Pastoral Prayer (August 28, 2016)

Holy God:

We praise you for you are worthy of praise.  You are great, greater than all we can ever know.  You are all wisdom, all knowledge, all power, all goodness.  Everything belongs to you, and all things and all people have been made to praise you.  

And so, we have gathered in your house and with your people to offer the sacrifice of praise.  We join our voices in song, we join our hearts and prayer, we approach you with open hearts and open ears, waiting upon a word from you.  

We open our lives to you. May the words from your holy book, the words from your beloved son, reshape the way we see ourselves and our world.  May we, each and every one, leave different than we arrived.  Today, make us a little more joyful, a little more holy, a little more like Jesus. Free us from our ways, our thinking. Free us from what we’ve been taught, what we’ve always done.  

Make us into a people who serve you.  Make us into true followers of your Son Jesus Christ.  we yield to his ways, even though we don’t always understand them.  Sometimes they seem so foreign to us, sometimes Jesus teachings seem so impractical to us.  We are born selfish creatures, and he has taught us to yield our lives in humble service and joyful abandon.  We have come to the end of our ways—what we have always done is no longer working for us. So, holy God, teach us your ways today.  Grace us to live in your way.

Our hearts break for those who have been affected by recent floods in Louisiana.  Lord, be merciful to the victims of this disaster, and to all who are affected by natural disasters around the world.  Turn our hearts to compassion to ease the sufferings of others.  May our faith be of action and never of words alone.

Amen.    

Thoughts on Young People's Ministry

I've been very blessed in my new appointment to get actively involved in ministries with children and youth, and so I've had opportunity to think through and share my thoughts on these ministries.  After I shared my thoughts to a group discussing children's ministry, one of the participants asked me to share them more broadly.  So here we go.

Why are ministries with young people important, and who should be involved in ministries to young people?

Psalm 78 recites the story of God's redemptive work throughout Hebrew history.  Before the story is told, the psalmist says, "We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done (Psalm 78:4)."

I have a Jewish uncle.  He almost completely abandoned practice of Judaism after his Bar Mitzvah. But when he had children, he was absolutely insistent that they go to Hebrew school, prepare for Bat Mitzvah, celebrate holidays, etc. When I asked him why, he said, "I'm part of a people who have had this faith for thousands of years. I don't have the right to take it away from my children."

We live in a time when many children, including children who are raised in homes that consider themselves "Christian," no longer know the basics of the faith. They have never sung "Amazing Grace" or "Jesus Loves Me This I Know." They don't know John 3:16. The don't know who Jesus was, or that he died on a cross, or that Easter is about his resurrection, or even that Christmas is about the celebration of his birth. They've never heard of the Ten Commandments and certainly have no idea what they are. It's hard for those of us who grew up in Christian culture to comprehend, but please trust me that this is true.

These things are precious to us and they were offered to us as a gift from others.  We have no right to hide them from our children.  And all children are God's children. Young people's ministry is EVERYONE'S responsibility.

We take this responsibility upon ourselves every time a child is baptized in our gathering.  We promise to "surround this child with a community of love and forgiveness, that s/he may grow in his/her service to others. We will pray for him/her that s/he may be a true disciple who walk in the way that leads to life."  This is a promise for the whole community. Young people's ministry is not the work of a staff person, a children's council, a few ladies, or the parents of the children alone.  Ministries with young people are a central task of the entire community of faith, every single person. Not everyone is suited to lead a children's moment or lead a small group. But everyone can do something (even if it's taking out the garbage during VBS) to strengthen ministries with young people and insure that the congregation keeps its promise.

I firmly believe that it is wrong for clergy to absolve themselves of responsibility for young people's ministry by shuffling off the work of children's ministry or youth ministry to a children's ministry or youth ministry staff person.  These staff people are necessary and important and churches must employ them in order to allow clergy to do the many things that they must do.  But a pastor is called to be a pastor to all the people.

In our United Methodist ordination charge, we are asked, "Will you diligently instruct the children in every place?"  We say that we will.  In part, the keeping of this promise means that we will organize the congregation to make sure that children are being nurtured in faith in Jesus Christ.  But it also means that children and teenagers know their pastor, that even in the largest church, we take the time to be present in young people's ministries and develop relationships with kids.  I think it's important for pastors to teach confirmation, to show up for football games, to stick their heads into children's Sunday school classes, to play on the church lawn.  Our tradition has determined for us that these ministries are a priority for us.

Whose job is young people's ministry?  Who is supposed to work in children's ministry and youth ministry?  EVERYONE.  We all have a part.  We all have a responsibility. We all have the gift to offer the love of Christ and pass on the gift of the Gospel to emerging generations.

Pastoral Prayer for August 21, 2016 (based on Luke 13:10-17)

O holy God:

We thank you for the great love you have shown us in Jesus Christ.

You could have chosen to punish us.  You could have chosen to destroy us for the ways we have failed to acknowledge you.  You could have responded in so many ways.  And you would have been justified.

