Day: April 18, 2007

Portrait of a Rural Community

dsc00829.jpgI have the feeling that there are some people who don’t quite know what I’m talking about when I mention rural churches. Well, hopefully these three pictures I took from a hill overlooking town can be worth 3,000 words. In this community, the only business in town is the Citgo station you see in one of the pictures. No, you can’t really see the Church from these pictures…too many tree limbs even after the ice storm.

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United Methodism is a denomination of small churches, and I wonder if we can ever really transform the denomination without a deep understanding of this.

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Busier than a Caveman

If you don’t read Real Live Preacher, you should. He’s a frequent contributor to The Christian Century, and he’s got an article on prehistoric humans and being busy that you should check out.

This article reminds me of how busy I am as a pastor of a two point charge, and it really makes me realize how much I’m looking forward to my vacation in about three weeks. I’m going to take several days to do absolutely nothing!

Until then…busy, busy, busy. Every time I get this way, I need to reread and remember Eugene Peterson’s words from The Contemplative Pastor, one of my favorite books of all time (h/t on the quote to the Too-Busy Pastor – I didn’t have my book handy),

“…The word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe banker. It is an outrageous scandel, a blasphemous affront. Hilary of Tours diagnosed our pastoral busyness as irreligiosa solicitudo pro Deo, a blasphemous anxiety to do God’s work for him.“