by Steve | Jan 6, 2022 | January/February 2022, Magazine Articles
By B.J. Funk –
Before my mother-in-law left for heaven, she was trapped in her limited body by a debilitating stroke. For five years, she lay motionless in the bed, unable to speak or communicate.
Christmas came. Roy and I traveled from sunny South Georgia to the snow laden streets of Burlington, Michigan, our first time to see his mother after her stroke. Mr. Funk greeted us with a huge hug before we walked into the living room of the old farmhouse, the dark walls mirroring the wood stove’s orange glow. This living room always held family memories, but on this night, it held medicinal memories. Rubbing alcohol, herbal supplements, vapor rub, and others. It had been transformed into a hospital room where Roy’s mother lay. Low lights and complete silence called us to want to turn the darkness to light. But, how? It seemed impossible How are you? sounded cruel. Merry Christmas sounded inappropriate.
As we walked to her bedside, her limited eye contact was startling as was her inability to welcome us. We weren’t prepared for a silent Eleanor Funk. Nor that her left arm would not reach up to welcome us as she lay under the covers. It seemed we had nothing to give her but our stares of unbelief and grief. We felt helpless and overwhelmed.
The next morning, Roy and his dad went outside to repair some farm equipment. I pulled up a chair by my mother-in-law’s left side, gently stroking her soft face. Suddenly, as if guided by an unseen hand, I opened my Bible and began reading the Christmas story from the book of Luke. Likely, my words would fall on unreceptive ears. Even as powerful as these words would be, my heart just wasn’t in it.
“In that region there were shepherds living in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night” (Luke 2:8).
Eleanor moved her head toward mine. Wait a minute! Eleanor moved her head! She looked straight at me! I continued reading. “But the angel said unto them, ‘Do not be afraid. I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord’” (Luke 2:11).
Eleanor locked eyes with me. Wait a minute! Eleanor locked eyes with me! Her stare never wavered as I continued reading through verse 40, my head bobbing up and down from her eyes to the Bible and back again.
“The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40).
I could not hold back the tears. Suddenly, the beauty of the Christmas story fell all over me, and it was as if I were hearing this Scripture for the first time. I drank in the truth that God loved me enough to send a Savior.
She still watched as I grabbed a tissue. We were now sitting – not in a room of medicinal odors – but in the very presence of God. Eleanor and I had suddenly stepped off of earth and onto Holy Ground. Then, the real miracle happened.
I heard the sheet rustling as Eleanor slowly moved her left arm out from the covers and reached for my hand. We sat there, caught in a divine moment. Our eyes were locked and our hands warmed in the other’s embrace. I didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything. It was the most beautiful conversation I ever had with my Mother-in-Law.
Every day we were there, I read the Bible to her. Other family members took their turn. For those of us gathered around her bedside, we learned anew the true meaning of Christmas. It was not in the Christmas tree. There wasn’t one. Nor in cookies. There weren’t any. Nor in presents or lights.
The essence of Christmas, however, shone around her bedside, its brilliance warming our hearts and causing us to reevaluate, even to rededicate our lives in those short hours with Eleanor. Christmas was everything it needed to be. Jesus was everything he needed to be. He was and is all the world to mankind. As he was to Eleanor. As he is to you. As he is to me. It was a sufficiet Christmas indeed! In fact, more than sufficient.
BJ. Funk is Good News’ long-time devotional columnist and author of It’s A Good Day for Grace, available on Amazon.
by Steve | Jan 6, 2022 | January/February 2022, Magazine Articles
By Bishop Eduard Khegay –
I was born and raised in Almaty, Kazakhstan (former Soviet Union). My ancestors come from an undivided Korea four generation back to the 1860s. I became a Christian in 1992 when I was a student at Moscow State Tech University shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. God blessed me richly. I studied in the USA for my M.Div. and D.Min. degrees and met so many wonderful people. In other words, I have Korean blood, Central Asian upbringing, American and Russian education, and a Russian soul.
God has given me the privilege to send and receive missionaries, be part of mission teams in different countries, experience different cultures and languages, do training events, and hear powerful testimonies. The mission movement has the power to change lives, and I want to be part of God’s mission in the world.
The last 30 years have taught me some important lessons from the mission movement in the post-Soviet context. They include many blessings and also problems. And they are often intertwined together. Let me just briefly touch on the few of them.
