Lent Devo #1 – Read the “Lent” Wikipedia article to learn what it means, how it started, and its surrounding practices.
Posted in Spiritual Practices | Tagged 2012 lent, daily devotional | Leave a Comment »
Starting today, you can tune in to FaithJourneyLifeJourney for a daily lenten devotional. Lent is a space to give you agency for self-exploration and reflection. The daily devotional can hopefully lend you opportunities to take action for that agency. Each devotional is intended to be an activity or a spiritual practice for us to actual try. This may mean we need to make time and space for this. Maybe that will be hard. Maybe that’s why we should do it. Some will work for you, some won’t. Either way, I hope we can make room in our hearts and minds to use Lent.
Remember, you can subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss any of the action. Plus, we’ll be posting the devotionals on our Facebook group and our Twitter feed. Which reminds me, we need more Twitter followers. Make it happen!
Finally, I’ll add that this is our third year trying this and I continue to improve my posting of these devotionals daily and perhaps this is the year I make it happen 100%. Thanks for your patience (and practice!).
-nm
Posted in Spiritual Practices | Tagged 2012 lent, daily devotional, twitter | Leave a Comment »
I saw a link posted this morning by Pastor Matt Sipe of Delano UMC to a editorial commentary at UMPortal.org entitled, ” Take heed UM churches, and youth will stay away “ by Ben Boruff, an Indiana U senior and UMC Connectional Table member who served on the Call to Action Steering Committee. In this article, Boruff candidly recalls his experiences working with congregations who were able to articulate the reasons youth aren’t involved, understand what to implement to make positive change, and then never actually do something about it. Given my sermon from Sunday (02.19.2012 “You Lost Me”), I sure don’t want our congregation to fall into the traps Boruff lays out with much-welcomed candor.
Boruff says if you want to lose young people on purpose, do the following: Continue Reading »
Posted in Theology | Tagged call to action, delano umc, nostalgia, pop culture, um portal, you lost me, young adults | Leave a Comment »
National Public Radio dedicates the Friday program of Talk of the Nation as “Science Friday,” a series of segments focusing on major happenings in the world of science. While traveling home from my (for fun, not credit) beginner Spanish course at Luther seminary, I caught a segment called “Should Sugar be Relegated Like Alcohol?” featuring a conversation between host Ira Flatow and UCSF pediatrician Robert Lustig about food and health and lifestyle. I’ll skip the focus of the segment (though it’s perhaps worth a listen; interesting stuff) and lift up instead the very first thing Lustig says:
“All food is inherently good. There is no bad food. God wouldn’t do that to us.”
What is the power of a scientist starting his thesis with a positive statement about God?
I absolutely love science and Continue Reading »
Posted in Theology | Tagged bridge, disconnect, science, wisdom | 2 Comments »
In the last month, I’ve heard feedback that there are people who really want to catch some of the sermons they’re missing at Excelsior UMC to be made available on our website. Good timing, because that’s exactly what I’ve been working on the last week or so.
If you visit the podcast portion of excelsiorumc.org you’ll find eight (and counting) sermon podcasts available for both streaming online and download as an MP3 so you can listen later on your computer or portable electronic device. There’s a healthy mix of preachers, including a handful of youth and laity, and they’re presented in chronological order with most of 2012 up so far and 2011 being put up starting with December. I’ll add that while we’d love to make the great music featured in our worship services available online, we simply don’t have the publishing rights to offer that at this time. Perhaps in the future…
While I’m putting up podcasts – my goal is to have at least one year’s worth up before Lent – I’m also interested in your feedback on any favorite sermons which struck you as particularly powerful. We want to build a listing of “favorites” like this which really help lift up our mission, our vision, and how Jesus impacts lives in our congregation. I’m hopeful this cherry-picked list of sermons could potentially be helpful for potential visitors to discern more about who we are and how we see God.
It’s been interesting putting the sermons side-by-side, including the preacher list, the Scripture readings, and the titles. I’m not sure if I’ve yet discerned if we have obvious patterns (save, perhaps, for some sequential Sundays following the lectionary) and perhaps time will tell in that regard.
