by Steve | May 18, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, May/June 2020
By Laurie Drum –
As of this writing, I am in my third week of shelter in place in Spain, one of the deadliest of the epicenters of the coronavirus pandemic. Life and circumstances change by the hour nowadays. Such a paradox, to be sitting still and locked in our homes, yet circumstances outside are changing so rapidly. By the time this goes to print, I have no idea how things will have evolved and what life will look like. The only certainty is that it will have changed.
There are so many questions on the minds of those who have moved overseas to be cross-cultural witnesses. Never did I consider a pandemic when we were answering the call to go and serve and love our neighbors in another land. What does Love your Neighbor look like when you are forced inside? What effect does lockdown and social isolation have on sharing the gospel? What effects will the traumas of forced isolation, illness, and death have in the long term in our communities?
For us in southern Spain, the government decreed state of alarm has been a harsh blow to life as we know it. We cannot leave our homes, not even to go for a walk. Most homes have no yard or garden. The only way to leave home is to go to buy food, and you must go alone. Police and military are on the streets enforcing the lockdown. In a culture that prides itself on close-knit extended families, social connection, community bonds, and a pedestrian lifestyle, this has been almost unbearable. The impact and loss that is being felt by all is possibly as devastating emotionally as the physical devastation of the virus itself. We are, after all, created to be in relationship. We are created for connection. The grief of forced disconnection has been brutal.
And yet…
Neighbors gather at their windows and on their balconies each evening to applaud those who continue to be on the front lines of this battle every day, and to encourage each other as we wait out our confinement and fight our own struggles of isolation and the inevitable fears that creep in.
Neighbors who were casual nod-and-wave folks are now jumping up and down when we see each other and waving wildly from our living room windows. Neighbors who casually chit chat as we stand in line at the bakery are now singing and dancing on their balconies and cheering each other on as we rejoice in another day of health. We worry about the neighbor on the corner who hasn’t opened their blinds for two days. We call out to the neighbor who has an 85-year-old mother and check to see that Miss Ana, the matriarch of the neighborhood, is well. Even “the cranky neighbors” have changed their tune and have been showing up each night on their balcony to clap and wave and ask how we are doing.
When this is all over, we’re going to have one heck of a neighborhood cookout! In fact, we’re going to have one every month. We’re going to find excuses to gather often and love each other well. Because this is a new beginning. This is a new start for “love your neighbor” in Spain!
Doors are being opened to spiritual conversations. Now, during times of forced isolation when we are only connected to our friends and neighbors via text messages and social media groups, more and more spiritual comments and ideas are popping up in the conversations and we are able to join together in those and connect in ways that show our commonalities and diminish our differences. We are able to enter in to spiritual conversations that have been quite taboo in a country that has been steadily distancing itself from anything having to do with religion.
It has been eye-opening for some, the realization that we are more alike than different, the idea that we all have something deep within us that asks spiritual questions and seeks answers. If this is a product of this pandemic, it would be a huge step forward and a step toward reconciliation and peace among people seeking God in Europe.”
Laurie Drum serves as the director of training and formation for TMS Global. She and her family served in Peru before moving to Spain, where they help refugees and immigrant populations to navigate their new reality in Europe.
by Steve | May 18, 2020 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, May/June 2020
By B.J. Funk –
I could safely say that Oswald Chambers and I are friends, having met over forty years ago. He talks to me daily, and even though I don’t understand all he is saying in his book, I always come back the next day to hear him again. These daily chats enrich my life.
His book, My Utmost for His Highest, has been underlined, circled, and marked in so much that it is a complete mess. It falls apart in my hands. So, I ordered a new one, leather bound and beautiful. When he comes to my desk to talk, I know that something of depth will reach out to my searching soul. It always does.
I underline, mark, and write in the margins things I understand as well as questions to ponder. He is the kind of friend who makes me think, and that’s the kind I need. Not willing to let me get by with skimming over his guidance, he constantly pulls me deeper, challenges me, makes me question and probe as together we explore this fulfilling life of being a Christian.
I have a friend who says, “Every time I read this book, Oswald Chambers beats up on me.” That’s intentional. One gets the idea that Oswald wants to challenge us, and sometimes that feels like a beating!
