Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.

                                                                                               Proverbs 21:5 (NLT)

One thing I’ve discovered in the work of ministry is that good preaching covers a multitude of sins. I must confess I’ve not always been the best pastor a congregation could have–forgetting to check on sick folks, having fewer meetings than was probably necessary, not always being as attentive as I should–but I always did my best to have a good sermon on Sunday morning. Another thing I’ve discovered is that preaching a good sermon is hard work. Hard work in the preparation and hard work in the delivery. Hard work in the planning process, too. All this preparation for “Plan for Ministry” got me to thinking about planning for preaching, and I was reminded about the hard work of ministry. Yeah, I hear you! Ministry is not hard work. Preachers only work one hour a week, and that’s on Sunday! Right!

Never underestimate the value of hard work. At least that’s what I was told growing up as a young man. A solid work ethic was instilled in me by both sets of grandparents, and by my mother. Hard work was just expected. By hard work, none of them meant necessarily back-breaking, sweat dripping in your eyes, “man this will kill you” work—although I didn’t know it at the time. My old preaching professor, Don Demaray, once told us that preaching a 20 minute sermon was the physical equivalent of working an eight-hour day. I don’t know where he got his information, but after 20 years of preaching almost every Sunday (keep the snide remarks about the 20 minute sermon to yourself, thank you very much!) I must say I have to agree with him. He also said that a 20 minute sermon done properly would require 20 hours of preparation. Preaching really is hard work. Hard work as my grandparents and mom taught me simply meant giving it your best effort. Hard work meant employing all your resources to accomplish a worthy goal, and to do the best job you could do. Hard work meant being diligent.

Diligence—I like that word. The dictionary defines diligence as “a persistent, hard-working effort in doing something.” Solomon used diligence and hard work interchangeably in Proverbs. Solomon didn’t necessarily mean that back-breaking type of work either (he was, after all, the king and I don’t know too many kings doing back breaking labor), rather the term was meant to communicate “smart” work. Were I given the job of chopping down an oak tree, I could use a hammer to accomplish the task (now that would be hard work!), or I could use an axe (still hard work, but much smarter work than using the hammer). According to Solomon, to use the axe would be diligent. As I reflect on Solomon’s advice in Proverbs, I settle on my own definition of diligence—doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason.

Do a survey of Proverbs and you’ll discover that Solomon had much to say about hard work. According to Solomon, hard work is the key to success in life. Of course, Solomon was probably more concerned with material success, but I would venture to say that hard work is the key to success in any area of life-in marriage, in raising our children, in handling money, and most especially, in our spiritual life.

There are also roadblocks to success (things that keep us from working hard). Self-centeredness is a roadblock. Solomon warns in Proverbs 21:2 that “every man’s way is right in his own eyes…” Gauging our own interests ahead of the interests of others will hinder us finding success, especially in our relationships with others. Conceit/arrogance is another roadblock to success. Proverbs 26:16 says that “lazy people consider themselves smarter than seven wise counselors.” Nothing says failure like thinking we’re smarter than everyone else. Who needs advice, right? Ignorance is yet another roadblock to success. Ignorance is simply the failure to learn the lessons from previous failures (Proverbs 24:30). Finally, I would say irresponsibility would be a roadblock to success (Proverbs 24:33). Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? Talk about lazy!

Perhaps the hardest work we do is the work of growing spiritually. Too many of us are unwilling to do the hard work necessary to grow closer to Jesus. The hard work of Bible study, prayer and practicing other spiritual disciplines flys us to close to the flame and reveals our own self-centeredness. We don’t like what we see, so we back off. It reveals our arrogance, our ignorance, or both, and we don’t like to see our true selves. Honestly, sometimes we’re just too lazy to do the work. But, the hard work may also reveal just how much we need God’s grace and will open the door to intimate fellowship as we experience great forgiveness and find strength for the journey.

So, keep up the good work. Keep up the hard work. Keep up the smart work. Just keep up the work. Ministry is never done.

Until next time, keep looking up…

I find it both humorous and ironic that I am preparing to conduct “Plan for Ministry” interviews with the District pastors in the month of August. God is so funny sometimes! “Plan for Ministry” interviews is one more of the tasks DS’s have to do during the year, and it is one of those new experiences for me sitting on this side of the table. I’ve done plenty of “plans” in the 20 years I served in the local congregation, but I’m finding humor and irony in the fact that all my years in ministry have lacked much of a plan. What am I talking about?

