by Steve | Jul 22, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By B.J. Funk
In March of this year, my father-in-law, George Funk, turned 95. His church in the small town of Burlington, Michigan, decided to give him a “This Is Your Life” surprise birthday party. It was a special occasion, not only because of his many years of living, but because Mr. Funk had been in this church since he was three years old! The pastor decided that anyone who has been in the same church for 92 years deserved to be recognized!
The Burlington Church of God gives great promise to the influence of a small church. Through the years, it sometimes thrived and sometimes fell behind. There was always a remnant who kept the church going. Eleanor and George Funk were among those who raised their three children there, making sure they learned great truths in Sunday school and church.
So, what was the secret of this small church? After all, there was no choir loft, no pull-down screen for Power Point presentations, no band to attract the teenagers, no large rooms for Sunday school, and no color on the walls. There is nothing about this church on the outside or the inside that “grabs” you and invites you to come back. Yet, within this plain church, things happened for the kingdom. Gospel lessons were taught even if there were only a few attending that day.
When my late husband, Roy, was young, the church was pastored by the Rev. Lee Sickal (whose daughter would marry Bill Gaither and become Gloria Gaither of the Gaither Gospel Music group). It was Gloria’s mother who showed Mr. and Mrs. Funk the difference between going to church and knowing Jesus personally. She led them to the Lord, and she also taught them the skills of godly parenting. When Roy’s mother spoke of her good friend, Dorothy Sickal, it was with great gratitude. She gave Mrs. Sickal credit for helping her know how to bring up her children with Christian values. It worked. All three Funk children took what they learned and then brought their children up the same way. Now, those children’s children are being taught the gospel by their parents.
Snow-packed winters were not a reason to close church. On a particularly cold Sunday morning, with snow measuring several feet deep, Mr. Funk began clearing his driveway so the family could get to church, where Gloria’s dad was waiting. No one had shown up. However, he continued getting the small sanctuary ready for worship. When the Funks finally arrived—in fact, the only family to arrive that Sunday—Pastor Sickal greeted them and said, “I knew you’d come.” Then, the Sickals and the Funks had church.
When someone had a prayer need, the Rev. and Mrs. Sickal included their two daughters. They called the girls inside, joined hands in a circle, and the four of them started doing business with the Lord. This type of praying soon included others—it moved down the street and up the next dirt road to the Funk farm, where family prayer also included the children. Now that those children have grandchildren, the pattern continues. It is never strange to see any of our family members taking the hand next to them and stopping for prayer at various times of the day. In fact, it is normal.
The Burlington church had a vision. Ornate furniture and stained-class windows were not part of that vision. The vision was to teach Jesus! The church sponsored a missionary family, whose picture was distributed to church homes for prayer. Mr. and Mrs. Funk kept the missionaries’ picture taped to the hallway wall, a daily reminder that these friends on foreign soil counted on their prayers.
Having grown up in a large church, where Sunday night MYF programs were a Hollywood production that brought in youth from other churches, I questioned the impact a small church could make. However, Roy’s home church changed my thinking. When kingdom work goes forth, church size and impressive programs do not matter. When dedicated Christians bring the Word, powerful things are done for the cause of Christ. It is the Word of God that matters, not large choirs or impressive programs, though these measures have value too. The key is bringing the life-changing message of Jesus to the lost. The concept that “each one reach one” still works. One-on-one evangelism and small group settings are proven to be a major tool of evangelism.
Jesus’ original church started with only twelve men. Even without a building program, an eye-catching slogan, or a booming praise band, those first disciples effectively spread the gospel. They gave us a model to follow. Teach Jesus. However you can. Just teach Jesus…and watch what he can do. Lord Jesus, help us keep our focus on you. May the Lord continue to bless the small church.
by Steve | Jul 22, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Barbara Dunlap-Berg
What happens when two neighboring annual (regional) conferences compete to see who can collect the most hand towels for UMCOR health kits?
Amazing things, according to the United Methodist Committee on Relief’s Midwest Mission Distribution Center in Chatham, Ill.
