I've started a new blog called Life According to St. Mark. It's a fun play off my namesake's Gospel letter.
I hope you have enjoyed The Lotus, but after a few months, I will shut it down. Please, please, join me over on Life According to St. Mark!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 09, 2008
One Party, Three Churches
After Ordination service May 31st, my home church, Rossville UMC, hosted a big party. It was a great reception. Steph and I really appreciated it.
What was really neat was that they invited the church I'm serving, Columbia City UMC, and the church I will be serving, Winchester First UMC.
It was a somewhat surreal moment to have the church that shaped my faith journey hosting the first church I was appointed to and which helped shape future ministry. Then the church to which we'll be moving soon where I will get to "try out" all this stuff I've been learning and growing into as pastor.
It was a cool moment, and it was yet another reminder that we are not islands of ourselves. We are interconnected in ways that we don't often see or even know. It was humbling to know that I am and will be a connectional bridge in the history of these churches. I wonder who else was that bridge? How many bridges are there!?!
That party was a symbol to me of the Church: We are all in this together. We celebrate together. We cry together. One church shapes the other and vice-versa.
We often talk about being a connectional church as United Methodists. Rather, I say that we just admit to it. In reality it's the connectional Church, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.
What was really neat was that they invited the church I'm serving, Columbia City UMC, and the church I will be serving, Winchester First UMC.
It was a somewhat surreal moment to have the church that shaped my faith journey hosting the first church I was appointed to and which helped shape future ministry. Then the church to which we'll be moving soon where I will get to "try out" all this stuff I've been learning and growing into as pastor.
It was a cool moment, and it was yet another reminder that we are not islands of ourselves. We are interconnected in ways that we don't often see or even know. It was humbling to know that I am and will be a connectional bridge in the history of these churches. I wonder who else was that bridge? How many bridges are there!?!
That party was a symbol to me of the Church: We are all in this together. We celebrate together. We cry together. One church shapes the other and vice-versa.
We often talk about being a connectional church as United Methodists. Rather, I say that we just admit to it. In reality it's the connectional Church, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Thoughts on Ordination
Sometimes we look forward to moments, and we expect a moment that is transcendent. Often, those moments fail to live up to our expectations.
Not so, Saturday. I will always treasure and remember May 31st, 2008. On the last day of our Annual Conference session 10 of us were ordained Elders in Christ's Holy Church. After years of mentoring and examination, it was an incredible moment to have the Bishop lay his hands on my head and set me aside for the Church. Having Jack Hart place the stole around my neck was surreal. It truly was a transcendent moment.
A few weeks leading up to ordination, Bishop Mike Coyner led all of the ordinands in a 2 day retreat. There we read and discussed the meaning of being ordained. I appreciated the reflection. Though little was "new" to me, it was a great (meaning both good and big) reminder of the weight of yoke of ordination. It is not something done lightly. The tradition of ordination came from the concept of Apostolic Succession.
In the Early Church, growth was rapid, leaders were few, and the only Scripture was the Old Testament. As disagreements in theology arose, it became evident that there needed to be a process of preserving and transmitting the historic faith. This became ordination. The Disciples of Jesus had disciples who had disciples who had disciples who...you get the picture. The concept of Apostolic Succession is that there is a trained, mentored, and educated group of people set aside to preserve and transmit (sometimes the word "guard" is used) the historic faith. This line of ordination, in theory, goes all the way back to Jesus himself. This is why we ordain clergy and set them aside.
On Sunday morning, June 1st, I kissed my ordination stole, offered up prayers that in humility I might be a servant of God to CCUMC, and I put on a stole that carried an impossible weight. It was the weight of being a servant of the Church, a faith and a people that extend millenia in the past and innumberable years ahead. It didn't feel good or bad, but there was a real sense that I was now different.
I am honored. I am humbled. I feel good. I am carrying a burden. In all these feelings, still there is something that is true. That always was true and always will be: The love of God. I pray that always my stole is a reminder that ordination is a calling by God to the Church and entrusted to me that I might serve and in so doing offer God's Love to a hurting and broken world.
Not so, Saturday. I will always treasure and remember May 31st, 2008. On the last day of our Annual Conference session 10 of us were ordained Elders in Christ's Holy Church. After years of mentoring and examination, it was an incredible moment to have the Bishop lay his hands on my head and set me aside for the Church. Having Jack Hart place the stole around my neck was surreal. It truly was a transcendent moment.
A few weeks leading up to ordination, Bishop Mike Coyner led all of the ordinands in a 2 day retreat. There we read and discussed the meaning of being ordained. I appreciated the reflection. Though little was "new" to me, it was a great (meaning both good and big) reminder of the weight of yoke of ordination. It is not something done lightly. The tradition of ordination came from the concept of Apostolic Succession.In the Early Church, growth was rapid, leaders were few, and the only Scripture was the Old Testament. As disagreements in theology arose, it became evident that there needed to be a process of preserving and transmitting the historic faith. This became ordination. The Disciples of Jesus had disciples who had disciples who had disciples who...you get the picture. The concept of Apostolic Succession is that there is a trained, mentored, and educated group of people set aside to preserve and transmit (sometimes the word "guard" is used) the historic faith. This line of ordination, in theory, goes all the way back to Jesus himself. This is why we ordain clergy and set them aside.
On Sunday morning, June 1st, I kissed my ordination stole, offered up prayers that in humility I might be a servant of God to CCUMC, and I put on a stole that carried an impossible weight. It was the weight of being a servant of the Church, a faith and a people that extend millenia in the past and innumberable years ahead. It didn't feel good or bad, but there was a real sense that I was now different.
I am honored. I am humbled. I feel good. I am carrying a burden. In all these feelings, still there is something that is true. That always was true and always will be: The love of God. I pray that always my stole is a reminder that ordination is a calling by God to the Church and entrusted to me that I might serve and in so doing offer God's Love to a hurting and broken world.
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