On the Eve of a New Year

As we stand poised in this liminal space between 2024 and 2025, I have been thinking about how January gets its name from the Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, and doorways. I stand in the doorway, reflecting back on all that 2024 held and looking forward to the possibilities of the new year.

For me, “weary” sums up 2024. The year included retirement, an international move, and the end of the anti-LGBTQ+ language in The United Methodist Book of Discipline. Any one of these would be momentous and exhausting. Together, they cast a surreal light that made me often stop and wonder, “Can this really be happening?”

When Robin and I decided to move to Nova Scotia in retirement, we chose to replace our little cottage in Pugwash, NS with a larger home. We do not recommend building a new home a whole country away! Not being physically present meant that miscommunication was easy and meeting deadlines was not! The promised finish date of May turned to June, turned to July, turned to August, turned to September. Anticipating moving issues related to customs, we shipped our belongings up in May. After eight years of serving an area of 430,000 square miles, living out of a suitcase for a couple of months was nothing new!

I never could imagine myself retired. Despite the ups and downs of ministry, I have loved every second of service. Every appointment has blessed me in countless ways and I am so incredibly grateful for all the people I have encountered, who hold a precious place in my heart.

The hard part of being a United Methodist pastor is saying goodbye to the people you have served and come to love. Having to say goodbye to the people of the Mountain Sky Conference pained me deeply. We had weathered so much together—my election and consecration, attacks and undermining by the Right, the creation of a new conference, COVID, and disaffiliations. Yet, we also dreamed big and found joy together grounded in our deep commitment to mission and ministry.

The biggest impact on my life and ministry was the tectonic plate shift The United Methodist Church experienced at General Conference, where the delegates removed all the anti-LGBTQ+ language from our Book of Discipline. I had my call to ministry before that language entered our shared United Methodist lexicon. Even when it changed and I came out, I knew deep within me that I was called specifically to ordained ministry within The United Methodist Church. Boards of Ordained Ministries, District Superintendents, Bishops, and the churches I served affirmed that call over and over again. However, for more than forty years, I woke up each morning worried and wondering if this would be the day I would lose my ordination. That stress, experienced on a daily basis, was exhausting and stressful, impacting my spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being.

I find myself wondering: what was lost due to the church’s stance and what could have been if it hadn’t been there. What would I have done differently in my ministry? How might my life have turned out?

But living with “what ifs” dilutes reality and clouds the eyes of being able to see the gifts of what has been. So now I find myself looking forward to a new year, a new community, and new season of life.

Standing at the threshold of 2025, I recommit to living into a prayer I prayed in the parking lot of every church I visited in the Mountain Sky Conference: 

“Give me an undefended heart, and may I be generous in love.” 

I will continue to listen to the Spirit’s still, small voice that has always nudged me forward when the path wasn’t clear. I will invest in community in ways I couldn’t as an itinerant United Methodist preacher. I will be present to family. I will be a better friend.

As 2024 concludes, I carry a weariness deep within my bones. But through that weariness is a stubborn seed of joy that is bursting forth even now.

Thank you for being part of my journey in 2024. Holding you and all of us in prayer as we cross into 2025.

Grace-Filled Rhythms for Life

 

Following the World Methodist Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, Robin and I have been traveling around Scandinavia—a part of the world we have never been before. We have been taking trains and boats as we have traveled. One train trip—from north of the Arctic Circle to the city of Trondheim—was 10 hours long. The boat trip was 30 hours!

The gears in my busy life suddenly turned slowly. You can’t rush a train or speed up a boat! Instead, I felt myself—mind, body, and soul—learn new rhythms as I felt myself rocked by our conveyances

This is such a contrast to how many of us live. The lazy, hazy days of summer are giving way to Fall’s busy schedule. Many of our young people are back in school (which I consider so cruel—call me old school, but school shouldn’t start until after Labor Day). Pastors are looking at Advent themes already, The pause button has been all too brief as we rush back into calendars that are already booked solid.

I once read an insight by Angeles Arrien: nature’s rhythm is medium to slow. The seeds we planted months ago are just now being sown. It takes nine months for a fetus to come to term, and many years before that human is truly ready to be launched into the world. Few creatures, Arrien notes, move rapidly unless they are in danger.

