Tag Archives: Church of the Nazarene

[Her] Story: Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy Celebrate Calling

From March 10-12 in Grapevine, Texas, Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy hosted [Her] Story, an online and in-person gathering for women in ministry. The organization described the event as “a conference for women exploring and living out their call to ministry and the ministry leaders who support them. E2022: [Her] Story is a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded women clergy spanning many denominations.”

Over 600 women clergy participated over livestream and in person, representing denominations like the Free Methodist Church, the Church of God (Anderson IN), The Wesleyan Church, the Church of the Nazarene, and others. Speakers included Rev. Dr. Carron Odokara, Rev. Jo Saxton, Rev. Dr. Carolyn Moore, Rev. Dr. Colleen Derr, Rev. Dr. Dee Stokes, Rev. Christine Youn Hung, and many more. Ms. Almarie Rodriguez was the conference Spanish translator.

Wesleyan Accent Managing Editor Elizabeth Glass Turner spoke with contributor and WHWC board member Rev. Dr. Priscilla Hammond about Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy and the array of resources it provides.

Plenary sessions and select workshop sessions are available to watch free of charge on YouTube; visit the [Her] Story conference playlist here.

Wesleyan Accent: When was Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy established?

Dr. Priscilla Hammond: The first conference was held in 1994, but Dr. Susie Stanley had been coordinating resources through denominations beginning in 1989. WHWC was first incorporated as a 501c3 in 1997.

WA: What are the main activities and goals of Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy?

PH: We envision God’s Kingdom reality where the biblical foundations of gender equality are fully lived out across the Church as women and men lead together, following their holy calling. We produce a biennial conference for women clergy, ministerial students, and Wesleyan holiness women serving as chaplains or ministers in the marketplace, and we provide resources and encouragement to those women year-round. 

WA: What denominations are represented in Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy? 

PH: There are four sponsoring denominations: Church of the Nazarene, Church of God (Anderson, IN), the Free Methodist Church, and The Wesleyan Church. These denominations contribute annually to the operation of the organization and each appoints a representative to the WHWC Board for a four-year term.

Women from other egalitarian denominations or who are not affiliated with a denomination are welcome at our events and invited to explore our resources. We want to equip all called women for ministry!

WA: Has Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy morphed or focused direction over the years?

PH: The vision has not changed significantly in the eighteen years since the first conference. We endeavor to engage, empower, and equip women to lead in the Church. We do that through annual conferences, and have done it through newsletters, booklets, blogs, a book (Faith and Gender Equity:  Lesson Plans Across the College Curriculum, 2007), a devotional book, and social media. 

However, we are energized in these days to connect women even more, across more denominations and platforms. We don’t want to just host a “reunion” every two years. We are always seeking ways to promote better pathways for the development and advocacy of women clergy.

WA: Over the years has awareness grown of some of the rich historical heritage of women in ministry in these denominations?

PH: Reviewing our archived articles, we have found many articles written about women in ministry in the past and have posted some of them at this link. We publish a blog that digs into history as well.

We want the Church, women and men, to be aware of the ongoing presence of women in ministry throughout the history of the Church (not just in our own denominations). At our [Her] Story conference, we shared four monologues that highlighted the history of women in ministry (Laura Smith Haviland, Rachel Bradley, Rosa Lee, and our WHWC founder, Susie Stanley).

We created an interactive timeline with these four women on it and asked the ladies at the conference to post themselves on the timeline. At conferences and through resources, we emphasize that we are part of a long line of leaders. It is wonderful to see college students contemplating their place on the timeline. 

WA: Are there resources WHWC produces or shares?

PH: In 2021, the Wesleyan Publishing House asked if we could develop a devotional book. Each WHWC denominational representative nominated a list of potential authors. I contacted them and cast the vision for the project. In the end, 25 weeks of devotional entries were created and contributed, and This Holy Calling was the result. The final page of This Holy Calling is entitled “Your Called Voice” to let readers know they have something to add to this ongoing story of women in ministry leadership. (We invite women clergy who would like to submit proposed contributions to future volumes to contact phammond (at) swu (dot) edu.)

WHWC also hosts a blog and shares content through our Facebook and Instagram pages and shares videos from our conferences on YouTube. We encourage researchers who are writing on women in ministry to let us know so we can build a list of current, available titles.

We are a board of volunteers who make up our conference planning committee and communications team, so we depend on our sponsoring denominations and people who believe in our work to contribute to our work. This includes the contribution of intellectual resources. We are committed to providing the full story of women in ministry and can do that when others contribute and share resources with us.

Learn more at whwomenclergy.org. For those who enjoy the conference sessions on YouTube, shirts remain available for a very limited time at https://www.bonfire.com/store/whwc/

Wesleyan Accent ~ Practical Coronavirus Communication for Congregations

Note from the Editor: It can be difficult to discern timely responses when so much shifts in just a week. Equipping yourself with resources is challenging when you not only must sort facts, probability, and panic, but you must also keep up to date with relevant developments. And so everyone from Old Navy to Christian denominations to the NBA is forced to rely on phrases like, “we are closely monitoring…” and “we have been in contact with” (which probably means an intern was on hold for 90 minutes) and “it is an evolving situation.” Yet there have been some beautiful responses from a variety of Wesleyan Methodist denominations to the spread of Coronavirus. Certainly many communities have been stepping up in a variety of ways; it is heartening to see. Christians certainly aren’t alone in that. Yet I have been moved repeatedly to see excellent resources and postures recommended and shared from a place of deep thoughtfulness, compassion, historical awareness, and humility. What was intended to be one post has grown into two: one focusing on Coronavirus communication tips and another reflecting on intentional posture and spiritual formation in the midst of outbreak disruption and upheaval. I hope these voices expressing Coronavirus communication resourcing for Wesleyan Methodist congregations will encourage, guide, and inspire. – Elizabeth Glass Turner