Before their annual conference sessions began, leaders in the Illinois Great Rivers and Iowa conferences challenged their members to a friendly competition. Illinois Great Rivers won the contest with 12,000 towels; Iowa took second place with 9,138.
Taking a cue from their neighbors, members of the Northern Illinois Conference donated 2,655 pounds of health-kit and cleaning supplies to the distribution center.
As severe floods and tornadoes continue to drench and destroy homes and property across the United States, UMCOR’s network of seven relief-supply centers is scrambling to replenish shelves.
The Rev. Cynthia Harvey, who heads UMCOR, acknowledged 2011 has been a rough year, and it is only half over. “This storm season hardly compares to previous storm seasons,” she said. “Through the end of April, we had already responded … to as many storms as we had actually had in all of 2010, and almost as many as we had in 2009. So that gives you an idea that we’re just, basically not even halfway through the year, and already our response is greater than it’s been in the last two years.
“And frankly,” Harvey added, “my concern is that hurricane season is just beginning.”
Nearly 170,000 kits shipped in two months
In just two months, centers shipped 169,512 relief supply kits to people in the United States and internationally. They range from the aforementioned health kits to bedding, birthing, layette, school and sewing kits and cleaning buckets, formerly called “flood buckets,” which contain supplies to enable people to begin the overwhelming job of cleaning up after a flood or hurricane.
Fortunately, the dwindling-supply situation was on the radar of many United Methodists as they gathered for annual conference sessions.
In the Alabama-West Florida Conference, where tornadoes left destruction two months ago, United Methodists attending annual sessions collected more than 3,700 relief kits.
United Methodists in the Minnesota Conference tried a similar tack, amassing 5,584 pounds of kit resources and $473 to purchase additional items.
Collecting UMCOR kits is an annual tradition in the Nebraska Conference. This year 3,914 kits of all kinds were collected over three days, as well as $3,718 for kit supplies and $3,432 for shipping, according to Lyle Schoen, conference secretary of global ministries.
Youth took the initiative in the Texas Conference, spearheading mission activities through project COLLIDE, which dispatched teens to mission sites around Houston. One team was responsible for assembling 110 cleaning buckets on Sunday morning. That evening, worshippers brought 90 buckets. All 200 were headed to the UMCOR Sager Brown Depot in Baldwin, La.
To be a part of the relief-supply ministry, UMCOR invites people of all ages to collect and assemble kits, volunteer or give toward the purchase of materials.
Tom Hazelwood, U.S. disaster response coordinator for UMCOR, knows the kits are more than just bags of toiletries or school necessities. They show people care. He cited the cleaning buckets as an example.
“Those buckets,” he said, “those clean-up buckets that they create, you know, there’s lots of love and lots of hands that (have) gone into that.”
By Barbara Dunlap-Berg, internal content editor for United Methodist Communications.
by Steve | Jul 22, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Liza Kittle
Over the past few months, annual conferences of the United Methodist Church have been meeting all over the world. Although delegate elections for General Conference 2012 have been the primary focus, many pieces of legislation have been considered for submission to the quadrennial gathering of worldwide United Methodism to be held in Tampa, Florida April 24-May 4, 2012.
Several conferences adopted legislation to once again challenge the church’s historical stance on homosexual practice being inconsistent with Christian teaching. The Minnesota, Northern Illinois, and New York Conferences either adopted resolutions to change the church’s current policy on the ordination of non-celibate homosexual clergy, or issued signed clergy statements revealing their intention to officiate at same-sex unions. These actions, coupled with the lenient decision of the Rev. Amy DeLong church trial, present a harbinger of the battle before the church at General Conference 2012.
Another impending battle will involve the Women’s Division, the leadership organization of United Methodist Women, as it attempts to become a separate agency within the United Methodist Church. Many important issues and considerations need to be discussed and discerned before this major structural shift is allowed to move forward. One of the most important questions this change will raise is the impact this action will have on the status of women’s ministry within the UM Church.
Currently, the only officially sanctioned women’s ministry in the denomination is United Methodist Women (UMW). The most current statistics available from the General Council on Finance and Administration indicate that less than 600,000 women are members of UMW, representing only 13.4 percent of the total female membership of the church. The organization continues to lose thousands of members each year and yet claims a membership of “over 800,000” women.
