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 Every election cycle produces heated rhetoric but some people in our country think partisan bashing, hate filled comments and bitterness have reached new lows. One political veteran observes that Congress hasn’t been as divided since the 1850s, a period marked by such inability to find common ground that we eventually made war on ourselves.
I read an interesting article about this topic in the Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT), written by Michael DeGroote. Not surprisingly, civility has been particularly on the minds of Mormons in this year’s election, Mormons having been the object of much incivility in our nation and until recently having 2 candidates running for the office of President.
Michael DeGroote described the now disbanded effort intended to bring our political leaders together. Mark DeMoss, a conservative Republican and Lanny Davis, a liberal Democrat founded the Civility Project in 2009. DeMoss has advised Mitt Romney for 5 years and Davis was White House Counsel under Bill Clinton and worked for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 election run. Together DeMoss and Davis had seen an enormous amount of ugliness from their respective political viewpoints, equally generated on both sides. The Civility Project intended to heighten the discourse by inviting every Senator and Congressman and state governor to sign a simple three point pledge that read:
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I will be civil in my discourse and behavior. |
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I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them. |
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I will stand against incivility where and when I see it. |
They mailed a packet to these 585 leaders. Not surprisingly, the firebrand commentator Bill O’Reilly said it was a “dopey” idea. Two years later only 3 Congressmen (2 Republicans, 1 independent) had signed the pledge and DeMoss and Davis disbanded the whole thing. But I liked DeMoss’ sentiment: “I’d rather lose on the high road than win in the gutter.”
The Civility Project had nothing to do with whether or not people agreed with each other. Davis and DeMoss had sharp disagreements on many issues. The aim was that one could be very much opposed to another person’s ideas or behaviors and yet do so with civility.
What might it mean to our community discourse if people signed on to such a covenant? What could it mean in your neighborhood, in your own family? What could it mean in the religious community? Would you sign it?
Creede Hinshaw
creede@wesleymonumental.org
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I write in praise of asking questions.
All of us have questions even though many are reticent to verbalize them. Fearing that we’ll look stupid or that we’re instinctively supposed to know the answer we either stifle the question or else apologize profusely in case our question might offend, interrupt or insult somebody.
Some people have a great capacity to ask why, how, when, where, who or what. Journalists fall into that lot, as do scientists and children. I can think of very few persons who could not benefit from asking a well placed question. Even those under orders in the military know a time comes when duty demands that questions be asked.
I do not consider myself especially adept at asking questions. Perhaps it came from my childhood training to respect those who were educated or held positions of leadership. This is admirable advice, even scriptural, but it can hinder us from asking things that need asking. Nobody has all the answers, especially those who imperiously think they do.
Because questions can mean so many different things they are somewhat subversive. Jesus fielded many questions, some sincere and others very deceptive. Sometimes we pose questions to throw a person off balance, to accuse (asking “why” almost always puts the other on the defensive) or to bring a person down to size. Sometimes we ask to show ourselves smarter than the other. Sometimes we clothe a declaration in the form of an interrogation as a cowardly way of scoring points.
Even so we can learn much from asking a question. It is a way of admitting that we don’t know everything. It can deepen a conversation and draw us closer to the reality of a subject or setting.
I was grateful in seminary that some classmates eagerly asked questions because I learned a lot from their curiosity. They often asked penetrating questions I’d never even considered.
Many people secretly hope that somebody else will ask the question they are too afraid to ask. When did you last ask a good question? Why not start today? Take a deep breath and ask the question. Those who ask, seek and knock are those who find.
Creede Hinshaw
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Maybe these thoughts are a few weeks late. Ah, but no!
Just because you didn’t start an intentional plan of Bible reading on January 1st it’s never too late to begin a daily regimen of Bible reading. To think that one must either begin Bible reading on January 1st or jettison the whole effort until next year is an insidious excuse born of the diabolical one.
I do not read through the Bible every year though I report this as confession. Some years I do; many years I don’t, with no particular reason why in either case.
At any rate I’ve been called again this year to read through the entire Bible. There are many different plans for this. The You Version app on my Droid has over 100 Bible reading plans, including reading the entire Bible in 90 days (too energetic for me), reading the Psalms and Proverbs in a year (Psalms twice and Proverbs 12 times) or reading the four gospels in 30 days. Some plans are organized according to topics such as grief, marriage, bullying, cutting, clothing and death while others provide an overview of certain key Bible personalities.