Every denominational connection and individual congregation is assessing how to engage with emerging needs during a crisis, without worsening difficult circumstances or contributing to virus spread. Depending on the local context, that will look different from town to town, city to city, where dynamics differ. Naturally, resources for pragmatic service will continue to be driven along existing lines – relationships with food banks, local schools, senior citizen centers, ministerial associations, and chaplains in hospitals, public service agencies, incarceration facilities, and so on. (If your congregation would benefit from a Coronavirus-specific disaster preparedness plan, see this resource from the Wheaton College Humanitarian Disaster Institute – with an eye for highlighting a few of the most relevant/pressing sections.)

Given that local relationships will drive much of the local response, the following examples help address a couple of immediate needs faced by clergy and congregational members: church Coronavirus communication and communicating with vulnerable populations with proactive hospitality.

As we survey some great examples of communication under pressure, let’s keep in mind a United Methodist congregation in South Carolina has two confirmed cases who, along with the pastor, are currently self-quarantined: so pastors, develop a contingency plan in case you personally have to be physically isolated at some point.

Communicating Changes in Gathered Worship Routine:

A week ago, Rev. Eric Huffman, Lead Pastor of The Story: Houston was one of the first clergypeople on my social media feed to announce substantive changes to Sunday gathering practices. Just a few days before, the first confirmed case of Coronavirus had popped up in the high-density population area of Houston. Though some state governments are requesting limitations on public gatherings to fewer than 250 or 100 people, others haven’t yet; this puts congregations in a tricky situation. Do you keep the doors open or not? For churches in regions where public gathering hasn’t been addressed officially, The Story: Houston church made some sensible changes and communicated them clearly:

Five ways COVID-19 will affect tomorrow’s events:

We’re still gathering as scheduled – 8:45, 9:45, 11:05 in the morning. Things will mostly be the same as usual, with some exceptions:

1. Hugging is not allowed. Not even side hugs. If you attempt to hug someone, one of our several Krav Maga Houston specialists will respond accordingly.

2. We will not share Communion tomorrow. There will be a way to share Communion safely in the future, but until all our volunteers are up to speed on new processes, we’re not going to risk it.

3. OFFERING-FREE WORSHIP TOMORROW!! Kinda. Not really. Instead of passing the baskets, we’ll encourage you to use the wall boxes to make your offerings!

4. Hand sanitizer will be everywhere. We might even start baptizing with it.

5. We’ll worship Jesus. We’ll pray for those affected by Coronavirus, for those paralyzed by anxiety, and for those who are working to treat the ill and to develop vaccines.

If you’re sick, stay home! If you’re well but anxious, join us online at 11:05! If you’re well and you want to join us in person, I’ll see you tomorrow!

Announcements like this balance humor with respect for the gravity of unintended consequences: no one goes to church planning on unwittingly exposing everyone to illness just by taking the offering plate when it’s passed and handing it to the person next to them. This points to another strength in this communication: contamination hubs have been identified, analyzed, and named so that those who attend know what to expect. Passing the peace, passing the offering plates, and passing Communion elements all put people in close contact or involve multiple people touching a shared item. In the conclusion, an alternate mode of participating – “join us online” – is mentioned so that people can be comfortable with whatever decision they make about attendance even if they’re not ill.

Some regions have moved beyond these precautions to banning large gatherings and others are likely to do so soon. In the meantime, it’s still valuable to identify practices prone to spreading contamination and then proactively communicating planned adaptations.

Communicating District or Conference-Wide Worship Cancellations:

On a different level of church Coronavirus communication and preparedness, yesterday morning (March 13) an episcopal communication helped shoulder the burden of congregational decision-making: Bishop Mike McKee of the North Texas Conference relayed news of prohibition of large gatherings in Dallas County, given the announcement of a state of emergency.

The Bishop requested that all churches in metropolitan districts, not just large ones, cancel services for the next two Sundays at least and asked that rural district congregations choosing to gather provide additional sanitizing resources. He further requested that all church members in the conference over 60 or with vulnerable health conditions stay home and join worship virtually online, linking to a document providing a list of congregations offering livestream. (Since yesterday, I’ve learned of other Bishops requesting services to be cancelled.)

Bishop McKee wrote, “In this moment, the way that we as people of faith can do the most good and do no harm actually is to refrain from coming together. Practicing social distancing can be a way for us to prevent further infections and literally save human lives. While worship services and other church gatherings are canceled, it will be even more important for pastors and lay leaders to be attentive to our older and more vulnerable members. The ramifications of this pandemic are more than about health. People are at risk of loneliness and of suffering economic impacts.
 
This unprecedented moment gives us the opportunity to witness to our faith in ways other than gathering for worship. Pray for healthcare workers, community leaders, those suffering from the virus and their loved ones, and those who are being negatively impacted by this pandemic. As individual disciples and as churches, keep your eyes open for emerging needs and find creative ways to meet them. Be a source of hope in your circles of influence.
 
You will hear from me again soon as this situation continues to unfold.”

We live in interesting times when Bishops request that people stay home from church, but it is extremely valuable when leaders pave the way for a sensible response. Through this announcement, the Bishop has taken responsibility for closures (because there is usually some resistance from at least a few church members when services are canceled, no matter the reason). In doing so, he has also given permission to earnest church-goers and conscientious pastors to stand down from stoically carrying out weekly worship.

