Closing Ceremony

This is my last newsletter article as your pastor which means that it’s also … AWARDS TIME! Yes, it’s that time in which I look back and reflect on the best (and worst) moments of my pastoral appointment at Kessler Park UMC.

Before we begin, let me say that it has been sheer joy to serve as your pastor. It’s truly been a great appointment, and I have appreciated every moment of it. Thank you for your generosity, your kindness, and your patience.

But now to the awards …

Best Worship Moment: I have a multitude of specific memories from our worship together, including all the special services for Holy Week and Christmas, as well as funerals, weddings, and other times. But our best moments together were when we were at Holy Communion. There is no moment more sacred for a pastor than to serve the elements to each of his members, one by one. Over time, I knew what to expect from each of you — how some of you like to have the bread placed in your hand, others reach for it, some clasp my hand as I give it, some make the sign of the cross before receiving. I learned that Susan Baxley, Paige Bell, and Margot and Sylvie Tomerlin needed the gluten-free bread. I loved giving bread to small children and saying, “This bread shows you that God loves you!” There is nothing like the act of serving communion; thank you for receiving the sacrament from me these past five years!

Worst Creative Worship Idea: There are a lot of candidates in this category, I’ll admit. For example, I dressed up as Captain Bluetastic for a Children’s Time, brought a huge Jenga set onto the chancel, did an improv sermon with my comedy coach, and used all sorts of props. Some things worked, others didn’t. At least I tried to liven things up, right?! But probably the worst idea I tried — the one I cringe at when I bring it to mind — was a Christmas Eve children’s service a couple of years ago when I dressed up as a tour guide for Tony’s Holy Land Tours and led kids around the sanctuary visiting various scenes from the birth of Jesus. Probably the worst thing about it was my obnoxious faux Italian accent.

Favorite Children’s Time Moment: When Paige Bell was our Children’s Minister, she made the mistake of teaching the Hand Prayer to the children in worship. This is a method which involves a different kind of prayer corresponding to each different finger on one’s hand. From the moment she started, we all knew that disaster loomed … and sure enough, Grey Mecca was the one who proudly showed us all his middle finger!

Favorite Special Music: I loved hearing church members use their musical talents outside of the traditional music ministry. Some of my favorite memories include: Mattie Jette singing solo, a cappella, without a microphone because if she did, the roof would be blown off the building!; Nathaniel Ogren playing guitar and singing original compositions; Rob Ballard singing, “Give Me Jesus”; Jim Shoecraft singing “The Old Rugged Cross”; Hannah Price playing every time she was home from college; and every time any one of our children has ever sung, played piano, played violin, or performed in a musical. Honorable mention: even though this didn’t occur in a Sunday morning worship service, I was blown away by the woman who “played bowls” during Jeff Chandler’s memorial service. The music she made was intensely peaceful and calming.

Best Potluck Dishes: This is a dangerous topic because I am likely to leave out someone’s mother’s beloved casserole, but I’ll go out on a limb anyway. I will miss Oscar Brown’s BBQ meatballs which he brought in a crockpot. There were always leftovers which I managed to sneak home to the parsonage. I will also miss Mary Ann Climer’s gumbo and paella which also often happened to make it to the parsonage. Anything baked by Phyllis Smith is worth paying attention to; she often brought fresh-baked warm banana or pumpkin bread to staff meetings, for which I am eternally grateful. And by the way, Eugenia Williams always brought food, even if she never made it herself. She gets brownie points nonetheless.

Best Outdoor Event: Every chance I get, I remind y’all that your property is a blessing, one of the biggest assets that the church has for ministry and mission. I loved the various ways in which the church uses the campus for creating community, from movie nights to community picnics, from Stations of the Cross to Easter egg hunts. But my favorite outdoor event has to be the Palm Sunday service. I recall having the idea of bringing a live donkey to my first Palm Sunday service on the front lawn; the last two years, we’ve had a blues service on the east lawn. I hope you continue the tradition of outdoor worship at least once a year; it’s a beautiful way to take the church outside its own doors.

Finally, the category you’ve all been waiting for … Best Church Member! And the winner is …

You! Congratulations!!

To Rebuild Trust

A couple of weeks ago, I preached on Acts 4:32-37 which tells how the early believers lived life together. They participated in a kind of “Christian communism,” in which everything was held in common, and everyone’s needs were met.

Some of you rightly pointed out afterwards that there is a very problematic story right after this passage. Acts 5:1-11 tells a disturbing tale of a husband and wife, named Ananias and Sapphira, who are part of this community. They sell a piece of their land, keep some of the profit for themselves, and give the rest to the apostles. However, they don’t tell the apostles that they kept some of the money; they claim to have given the entire profit to the community.

The Holy Spirit tells Peter that they are lying about this fact, and the two of them die — right in the middle of the church gathering! 

I’ll admit that if I could remove any text from the New Testament, it would be this one. I refuse to believe that God struck two people dead because they lied to their pastors — God doesn’t work that way! I don’t want to speculate on how this story ended up here, who wrote it or why, but I don’t believe it actually happened like this. I can only imagine that Luke (the author of the Book of Acts) wrote it because he’d heard from a friend who heard from a friend that Ananias and Sapphire were struck dead in the church and — gasp, they had some secrets!! You know how gossip works …

Regardless of how this story ended up in our Bible, I want to point out that the emphasis in the story is on the deceit of Ananias and Sapphira. They did not die in the story because they didn’t give all their money up, but because they lied about it. 

