Merry Christmas

As I close out the year and end my postings in this blog, thanks for traveling with me. I started out this morning with one of my favorite activities. We headed for the church at 5:30 a.m. to start cooking eggs for the FUMC Christmas Eve Brunch. The decorating team had done a great job yesterday, and the kitchen prep had been done. The Christmas trees and the star were glimmering brightly on the second floor even before the guests began lining up to enter the FLC. I'm always impressed by families with children who can get their tweeners and teenagers up at that hour to serve! For many of our guests, thr FLC is as close to a home as they have, they breakfast there, shower there, eat there, worship there, some attend AA meetings there, and this winter some will find shelter during the coldest nights as we initiate our participation in the cold shelter program. I think of how appropriately we named our building, the Family Life Center. What a lot of life goes on there.

As we end this experiment with the Stewardship Circle, I'm thinking of a conversation recently about the difference between stewardship and discipleship. We make disciples to go into the world and share the good news. That is our great commission. Some disciples also become stewards. Stewards, I think, make a commitment to to building a specific congregation of the United Methodist Church. A steward sees no difference in spiritual development between scrubbing the floor and serving communion. Each act is a sacred act carried out to care for and build up the church.The way in which every activity is carried out is as important as the end result. I think this particular congregation of the United Methodist Church has a very important role to play and its unique gifts are worthy of my support. It is my prayer that we may be found good and faithful stewards of our legacy.

May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace
Now and forevermore, world without end.
Amen

First...

How do I witness today in the midst of my sorrow, my fear, my anger? To what life will I witness? There are many stories to tell of how others have found solace, lived out a faith statement, been moved to take action, by tragedy. Those will come later. But first I turn to the shortest verse in the Bible. Even though he knew his power could overcome death, even though he knew the bigger picture of the universes, even though he was God himself, when faced with the pain of his friends, moved with compassion, "Jesus wept."

Please take one and pass it on

When asked for his message to the world, Ghandi is quoted as saying that his life is his message.Richard Rohr makes the same point when he talks about Mother Teresa, a lowly nun, who could stand before crowds of thousands and repeat simple New Testament phrases and blow people away. He proposes that people were renewed and transformed because, like Jesus and John the Baptist, her authority came from her lifestyle and her pure goodness. "John the Baptist goes on his vision quest into the desert where he faces his aloneness, boredom, and naked self. He returns with a message, with clarity, and with sureness of heart. First he listens long and self-forgetfully, then he speaks, acts, and accepts the consequences."  Rohr goes on to say "transformed people transform people". But transformation alone isn't enough. "The Jewish prophets had one foot in Israel and one foot outside and beyond. So must you have one foot in your historical faith community and one foot in the larger world...in your own world of service, volunteerism, and occupation, or what I call 'lifestyle Christianity'." Rohr points out in his most recent book tying the spiritual journey to a 12 step program, "We do not really appropriate things ourselves until we actively hand them on to others. We have to find the Love, and then give the Love away; and it is amazing how the two events do not always happen within the same group...The first is our spring and our well (home base); the other is the channel away from home base that keeps our well from becoming brackish and stagnant water."  Witness, as it turns out, is not just what we do for others, it is an essential part of our own spiritual growth.

Hear Ye Hear Ye

Jesus says "Let those who have ears hear." - loose translation. I've begun to understand this statement to mean  we hear what we are ready to hear. Once I was in a group counseling situation in which we heard each other and the counselor speak the same truth to a group member for nearly a year. One day she said with some anger and surprise, "Why didn't you tell me that sooner." We'd been telling her for a year. She wasn't ready to hear. If I am going to witness, I have to listen to the "other" and learn what they are ready to hear. I can tell someone all day about the great elder-care counseling and support we have at our church, but until they are in an elder care situation, they won't hear what I have to say. It sounds odd to say it, but the first and most important skill in witnessing is listening. If I really listen to the people around me in my neighborhood, my workplace, my social set, I can discern what they want or need to hear. I was in conversation with someone in a non-profit I serve about paying their dues, when I found us moving from unpaid dues to her life situation, recent divorce, loss of job.... I asked her if she had a faith community of support, and handed her one of our Stephen Ministry information cards. (Yes, I do carry them with me in my purse all the time.) Did she call? I have no idea, that information is confidential. What I do know is that when I least expected it, I heard that someone was in need, and had the opportunity to witness, to share, what I knew about our faith community and let her know she was welcome. Witness isn't limited to some big speech on a corner, or standing up in front of the church and telling a faith story. Witnesses hear and respond appropriately and compassionately to the situations they find in the world around them. Witnessing may be as silent as a hug, or as quiet as a written note. Never knowing when the opportunity will come, stewards keep our lamps trimmed and filled, ready for the moment.

The Fifth Dimension - Witness Part 1

I haven't written for a while because we have been wrapping up the financial stewardship project. You can read about that at fumcaustin.org. Now about that word, witness. During Extravagant Generosity we referred to it by the less intimidating name of storytelling. I find that term more Biblical anyway. Jesus went about doing good, but he also went about telling stories and left the hearer to discern the point of the story for him or herself.

