted to unleash my own verbal tirade and start a discussion on hypocrisy. I left the meeting and stewed for several days, made comments on my Facebook about biting my tongue. And my anger brought me back into that place of feeling anti-clergy. "What is wrong with you people," I kept asking.

But as the weekend came, I looked in the mirror. I always thought that being ordained never meant being "set apart" as I was told several years ago, but my understanding was to be "set within." To walk alongside, to be one of the people in my congregation and not some glorified punk on a pedestal. Just as I am one of the people, I will get angry and jealous, and be hypocritical. While I pointed my fingers, so there were others pointed at me for my mistakes. If I were to consider such humility in 1997 to kneel at a cross seeking direction, then perhaps 12 1/2 years later, I need to return to that place as well. To be reminded that we all kneel at the cross and ask not only for our sin to be taken from us ... but to also place some of that emotion upon the cross asking God to release me from these feelings that hold me. My confrontation, or desire for revenge, takes God's providence away from God ... is that what I want?

I am glad I am here today ... proud to be in my 13th year of ministry and living among the people of Faith UMC.