The “lesson” of the story, as disagreeable as it might be, is that lies destroy community. The early Christians must have been aware that, in order for their fellowship to prosper and grow in spite of constant opposition and persecution, they must be entirely open, honest, and transparent with each other. There was no room for deception, dissembling, and secrets.

Lies tear communities apart, because they destroy the fabric of trust that hold us together. If we can’t trust each other to tell the truth about our life together, then we will not be able to stay together. 

That’s why I fear what our current White House is doing. Almost every day, the Administration sends a press secretary to a podium and asks him/her to lie publicly. It began on day one with Sean Spicer insisting that the crowds for Trump’s inauguration were “the biggest ever,” plainly a lie if there ever was one. Now it’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ job to fib. Her press conferences are a constant stream of false facts, misleading statements, and untruths. (Seriously — how many different words can we use as synonyms for “lies”?)

As a result, our national sense of unity is eroding. We don’t trust each other, beginning with the people elected to the highest offices. It trickles right down to our local communities and neighborhoods.

The same thing will happen at Kessler Park UMC if we don’t tell the truth to each other as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And that’s what I’m most concerned about.

I know that sometimes it’s easier to just lie; we don’t like admitting our shortcomings or confessing our faults. We tell untruths to make ourselves look better, or to “protect” somebody’s feelings. But it always backfires. Lies have a way of circling around and hurting us. 

In last Sunday’s sermon, I argued that a New Reformation would be centered around community, and that we needed to rebuild trust within our faith communities. There can be no trust in communities and organizations if the truth is not paramount.

It’s not just a matter of not telling whoppers; we must learn how to be transparent, to stop holding tightly onto secrets, and to be honest with each other. 

Join me in praying daily that we become a community of trust, truth, and transparency. And I promise not to preach about Ananias and Sapphira any time soon!

A Newbie's Guide to Pledging

If you are new to the church, or have never made a pledge to the church before, this column is for you. Because the church “stewardship campaign” can be intimidating. You might wonder why we spend a couple of weeks talking about money so much.

You should think of it like a public radio pledge drive. It can be annoying to have NPR’s Morning Edition interrupted by pledge requests; and I don’t like hearing about pledges in the middle of This American Life, either. But it’s better than the alternative!

Like public radio, we aren’t a market enterprise. Thus, you’ll never hear commercials in the middle of a worship service. (And no, we’re not going to ever consider it. Even if you’re looking to promote your new pop-up goat yoga studio …)

And we’re not selling anything. If you haven’t heard me say it before, the grace of God is free. That’s the whole point — God’s love is freely given, freely received. We have nothing to sell, and we’re not planning to operate as if we do!

So the primary way the church funds its ministries is through asking people to pledge, just like the radio station. You could call it “crowdfunding.” In other words, we ask our members, friends, and visitors to help us do what we do. We always go through a budget process to plan for the coming calendar year, and attempt to finalize it before the end of the preceding year. The budget includes all the necessary items, such as property maintenance, utilities, office supplies, program materials, and, of course, personnel. Plus, we include strategic pieces and new missions that we would like to initiate.

A key part of the budget process is assessing how much income we can expect to generate in the coming year. That’s why we ask members to pledge. We need to know how much you all expect to give, so that we can plan our ministries and pass our budget.

Every year around the month of October, then, we spend a few weeks asking you to make your pledge. We accumulate the pledges and fine-tune our budget based on the total pledged amount. This is why pledging is important to the church; it is the way in which church leadership assesses how to proceed.

But a church pledge is only that — a pledge. It’s a matter between you and God ultimately. It’s not a contractual agreement. And we’re not going to send a bill collector after you.  We will send you a quarterly giving statement, which will let you know how much you have paid on your pledge year-to-date. But we won’t keep bugging you about it, like a public radio station might.

We can also make giving to the church an easy matter. On our website, you can make your pledge an automatic monthly or weekly payment. Just follow this link to automate your giving.

So far, I’ve described the pledge campaign in a purely functional and practical fashion — we’ve got to pay the bills, and this is how we do it.

As your pastor, I need to let you know that giving is about far more than just making financial donations. When you give to your church, you are not merely helping pay bills, pay the pastor, or even fund a particular mission of the church; you are literally performing an act of service to God. When you give to the church, you are giving to God, and you are giving to God’s mission in the world.

One of the most common images found in the Bible to describe the church is “the body of Christ.” Christ is still present in the world, but he is incarnated in the church; he lives and moves and has his being, in us! That’s not mere hyperbole, either. There is something very real about the concept that Jesus is alive and working through us.

It’s not really like making a pledge to a public radio station at all, in the end. For one, we don't give away tote bags ... I love public radio, and I think everyone should support it. But Kessler Park UMC has a greater mission to undertake, and a greater God to serve.

So I hope you will consider making a pledge for the first time. Let’s kickstart God’s work by Kickstarting KPUMC!