General Convention introduction

General Convention gets started on the fifth of July, but things actually start rolling on the third with the opening of the exhibit hall and the officers of the legislative committees having orientation. I am very excited to be a deputy to Genral Convention. As the Rector of an average size congregation (we run 65 to 75 a Sunday), I feel I bring the perspective of most of the congregations in the church. Also, as the director of Resurrection House, an internship for young adults discerning their baptismal ministry which is one of the internships of the Episcopal Service Corps, I bring the perspective of one of the most exciting ministries occurring in the church right now to the House of Deputies. Finally, since I am a young priest, at least within the culture of the church I'm young, I bring the perspective of the generations that most need to step up and lead if the church will continue into the future. More important than my perspective, I take this responsibility seriously, very seriously. The decisions made during General Convention, especially this convention, will effect generations of the faithfull. I pledge to make my votes prayerfully and for the greatest good of the whole church not just my parochial interests. I pledge to focus my energy and effort to the task at hand, bringing to bear my intelligence, passion, creativity, and faith to every question before the house. There will be a lot of hot button issues addressed by this convention: the blessing of same sex unions, health insurance, and electing a new president of the house of deputies, to name a few. Most important, in my opinion, will be the conversation around overhauling the structure of the Episcopal Church. Everything could be on the table from Church Staff offices to the building at 815 second avenue, and from the composition and length of General Convention to the existence of dioceses. I believe it is the right conversation to have. We need to reform the structure in order to respond and evangelize in a rapidly changing world. My hope, however, is that we actually get to have some fruitful conversation. My fear is that we won't. As I have kept my ear to the ground regarding this topic, I have repeatedly run into a mind set of "everything needs to be on the table for reform except my pet project, which needs more funding." I have even caught myself responding this way. It is a normal human reaction to a change in a system. Therefore, my prayer and my prayer request is that I head the words of Jesus and "fear not" and trust in God to guide me in making healthy decisions for the greater good of Christ's Kingdom. My prayer and prayer request is for all the deputies, bishops, and leaders of the church to do the same. More to come...thanks for your time, and keep praying!

Lent is Coming!!!!!!

A friend of mine asked me earlier this week what I thought about lenten fasts, the practice of giving up something for lent. She asked,

I'm asking this of a few people whose theological opinions I highly value: What are your thoughts on giving up something for Lent that you plan to start doing again on Easter morning? (giving up coffee for those 40 days, but no plan to permanently stop drinking coffee)

In a traditional sense a fast of any type is time limited. That is to say, you practice it for awhile and then break the fast at the end. As you are probably guessing at this point this is where we get the term Breakfast to refer to the first meal of the day. We "fast" from eating while we sleep and then break the fast upon awakening. The same goes for lent. You fast from something--chocolate, alcohol, and tv are the most popular, I think--and then upon Easter return to it. So, fasting is different then a New Year's resolution. It isn't about changing a behavior permanently, but about doing without something in order to experience one of the following things:

• A sense of clarity: often times when we fast, especially from food, once we get over the initial hunger, we can experience a clarity of mind that allows for extra focus, creativity, and inspiration. Actually, this is what I think was going on with Jesus fasting in the wilderness after his Baptism, which, by the way, is one of the stories at the root of Lent.


• Make space for God:related to the first one, sometimes when we fast we clear a bit of mental and/or physical space for God to be present with us. Now, I should enforce that God is always present with us, but we have an unlimited ability to put stuff between us and God: distractions, material things that must be maintained, and noise.


• A deeper understanding of longing:When we fast, and this is especially true for most folks in middle and upper class America, we actually do without something. We really aren't use to that in our culture of instant gratification. So, fasting can let us identify with longing, desire, hunger, and need. Not getting into the Social Justice ramifications, which are many and important, it can help us identify with what it was like for the earliest disciples to have to long for and wait in wonder and fear from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, from Good Friday to Easter.

Ultimately, like any spiritual discipline it comes down to motives. If you are truly seeking a closer relationship with God then a fast will be beneficial regardless of whether you break the fast at the end of lent or not. If you have some other motivation, like being a spiritual show off (see Luke 20:46-47) then it won't be beneficial no matter how long you keep it going.

Fasts should be entered into prayerfully. Spend the season of Epiphany in prayer about what you can fast from or a practice you could take on that would draw you closer to God. God will let you know the best action to take. Also, breaking the fast on Easter can be a holy and wonderful celebration of the deliverance from the powers that be that we receive in the Resurrection. However, if you get to Easter and find that what you have given up is better left out of your life, that can be holy as well.