This is a slightly different angle from which to approach faith-based Coronavirus communication: when leaders carefully gather and analyze information and proactively collaborate on a clear response, they can be ready to implement a plan when officials announce and enact a policy. (As someone who expresses criticism of the episcopacy from time to time, it is important to pause and express appreciation when I believe something has been done especially well. Thank you, Bishop, for taking leadership on this matter.)

For Bishops or General Superintendents or District Superintendents, implementing decisions at a district or conference-wide level can alleviate stress on their clergy and congregations. Additional statements from Methodist denominations with an episcopal form of church government include this one from the College of Bishops of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) church and this one from the Board of Bishops of the AME Zion church (under Focal Point – statement on the Coronavirus).

At the time of publication, several queries have been made with pastors and leaders in a couple of Wesleyan Methodist denominations with congregationalist-style forms of church government. Responses indicate that communication from District Superintendents has been limited to encouraging clergy to follow any official protocols on public gatherings. (These queries were not exhaustive; in a “rapidly evolving situation,” it is probable we will see more statements in the days to come from district leaders in these denominations. Let’s hope that we do, for the sake of the decision load their clergymembers are carrying.) Official statements from denominational leadership teams include this one from The Wesleyan Church, these daily statements from the Board of General Superintendents of the Free Methodist Church, this one from the Board of General Superintendents of the Church of the Nazarene, and this one from the Church of the Nazarene on local church recommendations.

Communicating Virtual Worship Tips:

A lot has changed in just a week, and a large number of churches are livestreaming worship this weekend (even small congregations can put a phone on a tripod to livestream to their Facebook page: click here to watch a short simple video called “Local Church Guide to Using Facebook Live”). My own pastor emailed a worship guide file, with prayers, responses, texts, and sermon included so that it’s easier to follow along with the livestream.

Livestreaming is a good move in the current circumstances but in the past, watching a livestreamed service sometimes emphasizes the gap between presence and absence, simply because many worship leaders or pastors forget it’s happening and don’t address remote, virtual participants! For pastors preaching from empty sanctuaries or their living rooms, it will now be difficult to ignore the remote, virtual participants.

Enter this helpful reflection from University AME Zion in Palo Alto, California, where Rev. Kaloma Smith is Pastor. It’s a unique congregation that often practices fresh communication takes. Yesterday, the church shared these virtual worship tips: We know watching church service online can seem distant and impersonal, so we put together a list of tips to help you get the most out of this experience.

Here are simple tips to get more out of virtual worship:

MAKE IT COMMUNAL: As you get ready to watch a service on live stream, don’t do it alone. Invite those in your house to join in watching the worship service, invite friends and family to watch it even if they’re not in the same house, or start a watch party on Facebook.

GET IN THE RIGHT MINDSET: Say a prayer before you start watching, asking God to allow you to be brought to a place of worship, where you can experience his glory and presence.

REMOVE DISTRACTIONS: Treat this time as special and Holy. Stop scrolling, turn off the news, don’t multitask, let those around you know that this time is sacred, and you shouldn’t be disturbed. You will get so much more out of this experience if you focus and allow yourself to connect with the worship and God in a new way.

INTERACT WITH THE SERVICE: When you start watching, say hi in the chat and let people know where you’re from, type in your prayer request, respond to the praise team and preacher with emojis and gifs. We are a community, and we want to hear from you.

PARTICIPATE IN THE WORSHIP: Sing along with the music team, clap your hands, open your mouth in prayer and praise, write notes from the sermon. The service is not a show to be watched, but an experience that you are an essential part of.

SUPPORT OUR MINISTRY: During these difficult times as you’re watching University, we really need your financial support. You can give the following ways…

Not only was it savvy for this congregation to address what are often invisible or unspoken hurdles in joining worship online, it’s also a church that is already well poised to remove hurdles to giving when physical gathering is limited. The avenues to continue financial support included traditional snail-mail and a link to give through the website but most notably mentioned the “text to give” option. (In fact, Rev. Smith was quoted on the situation a few days ago in USA Today, here.)

Let’s name this as part of congregational Coronavirus communication: during uncertainty characterized by “panic shopping,” if you’re a part of a faith community whose budgetary decisions you support and trust, it’s important to continue whatever capacity of giving you’re able to exercise. Many faith communities will be front-line resources partnering with local efforts to protect and shield vulnerable church members and community members.

A quick note on utilizing technology for virtual worship: some church members may need guidance on how to find the church Facebook page. If congregations tap a few people to make quick phone calls on Sunday morning to assist any who struggle to navigate emerging technology, a quick, easy walk-through or step-by-step instructions before service begins could help everyone be prepared to participate. (For instance – in a time when many grandkids might help a grandparent navigate technology, some grandparents live in assisted communities that are now closed to visitors.) If those who are livestreaming begin the stream early with music, greetings, or announcements, it will help people know they’ve arrived at the right “place” virtually.

Communicating with Vulnerable Community Members:

After processing many ramifications of disruption likely to accompany the spread of illness, Jennifer Crispin shared pragmatic Coronavirus communication insight about living well individually through intentional community in ways that support and serve others. Her thoughts have been echoed by others who similarly spent the week thinking through the likely scope of impact:

“There are still ways you can continue to SHOW UP for people, even if you can’t show up in person:

*Donate cash to your local food shelter. A whole lot of people are about to get more food insecure, and cash donations go so much farther than canned goods. Plus, you’ve spent enough time at the grocery store already.

