Pro Sports in Oklahoma!

Growing up in Oklahoma, I rooted for a number of professional teams, but none of them were ever really “ours.”  I rooted on various occasions for the LA Lakers, Cincinatti Reds, New England Patriots, and Texas Rangers.  Most of the time I found myself rooting for players more than teams.  Heck, in high school I even wore a Penny Hardaway jersey when he played for the Orlando Magic.  My poor wife rooted for the San Francisco 49ers.  Alas, none of these professional teams belonged to us.

College sports are great.  I’m a died-in-the-wool Sooner fan and love to watch Sooner football and basketball.  But, I always dreamed of having a professional sports team.  I even tried to like hockey when they said that was all we could ever hope to get.

Well guess what, today is an exciting day in the life of an Oklahoma sports fan.  We’re getting an NBA franchise!!  Clay Bennett and pals are bringing the former Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma!

I don’t care what we call them, and I don’t care how much we win at first.  From now on, I have a pro team to root for.  No fairweather fanship with me; this will be my pro team.  Go OKC “TBAs!!”

Liquid Church

Last week, I went with a friend to the local United Methodist Church.  It was a fairly traditional church without a lot of bells or whistles.  I was a little confused by the children’s sermon on fair-trade coffee, but I won’t go there.  So today, four of us hopped on a train to Morristown to visit Liquid Church, a really creative congregation that has their worship service in the Morristown Hyatt.  We got there a little early and had a chance to spend a few minutes talking with Pastor Tim Lucas.  It was nice to meet him and have him spend a few minutes in conversation.

The service had about 15 minutes of music by their really amazing band, 10 minutes of an infant dedication portion (which had remarkably similar language to our liturgy), a 30 minute sermon (interestingly, a sermon of Craig Groeschel’s piped in for this week), and about 5 to 10 minutes of announcements and offering (done simultaneously).

More than anything, I felt the stark contrast between the two churches.  Liquid creatively uses public space and the blend between those in worship and the active hotel lobby was very cool.  Imagine about 250 worshippers hanging in the lobby of a Hyatt Regency.  There was a sense of expectancy in the worship experience, and people seemed to intently pay attention to the message (at Liquid, that is).  I tried to imagine myself entering as a non or nominal Christian.  From that perspective, I would have certainly visited Liquid again.

I find myself torn in many ways between the two ways of doing ministry.  I value the sacramental side of our tradition and the very real means of grace that we experience, yet I also sometimes wish we had more experiential worship and messages like I heard today.  If we could somehow blend the two, we’d be far better off.  It seems to me that we (not all of us, but some of us) aren’t nearly as intentional as Liquid about expecting visitors who have a spiritual hunger and thirst.  I know I’m just seeing the worship setting, but isn’t that what most folks encounter on their first visit to our congregations?

All in all, I want more.  I expect more out of us as a denomination.  Can we be brave enough to start a church that meets in a hotel?  Can we create creative and cutting-edge ministries that also carry the richness of our spiritual and sacramental tradition?  I really want to know.

Morning in Madison

This morning I’m sitting at Atlanta Bread Company in Madison, NJ eating a bagel, drinking some coffee, and thinking about my trip thus far.  Even though we were told that everything was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the school it’s about 12 minutes to this place and it’s the closest place to eat if you choose to skip the snack bar at Drew.  It’s really not a problem, because I need the exercise!

My classes are both going strong.  My first class, Exegesis of Job, meets from 9:30-12:30.  Dr. Kenneth Ngwa is the professor for this course, which has been my favorite of the D.Min. program thus far.  He’s a very sharp and curious professor, and I really value the way he manages the classroom environment.  It’s opened my eyes to some really interesting issues in Job that I’ve never considered before, especially regarding the topic of theodicy.  I appreciate that he uses a “post” historico-critical approach, even though he certainly is familiar with the best in that world of scholarship.

My other class is a methods and research course, which meets from 1:30-4:30 and has been pretty boring so far.  I expected as much, but I enjoy spending this class with the Oklahoma cohort.  After we meet for that, we usually do something to eat and get back to the dorms (yes, they told us townhouses – yes, I guess they are – dorm is still a better description) to read until bedtime.  Just about every night is taken with reading for the following day.  We do have chapel each morning, but I missed yesterday to go work out in the gym.  Today we go for matriculation, where we sign our names to some big historic book of some kind.

So, anyway, that’s about it.  This will be my life for the next two weeks!

Who Do You Love?

Monday is the first day of my summer intensive session at Drew University. So, tomorrow morning at 7AM I’ll be flying out of Tulsa for Madison, New Jersey. Since it’s quite a drive to be in Tulsa that early, we came up early to spend the day with the kids and stay the night at a hotel by the airport. We left early, ate at IHOP in Muskogee, went by the “Build-a-Bear” Work$hop for the first time, ate a great lunch, and now we’re in our hotel room after a long swim in the pool. It’s been an awesome day with the people I love.

I just plugged into the free internet connection (cheers to Hilton, jeers to Doubletree Downtown where we stayed for Annual Conference) and checked my Google reader where I came across a really great post.

During college, I worked in a grocery store, where we would work for hours “facing” or “fronting” the store, pulling all the cans and boxes to the front. It was one of my favorite tasks, because It made the store look awesome. Then the people came to shop. Within minutes, the beautiful shelves were destroyed! We always said how great the grocery business would be without the customers…

Brant Hansen, over at Letters from Kamp Krusty, has an incredible post on times when this same mindset infiltrates ministry. Take the time to read his entire post; it’s a powerful reminder of how we’re called to love people who are hard to love and not just those who are easy to love, like our families. See, this post really did have some cohesion!

