WHAT WILL YOU... & WHAT WILL I.. (A Lent Message from a special guest blogger)

Today’s guest blogger is Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick.   This entry is used with permission from Bishop Reddick’s Lent Message to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

The late Bishop Joseph Coles impressed me during his episcopal ministry as one who could say a lot with a few words.  (I often wondered if his gift was related to the necessity of him to economize as he adjusted after a stroke early in his episcopal ministry.  Not having observed his preaching as much beforehand, I did not know.) 

          I believe it was a conference teaching session (I’m not sure; memory fails me!) when I heard him say, “Discipline is choosing the greater over the lesser.  That’ what it is:  choosing the greater over the lesser.”

          One day in devotional time, I heard that theme anew when I read Psalm 119, verse 37, in the Revised Standard Version:

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways.

          I don’t exactly remember why the verse stopped me that day … but it did.  It stopped me and moved me from being “in devotional time” to being “in study time.”  And I began to look up words in English and in Hebrew.  I heard the word “worthless” as two words – “worth less.”  And I heard Bishop Coles’ definition of discipline, and considered the question, “What is worth more?” 

 The result was that “study time” resulted in even greater devotional time … because I wanted to know and choose those things that were worth more.

          The word “choose” is important – at least, for a few moments.  It was important some days ago when I was challenged to find the right message for a worship service led by the East Texas Region ushers.  Of course, I looked at Psalms 84, which includes the words, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”  Yet, the psalm starts with words descriptive of the pull, the magnetism, the joy, and, yes, the fullness and the glory of getting into God’s house – “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord ….”  Amiable is from a Hebrew word that means “lovely, beloved, pleasant.”

          Then I saw that the words translated “I would rather be” (a doorkeeper …) in verse 10 of Psalm 84 are from the word, babar, which can mean, “choosing, distinguishing, proving, trying, selecting.”  Thus, the psalmist is saying, out of a culture where the “tent of God’s presence” existed among other “tents” in Israel’s camp:  “I choose to be in God’s tent rather that in the tents of wicked folk!”  The word “choose” is important; it is highlighted by our conscious actions.

          But those of us who have been disciples just a little while know that we don’t always choose what is good, or what is better, or what is worth more rather than what is worth less. And so, like the psalmist in Psalms 119:37, we pray for God’s help, asking God:

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways.

In this prayer, a key word is turn (rather than choose).    The Hebrew translated “turn” is abar, and it means, “to move beyond,” or “to move from here to there,” or “to transfer.”  And so the psalmist is praying (and when we recite the psalm, we can also be praying), “Move me, Lord; move me beyond this to that.  Move me beyond what is worth less to that which is worth more”:

-move me from focusing on things that are lesser;

-move me from focusing on things that have little value;

-set my sights on greater things,

-and give me life through your direction.

          Lent is an important personal  time.  For some of us, it is “taking off”:  “What will you give up?” we ask.  But I am wondering if we might also learn to “take on.”  This becomes my new Lenten question:  “What will you … and what will I … take on for Christ?”  

Senior Bishop Lawrence Reddick

Presiding Bishop of The Eighth Episcopal District of

The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

            Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick III, the 51^st bishop elected in the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, has been presiding bishop of the Eighth Episcopal District since July 2014. 

ww.thecmechurch.org/collegeofbishops/bishoplawrencereddick.htm
  

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

I am no longer the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Hall Memorial is the first church Sheila and I joined as a family.  Pastor Freddie Carger baptized both of our children and me.  Hall Memorial is where Sheila and I went from new Christians to mature/ maturing Christians.  It’s where I first publicly accepted my call to preach.  But I’m not the pastor there anymore. 

My bishop unexpectedly transferred me to pastor Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama.  The transfer took place according to church law and the Methodist-Wesleyan tradition with all of the appropriates forms, certificates, and protocols.  It was nothing unusual for the church.  For the church.

But for me and my family it was like….. it was like…. it was like that movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

“The Day the Earth Stood Still” was a 2008 remake of a 1951 sci-fi movie about an alien spacecraft landing on Earth.  There were a lot of special effects and dramatic moments in the movie, but the thing is---- the Earth never actually stood still.

In the movie, everyone’s attention was drawn to the spacecraft and all the immediate activity that swirled around it, so for them it SEEMED LIKE nothing else was happening. 

They were wrong. 

Children still played.  People still went to work.  Babies were born.  Funerals were held.  Life went on.

In Joshua chapter 10, the Bible records a day when the Earth stood still.   