Don’t misunderstand me…I know how to plan my work and work my plan. That is the key to success in life and especially in business, right? I’ve been in a few businesses in my time and I know how important it is to have the business plan in place before you try to seek financing, and I know how important it is to try to work that plan out to be successful. I’ve also known many professionals who had career plans. They knew where they wanted to be five, ten, twenty years down the road, and they basically knew how they needed to get there.

As I’ve said, I’ve also done plenty of ministry plans where I’ve charted a course for professional and spiritual growth, and growth and mission for the congregation I was serving (that’s all part of the yearly process of being a UM pastor). And, Vanessa hates for me to sit down before we leave on vacation and meticulously plan the route and every segment of our time away. She’s says that defeats the purpose of a vacation. So, I know HOW  to do a plan, it’s just that I’ve never had a plan for this journey of ministry.

Way back in October 1990, when my journey in ministry began the only plan I had was to talk to my pastor and share that I was sensing a call to ministry. That was my only plan–a conversation. The pastor wasted no time in arranging an unplanned conversation with the DS and the local church PPR Committee. That DS wasted no time in calling an unplanned District Committee on Ministry meeting, and before I knew what happened, I was a certified candidate for ministry, and enrolled in License to Preach school (that was the “old days” when it could happen so quickly). The only thing I planned was the conversation with the pastor.

I never planned to serve as the interim pastor of my home congregation. I won’t go into details, but a mid-year pastoral change was made, and while I was in License to Preach school, the DS came and asked if I would serve as pastor from February until June. I didn’t know what else to do, so I said, “Yes.” The call to my home church just sort of happened, and there I was.

I never planned to pastor full-time. I had a fun job as a deputy sheriff (I’ve told you I have often been called “Barney Fife”), and I thought I would serve and pastor part-time. Life would be good. An unplanned call from the DS asking me to accept a full-time appointment to Eros came, and not knowing what else to do, I said, “Yes.”

I never planned to go to Asbury seminary, either. My plan was to go to Perkins School of Theology. I started working that plan, but with four children and a wife in Eros, and a 4 1/2 hour commute each week to Dallas, Texas, it took three weeks for me to figure out that was an unworkable plan. So, I planned to take some classes at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi until I could figure out a new plan. Little did I know God already had the plan worked out (a little reformed theology for you there).

The very day I was scheduled to leave for Jackson to begin classes, I was packed with my bags loaded in my Ford pick-up. I told Vanessa good-bye, walked out to get in my truck, and my son, Joshua was mowing the lawn. As I opened the door of my truck, the mower stopped. I looked and Josh was checking the gas in the mower. I stopped to help him, and while I was helping, Vanessa stuck her head out the door with the phone to her ear. I heard her say, “No, wait. He’s hasn’t left yet.” She called out to me, informing me there was someone from Kentucky on the phone. It turned out to be a DS from Danville, Kentucky calling to offer me an appointment to a local congregation 30 miles from Asbury Seminary. My DS had sent him my resume. Shock would be an inadequate word to describe how we both felt at that moment. Totally unplanned!

On the very same day, less than two hours after the first phone call, I received another unplanned phone call. It was from Rob Jones who was Director of Development at Asbury Seminary. He called me because someone had given him my name and said I might be interested in a scholarship from Asbury. Within a two hour period of time I had an appointment in Kentucky and a scholarship to Asbury Seminary, and none of it planned. I call the entire episode “The Case of Divine Evaporation.” All I knew to do was say, “Yes.”

I might also add here that my “Plan for Ministry” never included a stop as a DS, either, but I’ve shared that with you before, so I’ll not re-hash it here. The call from Bishop Hutchinson came, and all I knew to do was say, “Yes.”

I suppose I’ve shared all this as a way to say that I’ve discovered we can never know where the Holy Spirit will choose to call us or use us in Kingdom service. We can’t plan the course of our career in ministry, but then again, ministry isn’t a career to be charted. It is a journey to be embraced (and sometimes endured), and it is a journey that we’re not in charge of planning.

The old cliche “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans,” certainly has lived itself out in my life. I won’t tell God my plans. I think I’ll just wait until He’s ready to lead me to the next place in ministry. When that door opens I think I’ll say, “Yes.” It’s served me pretty well thus far.

I’m wondering…Where do you need to say “Yes?”