For me, here's the scary thing about storytelling. If I am to tell a story about how I have been transformed, I have to start with who I was before I can get to who I am, and I'm not really prepared to tell you who I was. I'm not prepared to take off this mask I wear today and show the real me who has struggled and continues to struggle through all the mistakes of my life. Storytelling also carries the implication that my story is worth telling and that I have some special truth to impart through my story. I'm not willing to say that I'm that important. I'd rather read a lot, glean the meaning, and report that on to all of you. When I was a professional writer interviewing people for articles I would always tell them every person is an interesting story, it's my job to help you learn how to tell that story. Why, I wonder, do I exempt myself from that statement? 

You're going to read a bunch of quotes from one of my favorite writers, Richard Rohr, over the next few weeks. Here's the first:

"Good religion is always about seeing rightly: “The lamp of the body is the eye; if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light,” as Jesus says in Matthew 6:22. How you see is what you see. And to see rightly is to be able to be fully present—without fear, without bias, and without judgment. It is such hard work for the ego, for the emotions, and for the body, that I think most of us would simply prefer to go to church services." Amen brother. 

First step to telling my story is to be fully present in my life, to look at it with the same compassion, humor, and love, that I hope God takes when viewing it. First step is for me to accept my own story and see it rightly.

Transitions

If you were at the Charge Conference on Sunday, you participated in electing FUMC leadership for the coming year. If you read the list of nominees, you will see that I decided after a decade of service to step out of the leadership circle. There were many reasons for my decision. The most important is that we are in an era of transition and we seek new young leadership. John Wesley says in his covenant," let me be put to work for you or let me be set aside for you." If we will have room for new leadership, old leadership has to get out of the way.

The second thing you may notice is that there is no position of Stewardship Chair on the list of team leaders. After many years of attempting to change the way First Church understands stewardship, it seems clear that I have had minimal success. The traditional reaction to the word steward may just be too strong to overcome. The fact that for three years the nominations committee has been unable to populate a stewardship team seems to be the strongest evidence that we need to do something differently.

This change doesn't mean we will stop having an annual financial stewardship campaign. There will be a task force to carry out that important annual task, and that will be their only job so they can focus on it over the course of a year rather than make it only one of their priorities.

As for stewardship education and the broader understanding of stewardship as a way of life, not an annual financial campaign, that remains unknown. Inclusion of a stewardship education component in the Journey series is the most likely first step.

What of the Circle of Stewards? The concept has been a difficult one to for many grasp in this day of evaluation. It is my way to initiate, to ask questions, to provoke thought, and trust the spirit. You can't evaluate that and make a report. You can't count it, you can't quantify it, and you can't say it succeeded or failed.  The only real investment was my time and effort and I feel that the project has been worthwhile. I have enjoyed hearing from many of you and the conversations have been inspiring. Like most ministries, I gained a great deal by doing the soul searching to write this blog. Records show about 100 people a month are regular readers and I enjoy thinking of you out there as I write, even not knowing who you are. The blog might continue if you like, or we can make it into a forum. Let me hear from you if you have ideas.

For the remaining weeks of my term as your Stewardship Chair, I'm going to talk about the fifth dimension of stewardship, witness. We added that to our membership vows a few years ago but we haven't done much work on understanding what that means. As we go forward in making a new future for FUMC, witness will be an essential component.

The C Word

As we gather in the Estimate of Giving information for First Church and try to develop a budget to undergird our ministries next year, I'm having to help people deal with the C word, commitment. Churches are told these days that asking for commitments puts people off and keeps them from wanting to be part of the church. Well I'm not real found of stop signs either, but my desire to avoid them doesn't mean they aren't a good idea for my own health and safety. One of the big differences between just being a spiritual seeker and accepting the role of steward is commitment. It's not for everyone, but then neither is marriage. That's really the best analogy I can think of. I don't think God sits around thinking up ways we have to prove our faithfulness to him, setting us up with trials we have to pass so we can prove we love God. (I know there is that Job story but that's for another day.)  There are just certain things we have to do in order to progress in our faith.

Let's take the marriage analogy up for a minute.  There are several stages to romantic love. We see the object of our attraction, we spend time with them, we enter into the euphoria of love. Then we have to make some decisions. Either we try to continue in the romantic euphoria indefinitely (not really possible) or we decide to get married. When we decide to marry, we decide to give up some things in order to have others. We make a commitment. We give up exploring that euphoric relationship with someone else. There is nothing wrong with that exploration in itself, but if we are going to have a deep and honest marriage relationship, we forgo seeking that relationship with someone else. We may stop going out for drinks after work and go home to our spouse instead. There is nothing wrong with socializing with other people, but we make choices about how that socializing affects our relationship with our spouse. We don't make the commitment in order to make our lives narrower and sadder, but in order to make a specific relationship deeper and more meaningful. We learn to make our first thought in any situation not how will this affect me, but how will this affect us.

We commit to practices of, prayer, attending worship, service to others, intentionally devoting a percentage of our material wealth, sharing the good news, not because those are penances or rules, but because our tradition tells us those are the ways we live in order to maintain our close relationship with God.

