 If you see me at a yard sale, chances are good I’ll be looking through the stack of books. I have always been a reader; put some reading material in my field of vision (from cereal boxes to bumper stickers) and I’ll probably read it. I love reading so much that I married a reading teacher!
I once read only non-fiction, pooh-poohing fiction as a lower form of writing. But I learned to treasure fiction, discovering that the novelist can often portray truth more deeply than the non-fiction writer. Right now I am involved in a long-term project to read the world’s 50 most recommended works of fiction (unabridged, of course!)
I don’t remember where I found the list and make no claims for it being “the” list for such an endeavor. But I read four or five of these novels each year, interspersing them among my other reading. Currently I am on page 600 of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 800-page novel Vanity Fair.
I mention this because of a thought from John Wesley that I read (I am also working my way through John Wesley’s 53 Standard Sermons, part of the doctrinal canon of Methodism). Wesley wrote (Sermon 51, The Good Steward, The Standard Sermons in Modern English by Kenneth Cain Kinghorn) these words:
I will speak for myself. After having sought for truth with some diligence for half a century, I am now hardly sure of anything except what I learn from the Bible. I absolutely affirm that I know nothing else so certainly that I would dare to stake my salvation upon it.
Those words of Wesley burn my heart this Friday. Wesley was a diligent reader, though I doubt that he would have read cereal boxes, considering such to be a huge waste of time. Though he read books in many different languages, both current tracts and ancient classics, Wesley accurately identified himself as a “man of one book” (the Bible).
You can be a person of one book, too. Make it happen little by little, day by day, week by week, month by month. Read whatever else you will, but every single day, read the Bible. Read it slowly, prayerfully, devotionally. But read it. It will shape who you are, how you think, how you pray, how you understand Father, Son and Holy Ghost, how you love God and neighbor. Gradually, imperceptibly, but momentously, you will become a person of one book.
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I don’t own a laptop nor can my cell phone access the internet. I could document other instances of my increasing technological ignorance if I knew how to explain what has passed me by. It is frustrating for a writer to be ill-equipped to describe the depth of his not-knowing in this era of instant access and information.
I’m not a complete ignoramus when it comes to technology, but when our oldest son built and installed a new computer for us last week I watched me watching him trying to patiently explain some of the most basic concepts to dad. Ah, when did the roles reverse? The only thing I really learned was that the best thing I could do was to back out of the room rather than ask more stupid questions.
I can still figure these things out but they take a lot longer now, and there never seems to be enough time. One of these days we’ll have a laptop around the house, but I’ve got to study the issue a little harder. And now, with the introduction of the iPad, I am wondering whether I should purchase it instead. (If you have advice, keep it simple.)
This lengthy introduction was prompted by an article in The Wall Street Journal (April 5, 2010) about Apple’s iPad debut last weekend. What caught my eye was in the 19th and final paragraph of the article. I quote:
“Shannon Evans drove for 30 minutes from Clarkston, Michigan, with her husband and 3 children to pick up two reserved iPads – a 32-gigabyte model for her and a 64-gigabyte version for her husband. Mrs. Evans’s first download was the Bible. ‘One of my main reasons for buying an iPad is to be able to bring it to church,’ Mrs. Evans said.”
I salute Mrs. Evans and hope that she will be able to resist the temptation to use her iPad for more entertaining purposes during the inevitable boring parts of the sermon. And I speculate, “Will Wesley Monumental ever replace the pulpit Bible with a pulpit iPad or will we soon replace our pew Bibles with pew iPads?” Probably not. In fact, I hope not.
But if you want to bring your Bible to church, either the old-fashioned paper one or an electronic phone or iPad Bible, they are all welcome. If necessary, I can even help you find the book of Habakkuk, but the task will be made quicker if you hand me an old fashioned paper Bible.
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On a beautiful spring afternoon a week or so before Palm Sunday I stood in the gazebo at a local health care facility, gazing at the decorations hanging from three trees flanking two sides of the gazebo. Every tree was festooned with what appeared to be Japanese lanterns…pink, purple, blue and yellow. But upon closer examination I realized that these decorations were plastic Grade AAAAA Easter eggs hung presumably by a custodian-faux Easter Bunny.
The irony was that from the vantage point of that gazebo one could not view the lanterns/eggs without looking through Christmas lights still dangling from the gazebo eave, the kind of lights that are supposed to make one think about icicles.
Palm Sunday had not arrived and I was looking at fake oversized Easter eggs through fake icicles. No wonder so many of us are confused about the gospel story. Life might be simpler if we just cruised from Christmas to Easter. The story might be cleaner if we could avoid the Upper Room, the betrayal of Jesus and the ugliness and brutality of the crucifixion of our Lord, but that sanitized story is every bit as fake as icicles in Savannah and pretty pink eggs hanging from trees.