Since General Conference 2004, Renew has been in the forefront of a movement to change the church’s stance of having only one officially recognized women’s ministry option in the UM Church. Legislation to allow supplemental women’s ministry was first introduced by a local UMW member at the 1996 and 2000 General Conferences. The Women’s Division has fought this movement strongly, using questionable tactics at General Conference and beyond to maintain control over women’s ministry in the church.
No other population in our church has been restricted in such a manner. In a time when inclusiveness and diversity are championed, the women of the church find all supplemental women’s ministries they form officially unrecognized by the General Conference. The Women’s Division’s solid power base, savvy financial acumen, and uncanny ability to politically maneuver throughout the hierarchy of the church and General Conference have been a formidable obstacle in preventing other women’s ministry options.
Will granting the Women’s Division separate agency structure allow them to further control the women of the United Methodist Church? When and how will the church encourage, equip, and enable other vital women’s ministry options to bless the denomination? Shouldn’t access to a variety of officially recognized women’s ministry options in order to build vital congregations be an utmost priority at General Conference 2012?
At the 2011 North Georgia Annual Conference, Renew submitted a resolution on “Building Vital Women’s Ministry in the Local Church” with a provision for the legislation to be submitted to General Conference 2012. Unfortunately, the resolution did not pass. Instead of the ensuing debate being centered on the importance of empowering local churches to explore and develop fruitful women’s ministries, it became a defense of United Methodist Women.
Renew has never denigrated the faithful work done by United Methodist Women at the local level. The concern of the thousands of members of the Renew Network has always been with the controlling organization of UMW, the Women’s Division. It is the leadership of UMW at the national level that has turned the historic legacy of our foremothers into a platform for feminist theology, radical social justice, and partisan political activism.
Women all across our denomination are doing vital, important work as disciples of Jesus Christ. Hearts are being changed and lives transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit. Why would any church fail to officially recognize such vital women’s ministries?
The time has come for the General Conference to pass legislation in support of supplemental women’s ministry in the United Methodist Church. I encourage you to lend your support to open this door to expanded ministry within our denomination. You can do this by contacting your General Conference delegates to support legislation endorsing this initiative. Help this vital cause that will help build vital congregations!
by Steve | Jul 22, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Rich Peck
The average Protestant church has 39 percent men and 61 percent women, according to a study of 300,000 worshippers in 2,000 congregations across the United States.
No one believes we have too many women, but many congregations want to find ways to reach the 69 million men who do not attend any church.
“If your church has a United Methodist Men unit that meets, has fellowship and does some great work within the church, that is wonderful,” said Gil Hanke, top staff executive for the Commission on United Methodist Men. “Don’t throw away what is working for the 25 percent of the guys that are involved.”
At the same time, Hanke advises churches to find ways to reach the 75 percent of men who are not interested in belonging to a United Methodist Men’s organization.
“Do something that provides the other 75 percent places to fit in,” Hanke said. “Ask the pastor what his or her vision is for the men of the church and of the community, and then develop action steps that the men of the church can complete to bring all these men into relationships with Jesus Christ. We need the support of the pastor, but the men need to carry this forward.”
Scouting reaches youth and families. The Commission on United Methodist Men has a historical commitment to scouting and civic youth ministry. Scouting has proven a successful way for people to join the church, resulting in the opportunity to introduce, nurture and strengthen a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Nearly one-half of the 371,400 scouts meeting weekly in 6,700 United Methodist churches are from unchurched families, but few churches do much to strengthen ties with these units.
The Rev. Bill Payne, a member of the Florida Annual Conference, says that in 1986 he became pastor of a 90-member congregation that had only a passive relationship with a Cub Scout pack and a Boy Scout troop.
“When vacancies occurred, I recruited a scoutmaster and cubmaster who were committed church members with a credible Christian witness,” said Payne. He served as the chaplain and encouraged other church members to volunteer as leaders. He also invited unchurched Boy Scouts to attend confirmation classes and earn “God and Church” awards. Within three years, adults who entered the church through scouting ministries filled half the positions on the administrative council and Sunday morning attendance grew to 210.
