Back from Brownsville!

We got back from our week-long Mission to Brownsville last night about 10:30PM.  We had planned to be back around 7:00, but we were tied up in traffic south of Austin for about four hours!  Overall, it was a fantastic week working and serving at the Good Neighbor Settlement House in, as the director called it, the middle of the barrio. Good Neighbor has an excellent ministry to the homeless and poor of Brownsville.

Because of Hurricane Dolly, they received quite a few supplies from the Red Cross and the Food Bank during our time there.  Even though the damage in Brownsville was minimal compared to other areas, at least one person came in from Matamoros, Mexico to get clothes.  She told us how her family has been living in about three feet of water!

It was an amazing time of growth and fellowship together as a team.  As you probably already know, mission trips are a special opportunity for growing deeper as followers of Jesus, and this was no exception.  Right now, I just got home from preaching two services this morning, so I am going to wait until I’ve rested a bit before sharing any more stories.  Look for that in the days ahead.

Letting Others Do My Posting…

Since I’ve been a little too busy to post very consistently, I thought I’d point you to some really interesting posts on other folks sites.

My friend Kevin Watson has a really intriguing post on Younger Clergy (make sure you check out the comments too).

Andrew Conard has a really helpful template for our UM Service of Death and Resurrection.  Thanks Andrew!

I’ve just added Luke Wetzel’s blog to my blogroll, after being pointed there by Andrew Conard.  Plus, I wish I had written this post on Adam Hamilton as itinerant General Superintendent.

Jay Voorhees also has great techno-post on using Jott as a ministry tool over at Technopastor.

South Central Jurisdiction’s New Bishops

As of 10:16 PM, we have our final bishop for the South Central Jurisdiction, Rev. Jim Dorff.  He joins Earl Bledsoe and Michael Lowry as the newest bishops in our jurisdiction.  The Committee on Episcopacy will now meet to finalize their assignments.  Thanks to Robin Russell over at the UM Portal for her moment by moment coverage of the elections.

Update – Episcopal Assignments: The three new bishops have now been assigned (South Central Jurisdiction News Report): Earl Bledsoe will be assigned to North Texas, Mike Lowry to Central Texas, and Jim Dorff to the San Antonio Area (Southwest Texas & Rio Grande Conferences).  I do think it is interesting that all three bishops elected are from Texas and all have been assigned to conferences in Texas.

All other bishops will be reassigned to the places they’ve served for the last four years.  That means we will get another four years with Bishop Robert E. Hayes, Jr.,  which is a terrific thing for our conference.

Fun with Wordle

There’s this really cool website called wordle (h/t Hacking Christianity) where you can create your own word-clouds from any text you choose to paste in the site.  To try this out, I pasted my recent D.Min. paper on Job.  Here’s the result:

Just to see what else I could come up with, I pasted last Sunday’s sermon:

I actually think this is a really helpful tool for preaching. If you want to see what your focus is, at least by the amount of times you use certain words, paste it in wordle. See what you get. Just for fun, I’ll leave you with the first sermon I preached as a commissioned Elder!

Does the Pope Text-Message?

No kidding, Benedict XVI is text-messaging the young Catholics gathered in Australia for World Youth Day (h/t Delana!).  Here’s the message (link here),

Young friends, God & his people expect much from u, because u have within u the Father’s supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus – BXVI

Any of you getting text-messages from your congregations?  Any of you sending text for updates at your Church?  Hey, if the Pope can do it then we can too, right!?

Electing Bishops: Politics or Discernment

Hey all, I’m still blogging, but I just got back from Drew.  Since then, I’ve been swamped with a number of things that have prevented me from posting much lately.  Once I finish up about 50 pages of D.Min. stuff, I’ll be back to posting more frequently.

Until then, go check out Andrew Conard’s blog and enjoy the conversation on the politics of running for bishop.  I agree that we should aim for a higher level of discourse and discernment when electing bishops, but I also see the purpose of having easy access to the candidates writing, preaching, etc through personal websites.  It would be easy to see these pre-episcopal webpages as “vanity pages,” but I am inclined to think they’re the modern version of a printed handout.

I guess the question that we United Methodists need to wrestle with is whether or not campaigning is acceptable.  I’m gathering from Andrew’s post that he doesn’t think it is.  Amy Forbus weighs in over at the UM Reporter blog, and Jay Vorhees asks more questions at the MethoBlog.

So which is it?  Do we have a episcopacy based on politics or discernment?  I think the real question here is are these two things mutually exclusive?  I’m prone to think they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but I’m willing to hear other arguments.  Any takers?

Newfangled Songs…

We played a new song in worship and got the following letter the next week,

I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it.  Last Sunday’s new hymn – if you can call it that – sounded like a sentimental love balled one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon.  If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this – in God’s house! – don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship.  The hymns we grew up with are all we need.

OK, I’ll fess up.  We didn’t get this letter, but a minister did in 1863 in the week following their first time singing “Just As I Am.”  If you want to read more interesting thoughts, head over to Vintage Faith (Dan Kimball’s blog) where I found this.