We are a people who live hyper-speed lives.  We can’t help but press on the gas when the light turns yellow (or honk if someone takes too long to move forward when the light turns green). We get impatient when fast food is slow or our internet takes too long to download. Give us instant anything and don’t take more than a second than is necessary. We run from appointment to appointment, arriving out of breath because we scarcely take time to breathe.

Arriens’ words haunt me: Few creatures move rapidly unless they are in danger. What are you afraid of that keeps you so busy? What is it we are running from?

What would happen if we slowed down our pace: had fewer church meetings, didn’t sign our kids up for every activity, didn’t schedule every minute of our day. What might happen if we learned how to linger more and race around less? What differences might it make in the conversations we have with one another? How might our relationships deepen? How might our souls be fed in surprising ways?

Jesus says to us:  “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11: 28-30) My prayer for you is that you stop running and be still with God and others. Let God’s grace wash over you. Good things take time. Give yourself the expanse of fertile space that gives birth to creativity and new ideas and ways of seeing the world. Live freely and lightly once again.

Stop keeping your body in flight mode and sink into an awareness that you are held by God who loves you, blesses you, and keeps you, whose face shines upon you, whose grace is offered to you, who will give you peace.

The Olympian In All of Us

 

It seems that everywhere you go, people have tuned into the Olympics (I love that there are members of the Mountain Sky witnessing the games in person!). There is something so inspiring watching people who have trained for years push themselves even further to be even better.

I recently learned about the worst performance in Olympic history. Eric Moussambani was a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who had never even seen an Olympic-sized swimming pool until he got to the Sydney games! He learned to swim less than a year before the Olympics, training in a hotel swimming pool. Moussambani gained a place at the Olympics through a wild card entry system aimed at providing greater participation and access to the games.

As the 100 meter race began, the other two swimmers had false starts, so Moussambani was the lone

swimmer in that heat. The crowd was confused at first, watching a swimmer with such poor form race. But then they began to cheer him on. His race time was 1:52:72. The gold metalist that year finished in 48:30 seconds!

I’ve been thinking a lot about him these days. He was never going to be a great swimmer—there were so many obstacles preventing him from true greatness. But speed and winning the race isn’t the only path to greatness.

First, he didn’t give up. Even though he had an embarrassment-worthy performance, the fact is he did race, something not many can claim. Secondly, it wasn’t the end of his story. His Olympic time was his new personal best and set an Equatorial Guinean national record. And, later, he became the coach of his country’s national swimming squad, helping young people be even better swimmers than he was.

Each of us has been created to run our unique race. We might never receive a gold metal from the world, or an Oscar, or make a million dollars. There are times when we will misstep, fall, and even embarrass ourselves. But we are still called to run the race as best as we can and not give up. Because the story doesn’t end at the race’s finish line. Others will be impacted by our legacy. Our story will inform other stories. We will learn something that will be passed on to those in the future.

Because we don’t know how God will use our efforts. My favorite, go-to scripture when life gets rough and I feel as if I can’t go on is Romans 8: 28:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love God, who have been called according to God’s purpose.”

God is working something good out in you. Your task—the task for each of us—is to do the best we can in every circumstance, and let God take care of the rest.

Happy New Appointment Year!

 Today is the first Sunday of the new appointment year. For those who are receiving new appointments, it is a day of anxiety: will this new relationship between pastor and parishioners be fruitful? Will it help us all grow in our discipleship? Will it foster ministries that extend beyond the walls of the church to those in the community who are most in need? Will it hone our prophetic voices and witness, as we seek a more just world for us all, in particular for the most vulnerable in our midst?

I am praying for you!

The appointment year is so uniquely United Methodist. While we plan for the long haul, we also know that at the end of June, we who are pastors may be passing the baton to someone who will be following us. For parishioners, it can be a time of grief as a beloved pastor moves on to another church in need of their gifts. If you are continuing with the same pastor/appointment, I pray that you will do some introspection: where have we been most faithful together? Where do we need to forgive each other? What do we need from each other to grow in faithfulness? Are we helping one another engage in ministries in the community that are life-giving and life-transforming? If not, why not?

I am praying for you as well!

When I came to the Mountain Sky Conference eight years ago, I was so struck by how missional our churches were: nearly every church had an outreach ministry that made an impact on the lives of others—whether in the community in which the church was, or even in other continents through mission trips and missional giving. I was and continue to be moved by this sign of vitality in our churches.

Your church is needed to be a beacon of hope as you share the love God has for all people. In these
highly divisive days, how you live together, honoring the differences that exist between your neighbors in the pews, can be a witness that diversity is a sign of a wildly creative God and adds contour to community.