As we approach Christmas and the usual music of the season, I'm reminded of the composer Handel who wrote the famous Messiah. The story is legend about how he sat down without stopping and scrawled out that masterpiece. What isn't in the legend is the years he spend studying his instrument, composition, form and analysis, voicing, instrumentation, honing his skills. That's how I see the Steward's way. Sometimes is feels good, sometimes it doesn't, but every step is progress with faith that the destination and the journey are one.

C Day-1

Here's a play by play of the past few days here at FUMC.

Thursday they began blocking off the streets for the Texas Book Festival, setting up tents. We were waiting in the office for Olivia the Pig to be delivered (a costume we had agreed to accept for the Book Festival crew).  A call from the delivery company reported their truck had been delayed and Olivia would not be arriving until Friday. Alas - not here on Friday I reported. Find a plan B or get Olivia here today.

Friday -  setup began in FUMC spaces as chairs, sound systems, and other necessary items magically appeared on our premises. On duty all day was David Bonner, receiving, stowing, moving, setting up, guiding.... 4:30 he contacts me in LaGrange to report the Festival crew has not shown up to set up the sound. Advising him to go home and rest up for tomorrow, I make sure they have the access code to the FLC. Friday afternoon -  Stewardship Team members update the Extravagant Generosity wall in the Family Life Center.

Saturday 6:30 a.m. Arrived at the FLC and met David. Found the chairs set up facing east, and the panel discussion stage with mics set up in the northeast corner of the room. Reported the problem to event management. Found the Green Room for speakers filled with the items stored from the Women's Shelter and moved them to another classroom just as the volunteers arrived to set up the room. Russia (now Eurasia Team) arrives to set up to sell hot dogs and sausage wraps in the parking lot as a fundraiser. Coffee turns out to be the hot item on this cold morning. Admire the new banners and signs Jen Stuart installed in the FLC and Sanctuary foyers. Respond to request that it's too cold in the FLC.

9:45 a.m. Attendees begin to trickle in to the events in the FLC. Volunteers trained by me to answer the all-important first question - where is the bathroom? Enjoy watching people stop and look at the Extravagant Generosity wall in the FLC and read the cards. Respond to request that it's too hot in the FLC.

Check in at the Sanctuary where a group of FUMC volunteers led by Ann Teich wait prepared to welcome and direct people to the restrooms. Do you notice a common theme here?

All of this trivia leads up to the fact that meanwhile, FUMC is doing church, making all of the plans to celebrate the final week of our Extravagant Generosity study and bring our thanksgiving offering, our estimate of giving for 2013, to the altar on Sunday.

Most of us have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, how many examples of extravagant generosity, radical hospitality, and risk-taking ministry are carried out here every day by faithful stewards. Some are employees, some are volunteers, some are lay members, occasionally they aren't even affiliated with our church, they just like what we do here and want to be part of it.

The sun is shining, children and adults who love books are surrounding the church, hot dogs are waiting to be eaten, coffee is waiting to be enjoyed, FUMC is alive and humming with activity. I think I'll leave my desk (I had to come change the AC setting AGAIN) and go join in the fun. Maybe I'll even encounter the mysterious Olivia. See you on Sunday!

Dreams and Visions

This Sunday in our study of Extravagant Generosity we are considering heart cards that ask about our dreams and visions for our church. Last week I talked about our tendency to consider the word Stewardship as maintaining the status quo. From that perspective, the request for dreams and visions may challenge some of us. How does stewardship relate to dreams and visions. Can we be good stewards if we don't consider ourselves the author of dreams and visions but rather one who is the hands and feet to carry out dreams and visions given to us by others? The Bible stresses that the church is one body with many members, each of whom brings their own unique gifts. It also says that each of the gifts is equally important. If I am a facilitator, and enabler, then I am a good steward if I create environments in which those who are given the gift of vision can be inspired to have visions. If I am given the gift of organization, I am a good steward if I create the infrastructure that enables the dreams and visions to be carried out. Being a good steward consists of many facets, and no one can define for anyone else what one's stewardship call may be. Certainly that call will change over the years as our experience, wisdom, knowledge, and physical strength change. What never changes is the need to be in prayer to discern our gifts and the best way to make use of them. John Wesley goes so far as to pray to God that he should be "put to work for you or set aside for you."

So my fellow members of the circle of stewards, what is your dream, what is your vision? If you don't come up with one, take a look on the website and on the Extravagant Generosity bulletin boards at the main building,or the wall at the Family Life Center. Maybe you will find a vision that calls to you to claim for your own.

Stewards and Wagon Trains

During our discussion on Extravagant Generosity, I want to bring up the always troubling story told in Matthew 25:14-28. It is convenient for illustrative purposes that the word "talent" has double meaning as a coin of the Biblical era and as contemporary natural gifts and "talents."
You can read the story in your favorite translation. The "skip to" verse is verse 36  when the master chastises as "wicked and lazy"  the slave who hid his talent in the ground and gave back only what was given to him. "You should have invested my money with the bankers and when I returned I would have what was mine with interest," the master says.

The slave was afraid to take a risk, afraid to put the talent out in the world and use it to create more talents. By being afraid to fail, and by giving in to that fear, the slave failed on a grand scale. I wish the story had included another slave, one who invested the money and lost it. I long to hear what the master's treatment of that slave would have been.

