Interpreter | 2017 March/April

United Methodists Living T heir Faith M A R C H /A P R I L

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REMEMBERING HOLY NEW UMCOR SMALL AND LARGE STEPS MAKE CHURCH CARBON WEEK, CELEBRATING SUNDAY IS NEUTRAL MARCH 26 EASTER AT HOME

CHOOSE FROM THREE NEW STUDIES! happy?

Pray Like Jesus

When Did God Become a Christian?

Matt Miofsky examines the words of Solomon to help us discover that contentment isn’t dependent on the “things” of life, but rather in the value of our relationships, a forgiving lifestyle, living in the present, feeling gratitude, and learning to release control.

In this six week study, Don Underwood reexamines the content of The Lord’s Prayer, helping you to discover insightful spiritual guidance for developing a rich devotional life.

This six-week study by David Kalas helps you explore the unity of the Scripture, biblical history, and the two primary attributes of God: love and holiness. You’ll come away with a better understanding of the nature and integrity of God, leading you to love, worship, and trust God even more.

Components include a book, DVD and Leader Guide.

Components include a book and Leader Guide.

Components include a book and Leader Guide.

Contents MARCH

APRIL

14 On being shaped by the Spirit 17 The creative Spirit 19 ‘Praygrounds’ encourage little children to come 3

21 Communities nurture relationships with God, other people 23 Being shaped in the Creator’s creation 24 Come away: Starting or restarting spiritual practices 25 Faith formation begins at home 27 Lives shaped through service

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MARCH • APRIL 2017

Contents

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33

F E AT U R E S

D E PA RT M E N T S

30 Remembering Holy Week, celebrating Easter at home Remembering the events of Holy Week in age-appropriate ways with children will make Easter even more joy-filled for them.

32 New ad campaign features words of children Children offer profound thoughts about faith and the church in a new United Methodist advertising campaign.

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United Methodist Communications, Inc. March/April 2017 Vol. 61, No. 2

33 New UMCOR Sunday is March 26 It used to be One Great Hour of Sharing; now it is UMCOR Sunday. Here’s why.

34 Small and large steps make church carbon neutral Solar panels, new lighting and appliances and more insulation contribute to this church’s efforts to care for creation.

35 New bishop elected for Liberia Bishop Samuel J. Quire Jr. is the newest member of the United Methodist Council of Bishops.

36 Serving the world from the heart of London: Methodist Central Hall The home to a thriving church, Methodist Central Hall has also been the site of several historic events.

6 Publisher’s Page Dan Krause notes how the denomination provides opportunities for spiritual development at every step of life’s journey.

7 Reflections 8 It Worked for Us Read about a parking lot ministry to teens, a community garden in the midst of a church campus, Bible Boot Camp in December and how a mural offers hope.

11 IdeaMart Highlights include a denominational welcome to refugees, events for young people and a new Bible emphasizing the stories of women.

13 ‘We asked ... ;’ ‘You said ... .’

What is the most meaningful or most moving part of your Holy Week observance or Easter celebration?

40 I am United Methodist Joe Henderson serves his church by writing and directing plays.

41 Technology Church apps can aid participation in worship.

42 To Be United Methodist What is the Festival of God’s creation?

United Met hodists

Native American Ministries Sunday is April 30 this year.

Living Thei r Faith

M A R C H /A P R I L

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COVER: © Smileus STOCK.ADOBE.COM REMEMBERING HOLY NEW UMCOR WEEK, CELEBRATIN SMALL AND LARGE G SUNDAY IS EASTER AT HOME STEPS MAKE CHURC MARCH 26 NEUTRAL H CARBON

MARCH • APRIL 2017

Postmaster: Send address changes to Interpreter, P.O. Box 320, Nashville, TN 37202-0320.

Subscription Questions: For individual subscriptions, duplicate/ missing issues, enrollment forms and subscription corrections, call 888-346-3862 or e-mail subscriptions@umcom.org.