Until next time, keep looking up…

I sit this morning listening to the quiet. That’s right! Listening to the quiet. It’s 4:30 a.m. (yes, I rise early–Vanessa says too early, but I love this time of day), and it should be quiet, but the reality is that I cannot escape the noise. Listening to the quiet I hear the ticking of the clock that hangs on the wall of our living room. I hear the breathing of the dog that sleeps on the loveseat. At this early hour there is even the occassional car passing by on the street that distracts me. The hum of the air conditioning unit (it’s so cold in here this early in the morning) grabs my attention, too. I even hear the growling of my hungry stomach beckoning to me to sate it with some sweet breakfast food that will only satisfy me for a little while because those foods have no significant nutritional value (I’ll have one anyway!). And then, of course, there is the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard as I write that breaks the quiet for which I’m desperately listening. So, yes, I’m listening to the quiet, but as I listen, I’m desperately listening for the voice of the One who bids me come deeper, come closer, come know Him better. Am I listening hard enough?

As the Cabinet of the Louisiana Annual Conference prepares for Charge Conference, we are wrestling with the phrase “intimacy with Jesus.” We want to ask the churches and pastors of the Annual Conference how are they developing “intimacy with Jesus” in the local congregations and in their lives, and that forces us to ask ourselves the question, and quite frankly, I’m challenged by the question as I seek this intimacy myself. Intimacy with Jesus is what I long for, and in the longing I discover I am far from it. He is close by, but the distractions (even the ones in this quiet (?) moment) keep me from being with Him. The world is just so full of distractions!

There are those distractions that we can’t control. We can’t control when a plane flys overhead or when a car or truck passes on the street. We can’t control when the dogs will bark or the birds chirp. Sure, we can adjust the thermostat on the A/C unit, but then we’d be distracted by the sweat dripping from our brow. There are so many sounds we can’t control, but what of the ones we can? Why do we fill our world with noise? We awake to the sound of the clock radio, turn the television on the moment we’re out of the bed, keep the music going on the drive to work, listen to the background music while we work, and turn the television on the moment we arrive home in the evening. Even when I run, I plug ear buds into my ears and fill the time with the news or music. And, then there is the constant connectedness. Our smartphones buzz and ding throughout the day keeping us connected to each other, to our work, to the world wide web–to everything, and there is this constant invasion of noise that we can control, and yet, we don’t. It is as if we don’t want to listen to the quiet, yet it is in the quiet we will hear Him most clearly.

Keith Drury says the spiritual discipline of silence is “abstaining from sound in order to open our spiritual ears and listen more closely to the voice of God.” Silence is a discipline, and I believe, it is one of the most profound disciplines when it comes to developing intimacy with Jesus. Silence takes us deeper, draws us closer and helps us hear him better. Silence is certainly not the only discipline that accomplishes the task, but it is primary among them. The wise one in Ecclesiastes reminds us there is a time for everything under heaven, and among those things is “time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Eccl. 3:7). Even the prophets (Zephaniah and Habakkuk) commanded that the people of Israel should keep silence before the Lord, and we find Jesus often in the Gospels going away from the crowds and the disciples for times of silence and solitude. Jesus found those times to slip away because he knew, as Elijah discovered, that God is met in the “sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12).

I’ve discovered in my own life that discipline rarely develops on its own. We don’t wake up one day with a discipline to do something. Discipline comes from a desire for and a commitment to a cause or purpose. The Olympic atheletes are in London today because they developed the discipline of practice and effort because they had a desire to accomplish great things atheletically, and thus made the commitment.  If I want to be a better golfer, I will commit to playing more golf and taking lessons to improve those areas that are weak in my game. The reality is, though, I don’t really care if I become a better golfer, so I don’t do those things necessary to be better. Intimacy with Jesus is no different.

So, here are a few things that might help me develop the disciplines of silence and solitude. First, plan it. Don’t necessarily plan what I will do, just simply plan when and where. A little planning will go a long way. Secondly, though, is to begin cultivating an awareness that silence can be spontaneous, too. A little gift of two minutes away from the buzz and hum of the workaday world can be a time of refreshing and renewal. Planned spontenaity? Is that possible? I’m not sure, but it sounds good, so I’m going with it! Third, it is always helpful to have my bible with me. Here is one benefit of a smartphone. I can always have my bible with me. My bible helps me focus those planned and unplanned times on God. It can set the tone for the time and put my thoughts on the One who always thinks of me whether I’m aware of it not. Finally, I am reminded that no marathon runner ever ran the full 26.2 miles the first day of training. They built up little by little, day by day, increasing their time and distance each day. So, I must be realistic in my goal of practicing silence and solitude, especially if I’ve never practiced before. Just a little more time today than yesterday. Just a little more time tomorrow than today. Just one small message from the Lord this morning. It’s probably all I can handle anyway.