We come to Easter Sunday having betrayed Jesus, abandoned him in the garden and shrunk from the horror of the cross. We trudge towards the tomb, expecting nothing more than the final dreary and obedient task of preparing the body for death…and we are shocked by an empty tomb and the slowly dawning realization that life will never be the same.
I don’t want to sound like the Grinch that stole Easter. To the contrary! There will be Easter eggs, real and chocolate, and probably a few chocolate rabbits, too, at the Hinshaw home this Sunday. The resurrection story, set within the context of the entire work of God, is not to be missed. It is in our eagerness to leapfrog over the cross that we cheat ourselves and rob Easter of its power.
I look forward to embracing this glorious gospel story with you this Easter Sunday…complete with lilies in abundance, brass in fine fettle, joyous anthems and inspiring hymns. Each service (8:45 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.) will be preceded by 20 minutes of music by our brass; you will want to be in your place early. We will also celebrate the Lord’s Supper at our early service. We have journeyed through these 40 days of Lent. Now comes the celebration. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed!
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Early each Thursday morning the street sweeper visits the Ardsley Park neighborhood and the rotating brushes weave around the parked vehicles, collecting leaves, twigs, trash, acorns and sweet gum balls. The city streets would quickly become impassable without this service.
On yesterday morning’s bike ride I noticed a detail I must have missed on previous Thursdays. Evidence of the mechanical sweeper remained on 49th Street in the shape of five distinct gently swirling watery lines resembling an undulating music score without the notes.
Seeing those graceful, rolling lines gave me an immediate lift, reminding me that I prefer a gently rolling life to that which sharply rises and falls. To be sure, each life includes its share of exhilarating highs and discouraging lows and sometimes we even long for a jolt, a sharp break with the past. Some people are happier when life careens along like Mr. Toad’s wild ride, but for me the gentle contours of life are far more pleasing, or as the psalmist observed in Psalms 16:6 (NRSV), “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.”
News of Celebration Sunday: We had such a victorious and stirring worship service last Sunday, and the news from our commitment cards is very good. If you haven’t yet made a commitment, please do so this Sunday so that we can make a final announcement in a week or so.
I’ll see you this Palm Sunday. Those who come to early church will meet in Calhoun Square at 8:30 to receive palms. At the 11:00 service our children will assemble in the narthex prior to the service to receive their palms. Oh yes, and our children will enjoy their Easter Egg Hunt at Wesley Gardens this Sunday at 4 p.m.
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REMEMBER: ONE WORSHIP SERVICE THIS WEEK AT 10:30 A.M, FOLLOWED BY A DELICIOUS CATERED MEAL ON CALHOUN SQUARE!!
I am studying the 1947-1948 brown, spiral 8”x10½” attendance book of the John L. Travis Bible Class. The notebook contains a grid including meticulously handwritten class members names going down the page and each month of the year and the Sundays thereof going across. The Travis Bible Class roster for 1947 contained 150 alphabetically recorded names and home addresses with tick marks indicating that person’s weekly attendance. Class officers included a president, 2 vice presidents, a treasurer, 2 secretaries, a song leader, a pianist and John L. Travis, the teacher.
I am impressed by the number of men in 1947 who had perfect attendance in the John L. Travis Bible Class. As I have laid my head on my pillow this week I see those rows of tick marks running all the way across the notebook page like the ever present waves of an ocean, fifty-two straight quarter inch slashes of graphite recording the dedicated loyalty of a man in the house of the Lord week in and week out.
And then there are the records of the Baraca Bible Class. This class planned and presented a concert in November 1927 at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. Participants from the class included 2 professional singers, a professional pianist and a chorus of 65 men’s voices! We have a folder full of details regarding the plans for this concert, including newspaper clippings of its success.
One letter to members of the Baraca Class dated October 25, 1927, and unrelated to the planned concert, is worth quoting. It is from class president S. A. Smith,
“On next Sunday morning we are hosts to our Lutheran friends. They are coming over seventy-five strong to visit us and we should match them two to one so be there and bring a visitor or new member if possible, but be there next Sunday morning.”
These records comprise part of the character of our congregation…faithful attendance and careful record keeping for the sake of Christ combined with a dash of competitive spirit when it came to hosting the Lutherans!
This Sunday, Celebration Sunday for our Take 2010 campaign, gives us an opportunity to record our own faithfulness to Christ as we spread the good news of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps 60-100 years from now some church historian will look back and find that this generation had been faithful in our own way to make a difference for God in our world. Please come prepared to complete a commitment card to renovate our entire ground floor of the church building. Every gift, every person is important!