Readers share thoughts.

38 Special Sunday honors Native American people, churches

Interpreter (ISSN 0020-9678 Periodical #9154) is published six times a year by United Methodist Communications, 810 12th Ave. S., P.O. Box 320, Nashville, TN 37202-0320; 615-742-5107; www.interpretermagazine. org. Periodicals postage paid at Nashville, Tenn., and additional offices.

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Reprints: Local churches, districts, annual conferences and other United Methodist-related entities may reprint, photocopy or create Web links to any materials from Interpreter, except items bearing a copyright notice. Please include “Reprinted from Interpreter Magazine, a publication of United Methodist Communications” and add the issue date on your copies. For more information, call 615-742-5107.

Publisher | Dan Krause Editor | Kathy Noble Design | GUILDHOUSE Group Editorial Assistant | Polly House Contributing Editor | Julie Dwyer Multimedia Editor | Joey Butler Photographer | Mike DuBose Photo Researcher | Kathleen Barry Advertising Manager | Jane Massey Production Manager | Carlton Loney Subscription Fulfillment | 888-346-3862

Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.

UNITED MET May 18-20

HODIST WOM

, 2018 • Gr eater Colum

EN ASSEMBL Y ntion Cente r, Colu

bus Conve

WHEN WOMEN UNITE, BOLD AND COURAGEOUS ACTIONS HAPPEN

mbus, OH

United Methodist Women Assembly 2018 is a time for fellowship, it is also an opportunity to empower faithful women to be stronger discipleship leaders in their communities. Through moving worship, inspiring speakers, immersion experience exhibits, and riveting workshops and town hall-style meetings, members will leave Assembly with the knowledge, courage and determination to change the world as part of a daring and compassionate 150 year-old movement.

JOIN US @ www.UMWAssembly.org 2018

www.UMWAssembly.org

A Season of Shaping

UMCOM/MIKE DUBOSE

The Publisher's Page

Dan Krause

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Dear Friends, Welcome to the March/ April issue of Interpreter, which is arriving as we are in the midst of observing Lent.

During the 40 days of Lent, we are invited to intentionally focus on our own spiritual growth and our relationship with God. The journey may involve periods of penitence, fasting, meditation or prayer.

As we move toward Easter, the hope is that our spiritual lives will become enriched by these acts – our own spiritual formation.

The process of spiritual formation implies a journey of deep transformation, one in which we, as Christians, embody the character of Christ, both inwardly and outwardly.

This issue of Interpreter, in its cover articles, focuses on being “Shaped by the Spirit.”

At every step of life’s journey, The United Methodist Church provides opportunities for spiritual development.

In the church, faith formation begins with the youngest congregants.

For example, at First United Methodist Church of Holland, Michigan, leaders have created the Grace Space to model worship and fellowship to its young children.

The kid-friendly area in the sanctuary features child-sized chairs and soft toys where

youngsters can sit and play during the worship service.

Holland First Church has created a “prayground,” a space specifically for young children to be in the midst of worship. Other churches provide age-appropriate services and activities, such as children’s church, that may be concurrent to worship services.

As many children become youth, the teen years are a crucial time for discovering their own relationship with God. Through confirmation and other activities, youth and young adult ministry leaders creatively engage members.

At La Plaza United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, leaders teach youth that one person’s graffiti is another person’s spiritual expression.

Through a program called “God in the Graffiti,” young people engage in conversations about poverty, race, gender equality, urban youth, gangs and diverse ethnic minorities in the area, all with a goal of discerning how to respond through the work of the church.

As adults, we may desire to mature continually in our spiritual walk.

For more than 30 years, United Methodists, as well as members of other denominations, have sought deeper faith journeys by participating in Disciple Bible Study.

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Originally a 36-week intensive exploration of the Bible, it has morphed into variations that incorporate all ages, shortened studies and an online version.