Let me stop this incessant tapping now. Let me close out the noise of the ticking clock and the breathing dog. Let me turn away my attention from the humming A/C, and let me focus, if only for a moment, and see if I can listen to the quiet. Are you listening?

Until next time, keep looking up…

I confess that I do sometimes think I am somebody.  I start to believe God has gifted me for a purpose, that I have a natural talent. That attitude injures my relationship with the Lord because it is then that I begin to depend upon my own strength and my own abilities rather than letting God work in me and through me.

I think, rather, that I need to maintain the perspective of Gideon from the Old Testament. Remember Gideon? The Lord called Gideon at a time the nation of Israel had strayed away from the will and heart of God. They began to reap the consequences of their sin, and they did what they always did—cried out to the Lord for help. And the Lord helped (as He always does)! He called Gideon to act as deliverer for the nation.

“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”                                                                                                                                                                                             Judges 6:15 (NLT)

Gideon’s response is classic. “Who me? Who am I? I’m nobody!” His response was reminiscent of Moses’ protests when God called him to deliver the nation from Egyptian bondage. I think it is also indicative of the answer we all give when God calls us (and He has called each of us!). I certainly know it is the answer I gave when I first sensed the call of God in my life. “How can God use me? Why would God use me?”

Then, something interesting happens. I start to hear words of affirmation for my preaching, or I experience some success in ministry, and I begin to think, “Yeah, I can do this! I might just be somebody.” It just sort of creeps up before you know it. It is a little thing called pride, and it separates us from the will and heart of God.

Here’s the point—as long as I think there is something in me, God cannot use me because I will have my own agenda to pursue. It is only when we think we are nobody that God will use us, because then, we are empty of ourselves and can be filled with His power and presence.

I’ve discovered in my own life that I must practice repentance, seek His forgiveness for my own pride, and seek humility on a continuing basis. I remember that I am but a poor beggar in constant need of his mercy and grace as I face each day.

So? Think the Lord can’t use you? Good! Listen closely. I guarantee He’s calling.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”

Matthew 13:31

I went to Target yesterday and it dawned on me that Fall is quickly coming upon us. There, in the front window, were signs advertising “Back to School” (already? really?). Does it seem like it slips up on us these days? Our youngest, Kelsey, will be headed back to La. Tech soon, and we’ll (translate that “Vanessa”) get busy preparing and paying (translate that “me”) for her departure. Kelsey has been blessed to receive lots of scholarships, and her schooling is almost all paid, and we are thankful for that, but there are just so many little things that have to be purchased as preparations for dorm life are made. Those little things add up (in a hurry!).

The reality of yet another fast approaching school year, and incurring the expenses involved has forced me, once again, to reflect on my stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to me. I look at all the expenses involved, look at my on-going expenses, and I wonder how we’re ever going to pay for it all.

There is really only one thing I can do—trust God. Sure, Vanessa and I can plan and prepare, but as Dave Ramsey says, “Sometimes there’s just more month than money.” The key for me is to trust God in the beginning, not at the end when it looks like the money has been exhausted before the month.

How do I trust God? Simple. I just give all I am and all I have into His hands when the month begins. The first check we write around my house on payday is our tithe (actually, we don’t write the check anymore–it’s electronically debited–but that’s another blog post). Don’t misunderstand—we don’t pay God first. We could never pay Him all we owe Him. Writing that check first is our acknowledgement that God owns it all anyway, and it is also our acknowledgement that we trust Him, not only with our spiritual health, but with our finances, too.

And I do consider it planting seeds. Planting seeds in the Kingdom, knowing that what I bring is not much, but trusted to God will become much when He takes control.

Not only was I reminded of “Back to School,” and it made me think of money, but we’ve begun the initial work of putting together the District  budget, and I know there are lots of pastors who will be working with their Finance Committees putting their new budgets together, as well. I also remember (yeah! it ain’t been that long ago!) that this is the time of year when churches begin working on stewardship campaigns. As we head into the stewardship season, I am prayerfully reflecting on what God is calling me to entrust to Him in a new way—my finances, my relationships, my time, my giftedness—perhaps all of it. I ask because stewardship is about more than money. Stewardship is about life.

