About Us Blogs!
Are You A Growing Christian?
[Steve's Blog]
05/30/2010
By Woody, Steve
ARE YOU A GROWING CHRISTIAN? For the past couple of months I have been using the venue of the Pastor’s newsletter article (and now the blog) to share with you some epiphany’s I have had regarding ministry. These “epiphanies” have been the result of my time here at this church and what we have experienced together, and a seminar I attended this past February in San Diego, Ca. One conclusion I reached is that I need to be much more intentional as a pastor, in caring for and nurturing the spiritual growth of all members. Now in a church this large it’s not reasonable for me to do all the duties of the Sr. Pastor and oversee the Christian education or Spiritual growth ministries of the church. But I can work with leaders of the church to develop a comprehensive ministry that can help all members grow in their spiritual life and I can do a better job of helping everyone grow spiritually through the message I preach on Sunday. In a past article I shared that I have changed my focus on preaching. Rather than “dumbing things down” and focusing the message towards the unchurched or the new Christians, I am now focusing on preaching to the growing Christians while still making things understandable to everyone. Simply put, I am trying very hard to give you something each Sunday that will help you grow in your faith and possibly challenge you theologically. To this end, I am now including a “sermon study sheet” at each service. There are “fill in the blank” questions you can answer while you listen to the sermon to help you stay “dialed in” to the message. There are questions for you to answer later at home that may have you looking inward at your walk with God. There are questions with suggested scripture texts that allow you to go deeper into the study than I was able to go in the limited time I had t o preach the message. In short, this is a way for you to take the message home and go into more depth on your own. This is not a big thing, it’s a small thing, but I believe it’s a start in the right direction. This is just the beginning of a long range plan to help every member of our church to become a growing Christian. It has been said before and my goal is that it will never be said again, “I’m not being fed spiritually here”. Most of my ministry I’ve been concerned with making new Christians. While this is important, I think I can better serve the Kingdom and this church if I focus more on making better disciples. In The Service of Christ and the Church, Rev. Steve D. Woody
TROUBLING MEMORY
[Cheryl's Blog]
05/19/2010
By Smith, Cheryl
I’ve have been unsettled ever since yesterday when a homeless woman came to the church and we couldn’t help her. Now, homelessness is troubling to start with—but there was more to this case. The woman who came yesterday was homeless and obviously mentally ill. By any standards, she was psychotic—unable to think straight or follow rational lines of thought.
I’ll bet you’ve seen this woman recently. She wanders up and down Fairmont. I almost ran over her once when I was trying to park at a local restaurant and she was sitting in the parking space—talking away to persons unseen by the rest of us. She wandered off waving her arms with her head covered with a woolen stocking cap on a hot day. Her skin is weathered, her eyes vacant and her body looks like it has been through a lot. She is mentally ill and unable to care for herself.
I wonder if she has ever been on medicine for her illness. Did she have a family at one time that has just grown weary? Does she have a family that doesn’t know where she is—that doesn’t know that she wanders up and down city streets wildly talking to folks that aren’t there?
Well, she wandered into our church yesterday for the umpteenth time. When she was told something she did not want to hear, she flew off the handle, screaming and yelling and running out of the building. She uttered some obscenities I can’t repeat and she screamed that we would all burn in hell. I could hear her yelling at us all the way down Fairmont a block away.
My heart broke. This, too, is God’s child. This person, too, is worthy of medical care and treatment for her illness. This person, too, deserves to sleep under a roof and eat food that wasn’t dug out from a dumpster. But it is likely that she won’t get any of those things. And why is that? Well, it’s not because people don’t care. It’s because our society offers very little in the way of response to those who are mentally ill. Beginning back in the 1970’s, a movement swept the country in which mentally ill people by the thousands were released from hospitals and state schools to the “least restrictive environment.” It was considered unkind to keep them in protective custody if they could live in the community and get follow-up care at a community health clinic.
Unfortunately, the very nature of their disease sometimes keeps the mentally ill from being able to follow up at a community health clinic. It takes a lot of organization and follow-through to be in the system, fill out all the forms, make the appointments, wait for hours to be seen and remember to take the medicines. Most of the homeless people living in parks and wandering the streets are people with such mental instability that they cannot function without assistance. And so we let them loose. . . to sit in parking spaces. . . .and wear woolen caps in the summer heat. . . .and scream at well-meaning people who would help them if they only could.
There is not a neat conclusion to this blog entry. No succinct point to make it all better. There’s nothing better at all about the way our society treats our mentally ill. If Jesus were here, he might be turning over a few tables and thrashing a few of those in power if he saw what we do and call it “good.”