1. Language, culture, and mentality. There is a powerful scene in Steven Spielberg’s 2004 movie The Terminal when the main hero, Viktor Navorski (played by Tom Hanks) from fictional Krakozhia, helps a Russian man, Mr. Milodragovich, who wants to bring medicine to his ill father in Canada. Frank Dixon, the Acting Field Commissioner of the airport, wants to confiscate the medicine because Mr. Milodragovich has no medicinal purchase license. But Viktor Navorski tells the commissioner that this medicine is actually for a goat. This would allow a person to take the medicine onboard without needing a license. The commissioner understands that Viktor is lying and asks him why about his actions and why he helps a man he does not even know. This scene makes me laugh and cry at the same time. It caricatures the Russian and American men to the point of extremes. But the point is well taken. We grow up with our own language, culture, and mentality, and sometimes it is hard to understand a person from a different country and why they behave the way they do.
I admire missionaries who come to our land and study our language, culture, and mentality. All these things define the way we think and feel. When someone speaks my language and understands our jokes, I feel that this person is one of us and the connection gets much stronger. If someone respects Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky or Rakhmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, I pay attention to this person and what he or she has to say about God.
On the other hand, it is sad to see missionaries who make little effort to learn the local language and understand our culture. Of course, some people have more talent for learning foreign language than others. But even with limited vocabulary and genuine interest for local culture and the people, a missionary can be effective.
Another issue is using an interpreter. Often times I was the one. Besides the issue of quality of translation and integrity of the interpreter, people may perceive the missionary as a rich foreigner who hires others to do the job. In the context of a poor economy, it may inadvertently create power or status differentiation which did not exist before. And a missionary may not even be aware of that.
2. Reaching goals, building relationships. Most of us who grew up in the Soviet time experienced an authoritarian leadership style which implied that the Communist party sets goals for you. You didn’t have to think and worry about your future. Some people of my generation who were born in the 1970s still have a hard time to dream their own dreams. So, when Western missionaries came to our land and introduced goal setting, strategic planning, and SMART and SWAT analysis, silence was the predominant reaction from our people. It took us many years to figure out how to work with this new paradigm, and we are still on the journey.
Generally speaking, our sisters and brothers from the West were people who wanted to get things done, while our local people value more relationship building. If you come from a place with many resources to a poorer place, you see many possibilities to improve life and your compassionate instincts move you to act. Local people may admire you and follow your leadership until you realize that the future of your mission may seem uncertain after you leave.
It is much harder to invest in building relationships and patiently wait when local leaders would have their own dreams and strategic plans. But isn’t genuine discipleship about building relationships? Westerners feel that we go to extremes and drink too much tea and don’t reach the goals. And they are right. We do talk a lot. We need to work more. But going to another extreme – reaching your goals and missing building relationships – can damage our mission as well. My hope is that mutual learning and edification can help us build great teams for God’s mission both in the West and in the East.
3. East or West, which is the best? The politics of the world’s powerful countries is very polarizing today. I often feel that we are in an era of the Second Cold War. If you are in Russia and speak highly of a Western country, many people may perceive you as traitor. If you are in the USA and speak highly of Russia, you may get in trouble with your friends and colleagues. Is there a Christian way to deal with that? And how can we join God’s mission that will transform people’s hearts and minds so that they can see every human being as a child of God regardless of citizenship?
Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948), Russian religious philosopher, wrote in the beginning of the twentieth century that Russian thinking cannot be Eastern or Western. He argued that both of these extremes are not appropriate. His hope for Russia was that she would grow to global leadership and wake up the inner creative activity of the people. We as a church also cannot be Eastern or Western. We are called to be together and bless one another whether we come from East or West, North or South.
Unfortunately, the declining number of mission teams to Russia (even before the pandemic) suggests that the scary politics portrayed by the mass media puts brakes on the mission work internationally. Some people buy cheap news, argue about what is best: East or West, and lose focus on God’s mission.
The Bible challenges us today: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The mission of God is about sharing our light with others, especially those who suffer from darkness of spiritual, economic, political and social oppression and deprivation.
Who will go for God and whom shall he send today to share light, build relationships, and learn language, culture and mentality of God’s people?