*Get take out from your local Chinese restaurant. You may not have seen people being racist in your community, but lots of these businesses are taking a hit.

*Call your friend with a chronic health condition that you probably don’t fully understand and say, “I am going to the grocery store, what can I bring you?”

*Write a letter or call your loved ones in retirement centers, assisted living, long term care. Many are or will soon be curtailing visitors, and these folks are socially isolated enough. Remind them they are loved.

These are all different forms of communication. Financial support of food banks, organizations, and local businesses communicates; contacting someone in a vulnerable health position communicates; contacting loved ones or church members or simply any residents who are shut-in or live in long-term care facilities – that communicates.

What do these actions communicate?

They communicate solidarity and community identity. They communicate welcome (through hospitable gestures), humility (through the willingness to serve), and value (through reinforcing the worth of those whose actions are limited in public and community space). A hospitable posture isn’t solely practiced in welcoming people to a center of activity, like a church building; a hospitable posture actually reaches out and engages people where they are. (Engaging people doesn’t have to be a physical action, exposing a body to added risk factors.) It may sound odd to say that communicating with people who are isolated is an act of hospitality, because we think of hospitality as hosting people in our space.

But what if we think of it this way?

When I call aging adults in my family, faith community, or extended community – when I speak to them over the phone, which may be their default communication style more than it is mine – I am saying, “you belong here, you are welcome here, you are a gift here. You are not forgotten or irrelevant. You belong; you belong; you belong.“

When I donate cash to a food bank or to my faith community’s emergency fund – when I give to a stressed organization with stressed volunteers or employees who are working long hours on policies that inevitably will be criticized by some – I am saying to the organization, to the ministry, and to each person depending on it, “you belong here, you are welcome here, you are a gift here. You are not taken for granted or at fault. You belong; you belong; you belong.”

When I contact friends who have a kid who’s immunocompromised or text someone going through chemo – when I tell them what I’m praying for them, and ask them to tell me something to do on their behalf – I am saying, “you belong here, you are welcome here, you are a gift here. You are not a liability or hassle. You belong; you belong; you belong.”

When I order take-out from a restaurant owned and staffed by immigrants – when I show up or delivery arrives and I smile and make eye contact and say thank you – I am saying, “you belong here, you are welcome here, you are a gift here. You are not alone or unwanted. You belong; you belong; you belong.”

Many of these dynamics – church communication, what it means to extend hospitality – aren’t new to our sisters and brothers in the faith who live in different parts of the world. It seems appropriate to acknowledge and repent of times when, in our distraction or self-centered routine, we displayed casual disinterest when other regions have been rocked by outbreaks, sometimes of illnesses much more devastating than the Coronavirus.

Mother Teresa shared a great deal of wisdom on many occasions. Several of her insights are timely right now; one in particular comes to mind as we consider how we communicate and what we are communicating.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

James Petticrew ~ Squeezing Jesus Out of the Church

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about you,
It’s all about you, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about you,
It’s all about you, Jesus

Some of you may have groaned when you read those words. Many congregations have sung that song to death for over a decade – but perhaps we did it because its words deeply resonated with a fundamental fact of our Christian walk and life as the Church: that the centrality and rule of Christ is something about which we need constant reminding.

I am a year back into pastoring, a year back into preaching regularly to a congregation, a year back into church leadership, a year back into trying to express God’s love to people. And a year on as I reflect on each of those areas and many others, I’m finding myself recalling Matt Redman’s words not as an expression of worship but all too often as a confession. I have come away from meetings, walked down from the pulpit on several occasions, and finished conversations thinking to myself:

I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about you,
It’s all about you, Jesus

One the main lessons I’m relearning after being out of formal church leadership for a while is simply that church life so easily becomes about so many other things than Jesus, and as that happens our agendas, priorities, and busyness slowly squeeze Christ from the Body of Christ. When Christ is squeezed from the Body of Christ church becomes “all about” other things: budgets, people and their problems and feelings, my self-esteem as a pastor, the quality of weekly worship music, song choice – just about everything except Jesus. I’m not naive enough to claim that some of these things aren’t important in church life; but I am coming to realize that when church life is all about those things, it ceases to be the Church and doesn’t have much life in it. When Christ is squeezed from the Body of Christ by our own priorities and agenda as a congregation or through our busyness as leaders or disciples, what is left is little more than a corpse masquerading as a church.

While thinking about the way in which Jesus so easily gets sidelined in the church, I read these words from Paul:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” (Colossians 1:15-18)

It strikes me that Paul was writing to a church also in danger of squeezing out Jesus, not by the busyness of church life or the disordered priorities of the pastor but likely by some sort of early Gnostic teaching that sought to diminish Jesus. (I’ll leave the exact nature of the Colossian heresy for budding New Testament scholars looking for PHD topics.) Both Paul’s “Christological song” above and Matt Redman’s 90’s worship song both convey the same message in different ways: it’s all about you, Jesus. Paul writes a theological tour de force in Colossians 1, reminding us of Jesus’ divinity, creative power, resurrection, and headship of the Church; then, Paul sums up the implications of all this truth about Jesus by saying, “so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” 

Perhaps it’s the tendency to diminish and demote Jesus from the place he should have that was behind Christ’s complaint against the church at Ephesus in Revelation: “I hold this against you, that you do not love as you did at first.” (Revelation 5:4) This tendency within the Church to make things other than Jesus supreme seems to be in pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s aim when he wrote, “Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”

In their book ReJesus, Michael Frost and Alan Hirschoffer a devastating critique of what Bonhoeffer called “Christianity without Christ,” the Body of Christ with Christ squeezed out:

We do not like gatherings [speaking of church services] of strangers who never meet or know each other outside of Sundays, who sit passively while virtual strangers preach and lead singing, who put up with second-rate pseudo-community under the guise of connection with each other, who live different lives from Monday to Saturday than they do on Sunday, whose sole expression of worship is pop-style praise and worship, who rarely laugh together, fight injustice together, eat together, pray together, raise each other’s children together, serve the poor together, or share Jesus with those who have not been set free.

