Category: Biblical Community

The Lord’s Supper and Virtual Worship

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My spirit soars with particular energy whenever the people of the church spend time in the depths of authentic theological conversation. Presently, such theological conversation is happening robustly around the church’s virtualization (i.e., the church’s movement to online settings) in these days of quarantine and social distancing. It may be that the current theological searching and wrestling is part of God’s creative redemption of these difficult days.

Perhaps some of the most compelling recent theological discourse revolves around the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The driving question in much of the conversation is this: Can we celebrate the Lord’s Supper virtually? Or, to put in another way, can we share the sacramental bread and cup when we are connected online but not physically present in the same geographical space?

(Note: I address these matters as a United Methodist clergyperson, speaking from a United Methodist perspective. I will honor other denominations by allowing their voices and leaders to speak out of their own sacramental theology and tradition.)

Allow me to cut to the proverbial chase: In the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, our Bishop—Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi—has made it clear that United Methodist Churches in Western Pennsylvania are NOT to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in virtual settings. My sense is that the Bishop has issued this directive for no other reason but to guard both the theological identity and the ontological integrity of the sacrament (which is precisely what we count on our Bishop to do). I am grateful for Bishop Cynthia’s clarity and leadership in this regard.

Beyond this practical and clear directive, however, the theological conversation around the Lord’s Supper and its proper celebration continues to find compelling expression. Some have been quick to articulate their strong opposition to “virtual Holy Communion” on the grounds that such a practice would constitute the “disembodiment” of the sacrament—i.e., the removal of the sacrament from its necessary concreteness and its physical community. According to this argument, the act of virtualizing or digitalizing the Lord’s Supper would dangerously distort both the sacrament’s incarnational nature and its celebration of a fully-embodied Christ whose living presence calls for a fully-enfleshed community.

On the other side of the argument are those who believe that the Holy Spirit is hard at work to redefine and reconfigure “embodiment” in this season of crisis where disembodiment (i.e., social distancing) has become a necessary norm. According to this line of thought, the Holy Spirit’s sacramental work cannot be confined by the church’s physicality and is just as efficacious in a virtual connection as it is in physical congregation. Those who espouse this perspective are likely to suggest that prohibiting a virtual celebration of the Lord’s Supper irresponsibly elevates the physical over the metaphysical, thereby generating a truncated sacramentology in which the Holy Spirit is not given adequate space in which to usher an isolated people into a transformational communion with the real presence of Jesus and with one another.

So, here we are.

I would suspect that neither “side” in this sacramental discourse is comprehensively right, and that both perspectives (and other perspectives between them) articulate important priorities that help to illuminate what is ultimately best for the church’s practice. Wherever it is that you land in the spectrum of the discourse, I encourage you not to allow your position to become so soundproof that you fail to hear what is right or helpful from other voices.

My personal conviction is that the entire conversation is helping the church to develop and clarify what might be called its theology of embodiment. What do I mean by “theology of embodiment?” I simply mean the church’s understanding of how God coordinates the mystical territory between “essence” and “substance;” between “in-person” and “online;” between the corporeal and the virtual. In other words, a theology of embodiment wrestles with this question: “What truth and illumination does the Incarnation—the “in-the-flesh-ness” of God in Jesus—bring to our understanding of physicality, virtual connection, and the sharing of the bread and cup?”

The church’s current theology of embodiment does not permit the church to validate or sanction an online or virtual celebration of the Lord’s Supper. To put it simply, the church has a long history of interpreting the Lord’s Supper as the celebration of a living Christ who is embodied in the bread and cup, the consecration of which demands a physically gathered community whose corporeality bears witness to the very flesh that the Incarnation redeems. Will that interpretation change over time as our experience of virtual community continues to expand? Time will tell. But an altered sacramental interpretation would require a substantially reworked theology of embodiment.

Again, Bishop Cynthia’s instruction to the United Methodist Churches of Western Pennsylvania not to celebrate virtual or online communion is both clear and helpfully binding, which is essential to remember in our development of a unified sacramental approach.

If you are a pastor or church leader, I encourage you to continue to offer creative and safe ways for your people to experience connection, worship, prayer, and community. Utilize the telephone with new urgency. Livestream and record your worship where possible. Set up phone and video conferences for your meetings and Bible studies. Consecrate the chambers of cyberspace so that they might become tabernacles. Help your people to embrace the truth that not even a necessary social distancing can prevent the church from being the church.