The Commission on United Methodist Men is recruiting volunteers to help churches understand scouting as a ministry and provide churches with information about “God and Country Awards” provided by St. Louis-based Programs of Religious Activities with Youth. This scouting ministry specialist organization also provide information about various other programs to enrich youth ministries. At present, 113 people have volunteered to assist with this effort.
Provide other entry points. Men who might not accept an invitation to attend church are sometimes willing to spend a night with the homeless or work in a food pantry. They might be willing to help build a Habitat for Humanity house or participate in the Amachi program of Big Brothers-Big Sisters in which men become mentors of boys whose parent(s) are in prison. Surprisingly, some men who are reluctant to spend an hour in church will be willing to spend a week repairing tornado-damaged homes or building homes in a developing nation.
Equally surprising, some men who won’t join a men’s Bible study may want to participate in the Disciple Bible Outreach, a prison ministry that provides Bible study and practical help for inmates to re-enter society.
A few men may accept an invitation to a barbecue in which they are told about “Letters from Dad.” Greg Vaughn, founder of the program based in Richardson, Texas, tells men how he had nothing meaningful to keep after his father died. He encourages men to attend four training sessions in which they learn how to write lasting letters to their families.
“Letters from Dad” proved just the thing to revitalize the men’s ministry at First United Methodist Church in Sugar Land, Texas.
“We wanted something new and different and family-oriented,” said the Rev. Phil Grose, the church’s associate pastor and director of men’s ministry.
The church threw a kickoff barbecue and drew 70 to 80 men, more than half of whom Grose said signed up for the letter-writing program. During the training sessions, the men learned to tap into their emotions and learned practical writing tips to better express themselves.
After presenting the letters to their loved ones, the men shared their experiences with the group.
“When you get a group of men together, everyone tries to hold their emotions in, but we were all just bawling after a while,” Grose said.
Men’s ministry specialists. The Nashville-based commission has recruited men’s ministry specialists to help local churches expand their ministries to men. Following interactive training experiences in the classroom and online, these volunteers are able to help churches provide spiritual growth opportunities for church members and ways to reach unchurched men. Certification for the men’s ministry specialist takes 12 to 18 months and is completed with the guidance of the Turner Center for Church Development at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Wesleyan Building Brothers provides a means for spiritually immature men to become “spiritual fathers” who are able to mentor other men in their spiritual pilgrimage.
“It takes us back to the Wesleyan tradition of small groups,” said George Houle, Wesleyan Building Brothers coordinator for Kansas. “Jesus grew his disciples from fishermen, and then sent them out in twos.”
Man in the Mirror Ministries conducts “No Man Left Behind” leadership training conferences based on 20 years of research in the best principles and practices for reaching men.
Final test. The real purpose of United Methodist Men is not to get more men into church; it is to get more Christians out of the church building and into ministry outside the church walls. The measure of an effective men’s ministry is how many:
• Children and hungry you fed;
• Homeless you sheltered;
• Families that have re-engaged in the church;
• People you’ve served; and
• People who have committed to follow Christ.
Ministry to men can bring men into your church family, sometimes through the front door with worship, small groups and men’s events or through the back door with mission projects, barbecues or scouting. Either way, it works.
Rich Peck is the communications coordinator for the General Commission on United Methodist Men. Distributed by United Methodist News Service.
Create a ‘safe’ environment for men’s ministry
Space, both physical and abstract, is important for men. Is there a place they can go in the church and let down their guard? In this place, can they share their pain, their challenges?
• It can be as simple as how you arrange the chairs. (Hint: men don’t want to sit too close to one another.)
• You don’t have to hang power tools from the walls, but the area décor should be “masculine.”
• The space must provide confidentiality. Men must feel comfortable to
expose their hearts. Intimacy is arrived at over time.
• There is a “male” way of communicating. Church-going men often use too much “church speak” that would drive away men they may invite from outside the church.
• Men are attracted to goals and challenges. The goal is the launching pad for what men do. The group cannot focus solely on discussion. Here they make plans, and learn to trust one another by doing things together.