But they don’t just offer criticism, they offer a journey to a remedy, claiming that the church needs to be “re-Jesused.” Simply put, “re-Jesusing” the Church is making church life and disciple life centered on Jesus again. To use Paul’s language, it means deliberately focusing on Jesus having center stage in our church life, not just giving lip service.  I think it means re-turning to Jesus again and again, making sure Jesus is the focus of our preaching, the model for our discipleship, the source of unity in our community, the inspiration for our worship, and the aim of our hearts. “Re-Jesusing” our Church life will surely mean choosing to live by his Spirit in every way, each day. It will mean being utterly committed to becoming like Christ in the desires of our hearts, in what we think and do.

I remember a significant afternoon during my year of Doctorate of Ministry studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr Dennis Kinlaw came to speak to us, but he did more than speak. He shared his heart. He spoke about his then-new book, Let’s Start With Jesus. He made an impassioned plea that as pastors and disciples, in every facet of our life and ministry, we start with Jesus. As I embark on my second year at Westlake Church Nyon, that is my guiding principle. In whatever I do in the life of the church or my own discipleship, I am asking, “what does it mean to start with Jesus?” I want my life to be “re-Jesused,” I want our church to be “re-Jesused.”

What about you? In your life, in aspects of church life for which you bear responsibility, can you really say with Paul that, “Christ has the supremacy?” Has church life become about other things than Jesus?  Are you absorbed by budgets, people, your self-esteem as a pastor, the quality of weekly worship music, song choice – anything except Jesus? Has Jesus been squeezed out of the Body of Christ? Maybe we could allow “The Heart of Worship” to make a brief reappearance in our services, just to remind us that, “it’s all about you, Jesus.”

James Petticrew ~ Sanctifying Ambition: Leadership and the Pitfalls of Platform

Being a “fifty-something” (54-year-old, to be accurate) pastor means that I am at an unsettling place in my ministry. I am at that stage where the end is in sight; I probably have just over a decade of good ministry time ahead of me. I have discovered that knowing most of my ministry time is behind me makes me think of my legacy. In fact, it makes me wonder if I will leave any legacy at all. I speculate about when I retire: will anyone notice I am gone, or even care? Will my years in ministry have any lasting impact?

If I am open and honest, I have to admit that this way of thinking has led me to other ways of thinking that frankly I am embarrassed to admit to. I found myself wondering recently “how to raise my profile.” I have spent idle moments wondering what I could do to get more people to notice me, to appreciate what I do. I think marketers call it “building your platform.” I have daydreamed of being invited to speak at conferences that would lead to invitations to speak at more significant events. (I did warn you these admissions were embarrassing!) I have been seduced into thinking that the bigger the events I speak at, the more people who know who I am, the more effective I will be as a pastor and the greater legacy I will leave behind.

I don’t think I am the only church leader who has these thoughts. Both culture and our Christian subculture tempt us and cajole us along this way of thinking as church leaders. We subconsciously or sometimes very consciously compare those following us on social media with the followings that other church leaders have gathered. We find ourselves wondering, “how many times has my sermon quote been retweeted and by whom?” We check our blog stats to see if our latest post has attained the holy grail of social media and gone “viral.” Probably like every pastor, I think somewhere inside of me is a book, but I have been told that the first thing any prospective publisher will look at is not whether or not the content I could provide is good, but rather how big a platform I have. They would be interested in how many people are in my congregation, how many Twitter followers I have, how many hits my blog gets per month. Publishers want potential authors to have made a “name for themselves” before they take a risk on them.

All of that weighed on my mind recently when I read these two verses which are physically very close in the pages of Genesis yet are spiritually worlds apart in the attitudes they represent.

“Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'” – Genesis 11:4 (NIV)

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great,  and you will be a blessing.” – Genesis 12:2 (NIV)

More than just building a tower, the people of Babel wanted to build a reputation for themselves. They wanted others to recognize their intelligence and skill and to admire them. They wanted to create their own identity as the premier architects and builders of the Ancient Near East. They wanted to be the first people that the organizers of a “Purpose Driven Tower Builders” conference would think of when they wanted keynote speakers. You know how the story ends: in their pursuit of making a name for themselves they became a lesson in arrogance and failure. They certainly did make a name for themselves, but not the one they intended. I saw a reflection of myself in their desire to build a reputation for themselves. What about you?

Abraham, on the other hand, didn’t seem that interested in making a name for himself. He was happy to follow God, to obey God’s calling (with a few hiccups) and to entrust his reputation to God. God took care of Abraham’s reputation and made his name “great.” Abraham was happy to move from one of the “happening places” of the Ancient Near East to the relative obscurity of life in the backwater of Canaan. An unsettling thought crossed my mind: most of us pastors want to move in the opposite direction, from obscurity to a more important place, the church in the bigger town, the move to the congregation with the higher profile in our denomination.

In my more honest and introspective moments I have been contemplating why, when it comes to my reputation as a church leader, I have been more Genesis 11 than 12, more a humanistic Babel Builder than a God-trusting Abrahamic Sojourner.