If you don’t have access to a smart phone app, type the words “Bible reading plans” into your computer’s search engine. Here’s a website that offers 13 different reading plans: http://www.bibleplan.org/
I do not recommend beginning with Genesis 1:1 and reading straight through the Bible. This dogged plan is usually doomed to failure. Even if one struggles through the Genesis genealogies there is still the daunting book of Leviticus, the boring boundary descriptions of Joshua and the repetitive books of Kings and Chronicles. Reading “straight through” is not for sissies or first time readers.
I have returned this year to my favorite plan, one approach involves reading 4 chapters of the Bible daily, two from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament. It begins on January 1 with Genesis 1, Matthew 1, Acts 1 and Ezra 1. At the end of a year one will have read the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice. You can find this plan on the internet.
I am “on schedule” after 17 days but know from experience that I won’t remain current. Some days I have read a double portion in order to catch up. My resolve is this: I give myself permission to complete the task in longer than a year. I do not give myself permission to quit.
It’s mid January, but it’s always a good time to begin reading the Bible intentionally. Pick your plan today. Get started and you will be rewarded with amazing insights and new truth.
Creede Hinshaw
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Codices, Mimeograph Machines and the Internet
This morning I retrieved the church bulletin from my very first Sunday as a pastor – an 8½” x 11” blue sheet of paper folded in half: Vol. 18, No. 21 of The Church Call, dated June 19, 1977, the weekly newsletter and worship bulletin of the 3 churches of the Waverly Hall United Methodist Charge in Harris County, GA.
One of my weekly pastoral tasks for which there had been no seminary training was to write the announcements and frontispiece, set up the worship service, type it all on that blue stencil paper (remember the correction fluid?), ink up the mimeograph machine, hook the stencil around the barrel and duplicate 200+ sheets, doing the same thing a second time for the inside of the bulletin, fold each bulletin by hand, affix each mailing label, sort into zip codes and take the finished product to the Waverly Hall post office. My first few bulletins were produced with one page upside down or printed so they had to be read backwards. I felt like a novice Gutenberg. Very novice.
I reflect on this very primitive technology as we introduce a change in the way we communicate with you. This week marks the first edition of my weekly Along the Way column being combined with our church bulletin and “mailed” to most of you online. For some this will feel a little strange at first while others will celebrate that the church is keeping abreast of the most modern means of communicating with its membership.
This new method will take some adjustment for me, too. I have always written my Along the Way thoughts on Friday morning. Now I have a new deadline, thus causing me to find a new rhythm. Studies indicate the greatest number of people will read their emails from the church on a Wednesday and we want you to know what your church is doing!
One of the first decisions of the early church was whether to write the gospels on a scroll (the “old fashioned way”) or on a codex (smaller pages sewn together by leather straps.) The codices (plural) were much more portable, allowing disciples to carry God’s word more easily to distant locations, and there is good evidence that the church was on the cutting edge of technology even in the first century A.D. I hope it’s the same today and am delighted we no longer use the mimeograph machine. We will be eager to hear your feedback.
Creede Hinshaw
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Today, January 6th, is Epiphany – celebrated as the birthday of Jesus in some parts of the church, set aside in other parts as the day the magi arrived in Bethlehem with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I like to think that this is the day they arrived, delighted and overcome with joy to have reached the child for whom they had been searching for so long.
I don’t have much time to write this morning, but would invite you to read Matthew 2:1-2 today and meditate on the wise men. If you are still on a search for salvation rest assured that all who seek shall find. If you have known yourself to be a friend of Jesus for many years, find somebody today who needs a gift and give it in honor of the Savior. If you are experiencing a joyless season remember the intense, spontaneous joy of those who knew their journey to have been successful.
This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. I look forward to being together with you this Sunday!
Creede Hinshaw
P.S. This will be the last time you will receive Along the Way on a Friday. Beginning next week, we will be mailing out a full-color email on Wednesdays that will have a link not only to Along the Way but to the weekly bulletin and other happenings at Wesley Monumental.
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This Sunday we’ll welcome 2012. We’ll have fifty-three Sundays this year…fifty-three opportunities on Sunday morning to worship God. In addition we’ll offer services on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Easter Sunrise on River Street, summer Sunday evenings at Wesley Garden, and Christmas Eve Services. That’s quite a few worship opportunities over the course of the year!
As I think about our worshiping life together this upcoming year I am offering a dozen suggestions that could enhance your 2012 worship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here they are:
TWELVE SUGGESIONS FOR 2012 WORSHIP
1. I will come to worship every week I ‘m in town..
2. I will park as far away as possible so late-comers can find a parking spot.
3. I will arrive on time.
4. I will enter the sanctuary with expectation that God has a word for me.
5. I will be flexible about where I sit.
6. I will speak warmly and sincerely to those around me.
7. I will pray that the worship leaders will be responsive to the Holy Spirit.
8. I will sing the hymns with the rest of the congregation.
9. I will not let the offering plate pass me without making a gift.
10. I will seek inspiration in the service even if the sermon is boring.
11. I will dwell on my own sin rather than considering whether the person next to me is a hypocrite.
12. I will praise God for the salvation that is ours in Christ Jesus.
I’m eager to begin another year together with you, and curious to see how many people will be in worship on the very first day of the new year. I hope you are one of them!