Instead, you looked upon each and every human life and were moved with compassion.  You are more aware of the ways we can be unlovable, and yet you have loved us more than anyone.  You responded to our fallen ways be taking flesh, joining your life to our lives, getting your hands dirty, becoming weak like us, suffering and dying for us.

So Father, open our hearts today.  Help us to be real before you.  Help us to lay our lives open before you, with all that makes us strong and beautiful and with all our broken and shameful place, too.  Heal us, change us, remake us, restore us.  Fill our lives with joy as we enter into a life-long relationship of being made strong in your strength, being made whole in your holiness.

Give us a heart like yours, free from condemnation, full of compassion, full of grace.  Give us a heart to put people first, to reach out with love and goodness and to offer healing to hurting lives.

O God, may you blessing rest upon the land in which we have been graced to live, upon the leaders who have authority over us, upon your Church proclaiming your Gospel throughout the world. Bring healing and hope to those who are sick and grieving.  Use us to bring win the lost of our community to new life in your Son Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray saying…

On Condemnation

"Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."  ~Romans 8:1

"'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, sir.' And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.'" ~John 8:10-11

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."  ~John 3:17


I have often spoken with people broken down by the condemnation of others. Sometimes it comes from the preacher.  Sometimes it comes from religious culture. It's not always the uptight religious folks who condemn either. Sometimes it comes from free-thinking, free-spirited people who have all kinds of ideas about how others ought to live and not live. Some people reserve their condemnation for fundamentalists and meat-eaters, while others reserve it for homosexuals and drug addicts.

We condemn others because it is central to our human nature to do so. We condemn others because we think that our condemnation might make them straighten up.  We think that our condemnation might make others see and be afraid and avoid the behaviors of those we condemn. We condemn because we fear that society will throw off all restraint if we stop wagging our fingers.

Above all, we condemn because we are desperately trying to deflect attention from the painful reality that our own hearts condemn us. If we can shine the spotlight on someone else, then the spotlight will no longer be on us. We do this in all kinds of ways: "My candidate isn't perfect, but your candidate does the same thing a hundred times worse." "Maybe I shouldn't have lost my temper, but you say ugly things all the time."

Even as we are trying to give ourselves cover for our own misdeeds, we convince ourselves we are doing God a favor by keeping the rest of the world properly categorized and their behavior properly regulated.

But God does not condemn.

God does not condemn because God is perfect. And so, God has no nagging insecurity to deflect.

God does not condemn because God takes responsibility. God has never sinned, and yet he took on the responsibility for all of our failings voluntarily.  God has not argued with us about who is right and who is wrong. He leaves the argument, takes flesh, and dies on a cross to obliterate the wrong. That's what love does.

If you are hurting because someone has condemned you, please know that the condemnation you feel has not come from God. It probably has much more to do with the person who condemns you than it does you.

If you have done wrong, you don't have to feel condemned about it, nor do you have to make excuses for it. God does not condemn you. So you can own up to your wrong and know that it does not define you. You can be healed and you can start over.

You do not have to wallow in a sense of condemnation in order to make up for the wrong you did. There is no penance period. People do this to each other--make each other grovel around for awhile. God is not in the business of rubbing peoples' faces in anything. And feeling bad about yourself will not make you do better anyway. So move on.

And for heaven's sake, let's try our very best to stop condemning others. If God refuses to condemn, we should learn from him that condemnation is a tactic that does not work.  If you condemn someone, you will not control their behavior.  You will only make them resent you and cause them to go looking for something about you to condemn in return.  Even if you succeed in making them feel shame, their sense of shame will never free them to behave differently.  God attended to the sin of the world by offering forgiveness, not by making us ashamed of ourselves so that we would quit.  It doesn't work that way.

Pastoral Prayer for August 7, 2016 (based on Luke 12:32-40)

Holy God our Father:

How grateful are that you have taught us to call upon you by the name of Father. You have made us, given us life and breath. We have turned from you, born in sin and trespasses.  Yet through the sacrifice of your son, Jesus, you have adopted us into your family.  You have loved us with an everlasting love. You have given us a new name, a new life, a new heart, a new beginning.

We say these things because you have taught us that they are true. And we believe that they are true.  At the same time, we confess before you that our doubts, our behavior, our fears, our shame all testify to our hearts that our trust in your love and good will for us is incomplete.  We know in our heads that you have told us you love us.  But we know ourselves.  And we are only beginning to know you.  And so, when the chips are down, we’re not so sure.

We have protected so many parts of our lives from you.  We have lived our own way.  We have tried so see what we can get away with.  And all the while, all you want from us is a heart that returns your love.  All you ask from us is the broken pieces of the lives we have messed up so that you can put the pieces back together and make something beautiful of us.’

Give us eyes to see the face of Jesus, to see the beauty of what his cross shows us about your heart for us.  give us a new understanding of your heart for us. And so, may we know the fullness of joy.  May we give our lives to you in reckless abandon, trusting that you love us more than we love ourselves, trusting that you will find joy in giving us a life of joy.

Amen.