Bishop Eduard Khegay is the Resident Bishop of Eurasia Episcopal Area in the Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference of The United Methodist Church. This is the second of a series of articles provided by TMS Global to platform some important voices in global Methodism.
by Steve | Jan 6, 2022 | January/February 2022, Magazine Articles
Photo: Shutterstock
By Heather Hahn, UM News –
What does a predicted denominational split and an unpredictable pandemic mean for The United Methodist Church’s bottom line? The General Council on Finance and Administration board grappled with that question as members revisited the denomination-wide budget that will go before the coming General Conference.
The finance agency board already was preparing to send the lawmaking assembly the lowest budget in more than 30 years. On December 1, by an 18-1 vote, the board approved shrinking the proposed four-year budget even further to a total of about $407.3 million for the years 2023-2026.
That marks a cut of nearly 33 percent – a third – from the budget General Conference approved in 2016 to support denomination-wide ministries.
The current proposal also would be the lowest budget submitted to General Conference since 1988, according to the denomination’s Commission on Archives and History. At the time, the denomination had about 3 million fewer members than today and had yet to establish Africa University, now supported by denominational funds.
Still, board members stressed that the budget proposal remains very much a work in progress and could change further. They are trying to get a clear picture of what the denomination’s financial base will look like in the near future – and a fog of unknowns clouds their view.
After decades of intensifying debate over LGBTQ marriage and ordination, the coming General Conference faces multiple proposals for a denominational separation. But no person knows how many congregations will depart if a plan of separation passes. Similarly, no one can say when the deadly pandemic will stop upending lives.
“They are projections for things we’ve never done before,” said Christine Dodson, GCFA board vice president who serves on the denomination’s Budget Advisory Team. She also is the treasurer and business manager of the North Carolina Conference. “We don’t have data on how a pandemic and disaffiliation are going to impact our churches moving forward.”
The board does have the educated guesses by leaders of U.S. conferences, the regional bodies that provide the lion’s share of funding for denomination-wide ministries. Both in 2020 and this year, GCFA surveyed conference treasurers, bishops, district superintendents and others to get their best sense of the financial impact of congregational disaffiliations.
Based on this year’s survey, the finance agency now estimates the denomination stands to lose about 25.5 percent of U.S. local church net expenditures by 2025. That’s a bigger loss than projected in last year’s survey, which only asked for estimates through 2024.
The survey results do not mean that conferences expect more than a quarter of U.S. United Methodist churches to depart or close during the next four years. Net expenditures can vary widely by congregation and by circumstance.
What the results do mean is that conference leaders forecast that church departures and closures will result in a substantial decline in one of the key factors used in determining the denomination’s budget.
As it stands, some churches already are leaving without waiting for General Conference to act. GCFA reports that in 2020, 32 U.S. congregations disaffiliated from The United Methodist Church. But that represents only a tiny fraction of the denomination’s more than 31,000 United Methodist churches nationwide.
The Rev. Steve Court, GCFA board member and director of connectional ministries for the East Ohio Conference, told the board that he thought the net-expenditure estimates might be overly negative about what the future holds. “I just want to keep highlighting that because it has real ministry impacts about the level of cutting that we do at this point,” he said.
North Texas Conference Bishop Mike McKee, GCFA board president, agreed with Court that the estimates were far from definitive. McKee said conference leaders tend to answer the disaffiliation question very differently depending on their role. “This is going to be very difficult to forecast,” McKee said. “I’m of the opinion that people will walk more than churches will.” However, he added, that he does not know of any better way to make budget projections.
Heather Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Adapted from UM News.
by Steve | Jan 6, 2022 | January/February 2022, Magazine Articles
At a November 18 online meeting, the Commission on the General Conference and staff pressed forward with planning for the postponed legislative assembly. After the coronavirus has twice altered their plans, commission members expect to make a final decision in the first quarter of next year on whether General Conference can take place as scheduled August 29-September 6 in Minneapolis. UM News screenshot via Zoom.
By Heather Hahn, UM News-
Organizers are pressing forward with plans to hold what many expect to be a pivotal General Conference in 2022. At the same time, they acknowledge that the pandemic may once again thwart those plans. The Commission on the General Conference aims to decide in the first three months of 2022 whether The United Methodist Church’s top legislative assembly can go ahead as scheduled August 29-September 6 in Minneapolis.