In this temporary abstinence—or fast—from the Lord’s Supper, consider celebrating an online “Love Feast.” The Love Feast is a communal meal that has a rich history in the church. While it is not to be confused with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, it is a meaningful way for a congregation to experience a shared meal on those occasions (such as this season) when it would be inappropriate for the Lord’s Supper to be celebrated. I smile at the thought of the churches of my district and conference enjoying a small meal safely in their own homes while at the same time seeing the faces and hearing the voices of other church members with whom they are connected online.

Here is a link to a page with more information about the Love Feast and how to celebrate it as a church:

https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/the-love-feast

It hurts to be taken out of our normal practice of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, to be certain. And yet, it occurs to me that, while we are not able to share physically the bread and cup, we are finding remarkable ways to honor one of our most important eucharistic prayers:

“…Make [the bread and cup] be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we might be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.”

Through the creative ministry efforts of our churches in recent days, we may be doing our best-ever “eucharistic” work in “BEING” the redeemed body of Christ until such time as we are able to share the bread and cup once again. In a sense, the Holy Spirit is making our risky and innovative ministry into a metaphorical sacramental bread that we are breaking with our desperately hungry communities. I am encouraged by the thought of that. I hope that you are as well.

When we return to the table of the Lord’s Supper soon, we will be hungrier for the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation than we have ever been. What a celebration that will be!

Hope-Filled Expectations

blog The Good People

(Artwork: “The Good People” by Laurie Pace)

As a recently-appointed District Superintendent, I have spent the last several months prayerfully discerning what it is that I am expecting of myself as both a leader and a follower in this new season of ministry. I have also been reflecting upon what it is that I might be expecting of the clergy leaders with whom I am privileged to serve—and what they might be expecting of me as their District Superintendent.

The following paragraphs are the result of my contemplation about expectations. I shared these paragraphs recently with the clergy leaders of the district I superintend. I offer them here once again. It is not an exhaustive list of expectations, to be sure. Perhaps many others could or should be added. But this list does reflect some of my deepest priorities.

Please know my heart. This list of expectations is not intended to be heavy-handed or authoritarian. Rather, these expectations are the hope-filled expression of a sinner saved by grace who longs to become more fully what Jesus is calling him to be and to become an encouragement to others. Perhaps some of these expectations will resonate with your spirit. I hope so.

A New District Superintendent’s Expectations of Himself
and the Clergy Leaders With Whom He Serves

 1. An Ever-Deepening Love for God and People

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus identifies the greatest commandment in this fashion: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind…and a second [commandment] is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39)

Clergy are expected to grow in their commitment to physical and emotional health, so that they might be energized and equipped to love God with a whole heart.

Clergy are expected to grow in their commitment to the spiritual disciplines (such as prayer, study of Scripture and meditation upon its revelations, confession and repentance, worship, solitude, community, ministries of social justice, and regular participation in the Lord’s Supper), so that they might be enlivened to love God with a devoted soul.

Clergy are expected to grow in their commitment to the disciplines of lifelong learning, continuing education, and theological engagement, so that they might be prepared to love God with an active mind.

2. A Commitment to Personal Integrity

The word “integrity” is a derivative of a Latin word meaning “intact” or “whole.” People of integrity are people who commit themselves to authenticity, wholeness, and ethical intactness in their relationships, their administration, their self-care, their communication, and their personal conduct. Clergy are expected to commit themselves to living and ministering with the kind of integrity that bears witness to a holistic walk with Christ.

3. Participation in Intentional Community

Communal accountability and collegial nurture are essential portions of our discipleship to Jesus Christ, who once promised to be uniquely present wherever “two or three” were gathered in his name. Clergy are expected to commit themselves to a finding (or developing) and experiencing the kind of intentional community with colleagues that invites mutual prayer, encouragement, and conversation.

4. Tithing and Growth in Generosity

In the church’s ministry, clergy set the tone for generosity and boldness in giving.  It is expected that clergy will teach tithing and growth in giving in the churches they serve. Moreover, it is expected that clergy will model these same disciplines in their personal walk with Christ by growing toward tithing (if tithing is not yet a practiced discipline) and possibly beyond it.