JUST GIVE HER THE BOOT!
[Cheryl's Blog]
04/29/2010
By Smith, Cheryl
If you have seen me the past couple of weeks, you have noticed my new fashion accessory. . . . a knee-high, cumbersome orthopedic boot on my left foot. It is not very attractive and I am far from graceful wearing it, but it is quite effective in allowing me to walk without pain on my broken foot. All told, it is not a very bad (temporary,) handicap to have.
The whole experience of wearing this eye-catching boot has given me pause to think about those whose handicaps are more severe and not so temporary. I actually think about how far my parking space is from my destination now whereas usually I don’t. I have dreaded the occasions on which I was to meet new people, thinking that I might not like the first impression they would have of me. I have tried, and not been successful, in keeping my regular pace at all my usual places. A trip to the Medical Center to visit patients today nearly did me in!
So how insensitive have I been to those whose ability to be mobil is impaired? Well, probably some. Have I been guilty of making judgments based on a first impression of a handicap rather than taking the time to get to know the person? I am sure I have. Have I always extended compassion to the slow moving person in front of me or have I sometimes been irritated that I couldn’t get where I wanted fast enough? Oh, yeah, I plead guilty.
There’s nothing like walking in someone else’s shoes—or boot—to change one’s perspective. Once I get this boot off, may I be found with more compassion, more patience, less irritation and greater sensitivity to those whose “boots” are not coming off. May God bless them!
TIME TO GO. . . .OR MAYBE NOT
[Cheryl's Blog]
04/20/2010
By Smith, Cheryl
TIME TO GO. . . .OR MAYBE NOT
April 20, 2010
With the Easter celebration over, I looked forward to having Easter Monday off. As always, the work load had increased during Lent and Easter. It was an absolutely wonderful time, but nevertheless, I anticipated some time at home to renew myself.
First on my list of fun things to do was to get into my yard and see what I could do to bring some life to it. My yard, like many of yours, is suffering from a rather brutal winter. There is more brown than green in my yard. Even the grass died! (I didn’t know it was possible to kill that stuff. When I am trying to eradicate it from unwanted places, it comes back with a vengeance!) At any rate, it was time for some things to go. . . .starting with those leggy, unwieldy hibiscus plants by the front door.
I was snookered into buying those plants. They were small, compact with beautiful blooms on them, and only $3.99 at Home Depot. I stuck them in a bed close to my front door thinking they would provide some interesting color and over the years they certainly did. They provided color extending over the sidewalk and all the way over the eaves and sticking up beyond the roof. Good grief! Who knew I was planting the hibiscus that ate New York!
My husband would make periodic threats against those plants. He said it was a darned shame a man couldn’t get in his own front door without having to fight off plants bigger than he was. He would say from time to time that he was going to go cut those things down. To save their lives, I had long since bought bungee cords and tethered them to the face of the house. Still, no one could walk along the sidewalk, but my efforts on their behalf were enough to save them from my husband. So, it was partly as an effort to clean up the yard and partly as a gift to him that I went after those brown, dead limbs with a saw on Easter Monday.
There was not a shred of life in those brown sticks. Except for the fact they were so thick, I think I could have just broken them off, but saw them I did. At the end of my efforts, I had a big stack of ugly brown limbs for the trash man to carry off. I have to admit that even I was pleased to be able to walk up the sidewalk to the front door without stooping and fending off attacking limbs. Time to go—you know—a time for everything and its season?
But what was that I spied just a couple of days ago in that bed? Surely not. It just couldn’t be. . . .green shoots? I bent down to investigate among the stubs of what were now large hibiscus trunks, and sure enough, there are green shoots coming up from those roots. What I had thought was dead and lifeless and no longer useful is springing with new life. I never would have suspected that they would grow again. I thought it was time for them to go. . . .but God must have had other plans.
So I won’t get rid of those bungee cords. I might need them again before summer is out. And I won’t take after those pitiful brown oleanders with my saw. They, too, might have life in the roots. And, I think for just a few more weeks, I won’t tell my husband that the hibiscus are back. He will know soon enough. Might as well let him think he is king of the mountain just a little bit longer!
Do You Have Balance In Your Spiritual Life
[Steve's Blog]
03/30/2010
By Woody, Steve
DO YOU HAVE BALANCE IN YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE?