In the meantime, the international elected body met online Nov. 18 to continue preparations. Commission members also unanimously approved a list of values that will guide their decision to go forward or delay once again.
The main obstacles to General Conference remain the availability of travel visas and vaccines. The coronavirus already has twice forced postponements of the assembly originally set for May 2020. The bishops also found it impossible to hold a special one-day virtual General Conference earlier this year.
Kim Simpson, the commission’s chair and a veteran delegate from the Central Texas Conference, urged fellow members to make clear that the event will be “as inclusive as possible.”
“It will not be just U.S. delegates,” she stressed. “We as a commission are the ones that make the decision, so we as a commission need to make sure that we allay the fears that are out there.”
General Conference is the only body that can officially speak for the church. The coming gathering has 862 voting delegates – 55.9 percent come from the U.S., 32 percent from Africa, 6 percent from the Philippines, 4.6 percent from Europe and the remainder from concordat churches that have close ties to The United Methodist Church. Half of those delegates are lay and half are clergy.
Bishops from around the globe as well as interpreters and other staff also play key roles in the proceedings. Bishops preside but do not have a vote.
It’s possible to have a quorum with just U.S. delegates, but commission members and General Conference staff agreed that is not good enough. “The fact that we are an inclusive church means that we should be working tirelessly for getting as many people there as is possible – and not being content with just receiving the quorum,” said the New York Conference’s Bishop Thomas Bickerton, the Council of Bishops representative on the commission.
While the timing of General Conference remains a question mark, no one questions that the coming assembly will likely mark some kind of turning point.
The coming General Conference faces multiple proposals to divide the global denomination along theological lines. All were drafted before COVID-19 became a household word.
The most endorsed of these proposals is the Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation. If adopted, the protocol would allow traditionalist churches and conferences to leave with church property and $25 million to start a new denomination. The proposal also sets aside $2 million for other groups of churches that might leave.
With the importance of this General Conference in mind, the commission approved the following values for consideration: reasonable threshold for delegate participation (overall and by global region); health and safety of General Conference delegates, staff, volunteers and guests; inclusion; anti-racism; integrity; credibility; recognition of The United Methodist Church’s mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world; and owning the responsibility of the commission to set the time and place of General Conference.
Marie Kuch-Stanovsky of the Pacific Northwest Conference added to the value of inclusion that the commission should consider the participation of young-adult delegates. The Rev. Beth Ann Cook of the Indiana Conference also reemphasized the value of not using only U.S. delegates to reach a quorum.
Commission members briefly debated whether it’s possible to hold a hybrid General Conference where most delegates meet in person while others meet online. Last year, the commission named a technology study team to look into the possibilities of holding General Conference online. The team’s report outlined several obstacles in the way of such a conference.
Those hurdles include the multiple time zones between delegates who live in the Philippines and the U.S., the inequity of internet availability and the difficulty in safeguarding voting. After the special General Conference in 2019, the commission found evidence of four ineligible people casting votes using the credentials of delegates who were not present.
The Rev. Joe DiPaolo, a commission member from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, urged the commission not to completely rule out the possibility of holding a hybrid General Conference. “Technology has been evolving,” he said. DiPaolo also pointed out that the African Methodist Episcopal Church held a hybrid General Conference earlier this year with most delegates meeting in Orlando, Florida, and African delegates joining online.
The Rev. Gary Graves, General Conference secretary, cautioned that the comparison between the two denominations’ General Conferences might not be “apples to apples.”
The AME meeting lasted four days compared to the United Methodist General Conference’s nine-day schedule. The AME gathering also did not have delegates from as many countries as elected to the United Methodist gathering, nor were the AME delegates considering a denominational separation. The AME gathering did agree to begin a discernment process on the status of LGBTQ people in the denomination.
Of particular concern to Graves and multiple commission members is how a hybrid United Methodist gathering would handle legislative committees – the first stop for most legislation at General Conference. During the coming assembly, there will be 14 legislative committees – each with delegates from multiple delegations and in need of interpreters working in multiple languages.
“I just think about the practical fact that legislative committees are already hard in person,” said the Rev. Laura Merrill, a commission member from the Rio Texas Conference. “It is really hard in person to make sure everyone is included in the conversation. … In this case, how does it work to have a delegation in one place when they’re on six different legislative committees?”
