The Audible Opposition

October 29, 2010 in Church Leadership, Scripture with Comments Off

A few days ago Seth Godin wrote a post called “Change and its Constituents” about change in organizations. Take 45 seconds and go check it out (seriously, that’s all it takes to get through it). This short, simple post has been bouncing around in my mind because of the truth it represents. Creating change is not difficult, but the true test of leadership lies in bringing people along for the ride, and the voices you hear will almost always be your critics.

I once heard Francis Chan preach on this passage from Luke:

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”
-Luke 6:26

His message that day was clear. If people aren’t complaining, you aren’t pushing them hard enough, you aren’t creating change, you aren’t pursuing your mission. We concern ourselves too much with keeping others happy, saving face, or not creating conflict, that we make sacrifices to the mission God has given us in our ministries. I’ve probably heard a hundred different versions of the following idea: “I don’t want to make waves,” “I wouldn’t want to ruffle any feathers,” “People are happy with what we have now.”

Do you want to make progress? Achieve your goals? Accomplish your mission? You’re going to have to step on a few toes, offend a few sensitive personalities, make some hard decisions, and yes, some people are not going to like you for it, and yes, they will be very vocal with their opinions. You do what you can to communicate the vision and invite them along for the ride, but at some point we need to be clear that “the journey is happening with or without you.”

What’s one thing you would change in your ministry if you knew it would upset no one? Has the leadership at your church empowered you to make that change a reality? If you’re the leader, are you brave enough to make that change a reality?

Q & A (part 3) – What is distinctive about The United Methodist Church?

October 28, 2010 in Q&A, Theology with Comments Off

John Wesley is the man responsible for the Methodist movement, which lead to the establishment of the Methodist Church. What made Wesley famous was his desire to take the message of God to the people. He became an “open-air” preacher, meaning he would share the gospel with crowds of people wherever they would gather. At first Wesley was against this style of preaching, believing that it detracted from the existing ministries of the Anglican Church. After a while Wesley saw dramatic life-change among people who would never have otherwise stepped foot in a church and recognized the potential impact of this type of ministry. This raised a lot of controversy among church leaders, as they saw this as an attempt to supersede the church. My favorite story about Wesley occurred when he visited his hometown of Epworth.  A well-known preacher by this time, Wesley offered his services to the local church, desiring to preach, read prayers, or otherwise be included in the Sunday worship service. He was quickly denied. Wesley preached anyway, but instead of preaching in the church, he spoke from atop his father’s tombstone and the congregation that had gathered was, in Wesley’s words, “such a congregation as I believe Epworth never saw before.” But his goal was never to subvert the church. In fact, Wesley encouraged those who heard him speak to attend the very churches that saw him as an enemy. For him it was all about advancing the gospel and increasing the Kingdom of God.

I fully understand that the preceding paragraph is nothing more than a simple history lesson and doesn’t actually address the question at hand, but I think it is important to know where something comes from if you want to know how something is defined. Wesley’s core values demonstrated in this story represent why I find myself at home in a United Methodist congregation. In the United Methodist Church we want people to experience the gospel, to discover the grace of God pervading their life, and to pursue Christ with everything they have. As the church we are always striving to reach people in new and creative ways in an attempt to share the story of salvation, even if it means sacrificing our firmly held traditions (ok, maybe not the Methodist church down the street from you, but they are missing the point). The message never changes, but the method does. Just because this phrase is cliché doesn’t make it any less true. For a couple of examples about how the Methodist church is interacting with culture in new and exciting ways check out the Rethink Church campaign, or the 10 Fold movement. The United Methodist Church also leverages the resources available from such a large network of churches to spread its impact to a global level. I cannot even begin to describe the amazing work of UMC Global Ministries, UMCOR, and The Advance, let alone the individual global mission projects of local churches.

Does this really make the UMC distinctive? Well no, we don’t have the market cornered on mission and evangelism. I think if you are really comparing my church to yours, you are likely to find far more similarities than issues that separate us. The problem becomes when we define ourselves by what divides us. The truth is I could go into a Calvinism vs. Arminianism discussion, or give a formal opinion on homosexuality, or write a post about any other hot-button theological topic (and believe me I’m happy to defend my position on theological issues), but I don’t really like fueling the fire of, “we’re both Christ followers, but here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong.” I love Jesus because of how the gospel has changed my life. I love ministry because of how I get to spread the gospel to others. I love the United Methodist Church because of its mission to share the gospel with the world.

If you want to go deeper you can read up on the history, structure, beliefs, and mission of the United Methodist Church on umc.org. Or, if you are suffering insomnia you could load up your Kindle with The Book of Discipline (side note: I’m pretty surprised this book is available on the Kindle store).

The truth is every church is distinctive because people are distinctive. If every church were the same it would be very hard to feel like a true part of the community. What is it about your church that keeps you connected? What makes your church distinctive?