It is available in numerous languages, including English, Korean, French, Spanish, German, two dialects of Chinese and several Southeast Asia languages. To-date, Disciple has graduated approximately 3 million students in 10,000 congregations.

“Disciple is transformational rather than informational,” said Lisa Buffum, director of online education for the Institute of Discipleship, where Disciple and other courses are managed.

“The scriptures are living and breathing and change with you, which is why Disciple has had such longevity in the church. You’re learning, but that’s not the focus. The focus is on how this is going to change your life. The Bible meets you where you are and tells you where to go.”

Within our communities of faith, some members are called to leadership, resulting in a different, yet sometimes challenging, spiritual journey.

Amanda Kidd of Wallburg, North Carolina, was confident of her call when she headed to the Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, this past August.

She was less sure, however,

United Methodist Interpreter

how to juggle the course load and requirements with her desire to become stronger in her faith. Early in the semester, Kidd was placed in a spiritual formation small group, a new program at the divinity school designed to give students a place to deepen their own spiritual disciplines and prayer life with their peers and the guidance of a faculty member.

“We’ve been forced to stop and assess ourselves and our growth and where we are headed,” Kidd says. “When you meet with the group, it’s a time to set everything down and just be. We’re a pep club for each other.”

In addition to the articles on spiritual formation in this issue, you will find ideas for marking Holy Week and Easter at home and information about the new Rethink Church emphasis, UMCOR Sunday and Native American Ministries Sunday.

As we experience this holy time in our church, I pray blessings upon you for a meaningful Lenten season and Happy Easter.

Dan Krause is general secretary of United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and publisher of Interpreter.

A Forum for Readers

Reflections Liked prayers Thank you for including the beautiful and thoughtful prayer responses to the question, “What is your prayer as the New Year begins?” (Jan/Feb) After reading all of them several times over several days, I feel more hopeful. Truly, we are united in our prayers for the love of Jesus Christ to be shared and shown through how we live baptized lives each day of this New Year.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Martin Hunicutt, All Saints UMC, Morrisville, North Carolina

Correct order

With regard to the cover artwork of the (Jan/Feb) Interpreter, could we, as Christians, strive to be biblical instead of always deferring to culture in our use of language? The culture exalts the physical, and its reference to the triadic nature of WE WANT MAIL

mankind reflects the culture’s priority – body, mind and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 gives us what I believe is a rightly ordered view of mankind – spirit, mind and body! Let’s speak of things in the order that God would have us prioritize them, not the way the culture does. It is my belief that God has organized his Word in order to teach us principles there.

This is a small thing, but the measure of our faithfulness, especially in teaching, preaching and meditating on the Word, is defined by the details, the small things. I’ve written about this in my weblog, http://disciplerofself.com/ spirit-mind-and-body/on-wellness-theway-god-intends, and I teach it the way it is in Scripture.

(The Rev.) Cathy Byrd, Lynn Haven UMC, Panama City, Florida

Appreciates .pdf I don’t know how long you’ve had the Interpreter available for .pdf download — I had stopped paying attention after you had come out with a previous electronic format that was way too complicated to carry with me — but I looked this time (Jan/Feb) and am extremely pleased!

I now see you have it in a format I can download and carry with me!

Thank you! Interpreter is now back on my reading list.

(The Rev.) E. Allen Siebold, Cornerstone Community Church of Lansingburgh, Troy, New York ED. NOTE: Interpreter is now available in three digital formats at www.interpretermagazine.org. Click on Magazine and then Current Issue or Archived Issues to read individual articles, an ISSUU magazine or a .pdf file.

Interpreter welcomes Letters to the Editor that are no more than 150 words and include the writer’s name, local church, city and state. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Send to interpreter@umcom.org or Interpreter, P. O. Box 320, Nashville, TN 37202-0320.