Joshua was leading the people of Israel in battle against the Amorites, and the Israelites were winning.  But around noon, Joshua--- tactical genius that he was---- realized that a conclusive victory would take more hours than they had left in the day.    Joshua also realized that if he won the battle without totally finishing off the Amorites before sunset, they would regroup and pose a continuing threat to Israelite national interests.

What Joshua needed was more time, so he gave the most audacious order in the history of audacious military orders. 

He said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” (Joshua 10: 12)

And the sun stopped.  The sun and the moon stopped tracking across the sky until Israel had totally eliminated the Amorite threat.

Some read that and say, “Wow!” Others read that and say, “Yeaaah, right.”

See, Joshua and Jasher, the scribe who originally recorded the event ( Joshua 10:13), didn’t know that the sun and moon don’t actually move across the sky.  The Earth rotates in space and the moon orbits around our planet.  It’s the earth and our sky that move.*  So for Joshua’s order to be carried out, the Earth would have had to stand still.

There are swarms of websites that will quite scientifically and sarcastically explain how that couldn’t have happened.  If the Earth stopped rotating, our atmosphere would dissolve into space, the oceans would pour over the land, super volcanoes would erupt all over the planet, the electromagnetic shield would wink out and cosmic radiation would burn away whatever life hadn’t already smashed into the nearest mountain at 1,000 miles per hour. 

The Bible says that a miracle happened all those centuries ago on the battlefield of Gibeon and the Valley of Aijalon.  So a miracle did happen----- but the Earth didn’t actually stand still.

God created what scientists and sci-fientists call a “time dilation field.”  God wrapped the battle field in a bubble of exotic particles or special relativity or something and made time pass at one rate for Joshua and the other combatants while it passed normally for everyone else.    Scientist say this would require a massive amount of mass and or energy, but since God created mass and energy, I’m thinking He could pull it off.

To the warriors, looking up beyond that time dilation field, the sun and moon weren’t moving at all.  But for everybody else, life was going on as usual, at the same pace.   Fields were being plowed.  Weddings were being arranged.  Somebody in Canaan was giving birth.  Somebody else was performing a burial ceremony.  Life was going on.

When God spectacularly or surprisingly makes a major move in our lives it occupies so much of our attention that we feel like….. like…. like the whole Earth stands still. 

It doesn’t.   All around our crisis, or miracle, or transfer to a new pastoral post, life continues as usual.  While we are mourning, rejoicing, contemplating, second-guessing, and otherwise obsessing over this one thing;  EVERYTHING else is happening.

Someone new will take my place as pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church. He/she will love that congregation as much as I have and serve them (hopefully even better than I did). 

I will be the “new pastor” at Miles Chapel, who  love outgoing pastor, Rev. Dr. Larry Batie.  I will love them and serve them and they will emerge from their time dilation field and realize that their world has not stopped spinning either.

I am comforted by the truth: That while we have been momentarily frozen in our respective bubbles, God has been moving the universe along and positioning new opportunities, responsibilities, and blessings that we have yet to see.

I’m excited about that.  About the future, which--- as the name “future” implies—is waiting on us to unfreeze from the present and keep it moving.

I hope I’ll see you in church on Sunday at Miles Chapel CME Church, 5220 Myron Massey Boulevard, Fairfield AL 35064.    We’ll be the ones praising God and moving forward.

*I do realize that the moon, the sun, the solar system, and the galaxy are all in motion as well, rotating and revolving in their respective orbits.  So, yeah, we all technically move around each other. 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to  

Miles Chapel CME Church

5220 Myron Massey Boulevard

 Fairfield, AL 35064

A beautiful, much more poetic blog called “Time Dilation” was written by   on Makala Doulos.  You can find it at  http://blog.ps1611.org/2014/02/time-dilation.html

The Apostle Paul’s Letter to a General Conference Delegate

Today, in the General Conference of the CME Church, my denomination will elect 3 bishops and a bunch of national leaders, we call “general officers.”  It is the most important thing I and the other delegates who traveled here from as far as Alaska to South Africa will do.

The problem is there seem to be a million people running for every slot. And as with secular political campaigns, most of the candidates mostly say the same things.    So how do I decide where to put the vote that the people back home have delegated to me to cast?

Scripture tells me to watch and pray.  I’m praying---- boy, am I praying.  But what am I to watch for?   The whole process had given me a headache.

Then the Lord showed me something in His Word that made me laugh. 

They Holy Spirit showed me a letter to a general conference delegate.  It’s called the book of Titus.