Other Q&A Posts:

Part 1 – What is your favorite passage of scripture?
Part 2 – Who created God?

Q&A is a blog series inspired by questions collected during a question and answer format worship service at Mayfield Church. Do you have a question? Feel free to leave it in the comments.


Crazy Days and Kan Jam

September 21, 2010 in Uncategorized with Comments Off

It’s been a marathon couple of weeks for me. First my parents were moving to Battle Creek, Michigan, then they weren’t, then they were moving but they weren’t sure where, and now they are moving to Columbus, Ohio. At least now a plan is set and their house is on the market and ready to sell. Want to see the house I grew up in? You can check it out here.

And on top of all that we had our 175th Anniversary Celebration at Mayfield Church this past Sunday. The entire day was the result of months and months of planning, and more recently weeks and weeks of hard work. The day was a huge success and I couldn’t be happier with the way everything turned out. Spending some time in a dunk tank and getting to play music on an outdoor stage are both activities I would highly recommend you try. They day kicked off with an incredible worship service featuring all of our music groups, several former pastors, and a great message from Pastor Dave Scavuzzo, Superintendent of the UMC district my church is a part of. Our auditorium was so packed that even after expanding the capacity to over 500 we still had to set chairs up in the hallway outside of the doors. God is good.

I’ve been describing my life as being a “healthy kind of busy.” It’s not all work and no play for sure. This past Saturday I was able to take the time to throw a birthday barbecue for my roommate Bryan and my best friend James (bottom of picture). Of course I could not have done this without the help of my friends James, Kellie, and Sean (top of picture).  It was just an afternoon full of all kinds of crazy fun and childish antics. Incidentally, if you have never played Kan Jam, then you have not lived.

And of course I’ve spent plenty of time with my fiancé Kristen, who in the midst of running charity races and starting youth group season, has managed to put up with me in all of my busyness as well. We even had a great engagement party a few weeks ago put on by our amazing friends James and Kellie Dziemianzuk. I absolutely cannot wait to marry this girl in 242 days. It’s starting to feel very real. We even start Premarital counseling next week with our good friend Kathy Dickriede, who is performing our ceremony.

Those are the things that have been consuming a lot of my time recently, which has left other parts of my life unattended. My apartment desperately needs a good cleaning, I’ve got some wedding plans I really need to attend to, and I need to get some posts up on this site. For those of you that have been following the Q&A series, it will resume tomorrow. I’ve got all the posts just about done, but with posts like these editing is important, so I’ve sat on them until I have enough time to go back over them. Now that I’m able to focus a bit the rest of the series should roll out rather quickly and consistently.

KAN JAM!!!

Q & A (part 2) – Who Created God?

August 20, 2010 in Q&A, Scripture, Theology with 2 Comments

This is definitely a loaded question. What if I were to ask you, “When are you going to give me the five bucks you owe me?” The only proper answer to this question is to give a timeframe in which I can expect my Lincoln (or Washingtons). Even an answer of “never” would be acknowledging that you owe me money, and that you are simply a deadbeat. Since you wouldn’t want to damage your pristine reputation you would likely not offer a direct answer and instead attempt to invalidate my question with something like, “I don’t owe you five bucks.” And yet, when we answer this question on God in a similar fashion it doesn’t seem to satisfy our mind, because, when it comes to God, we have this insatiable desire for knowledge, and answers always seem to lead to more questions. The conversation usually goes something like this…

Who created God?

God does not have a creator.

Well then how did he get there?

It’s easy to see why we would ask the question this way. We get hung up on the origin of things. We always need to see the source. Our minds are most at peace when we can explain the perceptions of our world through “cause and effect.” We like to understand the things we encounter on a day-to-day basis, but we don’t perceive our world through “cause and effect.” In reality we perceive the effect first, and then we ask questions, which help us to find the cause. Think about the way you interact with the world…

“That’s a beautiful piece of art. Who painted it?”

“This soup is delicious. What’s in it?”

“This snow is miserable. Why does the tilt of the earth’s axis cause sunlight to arrive at a decreased angle relative to our atmosphere thereby leading to a greater incidence of light rays glancing off of our planets surface?”

“We have an amazing God. Where did He come from?”

The bible simply begins with “בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים” (“In the beginning God created…”). These 3 Hebrew words set the tone for every single word that will follow. The bible is about God. The phrase simply tells us that God is not an effect, God is the cause. God is not the beginning, God made the beginning.

Be-gin-ning n.
1. The act or process of bringing into being; a start.

The bible is pretty clear about the idea that God is outside of time as we know it. For many it is enough to take this on faith, to know that there are just some attributes of God you are not able to understand in this life. Others need a bit more logic and reason. I’ll let ancient Greek philosophy take it from here.