Last month I wrote about my continuing education trip to Saddleback church in California. I shared with you that one of the realizations I came away with was that we (and by “we”, I mean, the church, its leaders, and each of us as individuals) often do not have a strategy for personal, spiritual growth. I reminded you of a truth that deep down inside of our spiritual selves we all know, God intends for us to grow spiritually! Jesus intends that his disciples move from a “Come and see” faith to a “Come and take up your cross” faith. But before you can move to that depth of faith you need to know what the finished product looks like. What are the elements of a mature Christian disciple? What do I need to do, or ask God to do in me, so that I can become the spiritually mature Christian that God intends? Well, I believe that Jesus taught that it is important to have “balance” in your spiritual life. As Jesus was teaching his disciples how to grow in their faith he lifted up five areas necessary for those who are to be growing disciples. Jesus placed a strong emphasis on the need to focus ourselves spiritually in the following five areas; Fellowship, Discipleship, Worship, Christian Service, and Evangelism. On countless occasions he taught his disciples the importance of each one of these, both for their own spiritual growth and for the glory of the Kingdom of God. The truth of the gospel is that a true disciple of Jesus will live out their Christian faith nurturing every one of these practices of the faith. The question then for all of us is, “Do you have balance in your spiritual life?” If we just focus on Fellowship there will be no depth to our faith and we will become shallow, weak and ineffective disciples. If all we worry about is Discipleship, i.e., studying the bible, praying to God etc., but have little or no connection to the body of Christ through worship, Christian service, or fellowship, we will become nothing more than Pharisees, who have a lot of knowledge but no practical application. If all we do is worship but don’t attempt to go deeper into God’s word, or live out our worship by reaching out to others, we risk becoming self-serving hypocrites who are only looking for a temporary feel-good. If we spend all our time in Christian service and evangelism but don’t study God’s word, seek the fellowship of others, or receive the strength that comes from corporate worship, our efforts are wasted and we will easily burn out. If you’re not growing spiritually the first thing you might need to do is to examine yourself and ask, “Where is my spiritual life out of balance?” When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments I’m convinced that they were not just arbitrary laws but they were meant for the people’s well-being. Jesus had a reason for teaching his disciples the importance of each of these five areas of faith practice. He knows that each is necessary if we are to become the disciples God created us to be. I believe that a large part of my task as a minister of the gospel is help Christian disciples to grow in their faith. I take this very seriously and I believe that spiritual growth is the key to finding joy in life. I intend to work with the leaders, the staff and the with each of you to help develop a strategy for spiritual growth and in the near future I believe we will be able to give hand you a “Spiritual health assessment” that will allow you to “test yourself” and see where your spiritual life might be a bit out of balance while offering suggestions as to things you might do to start the process of growth in those areas. I pray for the day when our entire church is taking this assessment and all are developing a personal strategy for their own spiritual growth.
Are We Growing Disciples?
[Steve's Blog]
03/15/2010
By Woody, Steve
ARE WE “GROWING” DISCIPLES?
Last month I was privileged to attend the “Radicalis” conference at Saddleback church in Lake Forrest California. Saddleback church was founded about 30 years ago. Today they have a membership of well over 87,000 and a weekly attendance of about 38,000. Rick Warren, the author of the best selling, “Purpose Driven Life” books is the Sr. Pastor of Saddleback. No they are not a United Methodist church but much of what they teach is Wesleyan and I was pleasantly surprised when they started the Conference on Wednesday morning with a short video about John Wesley. In this video they called Wesley a “radical” disciple. If you know anything about John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, you know that statement is true. I would also go so far as to suggest that they practice a form of “radical” discipleship at Saddleback. In fact, I’m a bit saddened to say that I believe that if he (Wesley) were alive today that he might suggest that their brand of radical discipleship is closer to Wesley’s model than is the bulk of the discipleship we practice in the United Methodist church. The very first discipleship instruction (or invitation) Jesus gives to the disciples occurs in the gospel of John when Jesus says to first of the twelve, “Come and See”. Later in his ministry Jesus would give many other instructions/invitations with the final and perhaps most challenging of all being, “Take up your cross and follow me” or more literally, “Come and Die”. Throughout his ministry Jesus worked with the disciples to move them from, “Come and See” to “Come and die”. Throughout the bible it is made very clear that this progression is meant for all who would follow Christ. We’re not meant to spend our entire lives in the “Come and See” stage, just checking Jesus out, testing the waters to see if this Christian discipleship thing is really for us. Jesus intends that we move from “Come and See” to “Come and Die”. I’m not there yet. I would like to believe that I am but I’m honest enough with myself to know that I’m not there yet. But I have allowed Jesus and the Holy Spirit to move me past “Come and See” and I can faithfully say that I’m on my way to “Come and Die”. What struck me the most about Saddleback and their discipleship ministry is that they not only know that this is where we are all meant to be but they have a strategy for getting there and they work to teach their congregants how to get there by giving them the tools to get there. We don’t necessarily do that in the United Methodist church; our model for moving from “Come and See to “Come and Die” has been to faithfully preach the Word and provide bible studies and learning experiences and then hope that spiritual growth happens. I’m beginning to believe this model is flawed. In the coming months, year/s I intend to work with the church staff, the church leadership and the appropriate ministry teams to help this church develop a strategy for the spiritual growth of our members; a strategy that offers guidelines and proposes goals for spiritual growth, a strategy that is not top down but invites the individual to take part in their own spiritual growth by giving them the tools to do so. Everything about this feels right and feels, “of God”. I pray that together we might reclaim some of that “radical discipleship” that we may have lost as United Methodists.