Regards,
Nate
Posted in Announcements, Theology | Tagged mp3, podcast, sermon, streaming | Leave a Comment »
The following is Nate’s article from this month’s issue of The Shorelines newsletter:
During my sermon “Faith Deserts” on July 31, we explored how Jesus had just learned of the murder of his cousin, John the Baptist, and had stolen away to seclusion only to have the crowds follow him (Mt. 14:13-21). Rather than send them away, Jesus embraced them, taught them, and ultimately fed them in what we often call “The Feeding of the 5,000.”
I put it to the congregation that sometimes we find ourselves in “faith deserts,” these places where we lose faith in how God and people around us can be a part of going through the big stuff, the little stuff, and all the stuff in-between. Trying to tackle everything on our own, all the time, isn’t getting us anywhere. It’s giving in to the fear of letting others in. Instead, my hope is that, as Rally Sunday approaches, we’re giving serious thought to how we can use the fall as a season of fresh starts and rejuvenation. My hope is we can find the small groups and emotional support networks we need, be they here at Exelsior UMC and/or elsewhere, and that God will be a welcomed, present part of this new way of exploring life. I asked people to think about this for six weeks.
So have you been doing this? Have you been taking this six-week period between July 31 and Rally Sunday – September 11 – to see if you’re in a faith desert or a faith oasis? If so, what’s your answer and what are you going to do about it? If not, isn’t it time you asked yourself about it? Isn’t it time you asked yourself if you’re letting God and the people around you in so you’re not trying to do it all by yourself? I think so.
I’d love to hear what you have to say on the matter. Continue the conversation on our church blog, faithjourneylifejourney.com.
Regards,
Nate Melcher
Posted in Community, Theology | Tagged community, faith desert, feeding the 5000, rally sunday, small groups | Leave a Comment »
The following is Kent’s article in this month’s issue of The Shorelines.
I am writing this on one of my favorite days of the year. Tonight we will hold the confirmation final retreat for this year’s 10th Graders. It is 18 hours of intense listening to each other that we hope will make for lifelong friendships and strong Christian faith, too. What I particularly like is the honest sharing of lives and the total appreciation of the gifts that each youth brings to life. This is the acceptance and encouragement we see Jesus bring to his relationships in the Bible. And this is the mission we have taken on as a congregation; connecting faith journeys to life’s journey. We become community together.
Our mission trip this summer to Pocahontas, Iowa was particularly rewarding because of this Faith Journey aspect, too. Because we showed up to help just a few months after the tornado, people were still telling their stories. They were still finding personal healing in the fact that we took time to listen to them, look at their pictures and do some volunteer work in the hot sun. An Iowa farmer and some suburban kids turned from strangers to community members as we responded to the blows a tornado struck on a farm.
I think this is the reason for all of us to attend these first few weeks of Welcoming Sundays or Rally Sundays. It is the time to find a fellowship group or study group or service group that can give us the opportunity to listen to each other and make real community. As much as anything we do in the church, connecting our lives moves us from strangers to community. In doing that we experience how a Faith Journey makes for a happier and more meaning-filled Life Journey.
On the journey,
Kent
Posted in Community | Tagged community, confirmation, mission, rally sunday | Leave a Comment »
I’ll just dive right in with today’s entry, dear reader, as we did with today’s work. After breakfast and after the men moved all their gear out of the sanctuary so HUMC could have Sunday morning worship, we had a bright-and-early 7:00am start at Jim’s farm. We spoke with him for a moment as he expressed his gratitude for our service, then we headed down to his ditches and a field to sweep them for debris.
Someone’s Life in the Ditch
We pulled beams, boards, sheetrock, branches, roots, rocks, twisted pieces of metal, cookie tins, furniture pieces, shoes, clothes, underpants, toys, and a lot more out of those places. It’s a testament to one of the great truths of a tornado: when it enters your life, it truly does spill it all out for everyone to see. We were pulling items out of the ditch three months after the tornado; imagine how much was already removed before we got there. Now think about all of the stuff in your house, all of it, splayed out for the neighbors to not only see but for them to pick up for you. A tornado makes your life an open book and that’s out of your control. I get the sense that the loss of control is one of the most difficult things to struggle with in the midst of such tragedy.