In the introduction, written by a former Chaplain of the United States Senate, Richard Halverson states beautifully the heart of this book. “The book’s strength lies in its stubborn insistence on the objective reality of redemption as the only secure foundation.” Later he writes, “Through the years Chambers has kept me on course by bringing me back to Jesus. Believing Jesus, not just believing my beliefs about Jesus, is basic.”
Halverson states, “No book except the Bible has influenced my walk with Christ at such deep and maturing levels. Nor has any influenced my preaching and teaching so much.”
When teaching on the Holy Spirit, I always refer to Oswald’s penetrating insight. “The Holy Spirit is the One who makes real in you all that Jesus did for you.” Those words are so powerful that I have sewn them in the lining of my heart, and there they remain.
Concerning sin, Oswald writes, “Lord, identify me with Thy death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Then he asks this question of you and me. “Am I prepared to let the Spirit of God search me until I know what the disposition of sin is – the thing that lusts against the Spirit of God in me?” And later in that teaching, “Have I entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ until all that is left is the life of Christ in my flesh and blood?”
I fall short over and over, but like the deer that pants for water, I am drawn back again to the deep pools of satisfying water.
Stepping on many Christian’s toes, Oswald writes, “If you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of God’s order.” Instead, we should repeat often what John the Baptist said of his role in the life of Jesus. “He must increase and I must decrease.”
“Watch for all you are worth until you hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the life of another. Never mind what havoc it brings, what upsets, what crumbling of health, rejoice with divine hilarity when once his voice is heard. You may often see Jesus Christ wreck a life before he saves it.”
Concerning sanctification, Oswald once again leaves us no space to dawdle. “Sanctification means intense concentration on God’s point of view. It means every power of body, soul, and spirit chained and kept for God’s purpose only. Are we prepared for what sanctification will cost? It will cost an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an intense broadening of all our interests in God. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled him will rule us. Are we prepared for what that will cost? It will cost us everything that is not of God in us.”
Here’s another sentence that keeps residence in my heart. “My worth to God in public is what I am in private.” With that statement, we could say Oswald has gone to meddling, but that’s the only way to get the “sort of” Christian transformed into an “over the top” one. The world does not need “sort of” Christians.
Meddle away, Oswald.
by Steve | May 14, 2020 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
By Tom Lambrecht –
I am a planner. I like to have at least a rough plan in mind for any undertaking that I am part of, whether it is a work project or a trip to the beach. I get that from my Dad, who was a high school band director and needed to plan everything from rehearsal schedules to band trips.
Of course, the coronavirus pandemic has thrown the plans of literally billions of people into the trash. Everything that people planned to do, from work to retirement, weddings to General Conference, has been put on hold or dramatically altered or canceled. Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley [go oft awry]” (To a Mouse, 1785). It was one of my Dad’s favorite sayings when his plans got disrupted. A more succinct way of putting it is, “People plan, God laughs.”
We think we have life under control, and then something happens to disrupt our plans. It could be something negative like the pandemic, illness, job loss, a death in the family. It could even be something positive, like a new job requiring a move or a new baby in the family. As a pastor, I was familiar with unplanned moves. A single call from the district superintendent can upend one’s life! Every time it happens, it reminds us that we are not in control.
The Israelites needed to learn that lesson early in their formation as a nation. When the two or three million Israelites escaped from Egypt, they had to learn to depend upon God for everything. He guided them through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, and on the way supplied them with food and water every single day in miraculous ways.
The most dramatic lesson in dependence upon God is found in Numbers 9:15-23. God’s presence hovered over the Tent of Meeting (Tabernacle). “Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped.” “Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out.”
The Israelites had only a rough idea where they were headed and how to get there. They did not know from one day to the next whether they would stay in camp or set out on the next stage of the journey. They had to depend completely on the Lord to determine their travel schedule. They were unable to plan and had to live day to day.
That is somewhat where we find ourselves today. Conditions change, restrictions are adjusted, new closings or openings are announced. At any point, we or a family member could come down with the virus and be ill. We are living day to day in dependence upon the Lord in a more vivid way now than we experience in “normal” life.
The Israelites learned during their time of absolute dependence upon God that he would never abandon them or let them down. Moses reminded them what they had experienced during their wandering, “Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years” (Deuteronomy 8:4, 29:5). God took care of their every need, as they walked in dependence upon him from day to day.