May you have a blessed and holy Lent that aids your journey toward Easter.

This Little Light of Mine - Episcopal Church of the Resurrection Omaha

Church of the Resurrection gets its praise on.

A Friday Haiku/Prayer

Gracious Holy God,
inspire our voice for peace, then
move our feet towards love.

amen.

Supporting Resurrection House

I just donated to support Resurrection House.  You can too by clicking on the button below.  Resurrection House is the internship I did in 2001-2002.  It remains one of the most formative experiences of my life.  I am a better man, a better christian, a better husband and a better priest because of that experience.  I highly recommend it for any young adult who is wondering what God wants them to do with their life.  I am going to post a longer meditation on that experience in honor of the ten year anniversary of my intern year soon; so check back for that.  In the meantime, please consider supporting the ministry of Resurrection House.  We are raising up the next generation of Christian leaders for the church and the world.

Easter 5 2011.AVI

Easter 4.AVI

So I had a bit of a saga with this sermon. It began on Tuesday when I read the scriptures assigned for the the fourth Sunday of Easter of the Revised Common Lectionary. I was excited to see John 10:10 as the last verse of the gospel passage. It is one of Dad's favorite verses from all of scripture, and I remembered him preaching on it often as a kid. I was excited to use an acronym for the word L.I.F.E. that he used because I like to honor my father as my true homiletics teacher, and his material was always rick solid. I knew the sermon would land using his outline. So, I spent the next few days thinking about what I wanted to say using his acronym as the backbone of the sermon. On Wednesday I flushed out his outline a little bit using my mind mapping software (this detail will be important later). When I got to Friday, which is my writing day, the sermon went down on "paper" pretty easily. That is to say I typed into OpenOffice in a couple of hours.

So,I had my first draft complete and was fairly happy with it. I decided to close out the program and let the sermon sit for a bit before I went back to fix typos and such. Well, as it would have it, when I closed out the program I hit "discard" instead of "save". Unlike every other sermon I have written in the last 10 years, I had not saved frequently as I went. Needless to say, I freaked out and almost chucked my computer through the stained glass windows of my office. Luckily, I didn't it, because folks are pretty fond of those stained glass windows. Anyway, after leaving the building, getting some lunch, and clearing my head a bit, I got a hold of one of vestry members who is a computer expert and he helped find and undelete the file. At this point, I am thinking that I now have a sermon illustration for the Resurrection to use at a latter date, which would be a really cool bonus to the drama of losing the sermon. Alas, this was not to be, because though we found the file, it was so corrupted that the text was illegible. In the words of my vestry member, "Yeah, you're screwed." So, I went back to the outline in the mind mapping software, amplified it a little bit, and preached from that. Some of my colleagues thought that maybe the holy spirit was involved in the whole drama, but I have my doubts. You can watch it here let me know if you think the spirit was involved.

lent iv 2011

Hope

Hope

Hope has gotten a lot of press recently, from Pres. Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope to the ridicule of his understanding of hope by his opponents.  Since the time of the Apostle Paul, Hope has been a Christian virtue, a characteristic that promotes our individual and joint well being.  I believe hope is a characteristic that helps us love God with all our heart.  For Christians, I believe, hope springs from knowing that the way things are, are not the way things will always be.  Furthermore we are hopeful because we know we are not alone in our darkest nor our brightest hour.

We are hopeful that the world as it is will not always be as it is because we believe the resurrected Jesus Christ to be the first born of a new creation called the kingdom of God.  We are all able through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to be new creations as well.  This new creation is not run on fear as our current world is; rather it is run on love, not on separation or individualism; rather on community.  In the new creation we are in communion with God, communion with our neighbors, and in communion with nature.  We are hopeful for this new creation because we know the great stories of the past and want to be a part of the great stories of now.

We are hopeful because we are not alone.  This is one of the great messages of the cross.  God incarnate, the divine one in human flesh, was willing to suffer and die.  God is not separate from our suffering.  God has experienced it too.  To put it colloquially, God has been there and done that.  Hope does not deny the suffering of the world. It is not Pollianna with rose colored glasses.  If God incarnate wound up on a cross how we could we expect anything different.   Hope is motivation to keep moving forward despite the pain and suffering common to life.  Hope is knowing that God will be with us no matter what we do or what is done to us.  Hope is a christian virtue.