I think I may have found the answer in some words from Lance Witt: “I’m not sure when, but somewhere along the way, the measuring stick for what it means to be an effective pastor got switched. My concern is that the measuring stick of size alone can fuel a kind of ambition that is destructive.”

Witt issued a warning for all of us who serve the church: “When you’ve been in ministry leadership awhile, you learn how to cloak ambition in kingdom language. You can wrap ambition in God talk and sanctify it.” We so easily fool even ourselves that what we are doing is to glorify God’s name, when in reality the goal is to get our name noticed.

That switch took place in my head and that ambition took root in my heart. I started to measure success primarily by size, the size of my social media following, the size of the congregation I preach to, the size of the events to which I am invited to be a speaker. I was a fully-fledged Babel Builder, and my goal was to make a name for myself. I allowed myself to believe that effectiveness, true greatness in ministry, was given through the approval of people rather than through the grace and approval of God. I subtly and then overtly came to value people’s approval of my ministry more than God’s approval of me as a disciple. I wanted to have a name that people recognized rather than to entrust my reputation to God.

I have this quote on ministry, though I don’t know who said it: “We should take care of the depth, God will take care of the breadth.”  Whoever said it, I am determined to try to live it out consistently. I am going to focus my energy and ambition in following Abraham’s example rather than building a following. I want to make journeying with my God in faith and obedience my priority and leave my reputation in his hands, not mine. Jesus once said, “I am not seeking glory for myself.” (John 8:50) I am now trying to filter everything I do in ministry through those words to honestly analyze my motivation.

So, how about you? Where are you when it comes to reputation, Genesis 11 or Genesis 12? Who are you trying to build a name with? Who do you really trust with your reputation? What’s your priority right now in your ministry, the depth of your relationship with God or the breadth of your influence with people? For me it’s been an awkward journey, but I have come to the place where I am content with obscurity if my name is great in God’s eyes because of my walk with him.

Tara Beth Leach ~ Radiate: Transformed into a Holy People

Note from the Editor: Our featured weekend sermon begins at minute marker 40:55. 

Rev. Tara Beth Leach is Senior Pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene of Pasadena. She is author of the book Emboldened, published by InterVarsity Press.

The featured image is “Bridge of Glory” by painter Nicholas Roerich, 1923.

Tara Beth Leach ~ Inclusion Matters

This weekend we are pleased to share a sermon from Rev. Tara Beth Leach, Senior Pastor, and Pastor Julie Keith, Pastor of Special Needs at First Church of the Nazarene of Pasadena, California. 

The sermon begins at minute marker 35. 

 

Christian Community: Why I Can’t Give Up on Church

There are certain parts of Christianity where I find it difficult to bring my head and heart into agreement. There are some things that I know I should believe with my head, but I struggle because I don’t experience them in my heart. What I am trying to describe is the gap that exists sometimes between my theology and my experience.

If I am honest, the biggest gap that exists for me between my head and heart, theology and experience, relates to the church. I was taken to church from when I was a few weeks old and apart from a couple of teenage years have attended all my life and attended lots of churches of different “flavors” – Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Baptist and Wesleyan. I have served in the Church of the Nazarene as a lay leader, a pastor and denominational leader for 24 years. (I ain’t no bunny Christian, who hops from church to church.) My experience of church has been wide and deep. For academic work I have read widely and thought deeply about the church. 

The result is that I am convinced now more than ever about the importance of the church, of Christian community and its aberration: privatized and individualized Christianity (which is in fact no Christianity). The scriptures are clear: God exists in a communal way; the Trinity is a loving “commune.” When God created humanity in his image, it was created in and for community. In biblical terms, to be human is to be connected to others in authentic loving relationships that echo the Trinity.

The stories of Abraham, Moses, David and the others are not stories about individual heroes of the faith but the story of God’s love, grace and power in creating a community, a people through which he could restore his intention for creation. Jesus came to create a new people, a Kingdom people; he died not so much for individuals as for “all.” Pentecost wasn’t about people having individual spiritual experience, it was God keeping his promise to pour out his Spirit on all people. It was a community that was baptized with the Spirit and it was a community that was commissioned and empowered as a result. The whole point of Jesus’ statement about there being “many mansions” in his Father’s house has been totally misunderstood. It should be translated “rooms.” The point is not that in heaven we all live the life of the rich and famous, but that there is enough room for everyone; heaven – the Kingdom of God – is a communal experience. The New Testament ends on the note that Jesus is coming back for his people.

I really believe in the importance of the church. I am convinced that there can be no spiritual maturity out with it. I believe the church is indispensable to every believer and every believer is indispensable to the church. I believe that the church is a God-created, God-directed and God-empowered revolution of love before which the gates of hell cannot stand. I believe that the church has the power to change and transform us so that collectively we grow to be more like Christ. I believe that as we look at the problems of the world – violence, poverty, hunger, injustice and meaninglessness – that the Church in the power of the Spirit could help change the world.

I believe all of that. My problem is that I so rarely experience it. My experience of church has all too often been one of pettiness and politics. Pettiness can be found in making small issues hugely important and what should be big issues unimportant. I have encountered people in church leadership with strong opinions about architecture, about singing from hymn books, about whether you wear a tie at worship, about sitting in pews rather than seats. The point is that the Bible is absolutely silent on all of those matters. Yet all too often those selfsame people were not involved in any sort of authentic fellowship, ministry or mission and were rarely if ever seen praying, things which seem fairly important to God. In all honesty I was involved in a church where changing the color of the carpet in the ladies’ loo stirred up more passion than God’s call for the church to change the world. I hate the pettiness of the Church; why can’t we make what is important to God important to the Church?