Creede Hinshaw
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Physicists are searching for an elusive something they call the Higgs boson, named after a still-living Scottish scientist named Higgs. I don’t know what a “boson” is, and though I could Google it, I’m not sure it matters. I’ll just fess up to my ignorance and move on.
For that matter, every time I read about the Higgs boson I have to fess up to my ignorance. I have a sneaky suspicion that the reporters who keep us up to date on this scientific scavenger hunt don’t have a clue what they’re writing about either or maybe there’s no way to “dumb down” their reports to where the preacher of average intelligence can comprehend. One way of looking at it is that the real Dr. Higgs has the dubious honor of being immortalized by having a potentially non-existent or at least a very clever and shy boson named for him. Hmm…I thing I’d just as soon have an avenue or a pond or even a persimmon tree to honor me.
But here’s the part I think I half-understand about the search for that pesky little boson. The physicists think that the Higgs boson is the key to how life got started, or what was going on, as Buechner put it, before the Big Bang banged. They’ve narrowed their almost 40 year search down to the infinitesimal subatomic neighborhood somewhere between a quark and a proton where old Higgsy (if he or she exists) is hiding out, perhaps along with Nessie and the Abominable Snowperson.
With Lewis Carroll’s Alice I find the whole thing to be curiouser and curiouser except for this one important connection: roughly 2,000 years ago the physicists of their day (dare we call them magi?) were also seeking the meaning of life, looking for their version of Higgs boson that could explain Everything. There’s no telling how long they’d been on their journey, how many detours they took, how many false starts and rabbit holes they went down. But they finally found a star so unusual that it seemed to move across the sky and they followed it all the way through Herod’s throne room to Bethlehem where they knelt in adoration, bringing their gifts. The key to life was not a principle, not a quark, not a boson, not a theorem or a syllogism. Life – Life – was a peasant babe named Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, the true light of the world come to save us from our sin.
Science and theology meet in this sense: they both want to seek, define and understand the key to life. But sometimes one gets the idea that the scientists love the searching more than the finding. Some of the physicists – now so agonizingly close to discovering little Higgsy - are afraid that if they succeed in their discovery they’ll have to start searching for something else. Here’s where things are different for people of faith: once you find the Savior and realize that the Savior has found you, you might go home in a different way, but you know that the search is over.
Creede Hinshaw
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Earlier this week our sanctuary was packed with church members, parents, grandparents and various friends and relatives who came to see the children of our church portray the birth of Jesus. What an inspiring depiction! Those who have attended many of these annual events can remember when Wesley Monumental hardly had enough children to fill all the roles and it was not unusual for children to play more than one part.
Those days are long gone. The cast keeps growing. Our 2010 pageant (which had 30 children) included more angels than I’ve ever seen, all properly angelic. But the recently concluded 2011 pageant was even grander. We had almost 60 children participating!!
How does one work 60 children into a Christmas pageant? There is only room for so many angels and shepherds in our altar area and it seems like there was a new scene where 4-5 townspeople had a conversation about the upcoming birth. I suppose one could write in a part of a desk clerk to help the innkeeper and wife.
So our leaders devised a very creative strategy this year to expand the story: our youngest children played the part of the stars shining in the nighttime sky. Thanks to costumes from the Oriental Trading Company this year’s tableau included at least two dozen stars, looking like golden starfish with innocent faces peeping out of their costumes, neatly arrayed in a constellation of 3 rows of risers off to the side.
These young children added a beautiful luster to the already dazzling tableau. Prior to the performance the buzz around the sanctuary was that these children might become “shooting stars,” “falling stars” or even “supernovas.” But what happened was even more inspiring – they became living depictions of “..the stars in the sky (who) looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.”
We left the sanctuary with hearts full of love for our children, overjoyed at the way they conveyed the gospel story of a peasant couple, angelic interruptions and announcements, and God with us through the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
Anticipating that next year’s cast may grow larger, I offer a suggestion for expanding the roles. The Bible never states how many wise men there were. Although we traditionally depict three of them, some medieval lists indicated as many as twelve wise men. Let’s start working on 9 more crowns and robes!