That is God’s promise to us. “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:31-34).
Of course, one of the opportunities we are given in this pandemic is sharing with those in need, if we have more than enough. We can be the answer to someone’s prayer, the fulfillment of God’s promise of loving care for a person or family we know, or even for people we do not know and who may live halfway around the world. We can follow that nudge of the Holy Spirit to share what we have.
Our dependence on the Lord does not mean that we give up planning for the future. After all, Jesus reminds us, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?” (Luke 14:28). It only means that we should hold our plans lightly. All our plans are “subject to change” as the Lord works in our lives, and the circumstances of this world impinge on what we can do.
James put it well. “Pay attention, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town. We will stay there a year, buying and selling, and make a profit.’ You don’t really know about tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it vanishes. Here’s what you ought to say: ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'” (James 4:13-15).
I often find it is hard to let go of plans that I have made. After all, I had it figured out so perfectly! But the Lord has to remind me to hold my life with an open hand. “If the Lord wills.” What better way to express our daily dependence upon him? He is God, and I am not. And that realization gives me peace and security in the midst of the unpredictable circumstances of life.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | May 8, 2020 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
By Tom Lambrecht –
The coronavirus pandemic has caused a lot of disruption in our lives, in how our country functions, and in how our churches function, as well. Nowhere was that in greater evidence than in a May 5th “Town Hall” meeting held online by Mainstream UMC, a “centrist” advocacy group within The United Methodist Church. Various presenters appeared from their homes in different parts of the U.S., facilitated by two college students also at home because their college was closed due to the pandemic. This has become the “new normal” for our church, at least in the short-term future. And we may make more use of this kind of “meeting” in the future, now that many of us are at least somewhat more comfortable with the technology.
The event coincided with the originally scheduled opening of the 2020 General Conference, which of course has been postponed until later next year. Those unable to watch the livestream of the Town Hall can watch a recorded version that was promised to eventually have markers to identify the various questions that were discussed.
This Mainstream UMC Town Hall was called to consider how centrists and progressives can pursue their goal of a church that affirms LGBTQ ordination and marriage, in light of the postponement of General Conference. Subtitled “A Call for Grace,” the group proposed ways that they and the whole church could anticipate the reality of separation in the future through actions taken over the next 16 months.
There are several important takeaways from the presentation made during the meeting. Most notable in the “Call for Grace” were two proposals made by Mainstream executive director, the Rev. Mark Holland from Olathe, Kansas.
Continue the Moratorium
First, Holland proposed that the moratorium on complaints and judicial proceedings related to same-sex weddings and clergy being “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” should continue during this delay until the General Conference in 2021. The moratorium would mean that all proceedings or processing of complaints over these issues would be suspended and not carried forward to a trial. That, of course, is in line with what the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation calls for. What the Protocol originally envisioned as a four-month moratorium has now turned into perhaps a 20-month moratorium. Just as the terms of bishops and Judicial Council members have been extended in the wake of the General Conference postponement, it makes sense to carry forward the moratorium informally until General Conference can pass it as part of the “package deal” guaranteeing separation.
Of course, the moratorium is only a request at this point, since it depends upon General Conference action to make it binding and official. Many bishops are abiding by the moratorium, but some are not willing to do so. It still depends upon the willingness of the bishop, and the Mainstream UMC advocacy group has instituted a petition drive to convince bishops to go along. The moratorium would really be unnecessary if there were also a moratorium on performing same-sex weddings or ordaining non-celibate LGBTQ persons. The best sign of grace would be for everyone to stand down and not engender further conflict from either “side” by their actions.
Encouragingly, although not part of his formal proposal, Holland also endorsed the Protocol’s agreed moratorium on the closure of churches except for financial non-viability. We continue to hear reports that a few annual conferences are precipitously closing churches that seem to be functioning fine in order to claim the local church’s property and assets. Traditionalists will join Holland in urging that unnecessary church closures should be put on hold until after General Conference.