In the Service of Christ and the Church
Rev. Steve D. Woody
On Being Too Busy
[Cheryl's Blog]
02/18/2010
By Admin, Admin
About Being Too Busy. . . .
Have your ever noticed how people brag about being too busy? It is like a badge of honor. Our Puritan forefathers and foremothers have really done a number on us when offering up proof that we don’t have a minute to spare is cause for intense pride. That Puritan work-ethic insisted that work was the highest aim of humanity, and that work, work, work was what it was all about. Perhaps that made better sense when there were crops to be harvested by hand and soap to be made from ashes in the fireplace. Perhaps when feeding your children meant milking the cow in the dark and preserving vegetables during the growing season, it is understandable why daylight-to-dark, bone wearying work would be the golden virtue.
Add to that our Wesleyan strand of work ethic. Did you know that every Methodist minister, upon taking ordination vows has to answer affirmatively to this question? (Will you) be diligent? Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary. (UM Discipline P. 425)
But I think we’ve lost sight of the meaning of work. Or maybe it’s that we have expanded the definition of work. Work now includes, not only life-sustaining things like producing income and feeding families, but things like multiple activities for our children that require us to have spread-sheets to keep up with them. Work now can include commuting on freeways, sometimes an hour or two or three per day. Work has become for some of us like the gorilla that ate New York. And here’s the distortion that pervades our culture. . . . .we brag about it. We think something is wrong if we aren’t as busy as the next person. When we retire, we sometimes lose our purpose and don’t know what to do with our newly available time. If we can’t identify ourselves as victims to a busy schedule, we don’t know how to identify ourselves at all.
So, I am going to give up something a bit odd for Lent this year. I am going to give up any pride about how busy I am and will confess it for the sin that it sometimes is. When I am still at the church working after what some would consider bedtime, I will not have any pride about that, but I will confess my sin of being a poor steward of the time that was given to me that day. When I am in a group and the conversation turns toward how busy we are, I will stop and readjust my thinking and, if I think to mention my over-busyness at all, I will confess it rather than boast about it.
For I think our pride about how busy we constantly are is just another idol. . . . .and I know what God thinks about idols. From the beginning of our faith tradition, God has wanted no others gods before him. . . . .even if it is the god of busyness while serving him.
Lent may be very revealing for me this year. I have a lot to learn, and not much time in which to learn it. . . . .oops! Sorry. I have all the time I need, and by God’s grace, I may just learn something about distributing that time over the next 40 days. Whatever it is you need to learn, may God grace you with gentle learning opportunities. May you have a blessed Lent in anticipation of a glorious Easter!
Curbside Ministry
[Cheryl's Blog]
02/05/2010
By Admin, Admin
Every fall at our church, we have a focus on ministry opportunities. People are asked, encouraged, begged even, to indicate what they would be willing to do in service to their church and to the larger service of Jesus Christ. We’ve got everything from, “Teach a Sunday School class,” to “Help on workdays.” We’ve got opportunities for youth volunteers and opportunities for clerical volunteers and opportunities for those who would pray or cook or visit or trim trees or sing. . . . . . .well, you get the point.
Yesterday, I was returning to the church from a luncheon appointment, and as I drove up, I saw one of our staff members doing a ministry I don’t remember seeing on last fall’s ministry sign-up. For lack of a better name for it, let’s just call it, “Curbside Ministry.”