Questions for today:
How would you define hope?
When do you and what makes you feel hopeful?
(First posted in 2009, revised 5 April 2011)

Sermon for christ the king Sunday

Part 1



Part 2

Prayer

From facebook group Unapologetically Episcopalian

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Evelyn Rolls Over!!!!!

Sahra Harding, August 29, Season after Pentacost Year C

Martin Luther King "I have a dream"

The only speech to occur to date on an August 28th that should be remembered.

JasonAndPop

Play Time

Things I've learned as Rector

I have been a rector (head priest of a congregation) for a little over a year now. I am inspired to share a few things I've learned and/or relearned by my friend Liz over at Stick and Snakes. So, in no particular order I have learned in leadership to:

• Pray
  
  
  • My father once told me that the only way to do ministry is to work on your relationship with God. As that relationship blossoms it over flows to the people around you. This is so true that I can't emphasize it enough. When I have been consistent in my prayers, the more on top of administrative tasks I have been, offered better pastoral care, and have made and led the congregation to make better decisions.


• Trust is the currency of leadership
  
  • No one will follow if they don't trust you. Without trust it takes anywhere from twice to six times as long to do anything. On the other hand, if people trust you then you can get a lot done very fast. You'll ultimately see change happen faster if you spend a year building trust, then if you start changing things the moment you walk in the door.
  
  
• Build trust through little things


• Jesus said in a parable somewhere that the one who can be trusted with little things can be trusted with bigger things. He was talking about leadership there. You can build trust with a congregation by taking care of small things like showing up on time, being prepared, and doing what you say you will do. Even if it is something as small as remembering to email someone to set up a meeting time, the more you consistently deliver on the actions you say you are going to take, the more people will trust you.*


• To inspire change or transformation, start with yourself.


• A mentor of mine once said for everything you ask a parish to change, change two things about yourself. I would add not only change yourself, but don't talk about it either. Simply do it and let people notice it on their own. I have lost 35 pounds over the last year and it has increased my leadership credibility; not because I'm thinner, rather because they see I can stick to something and produce results. Plus, if I am able to keep a commitment to myself, then I am more likely to keep the commitments I make to them.


• Preach what you believe.


• This too is from my dad, but again he is right. If for a half a moment you preach by your words or deeds something you don't believe, the congregation will smell it and you will have blown all your credibility. It is better to say you have no clue what a particular scripture means while in the pulpit, or to say you believe something that 90 percent of the congregation will disagree with, then to preach something you do not believe.

*For a further discussion on trust see Stephen M. R. Covey's book Leading at the Speed of Trust.

Sermon and Baptism for Pentecost 3

Luke 7:36-8:3

Pentecost 3, Year C, 13 June 2009 Part 1

Pentecost 3, Year C 13 June 2010, Part II

Baptism

P90X

I decided to do the P90X training program. After watching the infomercial during repeated bouts of insomnia, and losing about 35 pounds through WeightWatchers I decided to give it a shot. I got the DVDs about a month ago, but I have waited to start because of the birth of the twins. I have also gained about 5 pounds back during the last few weeks with the birth and all.

Tonight was day one of the 90 days of P90X. I took my photos and did the Chest and Back work out. It is basically an hour's worth of push-ups and pull-ups. Right now, I am not doing as many reps as the folks on the DVD and I am using a chair for the pull-ups. However, my goal is to be able to do 15 pull-ups unassisted by the end of the 90 days. After the the Chest and Back work out you do the Ab Ripper X workout. I am gassed, especially my core. Tomorrow is plyometrics.

So why am I doing this. Well, for health reasons both diabetes and heart disease run in both sides of my family. It is imperative I watch my health, or I might not be around to see my great-grandaughter become President of the United States some day. Furthermore, and most importantly, I want my kids to be able to trust me. If I can't keep a commitment to myself--a simple commitment to exercises 6 days a week, then how can they trust me to keep the commitments I make to them. Why would they keep commitments they make to me? So, I am testing myself. I want to know how deep my ability to honor my commitments runs. I'll post at least once a week on my progress. We'll find out how much intestinal fortitude I have.

Easter 5, Year C

Easter 5, Year C, 3 May 2010

Acts 11:1-18 | Psalm 148 | Revelation 21:1-6 | John 13:31-35