—From Interpreter Magazine
by Steve | Jul 22, 2011 | Magazine Articles
By Boyce Bowdon
Robin Wertz says she learned a life-changing lesson at Exodus House, the United Methodist residential ministry in Oklahoma City where people who are fresh out of prison come to start a new life.
“I’ve learned that ‘If God’s in it, I can win it!’” she declares.
It’s a lesson Robin says she needed to learn. “It transformed my life.”
She grew up in Oklahoma with seven sisters and one brother. Their father left the family when she was nine.
“After I graduated from high school, I married a guy 16 years older than me,” she says. “Our marriage lasted about a year.”
She married a second time, and the couple moved to California.
“By the time I was 21, we had a boy and a girl, a dog and a cat, and everything was going good,” she recalls. “But we started drinking on weekends, our marriage started falling apart and we split up.”
She says after their divorce, her ex-husband got sober but she didn’t, and the court awarded him their children.
“I got on welfare and started selling drugs trying to keep the house, but I ended up losing it. Then I started drinking even more. Even though I was selling drugs, alcohol was really my problem. Lots of days I drank a couple fifths of whiskey.”
After her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Robin moved back to Oklahoma and helped care for her until she died a year later.
“After Mom passed away, I called my people in California and had them send me drugs, and I started selling methamphetamines. Eight months later, they raided my mom’s house and arrested me.”
Robin was given two twenty-year sentences to be served concurrently. Twelve years of each sentence were suspended. She had to serve four of the remaining eight years before she could come up for parole.
“For me, prison was traumatizing,” Robin, says. “For the first time, I came face to face with the pain and suffering I caused selling drugs.”
She says she met prisoners who told her they had written hot checks, stolen credit cards and anything else they could get their hands on to buy drugs.
“I met women who had moved in with boyfriends, who had gotten into abusive relationships, and whose kids had ended up getting hurt. I talked with women whose marriages had been destroyed and whose children had been taken away from them—all because of drugs. After I saw the harm I had done selling dope, I was devastated.”
But Robin says even though she didn’t know it was happening, God was using used her devastation to help transform her life.
“I knew I couldn’t go on the way I had been living. I had to stay sober. And I knew I couldn’t do that by myself. I needed God, and I started searching for him.”
Robin said even though she’s a preacher’s daughter, it wasn’t until she was in prison she started digging into the Bible, seeking God’s help.
“Before long, I stopped giving myself big excuses and blaming everybody else for my situation. I started going to church services the prison offered. I learned sign language and started teaching women in prison boot camp how to interpret Christian songs for deaf prisoners.”
When the time grew near for her to be reviewed for parole, she started thinking about where she could live after she was released.
“I didn’t want to fall back on my family and be a burden on them,” she says. “If I moved back to where I had lived, I would be near the same people I was with before I went to prison, and that would make it harder for me to get a fresh start.”
She realized finding find a place to rent would be difficult for her since many landlords won’t rent to ex-cons. And she knew getting a job wasn’t going to easy either.
Robin says she also knew that as urgently as she would need food, lodging and a job, she was going to need something more if she wanted to stay out of prison and become the person she wanted to be.
“I knew I needed God in my life.”
While exploring where she could go, Robin discovered that the Criminal Justice and Mercy Ministries (CJAMM) of the Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church provides a ministry especially for people leaving prison who are determined to change.
She learned that the ministry has residential facilities in Oklahoma City and Tulsa where recently released prisoners can live rent-free for six months, sometimes up to nine months. Each is called Exodus House. In addition, CJAMM’s ministry includes four fellowships for prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. Each fellowship is called Redemption Church. In addition to Oklahoma City and Tulsa, they are in two other Oklahoma cities: Lawton and Ardmore.
Robin also learned that the purpose of the CJAMM is to help recently released prisoners who sincerely want to change build a plan of recovery from addiction and develop a stronger spiritual foundation centered in Jesus Christ. She knew that was what she needed as much as she needed a supportive place to live while she was finding a job and adjusting to life outside of prison.
So she applied for admission to Exodus House. She was approved and placed on the Exodus House waiting list, pending her release.