Creede Hinshaw
P.S. This Sunday morning we’ll have both worship services. Our early service will feature a traditional order of worship and our eleven o’clock service will feature our annual Festival of Lessons and Carols. Children and youth will sing this year with our adults…we’ll have close to 90 singers processing during our opening hymn!!
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Today I am seeking funding for another year’s worth of our highly popular Morning by Morning inspirational daily radio messages aimed at young adults in this area. These daily 60 second messages, which I write, air during the morning commute time Monday – Friday on the two most popular young adult radio stations in Savannah.
In these messages I reflect on anger, competition, loneliness, love and the complexity and simplicity of life. Topics include the greeting from a certain bank teller, the humor behind a certain bumper sticker or the frustration of being behind a slow driver. Each spot concludes with these words, “I’m Creede Hinshaw and this is Morning by Morning from Wesley Monumental Church on Calhoun Square or at Wesleymonumnental.org.”
These spots – which have been airing now for over two years – are very popular in Savannah. Many of our church members, when introducing themselves to others, are often met with this response, “I know your church! You’re on Calhoun Square and I love Morning by Morning!”
We have first time visitors almost every week who worship with us because they like what they are hearing on the radio. Once they arrive they are inspired by our choir, meet a friendly and welcoming congregation and want to know more about the gospel as it is conveyed through this congregation.
For the last couple of years we have received a very generous gift from a local foundation, making Morning by Morning possible outside our church budget. But we must raise the money through other sources for 2012. Our contract for another year is due in less than a month.
This ministry is expensive. It will cost at least $25,000 for the next year. It is also one of the most effective tools we have for spreading the gospel. I know that you are proud of this ministry and are convinced that you will want to make it possible for another year.
And so I place the need before you. I am completely at peace about this request, believing that God will supply 100% funding for this ministry. George Mueller, that great man of faith of an earlier generation, is my role model here. He utterly trusted God for everything and miraculous things happened as a result.
Be bold in your giving!! Mark your checks “Morning by Morning.” Send them to the church or drop them in the offering plate. I’m starting to write the inspirational 60-second radio spot about how you miraculously funded this ministry for another year.
Creede Hinshaw
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This Thanksgiving holiday might be a good weekend to give some thought to Christian-Muslim relations. Some United Methodist Churches are receiving publicity –positive and negative – by sharing their fellowship halls, kitchens and nursery space with Muslims. Here is a fascinating article (from the United Methodist Interpreter, September/October 2011) documenting how three United Methodist congregations have lovingly and effectively opened their doors and hearts to Muslim brothers and sisters:
http://www.interpretermagazine.org/interior.asp?ptid=43&mid=14444
The letters to the editor in the next month’s Interpreter were mostly negative. Here are some excerpts:
“Why would we do this for a religion…that is infidel? That orders a husband to beat his wife if she is disobedient?” (Rev. J. David Trawick, Northwest Hills UMC, San Antonio, TX)
“It’s my duty to love my neighbors, including Muslims. It’s a far different thing to invite them into a building dedicated to the worship of the one true God for the express purpose of worshiping a false God.” (Rev. Mike Hopkins, St. James UMC, Toccoa, GA)
“I remember my military experience where one facility served Protestant, Catholic and Jewish worshippers. Most of us thought nothing of it…” Steve Tippens, Blakemore UMC, Nashville, TN
“Scriptures state extremely clearly that unless Muslims (or whatever other religion) are brought to the light of Christ, they are in darkness…Do we believe in Scripture?” (Linda Eden, Peabody (Kansas) UMC)
“Have Christians ever been allowed to worship Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in a Muslim mosque? Tolerance by only one party equals submission.” (Paul J. White, Fayette UMC, Darlington WI)
If these letters are indicative of the sentiment of clergy and laity in the UMC we’ve got a lot of work to do! While unapologetically offering Christ to our friends and neighbors we can simultaneously impart and offer the love of Christ in our actions.
Our own congregation is a good example. We have a long and proud history of cooperation with and appreciation for our Jewish brothers and sisters on Monterey Square at Mickve Israel. We are friends; we have worshipped in each other’s sacred spaces many times over the decades. We most recently spent nine months as guests of the synagogue during our renovation. We enjoyed their beautiful fellowship hall except for some of their High Holy Days. Richard Glendinning was careful to offer us Methodists menus that would be respectful of the Jewish space we enjoyed. I know of no outcry from either congregation ever demanding that we convert to or assent to each other’s theological outlook. We are simply good neighbors.
There are no Muslims in Savannah asking to use our space. But Mickve Israel and the local Muslim mosque had an exchange program last year when each congregation met and ate in the other’s space. More such experiences will make the world a better place.
Creede Hinshaw
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