I feel that too often we view stewardship as only taking care of, maintaining the status quo, protecting where we are, circling the wagons, putting up the stockade fence, waiting out the storm - enough cliches? In this story, Jesus clearly tells us that isn't good stewardship.

We are using the term circle of stewards here, so I want to take the circling the wagons analogy a bit further. The wagons were circled at night so the pioneers could rest safely, but they weren't stopping there, they were resting in order to gain strength for continuing a journey. The safety of the circle was only a temporary respite  in the midst of a journey to a place they have never seen, but had faith existed because they had heard of it from others. The circle was a place of rejuvenation that enabled them to move on to new unknown destinations through a sometimes exciting, sometimes boring, and sometimes dangerous journey.

My dear fellow stewards, my prayer is that we may be for this congregation the circle of safety, but also the faithful stewards who lead in daring to invest our talents and the talents of this congregation in the world so that the Master will receive back what we were given with interest.

Making a Difference

This week's Heart Card is a bit more difficult for me than last week. It's easy to mention pastors or staff who have had an impact on my spiritual growth, but I had to reach into my heart and memory to come up with the name of a fellow member, and then I found myself a little embarrassed to list the names. I know that some of these people have no idea they had an impact on my spiritual life. They may not even know or remember me. That's the thing about living the steward's life. We never know the impact we may be having on those around us. This Heart Card gives us a chance to say thanks to people who have had an impact on us, and to be aware that everything we say or do is having some impact somewhere.

A friend of mine once wrote a play called "Bianca's Wake". I thought from the title it was about a party following a funeral. It turned out the play was about a very self-centered person whose circle of friends found themselves constantly dealing with the drama of Bianca's life. The unfolding of the play was their decision to stop living in Bianca's Wake, and set themselves free to live their own lives. Each of us leaves a wake, and everyone we come in contact with will be affected in some way by that wake.

Here are the people who will appear on my heart card this week. There are more, but this is the start.

Jerry Heare and Dick Young, my long-time mentors in stewardship
Sharon W who taught my first Disciple class
Glenn Johnson who modeled that serving as Finance Chair was a faith journey, not a piece of business, and that prayer really mattered when deep decisions have to be made
Beverly Silas who taught me to say "thank you"

Some of these people have deeply-held beliefs that differ greatly from mine, but in matters of the spirit they have made a difference in my life. I never told them before, so now I follow the simple directive I learned from Beverly Silas: Thank you Beverly, Jerry, Dick, Sharon and Glenn.

Stewardship Vs Generosity - Apples to Cauliflower

Since we've had our first Sunday of discussion, I'll share with you my opinions about "generosity" and "stewardship." Generosity is an aspect of character, the author says. Stewardship is  a responsibility. The author tells us stewardship sounds "weighty, dutiful and legal." How sorry I am that the author's experience with this word has been so negative.

For humans, stewardship is not an option. We are all stewards. The only question is what type of stewards we will be. Whatever our faith beliefs may be, we have responsibility for our actions in relation to the earth, our own gifts, talents, and possessions. Our only decision is what we do with that responsibility. It's like being a citizen. Those of us fortunate enough to have been born citizens of the United States are given certain privileges and responsibilities at birth. We can choose to participate in our processes or not, but we don't choose whether we have the responsibility for doing so - that is our birthright.

I agree that those who are new to the church may not be ready to examine stewardship. They may first need to learn about having generous hearts. But to remove stewardship from the conversation would be to leave those who are on a spiritual path in kindergarten. While we want our language to be available and attractive to those who didn't grow up in the church, we need to be equally dedicated to helping them continually progress in their faith and not leave them at the quick and easy phase of spiritual growth. We never know for sure where anyone is on the path, so we need to continually offer a variety of types of language and faith formation opportunities.

The author leaves us with a set of questions I hope were discussed on Sunday. He asks us to examine ourselves and determine which term is most useful to us, acknowledging that using both terms wisely helps us reach those at different places on the journey of faith. For me, this challenge means keeping myself aware of where others are and keeping my language accessible. But I won't be doing my duty as a steward to leave anyone at a superficial level of faith development. For me, being a steward is not weighty, dutiful or legal. Stewardship is a way of life that enables my every day to have meaning and purpose, whether I'm having a deep spiritual conversation or scrubbing the church floor. If I live this way, I won't have to try to explain what the words mean. I'll be able to say with Gandhi, "My life is my message."

I hope you picked up your devotional book at church on Sunday. If not, they will be available in the foyer of each worship space this Sunday. Here's a preview of what will be happening over the next four weeks. Each Monday we are mailing a note to you with a "Heart Card" enclosed. We are asking everyone to respond by filling out the card and bringing it to the church. You will also be able to fill out the cards online and email them to us, although that isn't quite ready on the website as of this writing. As members of the Stewards Circle, please take the lead in filling out and returning the cards so our bulletin boards can be filled with the messages from our congregation. It always takes a few leaders to get things started. We will have a different card each week.