John’s Show
Next, we headed over to John’s farm just down the road. We’d been told ahead of time that John intended to “put on a show for us,” tell us his story. It’s exactly what he did. Continue Reading »
Posted in Mission: Iowa 2011 | Tagged ditch, pocahontas, poky, put on a show, teen dance, tornado | 1 Comment »
Good morning, dear reader. If you want to make your reading of today’s entry one with sensory participation resembling what many of us experienced, take the following steps:
- Turn off your air conditioner.
- Turn on some bright lamps and point ‘em right at you.
- Start a fire in the fireplace.
- Sit next to it.
- Rub some dirt and tar on your arms, face, and in your hair.
- Bend over and lift up your computer fifty times or so.
Doing all that could be key to feeling the heat of the day out in Verina, Iowa. I’ll cut to the chase and say that after our work day ended, I discovered a post on my Facebook page from Art saying the state of Iowa had declared a heat advisory and asked people to get indoors near the time we’d wrapped up for the day. Sunday looks to be even hotter, so we’ll see what happens in terms of what sort of work we do and at what time.
Paint the Town Red, White, and Blue
As you can likely tell by now, today saw us return to Verina to continue work on yesterday’s unfinished projects. If we had thought a little more, we’d of taken more “before” photos of the park because the “after” is a night and day difference in terms of a welcoming arena for gathering, playing, and town pride. The crew finished painting the bell (red for the bell, white and blue for the base) as well as the small barn (a more accurate nomenclature, I’ve been told by the youth, than when I named it a “shed” in yesterday’s post), the merry-go-round got its white panels to match the red panels and blue bars, and the picnic shelter got a fresh coat of white paint on its peaks and beamwork.
The merry-go-round received a little extra white paint in the center, which had already been painted blue. A little splatter turned into *ahem* a clearly intentional white splatter piece of artwork. Despite its accidental origins, it does look nice, indeed. The merry-go-round isn’t the only thing that received accidental painting. Stepping off of it, Kelsey managed to stick her foot onto the edge of a paint can and tipped a wave of white paint on her white shoe, leaving one side white with mud and dirt and the other side pristine white. Meanwhile, William reports the crew had to contend with not only hornet nests in the picnic shelter rafters but also “spider nests,” – large clumps of spider webs with hard clumps of wrapped egg sacs and “food.”
Later, several people got to Continue Reading »
Posted in Mission: Iowa 2011 | Tagged bell, city hall, iowa, max liquidator, mission, pocahontas, poky, sheep, verina | 4 Comments »
Greetings, dear reader! We had our first full work day and night on the town so settle in for some stories and photos. Have you subscribed to the blog yet, via email or RSS feed? Now’s the time to do so. Plus, please keep those comments coming and I’ll gladly read your “letters from home” for the group during evening worship.
Note: PHOTOS ARE UP!
Sprucing Up the Town Square of Verina, IA
We left HUMC at around 8:00am this morning and, after a brief visit from EUMC congregation member Art, who has a farm in the area, we drove out to Verina, IA (pronounced “Vare-eye-nah”) to do repair to the city park and City Hall. Verina is a very small town, bigger than Ware yet smaller than Poky. For a sense of geography, we were in the town square: on one side of the street is City Hall / Town Library, then the Fire Department, then the American Legion Hall. Across the street is the city park.
The group split up in two, with Alex N., Dan, Jacob, Kent, Loretta, and Trevor joining Mayor Chris on the roof of City Hall / Town Library to do re-shingling, while the rest of the group painted various items in the city park.
The shingling job is a tricky one to tackle. City Hall is a small building at only 25’ x 12’ yet an expansion to the building leaves workers dealing with two types of shingling. The wooden shingles on the expansion below the regular tar shingling gave them the most trouble today, as everything needs to be pried off and Continue Reading »
Posted in Mission: Iowa 2011 | Tagged agronomy, chicken, cow, hard labor, horse, iowa, lamb burgers, merry-go-round, mission, pocahontas, poky, verina | 5 Comments »
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