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Success Stories From Local Churches

It Worked for Us

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he children, adults and teachers put on their fatigues and went to church prepared for battle. More than 50 children and adults attended Bible Boot Camp at Clark United Methodist Church in Luthersville, Georgia.

Clark’s United Methodist Women organized and led the one-day vacation Bible school in December. Boot camp life was the theme for the day.

The teachers and the pastor, the Rev. Alphonso Smith, had military titles like staff and drill sergeant. Teachers were platoon leaders.

Before classes began, the learners had a hot breakfast at 8 a.m. Then, divided by age groups, the children attended classes to learn how to be warriors for God. They also watched a skit performed by teens who were in the high school ROTC program. The young children learned about having a tool belt to keep all their tools readily at hand.

They all agreed that having one tool belt of godly things is a good thing, and they should make sure they have their belts on, said Smith.

“You start with the truth, stay with the truth and go

with the truth,” Smith said.

And that’s what they learned at VBS. Adults also attended Bible study taught by the pastor’s wife, Kesavia Smith.

After a full day of learning, meals, snacks and games, the children received school supplies to fill their book bags for the next semester. “We wanted to jumpstart their 2017 school needs,” said Melissa Martin, the event’s director. Martin said the church had distributed book bags and school supplies in August before the school year began, but then the women asked, “What happens when their supplies run out?”

COURTESY MELISSA MARTIN

Bible Boot Camp in winter

Younger children work on their lesson during the one-day Bible Boot Camp at Clark United Methodist Church in Luthersville, Georgia.

The UMW decided it would be good to hand out school supplies for the next semester in the winter.

Clark United Methodist Church | 60 East Oak Street, Luthersville, GA 30251 | 770-927-6737 | clarkchapelumc@gmail.com | The Rev. Alphonso Smith | Average Attendance: 68 | North Georgia Conference

Creation Care ministry protects, teaches

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ara Fleischer wanted to make a change to protect her kids and community and impact generations to come.

After reading about the Paris Climate Agreement, a multi-nation action plan adopted in December 2015 to limit global warming, she wondered how her church could help preserve the earth.

She prayed. She read The Book of Discipline to learn the United Methodist stance on taking care of the earth. “It’s God’s creation and we need to take care of it,” she learned.

In January 2016, God led

her to start Creation Care ministry at Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Florida.

Fleischer received a $1,000 grant from the county and quickly formed a creation care group. They began to prepare garden beds and planted a winter garden of kale, cabbage, Swiss chard, broccoli, beets and strawberries.

The Rev. Kandace Brooks, senior pastor of Saint Paul’s, created mosaic concrete blocks for the garden, which is located in the middle of the church campus.

A special worship service

celebrating Earth Day in April included blessing the garden.

After the service, people of all ages planted bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and plenty of fresh herbs.

Families and Sunday School classes watered and weeded the garden throughout the growing season.

A food bank received the over flow of vegetables, Fleischer said. The church used the remaining vegetables in dishes for their end of the season potluck lunch.

A compost bin outside the church building allows recycling coffee grounds,

fruit and vegetable scraps.

“The soil becomes so rich and fertile,” said Fleischer. Blue bins placed all over the church building encourage members and visitors to recycle glass, metal and plastic.

“I love what Cara is doing in our Creation Care ministry at Saint Paul’s. She is so incredibly passionate about her advocacy work, and has done a wonderful job in helping our congregation not only see creation care as a justice issue, but has educated them on how they can be involved daily,” said Brooks.

Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church | 1700 N. Meridian Rd., Tallahassee, FL 3203 | 850-385-5146 | info@saintpaulsumc.org | www.saintpaulsumc.org | The Rev. Kandace Brooks, senior pastor | Average attendance: 400 | Florida Conference

MARCH • APRIL 2017

United Methodist Interpreter

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it worked for us

Success Stories From Local Churches

Parking lot hospitality

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KAREN MILLER

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he Rev. Steve Garner happily removed the “no parking” sign from the church lot.