I got my first heart card returned yesterday. The question is "What do you love about your church? The answer ways, always something to do. Since this came from a fellow staff member I suspect a bit of wry humor there, but it could be taken another way. In a world in which we sometimes feel unimportant and unwanted, FUMC is a place where there is always something to do, and it is always something that really matters. When I was young I thought the "real world" stuff mattered and the church was on the periphery.  Now that I talk every day with people who come to the church for a variety of needs, I realize the church deals with the essential questions, like life and death, and most of the "real world" is on the periphery. In a world where unemployment haunts too many talented people, always something to do can be a gift and a blessing.

Have you read the introduction and first devotional in Extravagant Generosity? Have you seen the differentiation between generosity, the theme of this study, and Stewardship? Please think about this and ask yourself if you see a difference. How would it affect your position as a steward if we changed the name of the office I hold from Stewardship Team Leader to Generosity Team leader? Not surprisingly, I have an opinion. I'll share it with you next week.

Extravagant Generosity

On October 7 First Church will embark on our 2012 financial stewardship emphasis. The theme has been publicized and I hope you have noticed it. Your leadership during this time will be of the greatest value. Part of the church-wide study includes use of a devotional book. The first devotion is very hard on the word stewardship. I got really defensive when I read this chapter. Cooling down a little, I realized the intent of the author, but I respectfully disagree with his premise that we need to use the word, generosity, instead of stewardship. Please pick up one of the devotional books on September 30 and think about the word use and questions at the end of the first chapter. I'd love to hear from some of you with your thoughts on the subject.

Where do we go from here?

The spiritual journey is never a straight line. We enter and leave the process at many times and places during our lives. First Church strives to provide a space for every stage of the way, when we are wandering lost in the wilderness, when we are seeking answers to our deepest questions, when we have decided to join in membership with the congregation and make our public covenant, when we are ready to share our faith as disciples, and when we reach the point of readiness to become God's stewards of our faith community and our world.  Our calling as a church is to be a place where individuals find the resources they need to take the next steps on their faith journey. Our calling as Stewards is to prepare ourselves to do whatever God needs to make that happen. I hope this little series of graphics has given you one tool to tell the story to the next person who asks the question, what does your church believe?

Living the Covenant - Practice Makes Perfect

In addition to the covenant between God and us, the members of the congregation also make agreements each time a new member is welcomed into the community. We are a covenant community. First Church strives to follow the model of a Christian covenant community described in the Bible. United Methodist Church Bishop Schnase outline those practices in a now famous book and several years ago First Church brought them into our awareness and adopted them. The form the next circle of our graphic.

Each of these practices has an inner and an outer component.  We are present for each other in our worship, and present with God in prayer. We develop Faith Forming Relationships through our small groups studies and Sunday School classes, and relationships with God through our Prayer.

Risk-taking Ministries are carried out through service, and our gifts are given individually and privately through caring for each other. Extravagant Generosity describes how we give our gifts of money, a private covenant with God, and our gifts of time and talent through Service to the First Church community and the world.  

First Church has adopted one of those practices, Extravagant Generosity, as the theme for our annual financial stewardship emphasis which begins October 7. As members of the Circle of Stewards, you are well equipped to be leaders for this congregation in the various studies and activities during that emphasis. I hope you will in particular take part in the Heart Card component that enable each of us to share our spiritual growth experiences, and our ministry dreams for First Church. 

I have a poster by my desk at the church that uses the first of each of these practices: Passionate, Risk-Taking, Radical, Extravagant, Faith Forming. These are strong words. These are bold words.  Did you think the life of a Steward should be boring and morose? I think God is calling us to have an adventure.

Living the Covenant - Stewardship Covenant

When we join the United Methodist Church we promise to uphold the church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. This is our membership covenant. Life as a Steward is how we live out that covenant. Hence the name of this exercise, Living the Covenant. 

A covenant is an agreement,  between two entities of unequal power. In a covenant there are two agreements. Each party agrees to carry out certain things, the one of lesser power agrees to do their part, the one of greater power agrees to be faithful to the covenant, and to support the one of lesser power. Our membership agreement is not just a contract or an obligation on our part, it is an agreement is which we make promises to God and God makes promises to us - a covenant.

This symbol is a representation of our membership covenant. Through the months of the church calendar and liturgy, there is emphasis on different aspects of the covenant. In this representation, there is emphasis on the prayer quadrant.  At the center is the word witness. We experience God's grace, we are witnesses. We share that grace with the world, we act as witnesses.

Living the Covenant - Quarilateral Parts 2-4

Scripture, however, is not accepted blindly or literally.Wesley did not discount the rational mind, he respected it.  Logic and reason were applied to interpretation of scripture.  For Methodists today, words spoken and transcribed through multiple languages thousands of years ago are interpreted in light of what we have learned about of linguistics, anthropology, history, biology, current scientific knowledge, all brought to bear to better understand the deep truths of the scripture. 

Direct experience of God, like Wesley’s Aldersgate experience is important to the spiritual journey, but in a vacuum, personal experience can be misinterpreted with terrible results. Evaluating personal experience in light of the Scripture, our traditions, and conferencing with other members of a faith community allows us to better receive the messages we receive from God through our personal experience. 

