My Christmas Valentine

Just a month or two ago, a small handful of church members started serving as Reading and Math Buddies for students at Hogg Elementary School.

I have never done this sort of thing before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I was assigned to a third-grader named Jaylen. She’s quite small for her age, and she struggles to read. Every week, I sit with her for almost an hour and help her sound her way through first-grade readers.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling under the weather and called in sick to Hogg; but I showed up last week and went to find Jaylen. Her teacher said, “Boy, is she glad to see you! She was worried that you weren’t coming back.”

And out came a bouncing Jaylen with a big smile on her face. She handed me a small card made out of purple cardboard paper. On the front, she had written, “Ho ho ho ho.” On the inside, she had drawn a picture of a rose and the words “I love you” inside a pink heart. I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean, but I’m calling it my “Christmas Valentine.”

Then she said, “I’m sorry but I couldn’t remember your name. So I didn’t know what to put on the card.”

I laughed and told her my name. She said she won’t remember it. She says that a lot actually. It’s what she says when she can’t figure out a word. She says, “I always forget!”

And I assure her that, with practice, she’ll remember and become a better and better reader.

That small exchange made my week. I have the card on my desk, and every time I look at it, I remember that it doesn’t take much to make a big difference for someone else. You don’t have to travel halfway across the world, or write checks with lots of zeroes. You don’t even have to have a special skill.

Sometimes all you need to do is give a little bit of your time away. One hour per week in a classroom is all I need to give in order to put a smile on Jaylen’s face. Isn’t that amazing? Who would have thought that such a simple gesture could make such an enormous difference? Who could have known that creating a new relationship could be life-changing? It’s so easy that it doesn’t even feel like “volunteering” or “missions.”

Maybe that’s because it’s meant to be ordinary and easy. The life that God has given us is profoundly relational; it is meant to be shared with others. It doesn’t feel like work when we live life the way God intended it to be. Perhaps we make the life of discipleship more difficult than it’s supposed to be.

Maybe there is nothing more Christian than making a new friend, nothing more Jesus-like than opening a relationship with a stranger.

Who will your new Christmas Valentine be this year?

Click here to learn more about becoming a Reading and/or Math Buddy at Hogg Elementary School.

Embrace the FOMO

I have solved the problem of declining worship attendance. I now know why fewer and fewer people these days are going to church on Sunday mornings.

I lay the blame squarely at the feet of a social disorder known as FOMO.

What’s FOMO?, you ask. It’s an anxiety born of social media use — Fear of Missing Out.

This explains why so many of us are always checking our phones, inboxes, Instagrams, Snapchats, and Twitter feeds. Deep down inside, we are scared to death that something else is happening in the world that is more exciting, more interesting, and more important than what we happen to be doing at that same instant.

And I can positively guarantee you that, between the hours of 11 am and noon on Sunday, you are missing something if you happen to be in church. You can be sure that a friend somewhere else is having a wonderful brunch, or that a family member is enjoying your niece’s first steps, or Trump is tweeting something else ridiculous.

The key is learning to put FOMO aside during that hour, and embracing instead the idea that you are indeed missing out, and that you are very happy to be missing out, because you are instead choosing to focus on what is happening right now. In fact, this must be a daily practice for each of us if we want to keep our senses going into 2017.

I would like to suggest that the entire Christmas story is one big exercise in embracing FOMO. Let’s begin with the location. There are hundreds of more interesting and exciting locations for the birth of the Savior than the tiny village of Bethlehem, an insignificant spot in an even more insignificant piece of geopolitical real estate. Rome would have been a more important place for a divine birth; Athens would have also been a notable city. Or perhaps the Savior should have been born a member of the Han Dynasty in China.

But Bethlehem? That wasn’t the happenin' place.

And what about that birth? It took place in a stable, a mundane, uninteresting place. It might actually have been a little embarrassing for Mary to lay her newborn baby in a manger; it must have felt a little like putting her baby in a dog bowl. Would she have Instagram-ed that? I doubt it.

It wasn’t Mary’s idea to have the baby arrive in the midst of their trip to Bethlehem. I’m sure she would much rather have stayed home in the presence of family and friends for the happy occasion. What was she missing by being in the stable?

More than once, I bet Joseph entertained his own FOMO. What was happening back home? Was he missing any work orders? What if someone stole his tools while he was gone?

Of course, we know that this birth is the MOST important thing that has ever happened. Joseph and Mary had front-row seats to a world-altering event. They didn’t miss anything at all; instead, they got to witness it all.

That’s how God usually operates. In the routine and ordinary flow of life, grace is quietly working. In the change of seasons and rhythms of landscapes, the most incredible signs of hope appear.

If you have FOMO, however, you might just miss it.

When we are able to set aside the anxiety that something else interesting is going on somewhere else, then we might be able to discern the way that God is working in the here and now.

The truth is, if you suffer from FOMO, then you really are missing out. Because God is at work. Right in front of your very eyes.

What better time than Advent to start paying attention?

Giving Money is Giving Hope

Let me begin by thanking all of you who participated in our “Giving Hope” stewardship campaign. I am grateful to all of you who have taken the time to turn in estimate of giving cards.

To date, we have received estimates from 54 families, totaling almost $257,000. We are still 17 pledges behind our total number from last year, and also behind last year’s total pledged of $306,000. However, I am confident that we will get there — and even exceed last year’s commitments!

Remember that our goal is to increase our budget by 10% this year, which means that we’re hoping for estimates of $336,000. It’s not impossible, believe me. And we have high hopes for what to do with an increased budget, including adding a part-time staff position, as well as enlarging some of our programs and ministries.

As you have noticed, in the current political climate, hope is in alarmingly short supply. We’ve seen an uptick in hate crimes, random hate speech, and racist vandalism. Trump’s election seems to have brought out an extremely ugly strain of white supremacy.

Not only that, people are legitimately worried about what will happen the day after January 20th. There is a lot of concern about which programs might get shut down, and which ones might get started up. Frankly, we don’t know the fate of entire groups of people — Muslims, immigrants, refugees.

I have been heartened to read of the way that millions of Americans have responded to this fear — by giving money!

According to The Atlantic, “Perhaps the most notable (and most concrete) action to follow the end of the divisive election season has been a surge in donations to various organizations whose agendas counter those proposed by President-elect Donald Trump. In recent days, groups that champion causes like civil liberties and women’s health as well as focus on immigration rights and anti-discrimination initiatives have seen record responses to the election, in the form of contributions and volunteer applications.”

Many groups report smashing previous giving records on this week’s #GivingTuesday. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is one of the groups reporting an outpouring of volunteers and donations. “It’s a very good sign. It’s something we hadn’t seen before. Making a donation is the ultimate sign of solidarity. Actions speak louder than words,” said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesman.

Giving money is one way that we give hope to our world — it is an action that speaks louder than our words of well-wishing.

And I still believe that giving money to your church is a significant way to give hope to the entire world. Of course, you have to believe that your church actually DOES give hope away, but I hope you are convinced that Kessler Park UMC does exactly that.

Even if our country were to slip farther into a chaotic blend of xenophobic, racist, and nativist tendencies, our church will continue to be a place where all people are treated as being made “in the image of God,” and where the stranger is welcomed, the foreigner hailed as a fellow traveler, and the migrant is given a pat on the back rather than a deportation notice.