“How would anyone think (Boone Hill United Methodist Church) was a welcoming place to worship or feel safe with a sign saying stay out or be towed being the first greeting a visitor would see?”

Garner asked.

The sign came down in December 2015 at the church in Summerville, South Carolina.

In the year since, students from the high school next door have parked in the lot for free.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays,

Bob Peeples (right) serves water, snacks — and smiles — to high school students gathering in the parking lot of Boone Hill United Methodist Church.

the church offers water, snacks and encouragement to the teens. On Wednesdays, church members “pray up” each car in the parking lot and

“It Worked for Us” is written by Christine Kumar, a freelance writer and administrator, Baltimore Metropolitan District, Baltimore-Washington Conference. Send story ideas to interpreter@umcom.org. Find more articles at Interpreter OnLine, www.interpretermagazine.org.

others that drive by, said Lisa Garner, the pastor’s wife, asking for safety for all the young drivers and their friends.

Steve Garner wanted to build relationships with the students. At first, the teens apprehensively accepted the free drinks and snacks. The free parking surprised them, too, because at one time they had to pay to park there.

“Some asked why we were doing this,” said Garner. “And our answer was simply that we loved them.”

More and more students now come to the parking lot, including some who are waiting for their parents to

pick them up. Parents have thanked the church for its hospitality. One parent said her son was interested in joining her at worship. Some other students have begun participating in church activities and services.

“When we first started this, it was purely an outreach with relation building as the goal,” Steve Garner said. “But, the Holy Spirit has moved us and the students in a different direction.” Students and church members alike benefit from the relationship. “Our once forbidden parking lot is now full of cars, life and love,” he said.

Boone Hill United Methodist Church | 801 Boone Hill Road, Summerville, SC 29483 | (843) 873-7461 | bhumc.office@knology.net | The Rev. Steve Garner | Average attendance: 97 | South Carolina Conference

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ose Chaney drove by the building many times on the way to church. She never paid much attention to it until, during Bible study, she thought about those in the area needing hope.

“The wall was blank on the building,” said Chaney. “What if we put art on the wall to give people hope?” she asked. The side of the building – which houses the food pantry and community closet operated

by Chaney’s church, Asbury United Methodist – faces Ice Street where there is a high volume of traffic in Frederick,

Maryland. It is also opposite Asbury, where Chaney is the church’s administrator.

She put her administrative skills to work and started the process three years ago to decorate the side of the building.

“We had to get permits, attend public hearings because of the historical area and building, raise funds and apply for grants,” she said. She also consulted with friends who were retired art educators and found painters to create the mural in summer 2016. The work took about six months.

“The picture depicts people looking out the windows and

COURTESY ROSE CHANEY

Mural of Hope

Carl Butler and Warren Davis painted the Mural of Hope. William Cochran, Carroll Kehne and Norvis Long-Parker developed the concept for the design on an outreach ministry building owned by Asbury United Methodist Church in Frederick, Md.

these people are actually church members,” said the Rev. Mark Groover, pastor of Asbury. “They are looking up to heaven.”

Groover said that the Hope Mural is a way that the church wants to encourage passersby

and drivers, as well as those served inside the building.

Last December, Asbury held a Mural of Hope dedication service and Frederick Mayor Randy McClement and other public officials attended.

Asbury United Methodist Church | 101 West All Saints St., Frederick, MD 21701 | 301-663-9380 | asburyumcfmd1@verizon.net | www.asburyumcfmd.org | The Rev. Mark Allen Groover | Average attendance: 89 | Baltimore-Washington Conference

MARCH • APRIL 2017

United Methodist Interpreter

Ideamart Calls for compassion for immigrants, refugees

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n the wake of executive actions related to immigrants and refugees by President Donald Trump, the General Board of Church and Society and a number of bishops issued calls for just and compassionate policies.