So let me invite you (and also challenge you) when your pastor and church leadership bring up the issue of stewardship, please don’t cringe in frustration, but rather seize it as an opportunity to join me in discovering new ways to trust God, and become a better steward of a life fully devoted to being a follower of Jesus Christ. And you pastors, if you’re not talking about stewardship issues in your local congregation, shame on you! Money is a spiritual issue! Be bold. Challenge people to be faithful disciples by living the fully committed life. If your local congregation doesn’t do a stewardship campaign, I’m challenging you to lead one. I’ve discovered people will not give one more penny than we ask them to give. And, I tell you, I believe it’s biblical. The Apostle John says, “You have not because you ask not!”

Well, it seems I’ve started rambling. Sometimes I think of the weirdest things! “Back to School” and church budgets? Who would ever connect those two subjects?

Until next time, keep looking up…

I get to act like a pastor today. One of the District clergy is having surgery this morning and I have to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m., so I’m not really posting anything specific. Just remembering what it feels like to do what so many of our clergy do day in and day out. I really do appreciate everything those gals and guys do for the body of Christ.

The old cliche is that old habits die hard. Actually, I’ve discovered it is fairly easy to develop new habits. I’m definitely out of the habit of getting up early and getting ready for hospital visits. Makes me want to ask us all: What habits do you need to break, and what new habits do you need to develop?

Oh, look at the time! I have to get ready to go now.

Until next time, keep looking up…

God gets blamed for a lot of things that are not His fault—things like tsunamis and other natural disasters, and all manner of evil in the world (evil like the recent shootings in Aurora, CO). We’ve all heard the remarks, “Well, it must be God’s will” when some tragedy happens–words that are often spoken by well-meaning, even if misinformed people. As people seeking to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we know we have little control over tsunamis and other disasters, but the day to day decisions we face is a different matter, and we want to be sure we make good decisions that are in accord with God’s will for us. We find ourselves asking the question, “What is God’s will for my life?”

As a pastor I get all kinds of questions about God’s will. From good circumstances to bad, everyone wants to know about God’s will. I have heard the statement from people with life-threatening illnesses, and I have heard it from young couples deciding to get married. I have heard it from men who were seeking to change jobs, and from women facing the prospect of divorce. I have heard it from high-school students as they contemplated a college or career choice, and I have even heard if from pastor’s fresh from the Staff-Parish Relations Committee.

The one major assumption we need to keep in mind as we seek to discover God’s will is this: we will never discover God’s will for our lives unless we do the obvious, primary thing God has asked us to do. We anxiously wait to hear God’s voice giving us clear direction saying, “take this road, marry this person, choose this career, go to this church, buy this house.” But the clarity of God’s voice is never there because we haven’t done that obvious thing that God wants us to do in order to discover His will.

What is that obvious thing? I think the Bible is pretty specific. Those well-meaning folks who say “It must be God’s will,” when tragedy strikes simply are not thinking about what they are saying. Death is not God’s will. Tragedy is not God’s will. Jesus said these words in John 10:10:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Jesus came to give us life, abundant life. So if life is God’s will for us, how do we discover this life in the context of our lives? How do we live out the abundant life so we can live in God’s will? We discover God’s will by being saved—that is the most obvious thing.

The Apostle Paul, as he neared the end of his life, offers us a perspective on what I think is the most important decision any person will ever face: the decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—it is the decision to receive God’s salvation. Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy to offer advice on handling the affairs of the church, and to help Timothy in handling some false teachers and teaching that had arisen in the early church. It was in the context of offering this advice on false teachers that Paul sort of takes off on his own salvation experience. Listen as Paul shares his experience:

1 Tim. 1:12-2:2
How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord for considering me trustworthy and appointing me to serve him, [13] even though I used to scoff at the name of Christ. I hunted down his people, harming them in every way I could. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. [14] Oh, how kind and gracious the Lord was! He filled me completely with faith and the love of Christ Jesus. [15] This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the worst of them all.

Out of these thoughts, Paul he gives us a glimpse of God’s heart for us all. He offers it almost as an aside, but the depth of its truth touches us as it comes from the heart of God. Listen to verses 3 & 4 of chapter 2:

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; [4] Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Let me state the premise this way: God’s will for our lives is that we be saved. The principle of discovering God’s will is couched in the context of a relationship. God doesn’t simply want us to know His will, He wants us to know Him. We can’t know someone’s will unless we know the person, and the more intimately we know the person, the more intimately we will know that person’s will.