This staff member was sitting on the curb in our parking lot beside a disheveled woman who couldn’t have looked in worse shape. Even from a distance I could see that she was gaunt, not very well-kept and crying like she had lost her last friend. I thought about walking over to them, but with a quick assessment decided against it since this staff member seemed to be involved in a very personal conversation with the woman, I didn’t see a particular need to interrupt what was obviously going just fine without me.
Shortly, the staff member came into the office to let us know that she would be driving the woman home. It seems that the woman was severely under the influence of alcohol and had been rescued from a dangerous situation—wobbling down our sidewalk close to the busy traffic of Fairmont. The staff member acknowledged that the woman was in pretty bad shape—she was going to have to put some protective pads in her car to even be able to transport the woman. But transport her she did. She lovingly took her home—made sure she got to a family member and then returned to the church to get on with her work.
Now this staff member is not ordained. . . .but she is called. She is called to be in ministry wherever she finds herself—just like we all are. What’s true is that those who would be faithful to our baptismal vows, even to our vows of membership, must necessarily be available for “Curbside Ministry.” Curbside Ministry is that ministry that doesn’t fit into any neat category and may, indeed, be fairly messy. But it appears when one least expects it, and whether or not we’ve checked a box on a form at church or not, we have the opportunity to be faithful. Listen up follower. . . . . .look quick, disciple. . . . .be alert Christian. . . . .there is probably going to be an opportunity for Curbside Ministry for you today. My prayer for you, (and for me,) is that we would be faithful.
2010 Visioning
[Steve's Blog]
01/27/2010
By Admin, Admin
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!!
As I write this we have just concluded our third annual Leadership Training and Visioning Conference. One hundred and eleven members of this body of Christ met for prayer, visioning and planning for how we might be the best church we can be in all areas of ministry in the coming year. Every Ministry team took a critical look at their respective ministries asking the questions; “What did we do well? What can we do better? What do we hope to see in the coming year?” The answers were insightful, faithful and very bold. On Saturday the Church Council met for a two hour conference to ask the same questions regarding the ministry of our church. From that meeting we established these major emphases for 2010:
1. We Continue To Work Towards Becoming a Healthy Church! We focus on healthy relationships, healthy spiritual lives, and the financial health of our church. Beginning with the Pastor’s, staff and all leaders we hold each other accountable and seek to live our healthy relationships, a healthy spiritual life, and to be good stewards of the resources God has given us.
2. We Become a “Sticky Church”! We place a higher importance on Growth Groups, a higher importance on the retention of new members. We work to create ministries that meet the needs of our folks where they are. All this would place a very strong emphasis on spiritual growth. We want to create ministries to meet the needs of our folks where they are and to become so important in the lives of our members that they can’t live without us!
3. We Make Outreach a High Priority! Instead of focusing on “Event Driven” outreach which seeks to draw folks into the church for certain events. We work towards personal outreach where we create a culture of reaching out where all of us are inviting everyone, all the time. We make it easy for members to invite their family and friends with the production of quality outreach materials such as invitation cards and brochures with a DVD that allows persons to experience our church before they walk in the doors. We set goals to turn around our attendance decline.
Last year our annual average worship attendance was 525. This year we want to see that rise to over 600!
4. We Have a Strategy For Increasing our Income and Apportionment Payout! For the past several years we have done a great deal to “cut” expenditures. We believe it’s time to put as much emphasis on increasing our revenue. That does not mean that we will become one of “those churches” where money seems to be the main focus. It may mean that we work harder to teach the importance of healthy stewardship and giving as it relates directly to spiritual growth. Apportionments are those funds that we send to the denomination for mission work on a worldwide scale. Each United Methodist church is asked to pay a “portion” of their income towards these missional funds. You might say this is our tithe to the work of God beyond our community. We have not paid 100% of our apportionments in over 10 years. Last year we paid out 54% which is an increase over years past. We want to set a three year goal to be paying out 100% by the end of 2012.
These emphases were discussed and voted on by the Church Council but they are only a small group of a very large and dynamic church. It is my prayer that you will join me as your pastor and the Church Council as your elected leaders in adopting these emphases for 2010. I ask you to pray for the overall health of our church; relationally, spiritually and financially. I ask that you help us become a “sticky church”. I ask that you work with us so that outreach becomes a priority. Finally, I ask that you help us become good stewards of what God has given us and seek ways to increase our finances so that we may better serve God and this community and so that we can become 100% faithful in our apportionment giving. I am proud of this church and proud to be your pastor! May God be glorified at First United Methodist church in 2010.
In the Service of Christ and the Church,
Rev. Steve D. Woody