The Rev. Mujinga Kashala, the commission’s vice chair, said through an interpreter that internet connectivity remains a big challenge in her country of Congo. “For instance, I missed the executive committee because, again, I had connectivity problems,” she said. “Sometimes we can connect for a little while but then we are cut off again.”
Ultimately, DiPaolo agreed that the commission “is working to try to have as much full participation in an in-person conference as possible.”
Bickerton said that the values the group adopted set “a very high bar.”
“I think the embracing of these values signals to the whole church that this commission is taking this work very seriously.”
The group next plans to meet in January, but it may take more than one meeting to decide whether the 2022 General Conference is a go.
In other actions. The Commission on the General Conference approved a new schedule to take into account that the coming legislative assembly will be one day shorter than the typical 10-day meeting.
Sara Hotchkiss, the General Conference business manager, told the commission that the amount of plenary time will be the same but there will be one less day for legislative committees to meet. To give those committees more time, the commission has moved up General Conference’s opening worship to 8 a.m. Aug. 29 rather than the usual 2 p.m. start time. Other public addresses were moved to accommodate more legislative meeting time.
The Rev. Gary Graves, General Conference secretary, also told the commission that he is working to update the delegate listing for changes in delegations because of deaths or people opting to step away because of the postponement. The plan is for the updated listings to appear in the Daily Christian Advocate, the record of General Conference proceedings.
Heather Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Adapted from UM News.
by Steve | Jan 6, 2022 | January/February 2022, Magazine Articles
After the unexpected passing of Dr. William J. Abraham, the founding director of the newly launched Wesley House of Studies at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, the seminary announced a leadership transition and the establishment of the William J. Abraham Endowed Chair.
Dr. Kevin M. Watson has been named as Acting Director of the Wesley House. Well known among United Methodists, Watson is a sought-after speaker and author of numerous books including The Class Meeting, Pursuing Social Holiness, Old or New School Methodism?, and Perfect Love. Until recently, he served as Associate Professor of Wesley and Methodist Studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.
“I am honored and humbled to step in as Acting Director of the Wesley House of Studies at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary,” Watson told Good News. “William (Billy) J. Abraham, who served as the founding Director of the Wesley House, brought tremendous leadership and vision to the Wesley House prior to his unexpected death. In its inaugural year, the Wesley House attracted gifted and Spirit-filled students. We also received extraordinary hospitality from the faculty, staff, and administration at Truett. We will continue our work to form and equip Christ-centered, Spirit-led students to serve churches and other institutions in the Wesleyan tradition.”
As a sign of deep respect for the late scholar, an anonymous gift of $1.5 million was given through a matching gift program to establish the Abraham endowment. An additional gift of $1 million was given by a Baylor alumni couple – Jeff and Debbie Wooley, members of the First Methodist Church in Waco – to financially support the program’s students.
“The establishment of the William J. Abraham Chair in Wesleyan Studies at Baylor’s Truett Seminary not only lavishly honors the life and legacy of our recently deceased friend and colleague, but it also further establishes our school’s Wesley House of Studies as a viable and desirable place to pursue ministerial training in the Wesleyan tradition,” said Truett Seminary Dean Todd D. Still.
“When I was called to ministry in Irish Methodism, I was already a student and I wanted to be a teacher,” Dr. Abraham said when first learning of the honor before his death. “With the call to preach, I thought I would have to give up teaching. In my mind and heart, I did so. And then God gave it all back without rescinding the call to preach. So here I am now, honored beyond words with the naming of this chair. I sense a deep assurance that I discerned correctly. I know the chair will uphold the deep connections between scholarship and preaching that has given me endless joy. What an amazing gift for the Gospel and the future of Methodism.”
The endowment was developed at a Wesley House Weekend in partnership with the Rev. Ryan Barnett and First Methodist Church of Waco, where Barnett serves as the lead pastor. The event’s purpose was to generate support from the Baylor and Methodist communities for scholarship and programmatic resourcing for the Wesley House of Studies.
“Our founding director, Billy Abraham, has left his indelible mark on this project. His legacy will flourish at Truett Seminary,” said Barnett. “Truett’s Wesley House, embedded at Baylor University, is well placed to become one of the most significant training centers for future Methodist ministers.”
–Good News. Photo of Dr. Watson is courtesy of Truett Seminary.