I am praying for us all through these days of transition. May the Holy Spirit continue to draw us more deeply into God’s grace, and lead us all into Beloved Community.

What Are We Teaching the Children?

 What are we teaching the children?

Children have been on my mind a lot these past few days. How do we adults explain to our children the political climate in our country? How do we discuss the recent conviction of former President Donald Trump? What do we want them to know about integrity, honesty, and leadership?

The children are watching us. They are seeing how we engage in difficult conversations with each other. They are noting the language we use when talking about people we disagree with. They are studying how we treat others.

What are they learning from you?

This weekend, I am praying each sentence of the Epistle lesson for Sunday. I am letting each word reverberate in my soul:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;” (Romans 12:9-16b)

I invite you to sit with these words in prayer. Let God come to you as you pray. What does God want to teach you through this text? How will that inform how you live?

What will the children watching learn from you?

Yes, Jesus Loves Me

 “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”

This is the very first song nearly every child learns in a Christian Sunday School. Sunday School teachers and members of the church are vessels of this love through their care and instruction. In this supportive environment, children grow in faith as they grow into their God-created selves.

But in too many churches, once young people begin to question their sexual orientation or gender identity, the message they receive is that God’s love is now conditional. This causes deep spiritual harm. Someone who doesn’t have a nurturing environment to grow into the person God created them to be lives a stunted life, never living into their full potential.

Church ought to be the place where every child of God will find a loving and accepting home to be who they are.

The United Methodist Church made huge changes to be that loving place through General Conference actions.

There are some United Methodists who are going to think we went too far by removing the language that declared homosexuality as “incompatible with Christian teaching”, allowing clergy to preside over same-gender weddings (if they choose to do so) and allowing LGBTQ clergy. I hope you will enter into a time of wondering: why would these pass overwhelmingly by delegates from around the world (the ban against LGBTQ clergy only had 51 no votes out the entire body)? What scriptures would prompt people to adopt these positions? How do these statements help us “do no harm; do good; and stay in love with God?”

We humans see the image of God as through a mirror dimly (I Corinthians 13: 12). God is so much bigger than our limited comprehension. The God who created the world in all its diverse flourishings has imprinted on each human God’s own image. The more we encounter and enter into relationship with each other, the deeper we look into each other’s eyes, the clearer God’s image emerges. We gain a bigger picture of who God is, particularly when we include those who don’t look like us, think like us, or love like us.

There are people of all ages in your community who are looking for a grace-filled community that allows them to ask questions, to be able to take tentative and shaky steps to explore who God made them to be, to find themselves in a community who will cheer them on when they do so.

Will you and your church be that community?

Let me tell you: there is amazing joy waiting for you if you are willing to do so. For wherever there is new life, whenever someone says yes to being their full God-created self, when someone is finally able to proclaim out loud to God “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” the angels sing and the saints dance.

I pray that our United Methodist Churches will be such loving places. May no child of God ever think they are beyond God’s love. May they be able to sing throughout their life:

“Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so”

 

Where Love and Joy Dance

 How apt that this past week’s lectionary was from I John 4, a beautiful passage on love—the love God has for us and the love we ought to have for one another.

Love is the bedrock of the Christian life.

And love is what I am experiencing in Charlotte at General Conference.

For years, General Conference has felt more like a battleground than an experience of Christian conferencing. Voices were silenced. Lives were demeaned. Hope was dashed, over and over again.  

But something is happening in Charlotte. At first there was a timidity of spirit, but then an open-heartedness to one another grew and even in the midst of differences, joy has bubbled up in contagious ways. Truly, the Holy Spirit is in this place.

What’s changed?

One of the best lines I ever heard in a church meeting was when a group was moving through a difficult topic but slowly aligning in consensus. Someone disagreed with the direction and said, “I just need to be a devil’s advocate and say…” Someone else said, “The church is the last place that needs an advocate of the devil.”

Differences of opinion and diverse voices are so vital for healthy conferencing. But those who just seek to disrupt, divide, and disorder do little to build up the Body of Christ.

Continue to pray for the delegates, who are working hard to respond to the Spirit’s leading, who are listening intently to one another,  and who are helping us realize the future of our beloved denomination.

And may this gracious spirit pervade our local churches, so that all who walk through our doors will find a place of welcome, where love and joy dance together down the aisles.