Robin says the parole board didn’t approve her for parole as quickly as she had hoped and she was disappointed. Dena, the Exodus House caseworker with whom she had been corresponding, encouraged her to keep hoping. A few months later, she was paroled.
So in June 2007, Ruth moved into her own apartment at the United Methodist Exodus House in Oklahoma City—which has 10 apartments for residents, plus two others for an office and a community room.
Robin says she found out immediately she wasn’t on her own. Her caseworker was there to help her every step of the way.
“Dena took me to the courthouse so I could make arrangements to pay my fines and court costs, to the parole office so I could check in, to get my food stamps set up. She even took me to get my driver’s license reinstated—I needed them for identification even though I didn’t have a car.”
Robin says a few days after she arrived at Exodus House she started applying for jobs.
“I went to numerous places. A month passed and I still didn’t have even a promising lead,” she recalls. “Just as I had expected, when employers found I had just gotten out of prison, they told me they didn’t have anything for me. I was very stressed out. But Dena reminded me that nobody expected me to get a job the first week or the first month or even the first two months.”
Dena told Robin she knew many employers don’t hire people who have been convicted of felonies, and most jobs available for her would start with low pay and offer limited opportunity for advancement.
She told Robin, “It’s going to take time. Just keep looking and you will find one.”
Dena was right, says Robin. “Finally, exactly two months after I arrived at Exodus House, I got a job at a fast-food place.”
She says she’s not surprised that approximately half the people released from prison are back behind bars within three years.
“Many of them don’t have any marketable skills,” she explains. “Some have never had a job doing anything that was legal. So, when they can’t find a job, they get desperate and go back to selling drugs or doing whatever else they did that got them in prison before.”
Robin says her caseworker wasn’t the only person pulling for her.
“Exodus House folks take care of one another,” she says. “When I was new, the residents who have been at Exodus House a few months would see I was discouraged and would look me in the eye and say, ‘You can make it!’ When I heard those words coming from people who had been where I was and had gotten past it, I started to hope again.”
Robin says she gained much of her spiritual growth while participating in activities at Redemption Church.
All residents of Exodus House are required to come to Redemption every Sunday afternoon and every Thursday evening. They are joined by prisoners arriving in CJAMM buses in from several nearby prisons, along with ex-prisoners and their families and friends who live in the area. Attendance is usually over 100.
Every worship service includes congregational singing, a praise band, testimonials, a gospel sermon, and communion. While half the people are in worship, the other half are in study classes and support groups specifically designed to meet their needs.
Classes include several Bible studies—one is an introductory class and others are for men and women ready for more advanced Bible study. There are also classes in anger management, parenting, budgeting and other practical skills. There are support groups for persons with a variety of addictions.
“When I got out of prison, I was still dealing with a lot of spiritual issues and I knew it,” Robin says. “I had low self-esteem and I had a messed up image of God. I was just beginning to believe God wasn’t the unforgiving judge I had grown up believing he was but I still had a long way to go before I really believed God loved me. I do now!”
She says what she got at Exodus House and Redemption Church was precisely what she needed: structure, guidance, and a whole lot of love centered in the teachings of Jesus.
“The ministers who preached and the leaders who taught reminded us again and again: ‘If God is in it, you can win it.’ And I’m convinced it’s true. When I do what I think God wants, then God’s in it with me and I stay sober and have the joy and peace and can help others do the same.”
Steve Byrd, pastor of Redemption Church in Oklahoma City and the associate director of the Oklahoma Conference Criminal Justice and Mercy Ministries, says CJAMM prefers to hire directors for Exodus House who have been to prison and have graduated from the Exodus program.
In keeping with that policy, CJAMM hired Robin two years ago to direct the Exodus House in Oklahoma City.
“When I was serving time for selling drugs, I never thought I would ever be directing such a wonderful ministry,” Robin says. “I know what our residents are going through. And now I’m teaching them what Dena and Steve and others taught, and I know it’s true: ‘If God’s in it, you can win it.’”
Boyce Bowdon, who was a United Methodist pastor for 20 years and director of Communication for Oklahoma Conference for 24 years, now writes inspirational articles and books from his home in Oklahoma City, where he and his wife Arlene live.