Paul, the Apostle, was basically the bishop and general secretary of evangelism and missions of the New Testament church, and, if not the editor, Paul was the most prolific contributor to the first century Christian periodicals.

In Titus, Paul wrote to a Cretan pastor who had to choose new leaders for his church.  It was an important moment of decision.

You should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you  (Titus 1: 5)

Translate elder  as “senior officer” and appoint as “elect” and you realize that Paul is talking about bishops and connectional officer.

The good bishop/ general secretary/ author, Rev. Dr. Paul of Tarsus, responded to Pastor Titus’s question, the same question asked in a caucus meeting last night.

What makes a good bishop?

The Bible gives a detailed answer.   Look at Titus 1: 6, 9.  I’ll paraphrase.

A bishop or general officer must be, Verse 6:

·         Faithful to his/ her spouse

·         Good parent, not somebody covering up for how terrible their kids are

Verse 7:

·         Blameless, meaning no charges pending

·         Handles church business and money well, as a steward of God

·         Humble and submitted to God’s will even when it wasn’t their idea  

(And by the way, if they brag about how humble they are, they probably ain’t.)

·         NOT quick-tempered

·         Not an alcoholic, a drunk (which is an alcoholic who self identifies as “I just like to have a little drink every now and then but I don’t have a problem,” or an addict of any kind. 

By the way, I know that addicts are people, and many are wonderful people; but that doesn’t make them good candidates for bishop.

·         Not violent. 

·         NOT GREEDY FOR MONEY.

The Bible says that a bishop must be NOT GREEDY FOR MONEY

Let’s pause a moment and let that marinate. 

How much did you say they demanded at their last appreciation?            

According to the Bible, the right candidate will be, Verse 8:

·         Hospitable, and not just to voting delegates

·         A lover of what is good, as opposed to one of those people who seems to get mad at people for being “too nice,”  “always running like they gotta save everybody.”

·         Just, fair, treats people right---regardless of who the people are

·         Holy. 

HOLY!

The Bible does, actually, in fact, use that exact word.  A bishop or senior officer in the church is supposed to be HOLY, which is hard to do when your basic theological position is that there’s no such thing as holiness.

·         Self-controlled.  If they lost it for a moment on the campaign trail, they  have shown you just the tip of the iceberg of meanness they’re hiding underneath.

A good candidate will,  Verse 9:

·         Hold fast to the faithful Word, the unchanging Word

·         Use sound doctrine to exhort with encouraging truth

·         And use sound doctrine to defend the Word against contradictors

Paul warned delegate Titus to be careful whom he supported for bishop and connectional office, because there are many who  profess to know God, but in works they deny Him. (Titus 1: 16).

They profess to know God, but they don’t act like they know God.  In fact they act like there’s not a God to know.

You can recognize the wrong candidates because they are:

·         abominable,

·         disobedient, and

·         disqualified for every good work. (Titus 1: 16)

Paul warns the delegate to choose senior leadership carefully because there are a lot of people who do and will spend all their time undermining others.   The Bible calls such people insubordinate (Titus 1: 10).  My wife calls them “cutthroat.”

The book of Titus warns us about candidates who talk the right talk but are both idle talkers and deceivers. (Titus 1: 11)

Titus wanted to believe that anyone who’d worked in the church long enough and successfully enough to be a serious candidate for national office would be someone the church could trust.  Not necessarily.  Not now, and not 2000 years ago.

2,000 years ago, old bishop Paul warned the young clergy delegate to check especially those of the circumcision, especially those of the well-established, highly revered religious class.

The bad candidates must be stopped before they do more harm.

The Bible says that their “mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain” (Titus 1: 11)

Let me say that again:  TEACHING THINGS THEY OUGHT NOT, FOR THE SAKE OF DISHONEST GAIN.

My brothers and sisters in the CME Church have tremendous responsibility, not just to our particular denomination, but to the entire Kingdom of God.   The people we choose today become leaders of a global Christian church.  Their words and actions will represent Christianity to the world.  Critics of the faith will use their failures as ammunition against Jesus and the Bible.  Innocent believers will revere them and look to them as examples, just because of the titles they’ll hold. 

This is not a light thing, and I don’t take it lightly.  But  with Titus 1 in my head and the counsel of other scriptures like 1 Timothy 3, at least my headache is gone.