Henry Blackaby and Claude King listed seven realities for experiencing God in their book entitled, Experiencing God, and the second reality is this: “God pursues a continuing love relationship with us.” This is the essence of salvation—God pursuing a continuing love relationship with us (those reformed theologians didn’t know they were being so Wesleyan!).

We don’t like to use the word salvation much anymore. We don’t like to talk about people getting “saved.” It reminds us too much of preachers hitting us over the head with their Bibles and trying to guilt us into the kingdom of God. Too often, we equate being saved with that moment a person walks down the aisle of the church to accept Christ. The reality is that moment may be a part of it, but salvation is so much more than that moment. You see, salvation is not about any one particular place and time as much as it is about a journey that is made up of many places and many times along the way.

If we view salvation as a journey with many encounters along the way we might be able to understand that God has been working in our lives since before we were ever born. I am reminded of what David said in Psalm 139:15-16:

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
[16] You saw me before I was born.

We Methodists like to call God working in this way “prevenient” grace. Prevenient grace means that God is working in us even when we are unaware of it and are unable or unwilling to acknowledge his presence. Prevenient grace is one way we encounter God’s salvation. It is God pursuing a continuing love relationship with us.

Then there is that moment when we experience God’s grace, and we begin to understand who it is and what it is He is calling us to. In that moment, one person may walk the aisle and make a public profession of their faith, or another person may come to be baptized as an adult. It may be that moment when a young person goes through confirmation and embraces the faith of their parents as they are introduced to Jesus Christ through confirmation. It may be that time when the drunken, homeless drug addict realizes that Christ is the only answer, and that person calls out to Christ to save them from the brokenness and pain of a wasted life, all the while kneeling and trembling in the cold of winter on a deserted street corner. That moment, we Methodists call the “justifying” grace of God, and it, too is an encounter of God’s salvation. It is a very important encounter, a very important moment, but it is not the lone defining experience of salvation. It is another way that God pursues a continuing love relationship with us. In that moment, through God’s justifying grace, we are justified in Christ, our sins are washed away, and we are given new life in Jesus Christ.

But salvation continues beyond the moment of “justifying” us, because God still seeks a continuing relationship with us. We grow in grace as we learn and live in Christ-like ways. This growing to become ever more like Christ we Methodists call God’s “sanctifying” grace. God works to make us holy! Holiness—that, too is God’s will, but I’ll save that for another day.

Have you ever said, “I really do want to know God’s will for my life?” I can promise that you and I will never know God’s will unless we do the obvious, primary thing God has asked us to do. God’s will is that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

And we thought knowing God’s will was such a hard thing.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Bishop Cynthia Harvey

I’m glad to be back in Louisiana. Not that there was anything wrong with Oklahoma, it’s just always good to be back on native soil after days away. I haven’t made it all the way home yet, but at least I’m back in familiar territority. I am writing this morning as I watch the sun come up over the horizon, and it is a vivid illustration of the new day dawning in the Louisiana Annual Conference.

The South Central Jurisdicitonal Conference is finally over. Friday evening, many of us were wondering if it would ever be, but the Episcopacy Committee finished their work, and the assigments for Bishops were made. By now you’ve heard, Bishop Cynthia Harvey was assigned to the Louisiana Annual Conference.

I am excited about Bishop Harvey coming to Louisiana. Bishop Harvey will bring a fresh perspective to leadership in the Annual Conference. The diversity of her experience should serve us well as we look to the future. Not only is Bishop Harvey the first female Bishop for the Annual Conference, but her experience in the secular world and her leadership with United Methodist Committee on Relief will be very meaningful as we live into this new future that God has for us as United Methodists. It will be a different kind of leader than we are accustomed to having, either in the Louisiana Annual Conference, or any other Conference. The election of Bishop Harvey really is a new direction in the leadership of our denomination. Bishop Harvey has stated she sees leadership as the number one challenge facing the United Methodist Church. I sense a kindred spirit, as my passion for the office of District Superintendent has been to create an environment of developing leadership in the local congregation where disciples are most often made. I’m excited to see the possibilities that Bishop Harvey leads us into, and in working with her to see the fruitfulness of developing leaders in the local church, the Annual Conference and in our denomination. Of course, Vanessa thought one important element we didn’t need to miss was the fact that she was such a stylish lady, too!