We benefit from the wisdom of history by examining Scripture, knowledge and experience in light of our Methodist tradition. We also examine that tradition to see when we may have collectively misinterpreted God’s messages for the church. Methodists gather annually on the regional level and every four years on the international level to examine our tradition and make adjustments. Over the years Methodists have reexamined their stance on issues such as slavery, participation of non-clergy members in ministry, and the rights of women to be ordained. Current issues continue to be reexamined in this same tradition, bringing current knowledge, experience, and Scripture to the examination.

Born in love, prepared through study, supported by community, the Christian steward accepts a role as caretaker for all of  God’s creation through actions.

Living the Covenant - Wesly's "quadrilatral"

John Wesley started his career as a minister with an emphasis on strict interpretation of rules, and that ministry was not very successful. One evening coming home from a prayer meeting, Wesley had a moment of epiphany in which he reports “his heart was strangely warmed,” and he realized the depth of God’s grace. He realized it was grace, not rule following, that allows us to draw close to God.  Grace is a total gift, it cannot be earned and cannot be lost, it can only be accepted. That realization, known as the Aldersgate experience, was to change Wesley, and the future of Protestantism.

Wesley devised a method to enable others to come to know this incredible gift of grace.  His followers so diligently followed the method that they came to be known as Methodists, and the name has stuck for several hundred years. The basics of the Methodist lifestyle are outlined in the vows Methodists take when joining the church, to uphold the church by our prayers, presence, gifts,  service and witness that in everything God may be glorified.  

Wesley also devised ways of evaluating actions and beliefs to keep Methodists on track. Modern theologians have referred to this method as the Wesleyian Quadrilateral.  Scripture refers to the words of the Bible, the basis for Christian thought. Scripture is the authority on which all things are based.

Living The Covenant - The Greatest of These is Love

When Jesus was asked what the greatest law was he responded the first was love of God and the second was love of others. All else, he said, was interpretation. 

Jesus brought a revolutionary concept to his time, a time in which kings had all power and the people none. You, Jesus said, are the light of the world, the salt of the earth. Each of you is the temple of God. Through love, God told each person they were worthy. We not only love God and others, we love and respect ourselves as the abiding place of the divine.

John Wesley, founder of the United Methodist Church,  brought the good news to the downtrodden people of Victorian England (think Oliver Twist) when he brought his philosophy  of social justice, and social action, to the factory workers and founded the spiritual fellowship that became the United Methodist Church. John Wesley not only told the people they were worthy, he gave them the tools to take their existence from one of despair to joy.

Knowing that everything is from God and is given to us only to be used for God’s glory is very liberating. We don’t have to tie ourselves to our possessions, our accomplishments, our appearance …. we are free to enjoy every gift without greed and without fear of losing. Our self-esteem is based on God’s love, not who or what we are, and God’s love is a gift.

Living the Covenant

Yesterday a guest at IHN asked me what kind of church this was. I replied, "Methodist." As we stood in the foyer chatting over a cold drink of water she said, "What do you believe?" My mind began racing, here it was, the "elevator speech" opportunity. What would you have answered? You never know when it might happen, but it's good to be prepared. I'd love to share here your suggestions.

Some of us are aural, some readers. Some of us learn best from graphs, some from symbols. For the next few weeks we're going to construct a stewardship symbol that describes my understanding of stewardship using a graphic element. For me, it helps tie things together and remember some the meaning behind some of the words. I did this first a few years ago in a series of presentations called Living the Covenant. It continues to evolve, but if anyone would like to have this shared in their small group (study group, Sunday School, whatever) let me know and we can arrange it. The title is Living the Covenant - Christian Stewards.
 

Stewardship is the word we use to describe how we live out our faith in the world. Our life as stewards is acknowledgment that all that we are and all that we have is a gift from God, given to us to be used for God’s purposes.

In the United Methodist Church, we follow a process of spiritual development that includes growth in areas of communion with God (prayer), communion with each other (presence), management of the world and its resources (gifts), management of our own time (service) and sharing with the world the good news we have learned as Christians (witness).

God’s first gift is love and all things stem from that love. 

What's Next

It's been a while since I updated - we've been busy getting together the planning for this year's Financial Stewardship project. I promised that this Stewards Circle would have one specific aim, and that signing on to be part of the Circle would not commit you to anything else. That is still true. But if any of you are moved to be part of this year's Financial Stewardship project as part of your Stewards' journey, please let me know. I'm really excited about what we are doing this year. A few years ago we studied a book by Bishop Schnase about the 5 practices of fruitful congregations: Radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk taking mission and service, extravagant generosity. A group of pastors and lay experts created a guide for Stewardarship education based on the principles of Extravagant Generosity. That's the guide we are using this year.

In case you missed picking up a monthly newsletter at worship, I'll repeat here what we put in the August issue as a teaser. We started with a quote from author Annie Dillard. "If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions of profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go."