I’m still praying, and I hope you’ll be praying to; but now I can review what I’ve learned about the candidates and cast my lot according to God’s will.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To listen to sermons and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

You can help support this ministry by clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to

Hall Memorial CME Church

541 Seibles Road

Montgomery, AL 36116

A REVOLUTION OF NOBODIES

One of my Facebook friends posted a question on one of our denominational group pages.  She vented her frustration with pastors and leaders in the church.  And then she referred to herself as a “nobody” in the denomination.   This is my reply.

I'm a pastor, but I haven't been in ministry very long.  I'm not a presiding elder or a bishop.  I've been a CME all my life, but  most of that lifetime was spent as a lay member of the church.  So, I feel pretty low on the totem pole of authority in the church, but I have had a chance to observe some of those way higher up than me do their work.
And here's what I see for whatever it is/ isn't worth.

 

We have

(1) UNSPIRITUAL CHURCH PRIORITIES. At annual conference the reports of many new souls saved get a nod, but the reports of paying financial assessment "round across the sheet" get a standing ovation.

We're taught and prompted to care more for the dollars than for the souls.   And that is what "successful" ministry (supposedly) looks like.

This leads to:

(2)  INCONSISTENT BOTTOM-UP EXPECTATIONS.  From that twisted concept of successful ministry local churches come up with inconsistent ideas of what a pastor should be.   

From the bottom-up, a "good" pastor means something different to different congregations.    Some churches will let you steal the furniture and even carry it out to your truck for you just as long as you give 'em a good hoop on Sunday morning. 

Down the street, the next church expects a leader who can guide multiple community-based outreach initiatives, but turn a blind eye to lay people who treat the church treasury as a personal investment account.

Around the corner, they want absolute integrity but they refuse to do anything to save another soul or add another member beyond the 4 they have.

One town over, they only respond to pastors who cuss out the official board and manipulate the internal drama, and they'll raise a million dollars for a preacher like that.

Which result in:

(3) LIMTED TOP-DOWN OPTIONS.  From the top-down, bishops and elders work with what local churches produce to supply the convoluted and inconsistent demand for "good" pastors.

A bishop may personally disagree with a preacher's approach, but if that preacher has produced the membership and financial numbers that we applaud, , plus congregations loved them; how can a bishop justify setting that person aside for someone who can't produce those same numbers?

And then there's the what-about-so-and-so argument which sounds like: "Oh, you want me to stop because I 'borrowed' a few dollars from the benevolent account.  What about that preacher who slept with the entire alto section of the choir?"

Thus causing

(4) THE NOBODY EFFECT. Watching all of this happen from outside the bar of delegates and from outside the voting majority at church conferences does make you feel like a "nobody." 

You think, "Does nobody else see how crazy this is?"

"Does nobody else realize that we're arguing about minutia while people are starving to death across the street?"
"Does nobody else want to actually learn more about God?"

And conference after conference when nobody else seems to see what you see, you think, "Well maybe I'm the nobody."

Simply reviving that feeling year after year isn’t a viable solution. So we need something that goes deeper than revival.    

We need:

(5) A REVOLUTION.  Revival’s bring back the current state with fresh energy.   Revolutions change things at a fundamental level.  

We need a revolution that deposes the financial report as the most important report at annual conference and installs the review of evangelism as the chief concern. (Oh, wait.  We don’t review evangelism in any meaningful way at annual conference.)

We need a revolution that makes Biblical mastery the non-negotiable standard for every minister on trial/ would-be CME preacher.  And part of that revolution is understanding that getting a theological degree is not the same as understanding, knowing, and BELIEVING the Word of God.

We need a revolution in which the many, many, many preachers and lay persons who just want to serve Christ can stop choosing their words carefully and can speak boldly in the assemblies of the Lord.

The problem is that revolutions are inherently messy and disruptive.  There are always unexpected consequences, and there is the possibility that along the way the revolution will itself become as corrupt as the status quo it wants to overturn. 

Revolution is risky, but we don’t  really have a choice.   
 Well, actually we have 2 choices:

(Option A) Continue this death spiral of decreased memberships and diminished spiritual integrity.  Eventually a map of the CME Church will show mostly empty buildings with a handful of massively thriving mega-churches in America, and probably a vibrant network of churches in Africa that feel isolated from the Biblically inconsistent congregations over here.
At that point, the big churches will break away, the African churches will break away, the little churches will die, and some theology student will write about  us for her doctoral thesis.

(Option B) Revolution.

But hey, that’s just how I see it; and I’m nobody, too.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

You can read more on Pastor Graves's personal blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  .

If this message helps or touches you, please help support this ministry. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116