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(REMEMBER TO SET YOUR CLOCKS FORWARD ONE HOUR THIS SATURDAY NIGHT!)
I’d never heard of Tom Siebel, but now know that he is the multi-millionaire author of 3 books who made his fortune in the software industry. If you Google him, you will discover story after story about how he was recently attacked by an elephant. Interesting story, but not my topic.
What is far more interesting to me is that Tom Siebel gives away lots of money. One $20 million act of generosity happened after he bought a ranch in Montana and discovered that methamphetamine use was the scourge of that state, wasting and ruining lives of thousands of Montanans, clogging up their social services system and destroying a whole generation of Americans.
Siebel created a foundation to combat this deadly, destructive scourge, fighting it on many levels, including producing and airing attention-grabbing advertisements about avoiding or abandoning meth. Siebel became the largest advertiser in the entire state and as a result of his generosity Montana dropped from 5th in the nation to 39th in methamphetamine abuse.
One man made a difference. One determined, generous man with conviction made a dramatic difference for Montana.
Our Take 2010 calls each of us to that same kind of world-changing commitment. What we are about with this renovation is changing the world, tilting its axis more in the direction of the Kingdom of God.
Last year Americans gave $300 billion to charity, almost twice what we spent on consumer electronic equipment, including cell phones, iPods and DVD players. We gave ten times more to charity than we spent on professional sports. One third of that annual charitable giving - $100 billion a year – goes to religion. We know how to be generous.
On Sunday, March 21st we will receive 3 year commitments from our congregation to renovate our entire ground floor for ministry with children, youth and adults. We’ll have one festive service of worship at 10:30 a.m. followed by a delicious, catered meal on Calhoun Square. I am praying that every person will come prepared to make a generous commitment to this important ministry. If you cannot attend that service, please drop by the office to receive your commitment card.
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United Methodists, true to our methodical habits, require of every UM congregation an annual statistical report, a yearly snapshot of every UM congregation. I sometimes wonder who (in our denominational structure) pays attention to this complicated head-scratching exercise.
Nevertheless, most of us remember how we loved to be measured as children. We wanted to know how tall we’d grown, and examined the annual marks our parents placed on a door frame. In that same way this annual report is one indicator of how a congregation is doing…particularly if one compares the reports with the historical record of a given church.
I do not have time to make such a comparison today, but the record is there for anybody to explore. I’m sure the history of most churches looks like the growth rings of a tree…some years richer and than others.
Here are some figures from 2009. No comparisons. Just last year’s figures:
Membership at Wesley Monumental: 1120
Received on Confession of Faith: 16
Baptisms (all ages): 23
Total new members: 69
Deaths: 20
Average worship attendance (both morning services): 424
Average Sunday School attendance: 171
Membership in United Methodist Men: 20
Membership in United Methodist Women: 120
Value of church owned land (total): $20,000,000
Other assets (cash, etc): 2,612,903
Indebtedness: 0
Total amount spent on all 2009 expenditures: $2,458,499
The report also documents how many people participate in small groups, serve in mission, belong to the youth group, etc. But no report can measure lives changed, people transformed, God’s work spread throughout the world, the movement of the Holy Spirit. 2009 was a great year by any standard of measurement, and early figures indicate we will match or exceed these numbers in 2010.
These are exciting times! Continue to pray diligently about your pledge for the Take 2010 Campaign. We are nearing the time to make our commitments and I expect a significant victory for our church.
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In last Sunday’s sermon I recounted how we were founded in 1868 by our mother congregation, Trinity Methodist Church (on Telfair Square). Our first home was a leaky and abandoned building on Drayton Street where some of Sherman’s troops slept in early 1865.
Our forebears, noting that there were no statues to the founders of Methodism in Savannah or this nation , determined to build a living monument to the Wesleys, a church to glorify God and spread holiness throughout the land. In the decade following the Civil War we petitioned the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South for permission to establish Wesley Monumental Methodist Church and to seek funds from Methodists world-wide. We may be the only Methodist Church in the United States established by a vote of General Conference.
In 1875 American Methodists had been divided into a northern and southern church for 31 years, having split over the issue of slavery in 1844. These northern and southern branches would not fully reunite for 95 years (1844 -1939)! But in 1875 all Methodists, northern and southern, understood the importance of building a church to acknowledge the dynamic ministry of John and Charles Wesley. And so we received contributions from “Yankee Methodists”…in 1875!!!