Afire - how well that goes with our cross and flame emblem. We are a pentecost people, at our best afire with the energy and enthusiasm of the Holy Spirit. Normally extravagance is a word with a bad rep. Paired with "generosity" it takes on a whole new meaning. Like a fish looking for water, we seek security in scarcity mentalities when all around us God is showering us extravagantly with blessings to be shared. Finding, celebrating, and passing on those blessings in acts of extravagant generosity will be our focus during October. Of course, you don't have to wait, you could start now if you like.

Closing Ceremonies

And so it ends. I hope you have had some fun with this little adventure in comparing Olympian training to stewardship. One thing it did for me was bring a new perspective to my following the events. New commitments lead to new perspectives and new ways of seeing things, including myself. It's like putting a colored filter over the lens of a camera.

Today's quote is from LaBron James, US basketball team after winning the gold, "It means more than myself, it means more than my name on my back. It means everything to the name on the front."
I think I'll carry that image around for a while.

The Agony of Defeat

And then it happens - you lose. Even a proven champ like Gabby Douglas can fall short.  For some it was enough to be competing. For others that first medal, even a bronze, was a victory. For the expected champion, for the one who lost by hundredths of a second, a silver medal holds no glory.

Here's where the analogy between Olympic training and being a Steward in training ends. For the Steward - there is no defeat. That isn't to say there aren't times of feeling lost, estranged, like we are living in a spiritual desert. Those are necessary times in our spiritual growth. But the great example of the crucifixion is that what looks like defeat to the world may actually be victory. As a steward accepting my role in caring for God's church and for all of creation, I feel pretty defeated right now. That's when I need the support of my team, my coach, my sports psychologist (translate that to be my church, my God, and my pastors).

The Grace Zone

Have you ever had one of those magic moments when time seemed to stop and everything just flowed the way it should? I'm not an athlete, but I've spent a lot of years performing music. We practice and practice, rehearse and rehearse, and mostly we do a good job of performing. Most times the audience enjoys itself and we don't fall off the stage. But once in a while there is a magic moment when everything just comes together. Every note falls effortlessly into place - high notes sail, fingers effortlessly toss off those 16th note passages. You can't make those happen, you can't force them. Just sometimes, like grace, the moment arrives. You never forget, and you always hope it happens again, but you can't make it or fake it. You just have to keep practicing and wait.

Last night in the Olympics I saw an athlete will perform a personal best far beyond what she have ever done before. Her magic moment comes at the right time. You know that physically her body was capable of it all along, but for unknown reasons, only at one particular magic moment, it happened. Champions find ways to perform at that level regularly, but even champions rarely enter into that space where it all seems effortless.  There a lot of pop terms for those magic moments. I choose to call them  grace. But here's the thing, those moments of grace don't come along unless the hard work was done first, The hard work enables them, but it can't force them.

Stewards prepare mentally, spiritually, and physically so that when it's time to perform a personal best we're ready. We can't guarantee the moment of grace, but we can put ourselves in a position to receive it when it comes.

Coaching

News flash is that coaches weren't allowed to march in the Olympic opening ceremonies. They needed to cut back on the number of participants and the coaches were the ones to go. US coach Geno Auriemma is quoted as saying "To be honest the Olympics are about the athletes. No one really remembers who the coaches were. No one remembers who coached Jesse Owens." True enough coach, I certainly don't remember. But Jesse Owens did have a coach, as has every outstanding athlete in history. I was visiting the exhibit at the Blanton and saw a BCE bas-relief showing the coaches preparing young athletes in the "gymnasium." The coach is the one with the nerve to look the fastest runner on the planet in the eye and tell him/her they can run faster, and this is how to do it. Everybody needs a coach. Stewards in training need coaches as well. When I started this idea of an anonymous Steward's Circle that could exist virtually, I may have overlooked the importance of community for spiritual growth. Can we achieve that type of community virtually? Can we carry on our personal spiritual growth without a coach to call us to task? John Wesley didn't think so. That's one thing his small groups were for. Can we re-create the ethos of the spiritual coaching tradition we have inherited?

Curling is a winter sport - you won't see it this summer. It is one of the strangest sports I have ever seen. I first encountered it when I moved to Wisconsin and I thought the people playing this odd game on the ice had lost their minds. In case you don't know the sport, one person tries to slide the stone across the ice to a goal. Teammates sweep around the stone in an effort to help guide it. They are not allowed to touch the stone, only to create an environment around it that helps guide it to its goal. This sport, which you will see in the Winter Olympics, describes for me of the life of a steward. I'm not allowed to jump into anyone's life and make them experience God or carry out mission work, or act in any particular way. My task is to be a good sweeper - to create an environment in which every stone is best enabled to reach its destination. I like this analogy for a couple of reasons, one of which is it helps keep me from taking myself too seriously. When I get all tied up in knots I imagine myself sweeping away with my little broom. Watch a curling video and see what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXeXNHRPMMI

Getting to the Starting Line

Oscar Pistorius was born without fibulas (the bone in the calf of the leg). This summer he will compete as a sprinter in the Olympics. What kind of limits did his parents accept for their handicapped South African son? What kind of training did he have as a child that made him think he could do this? How did he get the courage to appear in front of people as the “Blade Runner.?” What affect will his appearance have on the thousands of young Americans coming home from the war without limbs?