5. Respect for Colleagues in Ministry

An eagerness to tear one another down is antithetical to the spirit of love in which we are called to live. Clergy are expected to encourage and support one another, to pray for one another, and to resist the temptation to speak negatively about colleagues.

6. A Work Ethic That Honors the Urgency of the Gospel

Clergy are expected to be disciplined about their commitment to ministry and the consistency of their conscientiousness, in order that every local church or place of ministry might receive faithful, effective, and fruitful leadership.

7. The Honoring of Sabbath

In the often-frenetic pace of life and ministry, clergy are expected to be Sabbath people, experiencing consistent and intentional time away from work for solitude, time with family, and rest.

8. Participation in District and Conference Ministry

United Methodist clergy are joined by a connectional covenant. District and Conference ministry is an important portion of that covenant. Whenever possible, clergy are expected to support District and Conference ministry with their involvement and participation.

9. A Stubborn and Prayerful Resistance to Cynicism and Chronic Negativity

Nothing corrupts the joy and vibrancy of the church’s ministry faster than the proliferation of cynicism and unrestrained negativity. All too often, even the church’s leadership allows itself to be drawn into this counterproductive spirit, choosing disparagement instead of the recognition of possibilities. Clergy are expected to resist such cynicism and negativity, thereby becoming instruments of prophetic joy and hope.

10. An Unwavering Devotion to Primary Relationships

One’s most important and life-defining relationships are never to be sacrificed upon the altar of one’s ministry. Clergy are expected to give their best time and energy to their deepest friendships and their family relationships, so that their covenantal relationships might always occupy a priority position in their stewardship over their life and ministry.

11. A Christ-honoring Witness in All Areas of Communication, Including Social Media

Clergy are expected to communicate carefully, meaningfully, and graciously in all areas of their lives, so that their communication might reflect their journey of sanctification.

12. A Commitment to Scriptural Holiness, Wesleyan Theology, and Connectional Covenant

Clergy are expected to grow daily in their embodiment of a biblical worldview and in their practice of a distinctively Wesleyan theology that reflects God’s prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace. As United Methodists, we are also joined in a connectional covenant that demands a faithfulness to our polity, our parameters, and our practices.

Dementia and Sacramental Remembering

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I hear so many tender stories of people caring for a loved one who struggles with dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease.

A parent or grandparent.

A spouse.

A sibling.

A child.

A friend.

Every story is unique, but there are always common threads of sadness and sensitivity, heartbreak and hope.

Such stories remind me of my journey with my own father. Back in 2002, when Dad’s dementia was officially diagnosed, I remember sitting at the piano in our living room—a place I often go when I am confronted with realities that are difficult for me to process. I started playing seemingly random chords. A melody began to form. Then a phrase. “I’ll remember for you when you forget.”

That phrase became a chorus.

That chorus became a song.

That song became my truthful story, even a personal mission statement, in my relationship with Dad until his death in 2011:

I’ll remember for you when you forget
Your noble legacy demands nothing less
Don’t think me burdened by this sign of respect
It’s an honor to remember for you
When you forget

What does one do when a loved one is still here, but different; still with us, but in a way that demands a different kind of communication and attentiveness? What does one do in the gradual grief of surrendering a precious soul to the ravages of dementia?

In a word, one REMEMBERS.

We honor the ones who struggle, not only by blessing them with our attentive and sacrificial caregiving, but also by engaging in the beautiful work of remembering the parts of their story that they might be inclined to forget. We recall significant moments and memories. We recollect the journey and its revelations. We retell the sacred narrative of which his or her life is still a vital part. We remember.

When one experiences forgetfulness in dementia, remembering becomes a sacramental act, the bread and cup of which can be shared frequently and with deep reverence.

In this regard, caring for someone with dementia reminds me of what we call “church.” What is “church,” after all, but a community of chronically forgetful people helping one another to remember what they are most inclined to abandon in their spiritual dementia? What is “church” but a gathering of needy and distorted souls inspiring one another to recall what it means to live by the often countercultural Story of Jesus?