Allow Local Churches to Separate Now
The second part of Holland’s “Call for Grace” was to suggest that local churches desiring to separate from The United Methodist Church in order to join or form a new traditional Methodist denomination be allowed to depart with their property under the terms of the Protocol, even though General Conference has not yet enacted those terms. The Protocol’s terms are much less onerous and expensive than the current process in the Discipline. Bishops and annual conferences have the discretionary authority to at least partially follow this proposal, but it again depends upon the willingness of the bishop.
While traditionalists will appreciate the gesture and the attempt at even-handedness, this proposal is fraught with difficulty. In annual conferences that are majority traditional in understanding, it would weaken the traditional voice if local churches started departing from the denomination in advance of an annual conference vote. That could jeopardize the ability of the whole annual conference to separate and join the new denomination. The ability to leave under these more generous terms would be welcome in annual conferences where traditional churches find themselves in a small minority. However, these may be the annual conferences least likely to allow for such generous departure terms, absent a General Conference action.
The major provision in the more generous terms for separation by local churches is the ability to transfer their share of unfunded pension liabilities to a new denomination. But no such denomination exists right now for those liabilities to be transferred to, nor can it exist until the General Conference acts. Most traditional churches will be unable to take advantage of this proposal and would prefer to wait until General Conference enacts uniform terms for separation that cover everyone. A piecemeal separation by some traditional churches may not be helpful to the traditional cause. An orderly process of separation that leads to a strong new traditional denomination is the best way forward.
The Protocol Still on Track
Probably the most important takeaway from this Town Hall is the assessment that centrist and progressive leaders still strongly support the Protocol. Centrists such as Holland continue to promote the Protocol (as do traditional organizations like Good News, the Confessing Movement, and the Wesleyan Covenant Association). That means that, despite the delay, the Protocol is still on track to pass General Conference. There is almost universal acknowledgement among General Conference delegates that some form of separation is necessary to resolve our church’s conflict, and the Protocol seems to have the most support of any plan that has been put forward. While there are still 16 months to go, and nothing is certain until General Conference acts, the chances continue to be good that the Protocol will pass.
It is noteworthy that Holland continues to defend the $25 million settlement to be allocated to a new traditional Methodist denomination. He noted that The Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations that separated recently over these same issues have spent tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits. Holland opined (and traditionalists would agree) that money would be better spent seeding new denominations than carrying on legal disputes over property. Crucially, all the terms of the Protocol agreement are interdependent. To substantially change one term would upset the balance of the agreement and throw the whole package into doubt. Thankfully, there are no prominent centrist or progressive leaders calling for changes in the terms of the Protocol.
Many Centrists Are Really Progressives
It became apparent throughout the Town Hall that the agenda for a post-separation United Methodist Church would be unwaveringly progressive. Although the tone of the meeting was reasonable or even irenic at times, there was a strong commitment to ending “discrimination” against LGBTQ persons and relationships. Many centrists appear to think that, while other parts of the global church could continue to have their own rules against same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals, the U.S. church would be largely of one mind and one practice in affirming both.
To this end, Holland promoted the “Christmas Covenant” proposal that would create regional conferences within the global church, allowing each national church to have its own teachings about marriage and human sexuality. One questioner highlighted the apparent hypocrisy in this approach by asking whether a regional conference approach would have been acceptable in extending ordination to women or overcoming racial segregation.
Judging from the Town Hall presentation, it appears that the majority of centrists and progressives would not be comfortable allowing traditional views to prevail in any part of the church for long. Traditionalists who stay in the post-separation United Methodist Church might find their views tolerated on paper, but extremely marginalized in practice.
Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.
by Steve | May 4, 2020 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter
We are so thankful for the amazing care-givers and first-responders who have stepped into the spotlight during this COVID-19 pandemic. Angela Gleaves, a nurse at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, posted this uplifting photo on Facebook amid the coronavirus pandemic of her and four of her fellow nurses praying from the hospital’s helipad atop the building: “When you have a few extra minutes at work you take the time to go to the Helipad and pray. We prayed over the staff in our unit as well as all of the hospital employees. We also prayed over the patients and their families during this trying time. We also prayed for all of our colleagues around the world taking care of patients. It felt good to do this with some of my amazing co-workers. We could feel God’s presence in the wind. Know that you are all covered in prayer.”
During these dark and difficult times, please pray for all those who are caring for the sick and dying.
As Paul reminds us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).
By Laurie Drum –