We had the opportunity to meet with Bishop Harvey Saturday morning. She brings an energy to the office that is both invigorating and exciting. She expressed her willingness to be held accountable (even asked for us to help hold her accountable), and she expressed her philosophy of always speaking the truth in love. There is much Bishop Harvey must learn about Louisiana. There are countless faces that will be new to her. There are diverse cultures that will be new to her. There are new stores, new streets, a new home to move into. It’s all new for her and her family. And, then, there is that new job! She comes to Louisiana from the Houston area via New York City with her husband, Dean, and daughter, Elizabeth. For more information on Bishop Harvey click this link: http://elections.umc.org/cynthia-fierro-harvey-elected-bishop-of-the-united-methodist-church/

Well, the sun is up now, and it’s a beautiful day. As the new day dawns in the Louisiana Annual Conference, I’m certain the day will be just as beautiful. Welcom Bishop Harvey. Our prayers are with you.

Until next time, keep looking up…

A pastor in a small church was greatly annoyed by one of his elderly members who fell asleep during his sermons every Sunday. After the service one day, the pastor said to the old man’s grandson who always sat with his grandfather, “If you can keep the old man awake, I’ll pay you a dollar a week.” This worked for two weeks; the aged man was very alert and listened to the sermons attentively. On the third Sunday, however, there he was, up to his old tricks again, sound asleep in the pew. After the service the pastor called the boy over and said, “I am disappointed in you. Didn’t I promise you a dollar a week to keep your grandfather awake?” “Yes,” replied the boy, “but Grandpa gives me five dollars not to disturb him.”

We are like Grandpa. We don’t like being disturbed. We enjoy living in an atmosphere of quiet contentment. We don’t want anyone or anything rocking our boat. We like stability in our lives. But one evening Jesus and his disciples encountered a very disturbing character in a somewhat
disturbing place, and their boat was rocked as they stepped off of it to encounter a man as John records in John 8:26-39. And we are disturbed a little as we read the text and listen to the details of the encounter, and we get the impression that there is something entirely disturbing about the whole scene.

There is definitely a disturbing presence in the air. There obviously is the disturbing man. We know the source of his disturbance. John says the man was demon-possessed, and that had left him homeless, naked and living in a graveyard. And I am quite certain the man had caused no small disturbance in his family and community. The fact that he was living in the graveyard indicates that society had pushed him to the fringes.

The demons in this story disturb us, too. What of this demon-possession thing? C. S. Lewis says there are two equal but opposite errors into which we can fall concerning the devil and demons. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe in their existence but to also feel an unhealthy interest in them. As Christians, we believe demons exist in our world, and actual cases of demon possession have
been documented. To believe otherwise would be to place ourselves outside the realm of what Jesus believed in the conduct of his ministry, and it would, in fact, make us un-Biblical. But we equally don’t believe that every ailment, every malady, every sickness, every form of bondage is motivated by demon possession. We don’t believe there is a demon behind every tree and under every rock.

Don’t try to make too much of the pigs in the story, either. That’s called majoring on the minors. The pigs symbolize the destructive nature of the
demons inhabiting the man. Suffice it to say that all of our lives are touched by destructiveness of evil. The destructive nature of evil in our world evidences a disturbing presence.

Then Jesus comes along, and he doesn’t hesitate in disturbing the status quo of that community. I’m wondering if Jesus isn’t the most
disturbing presence in this encounter. Jesus wasted no time in disturbing these demons who had tortured the man for so long. Jesus recognized the evil and demanded to know their names. They were “Legion.” But what is the significance of that? A legion was a group of Roman soldiers numbering as many as 6,000. The Palestinians would have been very familiar with a Roman legion, and the very name of the demons exhibited just the depth of torment this man was under. But these demons were forced to bow before the power of Jesus as he appeared. Isn’t that what Paul said to the Philippian Christians? “At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10). I would say that Jesus was, to the demons, a very disturbing presence.

But Jesus also disturbed the pig herders. It didn’t take but just a moment for them to gather themselves and get into town to tell the townspeople what happened. Perhaps it was the pig herders who incited the community against Jesus for we see it was they who were most disturbed of
all. They came out to see this thing that the pig herders spoke about, and they found the man who had been possessed clothed, sitting at the feet of Jesus and in his right mind.