The church is a place of sacramental remembering, which means that the relationship between an attentive caregiver and a person with dementia is perhaps closer to the heart of “church” than either person realizes. In both settings, the rhythms of remembering are as natural as breathing and every bit as urgent.

I recorded the song I wrote for my dad and shared it with him while he was still able to make sense of it.

We wept together.

We prayed with desperate urgency.

We remembered.

Here is the song and its lyrics. May it fall gently upon your heart. And may it help you to remember.

When You Forget (words and music by Eric Park)

What makes a man a man? Is it his ability to remember things
Or is it more a man’s desire to do a thing in the first place
I’m thinking of a man whose memory fails him all too frequently
But I refuse to think that he’s less of a man than he used to be

The memory is just one portion of the person one becomes
And when it fails it doesn’t mean that one’s a failure
I’ll hold your memories as though they were a sacramental bread
And we will break that bread with reverence and frequency

And I’ll remember for you when you forget
Your noble legacy demands nothing less
Don’t think me burdened by this sign of respect
It’s an honor to remember for you when you forget

I see you in the back yard teaching both your sons how to throw a ball
I see you in the living room reading to your daughter
Your 50thanniversary looking at your wife like you did fifty years ago
I see you in a preacher’s robe teaching about the things of God

And I’ll remember for you when you forget
Your noble legacy demands nothing less
Don’t think me burdened by this sign of respect
It’s an honor to remember for you when you forget

With the pure water of your outpoured life
You have filled five hundred thousand cups
We have drawn from the wellspring of your decency
You’re who we want to be when we grow up

What makes a man a man? Is it his ability to remember things
Or is it more a man’s desire to do a thing in the first place
I’m thinking of a man whose memory fails him all too frequently
But I refuse to think that he’s less of a man than he used to be

And I’ll remember for you when you forget
Your noble legacy demands nothing less
Don’t think me burdened by this sign of respect
It’s an honor to remember for you when you forget

Worship Through Weeping

Brian-Micheloe-Doss Jesus Wept

(Artwork: “Jesus Wept” by Brian-Micheloe-Doss)

I think I cry more easily than I used to.

I am not certain of why that is.

Perhaps the accumulation of years has deepened my emotional bandwidth. Or perhaps my experiences of grief and loss have ushered me into the kind of sorrow that never quite leaves, so that the act of crying feels more like a companion than a stranger.

Whatever the reason, my tears flow more easily now than they did when I was in my twenties and thirties. A few months ago, while looking at photos from an old family album, I began to cry. It was spontaneous and unexpected—an honest emotional response to treasured memories and ongoing grief. It felt authentic, even prayerful. It also felt healthy.

About a week after that experience, an acquaintance told me that he did not feel like going to church these days. When I asked why, his response caught me completely off guard.

I am embarrassed by my own emotion…I lost my mom, my dad, and my brother over the last year-and-a-half. Tears come out of nowhere these days. Music makes me cry. Prayer makes me cry. Stories make me cry. Communion makes me cry…I’m afraid that I would just sit there in a church service and wipe away tears. I think it’s off-putting to people. Who wants a weeping mess to be sitting beside them in a pew?

The conversation left me both heartbroken and enlightened. It made me wonder how many people, like this man, see the church, not as a safe and appropriate place for the messiness of human emotion, but as a sanitized environment in which emotions are carefully guarded, images are managed, and the rhythms of tidy politeness are protected. In sanctuaries where a tearful Savior is regularly worshiped and where the brokenness of the human pilgrimage is regularly named, could it be that a portion of the church’s people are so utterly intimidated by the emotional intensity of wordless weeping that they are unintentionally creating barriers against those who feel unpresentable in the rawness of their grief and pain?

In a recent article entitled “Crying In Worship” (which appeared in the June 20 issue of “The Christian Century”), Heidi Haverkamp offers these insights:

Most of us have something to cry about, no matter what time of year it is. So I find myself wishing that people cried in church more often. Why not? We welcome people to wear jeans, to bring their children, to receive communion, to fill out a visitor’s card—why not also welcome people to cry? Most of us could stand to be reminded that we are not alone in carrying grief, worry, and struggle. If we can’t cry in church, what’s the point?