And the politics, the power plays, and even the bullying. I know personally of a church where a woman with dementia who was house-bound was brought to the annual general meeting of the church to make sure that her vote was made to ensure the family’s seat on the church board remained in their hands. Why does the Church have to be more like a human-controlled political institution than like a God-inspired radical revolution so much of the time?

I really understand why people leave the church but still believe in Jesus. I have experienced the same temptation. But I have always resisted the temptation to abandon the church as a hopeless cause for a couple of reasons.

Here’s why.

I know that Scripture says that Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her. If Jesus can accept the pain of the cross because of his love for the church, I think I can work on liking it a bit more and enduring the times of frustration.

I have read enough of the New Testament and church history to know that there was no real golden era when the church was consistently all it should be and could be. The Corinthians were immoral and cliquish, the Galatians were legalistic, the Ephesians were devoid of passion, and the Laodicians were so spiritually apathetic and ineffectual they made God nauseous. Augustine’s church had other believers persecuted, the Catholics thought up the Spanish Inquisition, Luther encouraged anti-Semitism in his part of the church and Calvin, far from loving his enemies, had one burnt alive for disagreeing with the theology of his church. I could go on and on. We are worse than some eras in church history and not as bad as others. But if believers in those eras could stick with the church, then so can I. I sometimes feel like someone holding on to a cliff by the tips of my fingers, but if others could hold, so can I.

I also stay with the church because I have had glimpses of what the church can be. Glimpses of what God intends it to be. I have seen glimpses in church history, as the early church spread around the Roman Empire by the power of love. I have seen glimpses in the Methodists as they transformed a nation on the brink of violent revolution. I have seen glimpses in Anglicans who fought the vested interests of the rich and powerful and so killed Atlantic slavery. I have seen glimpses in the German confessing church that refused to bow to Hitler when everyone else did, even when it cost them everything. I have seen glimpses in contemporary churches in my country and around the world which are being transformed by the love of God and helping bring the Kingdom of God in here and now. I can’t give up on the Church because I have had glimpses.

Lastly, I can’t give up on the Church because I looked in the mirror this morning and saw that I am not perfect either, yet despite all my imperfections (of which there are many), my parents, wife, children, friends, and my church haven’t given up on me.

What about you?

Have you given up on the church?

Why?

Have you had “glimpses” of what the church can be?

What were they?

 

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

James Petticrew ~ There Are No Write Off’s with God

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

I have some big theological books, huge tomes. In these books when the writers want to describe God they tend to use big words, words like “omnipresent” and “omniscient.”

I wonder if you have noticed that in contrast when the Bible wants us to understand what God is really like, it doesn’t use big hard-to-pronounce words more often than not; rather than using words to describe God, it uses pictures.

Perhaps the most famous one is when we are asked to picture God as a shepherd. But we are also asked to picture God as a loving Father and as a skillful potter. These images help us understand God better. When we think of God as Shepherd we see that he is committed to caring, protecting, providing and guiding us.

I wonder if you had to come up with a picture of someone or something to help other people understand God better, what would that picture be?

For me it would be Bill.

I think God is like Bill.

Now I need to explain to you that Bill was a retired neighbor who lived across the road from us in Colinton.

Most days when I was sitting at my desk in our front room I could see Bill working away in his garage.

Bill and I had one thing in common, we both love motorbikes, but different kinds of bikes. To be honest I love shiny modern Italian super bikes; Bill had a different taste. He told me that he was looking for a new bike and then eventually he asked me to come over so he could show me his new bike.

Actually what he showed me was a rusty frame and about five boxes of oily and rusty “bits.”

You see Bill is a classic bike restorer. He doesn’t really care for my newish shiny working motorbikes.

Bills great passion is to take something that’s

broken,

ugly,

dilapidated

and restore it to its original condition.

He wants to take something that other people look at as rubbish and restore it till it’s just as the designer intended it to be.

He has some shining examples of old British bikes he has already restored in his garage. Right now he is working on his new project with great purpose and he will keep doing that for the weeks, months and even years until he has fully restored it.

He cleans,

shapes,

polishes,

recoats,

paints,

refits and

remodels day after day, knowing that despite all the difficulties of finding and creating parts, of making parts fit together again and making old seized parts work that he will eventually restore this bike to the masterpiece its designer meant it to be.

For Bill it’s not buying the best bike he can that gives him pleasure, it’s the challenge and joy of restoration.

I know Bill isn’t a Christ follower but watching him work away on his restoration project he reminds me of God. This connection between God and Bill came to me recently as I read these words from Paul right at the end of that passage we read.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago – Ephesians 2:10

The Apostle Paul would never have seen a 1950 BSA Gold Flash, but he thinks of God like Bill. Paul is saying here that God is a great restorer, not of old motorbikes but of broken human lives.

He says that “in Christ,” through what Christ has done for us in his life, death and resurrection, through his empowering Spirit and inspiring example and our relationship with Christ, God is recreating, restoring us to what he originally intended us to be. The Greek word that Paul uses literally means a “masterpiece.”

Now that’s incredible isn’t it? Just think about it for a moment

The moment we are “in Christ”, the moment we come into a real living, relationship with God through Jesus Christ, God gets to work to recreate us as a masterpiece of humanity.

I want you to remember this: God wants to get to work in your life so that when people get to know you they will say what a masterpiece of humanity, not it terms of your figure, or your shape or even your IQ but in terms of your character, your attitudes, your actions, the way you treat other people.