Here is the amazing record from the Methodists who met at Round Lake Camp-Meeting in Round Lake, New York, in 1875. They overturned their own strict rules against taking special financial collections, making a one-time exception to raise money for this “most filial and worthy undertaking.” Then they raised over $1,500 to build our church. In addition, several specific pledges were made. I quote from the record:
A gentleman from Troy, NY, promised the altar railing.
Mrs. Dr. Newman promised the Bible.
Mrs. Hillman promised the Hymn Book.
Mrs. Bishop Simpson promised the communion service.
Mrs. Dr. Sewell of Baltimore pledged the ladies of the North to furnish the auditorium.
The minutes of the Round Lake Camp Meeting indicate that 6 ladies would assist Mrs. Sewell, one of whom was Mrs. President Hayes of Washington City.
This is a fabulous story! Though most of the gifts (rightfully) were raised in Savannah, you and I owe the life of this congregation to people from all over the world, including generous northern Methodist Christians.
Now Take 2010 is upon us. We are continuing ministry through an exciting, complete renovation of the ground floor of our sanctuary building. This is our scene, and everybody can play an important part. I don’t expect the Round Lake Methodists to pitch in this time, but I hope you are praying about the gift you can make to support the continuing spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every person, every gift, every prayer is important.
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It has not been an especially peaceful week; rage, passion and frustration have filled the news.
An irrationally angry man flies his airplane into a 7-story IRS building in Austin, TX, killing himself and another person and wreaking havoc on 200 government workers. A vengeful professor in the University of Alabama system who has been denied tenure whips out her pistol at point blank range and murders 3 peers in a faculty meeting. And from Savannah comes the bizarre police report of a Waffle House splashed with blood after a man is beaten with a spiked heel as he and two women erupt in a violent argument over passion.
Who has not been frustrated with the Internal Revenue Service? And who has not faced employment-related rejection? As far as the pancake donnybrook, which of us has never known jealousy?
Not a one is immune from these common emotions and temptations. Don’t delude yourself by concluding you’ve never been angry or jealous or nursed violent thoughts. Those fiery darts torment our life. What do we do with those feelings? How do we respond? Therein is found the difference.
This Sunday marks the first Sunday in the six week journey of Lent whereby Christians rend our garments, pray more resolutely, confess our sin, acknowledge our mortality, and renounce the works of the evil one. Though we have washed from our forehead last Wednesday’s ashy smudge the words continue to echo, “Repent, and believe the gospel,” and “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.”
So we engage in Lenten acts of contrition and penitence in community with others knowing that whatever demons we battle, we have a better chance of victory when other followers of Jesus stand together. We will not always master our sin but we will strive to live a holy life. When we fall others will pick us up, understand our sin, confess their own fallenness, and to point us in the right direction.
You and I need each other. And we need the strength that comes through obedience to God. So we journey through Lent together in the church. That’s why Take 2010 is so important: it is about Wesley Monumental UMC being the community of faith. We gather at 429 Abercorn Street on Sunday and then scatter throughout the community the rest of the week, living life in obedience to Jesus Christ.
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Last Friday I attended the funeral of my Aunt Margaret in Augusta, GA. In all candor I did not want to go. The drive, in hard rain, would be a 300 mile round trip and I only had one good eye. But I attended the rather impersonal service in a cold, clammy mausoleum near the Augusta National Country Club. It was pouring outside and barely above freezing. I had not seen my two first cousins for so many years that a stranger had to introduce us.
Why did I attend this service? Part of the answer I knew right away, but the rest came later.
Aunt Margaret was married to my mother’s brother Bill. Uncle Bill died decades ago and my own mother died even longer ago – in 1973. So Aunt Margaret and her 2 children are some of the last few family members who knew my mother. That compelled me to attend the service to be with family who knew Mom. This may seem illogical, but I wanted to be near family members who had been with my mother. And I also saw myself representing my siblings, all too far away to attend.
The rest of my reason for attending gradually became apparent when I realized Aunt Margaret was my last remaining aunt. Now I have only one uncle left. A generation has passed. Sometimes when people have told me their aunt or uncle has died, I have thought privately, “Well, at least it wasn’t a parent or a child. It was just an aunt or uncle.” I will try to be more sensitive in the future. Family is family.
Two other observations came as a result of this funeral:
First, I have not been as good a family member as I could be. It only takes a little effort to remain in contact and I am already trying to stay closer in touch with my first cousins.
Second, I intend to be a better uncle to my 7 nieces and nephews. It’s long past my time to offer more attention to the children of my brothers and sisters.
Funerals are hinge moments. We think about family, living and dead, and we think about our own relation to others, to God, and even to oneself. Last Friday, being involved in a funeral in a way other than as pastor, helped me to see some things afresh. |
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