If tears are not the enemy, then why do some in the church act as if they are? I can only speculate. Perhaps the shedding of tears frustrates the all-too-common “fix it” mentality, since tears are normally devoted to pain that cannot be quickly fixed. Perhaps tears are too often interpreted as an expression of weakness instead of a courageous practice of vulnerability. Or perhaps tears are seen as being inappropriately intimate and honest—an unsettling and unwelcome reminder of the nearness of brokenness.

If such thinking has any grounding in the church, and it might, then the church’s people would do well to spend regular time engaging with these Biblical convictions:

  • We follow a Jesus who openly wept over a beloved friend and a beloved city, meaning that Jesus believed that tears were the only appropriate response to some circumstances
  • Christocentric community demands nothing less than a willingness to “rejoice with those who rejoice” and to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), so that followers of Jesus might allow their hearts to connect in the intimacy and profundity of authentic emotion
  • Tears, at their deepest, are prayers without words—the inarticulate cries of a soul that joins creation in “groaning for redemption” (Romans 8:22)

If this is truth, then weeping is not an an obstacle to relationship but rather an invitation to stand upon the sacred ground of relational vulnerability. Weeping is not a reason to stay away from church but rather a sacred opportunity to allow the divine tears of a tender-hearted God to commingle with those of the worshiper.

As Heidi Haverkamp puts it in the article I referenced earlier, “I wonder if this could be a blessing for others…to sit and cry in church when we need to, to be God’s people all together, with all the joys and sorrows, smiles and tears, of human life, before the One who loves us so much.”

Perhaps a Christ-follower will become most authentically human only when he or she stewards emotions, not with a spirit of shame or withdrawal, but with the kind of vulnerability that gives to weeping the space it needs to gasp and to breathe. Perhaps the church will be at its most sacramental only when it believes that the cup of salvation holds a grace that is substantial enough to accommodate the tears of the broken.

The Outraged Jesus

Artwork by Bernadette Lopez)

(Artwork by Bernadette Lopez)

It is an unsettling image, isn’t it?  I am speaking of the image of Jesus cleansing the Jerusalem temple, turning over the tables, and chasing out the moneychangers. Here is how Scripture describes it:

In the temple, he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple…and overturned their tables. (John 2:14-15)

Throughout my years of ministry, whenever people, particularly men, have approached this moment in Scripture, they have often seen it as the one time in the Bible when Jesus became a real “man’s man.” I call it the (Sylvester) Stallonification of Jesus. I once heard a man put it this way in a Bible study:

If I saw this kind of Jesus more often in the Bible—you know, the kind of Jesus who roughs up his enemies instead of telling us to love them all the time—I’d find it a whole lot easier to follow him.

The danger in this sort of thinking, of course, is that it can lead a person to use a Scripture like this to justify his own oafishness and his own bad manners. “Look, Jesus got angry! So can I! Jesus turned over the tables in God’s house, so why can’t I throw the ottoman through the window in MY house!”

What a dreadful thing it is to reduce a Scripture like this to nothing more than a justification of unhealthy anger or a validation of distorted masculinity. Jesus, after all, did not need this moment of dynamic anger to validate his personhood. His wholehearted identity as a man was already fully on display throughout his life and ministry. Never is Jesus any more of a man than when he willingly suffers and dies on a cross for the sake of a fallen world; or when he tenderly weeps over the death of his friend Lazarus; or when he desperately cries over the city of Jerusalem and its sin. Never is Jesus any more of a man than when he welcomes the children to come to him; or when he speaks words of life to a spiritually hurting Samaritan woman beside a water well on a hot afternoon; or when he wraps a towel around his waist and washes his disciples feet as a tangible demonstration of the fact that a new kingdom was in place—a kingdom in which servanthood is valued over power and where humility is valued over advancement.

Jesus’ anger in the temple is not a validation of Jesus’ status as a tough guy. It is rather an indication that some of the accepted rhythms of temple life inspired outrage in the very heart of God—a heart that Jesus represented and incarnated.

At what accepted rhythms was Jesus so angry?

The overarching sin to which Jesus seems to be responding in the temple is not the sin of buying and selling per se. Rather, Jesus seems to be angry about a much bigger issue: specifically, the ease with which people of faith conform to the principles and priorities that govern all the other parts of our fallen world. What does Jesus find when he walks into the temple? He finds business as usual. He finds a superficial (and, presumably, corruptly dehumanizing) commerce between merchant and customer, masking itself as service but fueled by the same kind of interplay that one could find just as easily in the marketplace.