From Chreaster to Preacher

Jason Byassee is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers over at The Christian Century. I just stumbled across this blog post, and I think you might find it interesting. It’s Amazing how an observation from the original Greek of the New Testament has stayed in his mind years after hearing it in a sermon. This reminds me, and I hope it reminds you, to speak with great care when we stand to preach each Sunday.

Post-Ordination Post

Last Wednesday night’s ordination service was an event I’ll always remember, even though I think I’ll spend a lot more time processing exactly what happened there. Fortunately, I can go online and watch the service if I forget anything!

On Sunday, I wore my stole for the first time. It felt good after having held off for three years during my probationary (yes, yes provisional) period to wear it. I know that everyone feels differently about this, but for me it was a tangible sign of my new identity as an Elder in Full Connection. Strangely enough, I do feel a little different after the whole experience of ordination, even though I can’t quite explain it.

Other than my ordination, Annual Conference was pretty typical this year: hours of reports and lots of coffee with friends. The only other new experience was seeing the beginning of a new quadrennium. There was a little bit of political intrigue as the Board of Ordained Ministry is electing a new Chair person. As for me, I serve on two different committees. I’ve been on the Mission and Service Ministry Team since 2006, and now I’ll be serving as Vice-Chair of that committee. I’m also on the Young Adult Council, most likely because I’m 31.

It feels strange not to think about anything related to preparing for ordination. After all, this has been an important focus for nearly eight years of my life. However, now I’ll be shifting to focus more on my D.Min. I’ll be flying out to Madison, NJ in a couple of weeks to begin the on-campus portion of the degree. I’ll be taking a methods course, an exegesis course on Job, and a course on prophetic leadership. I’m looking forward to the extended time for study, but I’m not looking forward to being away from my wife and kids.

Well, I think that’s it for now. I’ve been reading a terrific book I read at AC called Evangelism after Christendom by Bryan Stone, and his discussion of evangelism as a MacIntyrian “practice,” has me really giving some thought to our conference’s new “strategic plan.” It seems to me that the distinction between goods internal and external to a practice could really help us think more clearly about what we’re doing and why. Maybe I’ll throw a post up on that in a couple of days. Until then, grace & peace!

Many Hands Make an Elder

This morning it hit me. Next Thursday, I’ll wake up as a full Elder in the United Methodist Church. This journey has taken about eight years, and it has defined so much of my life during this time.

Next Wednesday night I’ll walk up the steps to the chancel area of Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Two other elders that I’ve invited will join the Bishop in placing their hands on me, carrying on the tradition that stretches across the centuries. The Revised Ordinal on Services for the Ordering of Ministry reminds us of the ancient connections of this practice with 2 Timothy 2:6, as Paul encourages Timothy to, “…rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.”

I always wonder how people make this decision and why each ordinand chooses the people they choose. I’ve asked the pastor who really helped me discern my call to ordained ministry. Dr. Guy Ames was my first pastor in the United Methodist Church at Chapel Hill UMC in Oklahoma City. He helped me see the ministry as something I might actually be called to pursue. I often say that he was the first pastors I met who I saw as a real person. He could have been successful in any number of other fields, but chose to follow God’s call to ordained ministry. Until I met him, I had never even considered those thoughts about being called as anything significant.

The other elder who will stand with me is my District Superintendent, Dr. Sandy Wylie. Sandy has been a friend, mentor, and supporter throughout my first years of ministry. He’s been there for me during a few difficult times in my first years in ministry, and he’s helped affirm my gifts in many different ways.

However, it takes many more hands to make an Elder. In the ordinal I described earlier reminds us,

The rite of ordination is the climax of a process in which the faith community
discerns and validates the call, the gifts, and effectiveness for apostolic ministry
by agency of the Holy Spirit.

Wednesday evening will be the climax of a lengthy process that begins and ends with God through the support of community of faith. Because of the community of faith, there will be a thousand hands on my shoulders that evening.

I started to make a list beginning with my wife, describing my mother (who’ll be there that night) and my father (who died the October after I was commissioned), listing the mentors who took me through those early days of exploring the call, the churches I’ve served and attended, inlcuding the thirty-something little kids at VBS last night who signed a card for my ordination, and working through the extended list of colleagues and friends who’ve helped me in so many ways.

But as I was making this list, I realized how those people who accept awards on TV must feel! There’s no way I could mention every name. There’s no way I could count the number of hands that will be on my shoulders that night.

When I stand up after kneeling that night and receive my stole for the first time, I’ll be thinking about that multitude of hands. It takes at least a thousand hands to make an elder, and I thank God for every one.

Appointment Watch ’08

It’s that time of year again. Earnest hobbyists across the denomination have their highlighters and conference journals mapping the annual migration of the United Methodist Elder. Ahh, the sweet smell of spring, U-hauls, and the itinerancy.

After three years of watching this annual migration, I’ve decided it’s a good idea to announce the appointments as soon as they are set. With a quick Google search, I’ve found several conferences who are doing this very thing: Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. I’m sure there are several others, but I didn’t take the time to look them up.

Even though I’m curious about the reasons these conferences made the move to public announcements prior to Annual Conference, I still think this is a good idea.

This kind of openness in the process can’t help but limit some of the speculation that goes on. It also seems that lay people might want to have access to this information in order to keep track of clergy who’ve served their congregation or even those who answered the call from within their congregation. Finally, most of this stuff ends up making the rounds anyway. It seems that making it public as soon as it’s announced to the churches is just the next logical step.

Any potential problems with doing this?