What was their response? It wasn’t “Oh, how wonderful. Now we can invite him back into the community and to his family.” No. It was, “Hey, Jesus? Could you just leave and leave us alone?” I find it incredibly interesting that these townspeople could live with a crazy man, but they could
not live with Jesus. Jesus’ presence there on the seashore became a threat to the townsfolk’ own complacency. He upset their apple cart, so to speak. Worse still, he cost them money. After all, 2,000 pigs cost a lot of money in the first century. Jesus took their known, comfortable circumstances (they had gotten used to the crazy man in the cemetery and knew how to handle that situation), and forced them to confront the unknown. They could cope with the known, even if the known was bad, but they were afraid of the unknown. They were disturbed indeed.

Perhaps they were disturbed by the fact that this Jesus who had the power to cast out the demons from this man might cast out their demons,
too. And they rather liked their demons. If Jesus could destroy a whole herd of pigs, perhaps this power might strike again with even more serious consequences for them. They were so concerned with what might happen to them that they failed to recognize or even appreciate the deliverance of the man in their midst. The biggest disturbance may have been the fact that the power of God was at work among them, and they wanted to pretend that nothing had happened. Jesus’ presence forced the people to confront the evil that was around them, and that
was a very uncomfortable position. It was just too disturbing.

Jesus’ presence disturbs us in the same way. How does Jesus disturb us? One way I believe Jesus disturbs us by calling us to live in a world so full of change. The only constant in this world is change. Nothing ever remains the same. View the changes in our world the last hundred years. Things are moving so fast in our world today that what was cutting edge only five years ago is obsolete today. Researchers tell us that society is reinventing itself every five to seven years. That means what was acceptable only a mere seven years ago is no longer acceptable today. Or what was not acceptable a mere seven to ten years ago is acceptable today. For better or worse, that is the world we live in, and Jesus
has called us to minister in that world, to speak to the issues of the culture in the midst of change. He does not call us to retreat from the world. He does not call us bury our heads in the sand, and reject those changes, but he calls us to be in ministry to all those who live in a changing world.

So how do we respond to the disturbing presence of Jesus? Do we respond as the demons do, cowering in fear before an all-powerful being who exercises his authority to our destruction? Hardly! There are really only two responses. First, like the people, we can ask Jesus to go and leave us alone. We prefer not to be disturbed. Let’s hurry up and get rid of him before he costs us anymore money or before he demands something of us. Oh, we would never say, like the people along the seashore, “Leave us alone.” But we say the same thing, in effect, when we refuse to give up some habit that is destructive to us or to others. Or we tell him the same thing when we turn a deaf ear to the needs around us that Christ is calling us to meet. We tell Jesus to leave us alone whenever we see injustice in our world and fail to respond to it in redemptive ways. We tell Jesus to leave us alone whenever we see the poor and others in the graveyards at the margins of our society, and we say, “That’s just the way
things are.” And just like in the encounter, we will find that Jesus leaves us alone. I pray that’s not what we in the United Methodist Church have already done, only to find that Jesus has left us alone!

The other response is the response of the man who was possessed by many demons. He wanted to follow Jesus. Jesus told the man the best way he could follow him was to return to his family and tell the great things God had done. That is what the man did. He was moved by the powerfully disturbing presence of Jesus to make a difference in his world.

Jesus stands upon the shore ready to disturb the complacency of our lives. The disturbing presence of Christ invaded the life of a fellow named Paul. Struck him blind on the Damascus Road not long after Paul had witnessed the stoning of a young man named Stephen. Stephen’s prayer haunted Paul in the days that followed. How could Paul forget that faithful, trusting prayer of Stephen’s as the mob stoned him to death. The peace and the joy of contentment in Christ was evident upon his face. When confronted with the awesomely disturbing presence of Christ, Paul
could only ask a question, “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

We United Methoidsts stand at the precipice of great and challenging change, and it is just a wee bit disturbing. Even with the election of new Bishops there is uncertainty, and that, too, is disturbing. What response must we make? What response will we make? May it now, and always be, “Lord, may we follow you!”

Until next time, keep looking up…

Well, I just wanted to let you know if you were checking in to find a post by the unexpected DS, you may be sorely disappointed for a few days. I’m in Oklahoma City this week at Jurisdictional Conference, and wifi is limited. You’d think a big swanky hotel like the Renaissance would have in-room wifi, and they do…if you want to pay $12.95 a day for it! (If there sounds like there’s a little snarkiness in that comment, you’d be correct).

So, I won’t be sitting in the hotel lobby writing posts at 5:00 a.m. I’ll post when I find the time, but otherwise, please be in prayer for all the delegates and the candidates for the Episcopacy.

Until next time, keep looking up…