Jesus’ anger reveals his demand that our temples and sanctuaries—both the literal temple of one’s place of worship and the metaphorical temple of the human heart—be transformed through sanctification, in order that they might become settings in which people practice a way of life and community that is unlike anything else the world has to offer. In the sanctified temple, sharing and sacrificial generosity take priority over buying and selling; repentance and forgiveness eclipse manipulation and exploitation; and the shared penchant for profit and pecking order begins to give way to an agapic and Christocentric communion.

Perhaps Jesus’ anger is grounded in his heartbreak over his realization of how frequently God’s people resist the call to function by a different economy, a different set of practices, and a different arrangement of priorities. In the “house of prayer” that God desires and that Jesus came to incarnate, people relate to one another, not as potential buyers and sellers (customers and merchants), but as redeemed spiritual siblings who have been liberated from social and economic hierarchies in order to be able to experience a new and often countercultural engagement (in Greek, “koinonia”).

I am inspired to personalize Jesus’ anger. What about the temple of my heart disheartens Jesus when he walks into it? What about the temple of my life inspires righteous anger in Jesus when he sees how frequently I have settled for attitudes, priorities, and patterns of behavior that dehumanize the very people he loves?

It is not a hateful anger that Jesus practices. It is an anger emerging from his heart of indefatigable love for this fallen world and its misguided people. It is an anger over the very things that should make me angry.

The question is, will I allow Jesus’ righteous anger to inspire manipulative denial or authentic repentance and redirection?

Changes

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Do any of you remember the David Bowie song “Changes” from his 1972 album “Hunky Dory”? I find myself singing the chorus of that song even as I type these words:

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Gonna’ have to be a different man
Time may change me, but I can’t trace time

Changes rarely happen without some struggle. And yet, in spite of the challenges, the rhythms of transition are often where God accomplishes some of God’s most magnificent work.

I am finding evidence of change wherever I look these days. Changes in our denomination. Changes in the political climate of our country and the nature of our social discourse. Changes in the dynamics of our churches and the communities to which they are connected. Changes in how people think about spirituality and its ramifications.

Changes.

On a personal level, the changes are even more daunting. Effective July 1, I will become the District Superintendent of the Butler District in United Methodism’s Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference. I will be succeeding my current District Superintendent, Joel Garrett, who will retire on July 1 and whose creative ministry and trustworthy friendship have been a regular source of blessing in my life for the last 26 years.

My new appointment requires that I  say hello to a work I have done before. It also requires that I say goodbye to the work of serving as a Senior Pastor to a congregation I dearly love and admire.

Changes.

In the eyes of some, District Superintendents are little more than denominational bureaucrats who toe the party line, extend the episcopal office, put out ecclesiastical fires on occasion, manage the distribution and collection of paperwork, and show up for the yearly administrative dinosaur known as the church conference. Others conceptualize the District Superintendents as the backroom negotiators who shuffle around pastors in that inscrutable segment of United Methodist polity called the appointment system.

For me to be able to return to the role of District Superintendent with a sense of integrity and purpose, I must cultivate within myself a vision for the work that might carry me beyond the sinking sand of cynicism to a more dynamic spirit of hope. District Superintendents, at their best, can be attentive encouragers who hold pastors gently but firmly accountable for their ministry but who also allow themselves to be held gently but firmly accountable by their pastors and congregations. District Superintendents can be facilitators of authentic worship who dare to see worship as humankind’s only appropriate response to God’s majesty and who diligently create opportunities for their brothers and sisters on the district to connect with one another in the context of the communal adoration of God.

They can be relentless champions for outreach and mission who work with other visionaries to create opportunities for hands-on ministry beyond the walls of the church building. They can be sojourners who travel alongside the pastors and laity of their district, comforting the afflicted with gentle words, afflicting the “too comfortable” with prophetic words, and listening quietly when no words are necessary, all the while cultivating the kind of attentiveness that honors the integrity of those they superintend.