This whole passage in Ephesian 2 is about salvation, how we become a Christian and what it means to be a Christian.

After explaining why we need to be saved and how God has saved us through what he has done for us, not what we do for him, here right at the end of this explanation of salvation Paul says it is about so much more than just avoiding eternal punishment and going to heaven.

Salvation is about so much more than having your sins forgiven and a place in heaven.

Salvation is the short hand word the bible uses to describe God’s restoration work in humanity, restoring his Image in us. Making us more like the human beings he always intended us to be, more like Jesus.

I want us to unpack the implications of what Paul says here for how we understand our lives.

YOUR LIFE HAS POTENTIAL.

God is not like my insurance company. My insurance company decided my bike wasn’t worth the expense and bother of being restoring.

There are no write-off’s with God ….only restorations. God never writes anyone off.

Sometimes other people write us off. Sometimes we write ourselves off – but God never writes a life off. He always sees the potential in a human life handed over to him to be a masterpiece.

I have to be honest, I would never have bought that pile of parts that Bill did. When he first showed me them I couldn’t see how they could be restored into a working motorbike. The pile of parts looked beyond repair and restoration to me. But Bill, is a master restorer and he saw the potential in those rusty, oily bits of metal.

Thinking about it I am pretty sure that my life looks as unpromising a restoration project to the angels as Bill’s boxes full of old broken bits looked to me but like Bill, God relishes the work of restoration however unpromising the raw materials.

I suspect there might be some people who can’t see any potential in their own lives. When you think about your life you look at it like I looked at Bill’s box of broken bits.

You can’t see any potential. You can’t see how your life can be put back together again. Maybe you have tried yourself and failed time and time again.

If you feel like that I want to tell you one of the implications of what the Bible is telling us in this verse.

Whenever you enter into a living, vibrant relationship with Christ, when you are “in Christ” as Paul describes it, your past failures, your present faults in life don’t determine the future potential of your life.

The restoration project that is taking place across the road from me is happening not because of the state of the parts but the skill of Bill as a restorer.

It’s exactly the same with God, it doesn’t matter how broken your life is, how ruined it feels, what state parts of it are in, what’s important in this human restoration projection is the skill of God as a restorer not how promising or unpromising our lives are.

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE ARE TAUGHT IN OUR CULTURE.

In our culture we have songs like “search for the hero inside yourself.” The books in the self-help sections of book shops have the same message. The message is that the solution to our problems comes from inside us, it’s saying that we have the resources to change our life. The message is try harder, think differently.

The Christian message is different, it encourages us to look outside of ourselves for the power to change. It says come into a living relationship with God and rely on him to restore you.

You see as Christians we don’t believe in self-improvement but in God-empowered transformation. I can see Bill’s masterpieces of restoration in his garage and I see God’s masterpieces of restoration around me among his people. You can see them too, just look around and you here and you’ll see them.

SOME OF YOU – look in the mirror! YOUR LIFE HAS PURPOSE.

I live in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh is full of masterpieces, paintings and sculptures but they all just hang there or sit there in art galleries and museums.

The sad thing about Bill my neighbor’s restoration projects is that they sit idly in his garage. He’s too old to ride them now. They go to the occasional classic bike show to be admired but they aren’t ridden. They aren’t used. They don’t do anything useful.

Paul tell us its very different with God, he isn’t interested in restoring us to display us as museum pieces. He doesn’t start this great restoration project just to make us fit for heaven in the future either.

Here is the second implication I want to draw out of what God is saying in his Word here for us. God restores us so he can involve us. So not only does your life has potential it also has purpose.

When we come into a living relationship with Jesus our life doesn’t just have potential, salvation isn’t just about God restoring his Image in us and making us a masterpiece.God also has a purpose for us, “so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Paul says in essence here in verse 10, God’s doesn’t just want to make a difference in your life, he wants to make a difference through your life. God’s Word says there are good works which God has prepared for you to do.

What are good works? Good in the Bible is a word connected to God’s character. So “good” is anything that embodies or expresses the character of God. Good works are things we do that express God’s character to others

when we care for someone

when we meet a practical need

when we bring peace or reconciliation or justice

when we treat someone with compassion

when we help someone to experience god’s practical love.

Some of you may know that the Church of the Nazarene looks back to John Wesley as our sort of spiritual inspiration and Wesley had something great to say about this.

He said

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

If you are “in Christ,” if you have entered into a living relationship with Jesus, your mission, should you choose to accept it is to

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

God promises right here in this verse that he is at work in the world, and he is at work orchestrating opportunities for you to do good to others. We hear a lot about living our dreams Well here God is asking us to live for something bigger than our dream, to live for, to be involved in his dream for this world.

Our transformation is one small part of what God is doing in this world and he wants us to be involved in this great project of transformation for the whole of creation.

“PREPARED GOOD WORKS FOR YOU TO DO.”

Have a close look, are there any exemptions there? Any small print saying that it doesn’t apply to you? No, God wants to use everyone of us to start a viral movement of goodness, a movement of people committed to making the use of every opportunity to make God tangible to others by doing good to them.

This week he has opportunities ready for you, in your family, in your street, in your community, work place, school, university, gym, sports team, to do good.

Gerard Kelly comments on this thought that, “the message of the New Testament is an invitation not only to forgiveness and reconciliation, but to purpose and meaning: to usefulness; to beauty. It’s an offer of restoration: an invitation to become a human being who shines like the first day out of the factory.”

That’s an offer I want to take up, how about you?