Aristotle did not view faith and reason as mutually exclusive. He saw it as the opposite, and wrote a lot about our perceptions of cause and effect, and how that relates to our view of God. In one of his writings he outlines a very simple, yet specific argument for  the existence of, what he calls, the unmoved mover:

  1. There exists movement in the world.
  2. Things that move were set into motion by something else.
  3. If everything that moves were caused to move by something else, there would be an infinite chain of causes. This can’t happen.
  4. Thus, there must have been something that caused the first movement.
  5. From 3, this first cause cannot itself have been moved.
  6. From 4, there must be an unmoved mover.

There it is in simple logic. Our God does not have a creator. No creation can be greater than it’s creator. If God is perfect, then he must have been first.

He has always been, He is, and He will always be. Thoughts?

Q&A is a blog series inspired by questions collected during a recent question and answer format worship service at Mayfield Church. This blog series will include my perspective on seven questions addressed by our pastors as well as a few additional questions we did not have sufficient time to discuss. Do you have a question? Feel free to leave it in the comments or submit it via email to questions@mayfieldchurch.org.

Q & A (part 1) – What is your favorite passage of scripture?

August 18, 2010 in Q&A, Scripture, Theology with 1 Comment

Recently my church held a Q&A style worship service during which all three of our pastors took the stage to answer questions we had received in the weeks leading up to the service. I’ve decided to offer my perspective on the same questions through a blog series right here. I will also be addressing a few questions that were left out of the service due to time constraints. I also invite you to contribute additional questions at any time throughout this blog series by leaving your question in the comments or by sending an email to questions@mayfieldchurch.org. In part 1 I’ll start of just like our pastors did on Sunday, with a nice easy icebreaker question (we’ll get to doctrine and deep theology later, I promise).

What is your favorite passage of scripture?

There are two things to understand when you ask someone about their favorite passage of scripture.

  1. Favorite scripture has a tendency to change, and certain passages and verses will speak to you at different times in your life or in different circumstances. A favorite verse is not necessarily the verse you turn to in every situation, but rather one that offers general guidance and motivation.
  2. They’re all good verses. No one verse is better than any other and every verse is God inspired and has been included in the bible for a reason (even Ezekiel 23:20).

That being said, there is one passage that comes to mind anyone asks me this question. It comes from the book of 1 Peter and has been one of my “favorite” passages since my first year in seminary. In only 10 verses I find such a diverse offering of truth, inspiration, hope, and instruction. You can find it in 1 Peter 3:8-18:

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

10 For Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Verse 10 is really the key to this passage for me. Peter is quoting from Psalm 34, but when Peter wrote the word “life,” he chose to use the Greek word “Zoe” ( ζωή zōē ). “Zoe” does not simply mean life in the physical sense that you are living and breathing. Jesus used the word “Zoe” to describe the resurrection life, the life eternally connected to God our creator. One definition of the word phrases it this way:

“life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last forever.”

-definition from BlueLetterBible

Once you hear that and you know the fullness Peter is describing, it brings the following instruction into a whole new light. I could preach an entire sermon on every verse in this passage and still not even begin to scratch the surface, but for the sake of brevity here are a few simple highlights.

Verse 13 – I love the phrase “…if you are zealous for what is good.” This verse constantly causes me to ask myself if I am being zealous in my faith, if I am ardently pursuing God.

Verse 15 – “…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” Three key words here: defense, gentleness, respect. We are not on the attack. The gospel is not a weapon. I recently had the opportunity to see John Mayer in concert where he sang these words:

“Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword”

-John Mayer, Belief

I think knowing this verse is essential for any person who claims to follow Christ, because evangelism is a huge part of our calling, and this verse shows us how it is to be done. Christianity would be viewed in a completely different way if we lived out this verse in our world.

Verse 18 – This passage is kind of capped off with a quick summary of the gospel. Peter is essentially saying, “and just in case you forgot why following all of this is important, here’s a reminder…” This verse is a beautiful reminder not only that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from sin, but that he conquered death to unite us with God.

When I read this passage I am simultaneously encouraged in my walk with God and challenged to ask tough questions about my own spiritual journey. My prayer is that you would find a passage that ignites the same desire inside you. It could be some obscure reference from 2 Chronicles. It could be a more well known verse like John 3:16. It could even come from 1 Peter 3 (really, it’s ok if we have the same favorite verse). If you’ve got a verse in mind already why don’t you go read it and ask yourself how it moves you. If you don’t, why don’t you take a few minutes and begin to search for one.

What is YOUR favorite passage or verse? How does it move you?

Q&A is a blog series inspired by questions collected during a recent question and answer format worship service at Mayfield Church. This blog series will include my perspective on seven questions addressed by our pastors as well as a few additional questions we did not have sufficient time to address. Do you have a question? Feel free to leave it in the comments or submit it via email to questions@mayfieldchurch.org.

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