They can be enthusiastic practitioners of the spiritual disciplines, who pray for their pastors and churches, who study the Word and meditate upon its revelation, who preach the Gospel with passion, who fast for discernment (in order to remind themselves that they are hungrier for God than they are for food), who worship as though their lives depended on it, and who commit themselves to holy conferencing (both with the churches on their district and the Cabinet).

District Superintendents have a unique opportunity in a changing denomination to lead with simultaneous compassion and vision, so that their ministry is driven, not by a commitment to institutional maintenance, but by a fervent commitment to relational evangelism and missional innovation.

My emotions concerning this new appointment are deeply mixed because of my love for the people of Butler First Church with whom I have journeyed over the last five years as Senior Pastor. Granted, I will have the privilege of serving as this church’s District Superintendent, which is both a blessing and an honor. That relationship, however, is something different than serving as the church’s Senior Pastor. Another Senior Pastor will come and will lead with beautiful giftedness and inspiring integrity. Of this I am greatly confident. One of the strengths of our denomination’s system of polity, after all, is our perpetual discernment of how pastoral leaders can be best deployed and how churches can be best served. With great sadness, I will let go of the role of Senior Pastor. With great joy, I will become an ardent supporter and encourager of my successor.

Please pray for me. Pray for my wife, Tara, who is as unsettled by this transition as I am. Pray for the incredible souls at Butler First Church and for their new pastor (yet to be named). Pray for our Bishop and Cabinet as they engage in the messy and meaningful work of another appointment season. Pray for Joel and Debbie Garrett as they prepare for Joel’s retirement. Along the way, allow yourself to be completely undone by the holiness and hugeness of God amidst all the “ch-ch-ch-ch-changes” with which you might be confronted.

Finer Footwear

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I remember being in the presence of real violence for the very first time. I was in kindergarten. The kickball game at recess had been interrupted because two of my classmates were arguing over a play at first base:

“I was safe!”

“No! You were out!”

The argument escalated until one of the boys balled up his fist and hit the other boy squarely in the face. Standing close by, I was horrified by the unmistakable sound of flesh smashing against flesh. The boy who had been hit fell to the ground. I stood there, transfixed by the intensity of the moment and nauseated by the sight of blood trickling out of the fallen boy’s mouth.

I won’t ever forget that moment. In my mind, I can still hear the punch. It was my brutal initiation into a violent world—a world of warfare and terrorism; a world of hateful words and bitter feuds; a world in which children learn to fight one another over something as insignificant as a kickball game.

The fact that we live in the midst of such violence makes the following words of Scripture all the more meaningful: “As shoes for your feet, put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the Gospel of Peace” (Ephesians 6:15). These words unsettle me whenever I read them (which I did just this morning). They unsettle me because of the way in which they bring to light the fact that, in my personal spiritual garb, I am often much more drawn to the combat boots of coercion and contempt than I am to the shoes of the Gospel of Peace.

When I reflect upon this particular portion of the spiritual armor of God, I am instantaneously reminded that the way of Christ invites me to become more passionate about reconciliation than I am about retaliation; more passionate about mercy than I am about manipulation; more passionate about patient listening than I am about winning the argument.

I may not have the wherewithal as an individual soul to bring peace to the Middle East. I may not possess the necessary influence to end all manifestations of warfare. But will the fact that I cannot create ALL peace prevent me from creating SOME peace? Will I dare to incarnate the Gospel of Peace in my little corner of the world? Will I allow myself to be so inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit that I become a peacemaker in my home, in my family, in my neighborhood, in my network of relationships, in the rhythms of social media, and in the hallways of my church? What might such a peace-making life look like for me?

As I type these words, I am praying that I will begin to make a more substantive place in my spiritual wardrobe for the shoes that enable me to proclaim the Gospel of Peace wherever I walk. I am envisioning the kind of “wardrobe expansion” that produces a counter-cultural disciple whose words are edifying rather than insulting, whose demeanor is engaging rather than dismissive, and whose governing passion is for authentic relationship rather than acrimonious division? Then, and only then, will I be able to say with integrity that I am a proclaimer and practitioner of the Gospel of Peace.