Part of the controversy around Pistorius is the question of whether his artificial limbs are actually an advantage that should disqualify him from running. Scientists explore whether a set of prosthetics that would not give him an unfair advantage might be created. Meanwhile, Richard Hirons, clinical specialist at the company that manufacturers the prosthetics brings up the human side. “Sprinting is a small part of any runner’s daily life,” he commented. “Most people just see him on the starting line. But it’s also about carrying his bags to the starting line, taking a bath or a shower, going up stairs. It’s about what he’s able to do to get to the starting line.”

That’s the point isn’t it. What did it take for him to get to the starting line? What teams of specialists and family members have supported him along the way?  What does his story offer to the Steward in training? What do we have to do to get to the starting line?

The Backstory

The TV networks fear the drama of athletic  competition alone isn't exciting enough to entice us to watch the "minor" sports. To lure us in, the sportscasters give us backgrounding. One Olympic broadcaster in particular is sometimes criticized for dwelling on the  tearjerking life stories of Olympic athletes more than their actual athletic accomplishments. The person of the week seems to be women's soccer goalie Hope Solo. Now I couldn't have made up a name like that for a novel and gotten by with it. But then, I couldn't have made up a character like Hope Solo and gotten by with it either. If ever I am tempted to give up and run away from a challenge or a mistake, her story would serve to inspire me.

We all care more about the game and its outcome when we feel a personal connection to the players, when we know their story, particularly if there is drama in the story. Young athletes benefit from hearing about the struggles their heroes have gone through. Spiritual athletes in training are inspired in the same way. Stories of faith journeys inspire, capture the imagination and the heart, and make the faith story real, personal, and accessible. In the church, we call that witness. Stewards share their stories (appropriately) to help others on the way. Telling one's own story may seem egotistical or self centered. Sometimes it's just embarrassing. But my story, like all things in my life, is a gift to me, one that is made sacred by sharing it with another pilgrim.

Stewards who have stories share them. Stewards in training ask to hear them.

A New Look at Grace

I came across this quote recently in a book entitled Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered by James Wilhoit.  "Grace is God's sustaining and transforming power."  We Methodists talk a lot about grace. We've even given it a bunch of first names, (pervenient, justifying, and sanctifying). United Methodist Women has a great outline of what we mean by grace on their website. http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/walk.stm/. They explain grace as God's gift, freely offered to humankind, with us from birth, with us when we enter a new life in Christ, and with us as we try to live out that new life.

I always thought of grace as sort of a gift from God that forgives my shortcomings. Wilhoit brought a new picture to mind, grace = power. He says in the Book of Acts grace essentially equals power. Those people who were full of grace were also full of power to preach and work mighty miracles. If I think this way, when I gratefully accept God's grace, I also accept that God has given me the power to live gracefully in the world and share that grace and power with others. Musing on this, I remembered something from the confirmation service language and looked it up in a hymnal. One of the questions is, "Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?" Through this sacrament, God is offering me freedom and power. The question wasn't do I believe it, the question was, do I accept it. I must have answered "I do." My name is on the rolls. What does this mean to me today as a Christian steward?

As a Steward, I am set free from whatever restraints might hold me back from doing God's work - and I have been given the power to do what needs to be done. The Bible is full of stories of people with all sorts of reasons to think they couldn't do what God asked, and some seemed by earthy standards to have failed (like that inconvenient crucifixion). In today's world where fear and protectionism dominate the public psyche, God's stewards are called to act with courage. Fortunately, we have been given the power to do that. We access that power through faith, but also through the practices and disciplines that sustain that faith.

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Distractions

Into the Olympic news comes the scandal of athletes' outfits made in China. No opinion will be expressed here on that fact. As the one who used to have to craft press releases and sometimes do damage control, I applauded the response from the Olympic committee saying pretty much we're focused on training athletes and winning medals right now. I hope the athletes can be similarly focused and not distracted by sensationalist "news" reporters. The conductor of a musical organization I play in refers to the intrusion of "monkey brain." I'm thinking about my next notes and all of a sudden find myself wondering which lane on the freeway will be closed when I drive home after rehearsal. Oops - missed that note! Practicing intentional mental focus consistently improves our ability to focus, but the world doesn't support that sort of thing - just the opposite. I live my life as a mother, grandmother, sister, employee, spouse, citizen, church member, Stephen minister..... Wow! How do I make choices of time and attention. How do I know who I am?

That's when the focus brought by one of the phrases I mentioned last week really helps me. "Leave your house like a shepherd." If I live my life as a Steward, living out all of these relationships as a shepherd, then all of these roles are the ways in which I carry out my stewardship. My relationship with God is primary. All these roles are my opportunity to strengthen that relationship, come to a deeper understanding of it, and by living as God's representative in the world, be a means through which others can also develop and deepen that relationship. For me, that puts a whole new spin on every role I play and helps me to make necessary decisions about priorities.

We ask our Olympic athletes to be clothes models, hucksters for products, ambassadors for our country, promoters for the Olympic committee, and myriad other things. But just before the starting shot, in that moment, they know are competitors and all of their focus will be on one thing. I want to go into my day like a shepherd, but also like an Olympic athlete who has trained and practiced, ready for the race.