The Sanctification of Social Media

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As I reflect on my own journey with social media (more specifically, Facebook and Twitter), I am compelled to confess that, more than once, I have fallen into the narcissistic patterns that these particular modes of communication often nurture.  I have convinced myself, for example, that the content of my lunch or dinner is newsworthy enough to share; that my frustration over a mundane matter warrants a public hearing; that my opinion is too well-crafted not to be expressed; or that my joke is simply far too funny to be kept to myself.  Having an instantaneous audience is a seductive prospect, one that often inspires even the best of us to lower the bar concerning communicational boundaries.

Easily forgotten is the fact that contexts like Facebook and Twitter are without the interpretive nuances of tone, facial expression, and body language.  A playfully sarcastic comment, minus the buffer of a smile or a wink, can land upon a reader’s heart as an insensitive barb.  (There exists plenty of complex emotional territory, after all, that emoticons simply cannot cover.)  Also frequently overlooked is the varying degree of relational depth represented by one’s collection of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.  A polemical political or theological opinion on a divisive issue may be taken in stride by one’s relatives.  Casual acquaintances, on the other hand, may be utterly (and painfully) alienated by what they perceive to be a callous and arrogant disregard for other viewpoints.

To be fair, however, I must also acknowledge that I experience some of my most playful and rewarding connections in the cyber-chambers of Facebook and Twitter.  (In what other context could I possibly find the bishops in my life interacting with my childhood friends in a threaded conversation?!).  Moreover, some of my most substantive theological dialogues these days occur, not in church offices or sanctuaries, but in the Facebook message center.  And when it comes to daily chuckles inspired by the wit of friends and colleagues, there is no better resource than social media.

If, then, social media has the potential for both communal edification and communal destruction (building up and tearing down), those of us who are Christ-followers are left with the very specific and critical challenge of reflecting upon what it means to subordinate even our usage of social media to the transforming Lordship of Jesus.  To put it differently, how might the Christ-follower’s presence in social media create more light than heat, more windows than walls, and more mutual respect than reciprocal resentment?

This question cannot be adequately addressed in a single blog post.  But these are some of the convictions that represent my personal starting point:

When I move in the direction of humor in social media, I want to be certain that my humor is grounded in playful incongruities and random absurdities rather than personal insults and particularized belittlement.  All too frequently, I have utilized humor as communicational camouflage in order to validate a disparaging and demeaning perspective.  Such perspectives, quite frankly, are far better dealt with in the whispers of prayer than they are in the pages of Facebook.

If I am sharing a personal detail about my life, my joys, and my struggles, I want to be certain that it is an appropriate expression of self-revelation and not a manifestation of a narcissistic need to be coddled, pitied, or celebrated.  As I look back through some of my Facebook posts, it becomes clear to me how easy it is to cross the line that exists between playful (or prayerful) self-revelation and a self-aggrandizing display of personal matters that demand a far more intimate audience.

If I am articulating an opinion on a matter that is controversial, I want to make certain that my tone is graciously conversational instead of obnoxiously abrasive.  As convinced as I may be that I am right about something, does my tone convey my willingness to acknowledge the possibility that I am wrong?  And am I venturing into subject matter that demands something more than the kind of “bumper sticker theology” and “sound bite philosophizing” that Facebook and Twitter invite?  It is incumbent upon me to wrestle with these questions before posting a viewpoint that might very well become the only lens through which others might view me, thereby compromising the holistic nature of my witness.  Perhaps the most common form of idolatry in the human pilgrimage, after all, is the eagerness to bow at the altar of one’s own opinions.  I wonder how frequently I have utilized social media as a means of perpetuating the illusion that my opinions are more important than they really are.

If I am posting about my marriage, I want to make certain that I am doing nothing to cheapen or diminish the marital covenant in which I live.  Likewise, as I navigate my way through the social media network, I do not want to post anything that would trivialize or denigrate my friendships, my family relationships, and my professional acquaintances.

Most of all, I want to make certain that there is no inconsistency whatsoever between who I am in the pew or pulpit and who I am in the post or tweet, so that even my social networking might bear witness to who it is that occupies the throne of my heart.

Perhaps a Presidential election season is an excellent opportunity for us to bring even our relationship with social media to the foot of the cross.  If you do not make use of the social media websites, it may be time for you to face the reality that those websites represent a vast mission field that church leaders cannot afford to ignore.  If you already make use of these websites, I encourage you to make certain that your social networking in no way compromises the integrity of your discipleship.