InfoServ, the denomination’s information service at United Methodist Communications, has received numerous calls concerning the refugee crisis worldwide.

In a Feb. 1 statement, Church and Society called upon all policy makers to work for just and compassionate immigration policies that affirm the worth, dignity and inherent values and rights of all persons regardless of nationality or legal status. (The Book of Resolutions 2016, #3281) “Immigrants and refugees sit in our pews and are behind the pulpit,” said the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, Church and Society general secretary. “United Methodists around the world are loving their neighbors by welcoming

refugees and immigrants into their congregations and communities. We call on our political leaders and policy makers to follow their lead and compassionately welcome our brothers and sisters.

“As followers of Jesus, we reject in the strongest terms efforts to expand the U.S.-Mexican border wall, penalize communities providing sanctuary, halt refugee resettlement or impose a religious test for those facing forced migration.”

United Methodists wanting to support the church’s response financially can contribute to the Global Refugee/ Migration Advance 3022144: »» Online, www.umcmission. org/umcor/programs/ disaster-response/international-disaster-response/ europemigrants »» By credit card with a call to 888-252-6174 »» By check to Advance GCFA, P. O. Box 9068 GPO, New York, NY 10087-9068 »» Through your local church.

Save the date for YOUTH 2019

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OUTH 2019 is set for July 10-14, 2019, in Kansas City, Missouri.

You asked, and event sponsor Discipleship Ministries listened as planning began for the quadrennial event for United Methodist youth and their leaders.

As a result: »» Affordable hotel options will increase with five hotels to choose from in downtown Kansas City with a range of prices! »» Kansas City is fun (the Power and Light District is United Methodist Interpreter

Young people’s event set for South Africa

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lans are underway for the 2018 Global Young People’s Convocation (GYPC), which brings together the voices and ideas of United Methodist young people from around the world every four years.

The GYPC will be July 18-22, 2018, at the Indaba Hotel & Conference Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, said the Rev. Michael Ratliff, associate general secretary at Discipleship Ministries and head of the Young People’s Ministries (YPM) division.

“The Global Young People’s Convocation gathers young people from across the United Methodist connection to worship, learn and provide leadership for the church,” he said.

The Legislative Forum, approved at the 2016 General Conference, will feature new ways to develop legislative proposals for submission to the 2020 General Conference.

Mighty Rasing, Young People’s Ministries program development director for the central conferences, said the division is working to ensure that the 400 delegates will represent all regions of the church.

The planning team of young people from different jurisdictions in the United States and central conferences will design an event that reflects the global experiences of young people.

Discipleship Ministries 11

COURTESY GBGM/JEN TYLER

Inspiration & Resources

Participants in the 2014 Global Young People’s Convocation wait out Typhoon Rammasun during their gathering in the Philippines. Discipleship Ministries hosts the quadrennial event.

steps from the Kansas City Convention Center – main site for YOUTH 2019) and full of culture, second only to New York in theaters and museums. »» The city’s nonprofits galore will offer a wealth of service opportunities (some of them right outside the convention center’s front door).

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»» YOUTH 2019 attendees will take over the 10,000seat Kansas City Municipal Auditorium for worship.

The 2015 event drew 5,000 participants.

Stay updated on YOUTH 2019 plans at the event Facebook page (https://www. facebook.com/Youth2019).

Discipleship Ministries

Inspiration & Resources

Africa Ministry Series makes worldwide impact

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COURTESY ABINGDON PRESS

ideamart

tarting from a discussion in August 2009 between the theology faculty at Africa University and the Discipleship Resources International (DRI) staff of Discipleship Ministries, the Africa Ministry Series (AMS) has blossomed into a line of resources impacting teachers, preachers and students worldwide.

“Written by African pastors and lecturers, AMS contributes resources, perspectives and up-to-date information for strengthening the vitality of the African church in the 21st century,” said Kara Lassen Oliver, director of DRI Publishing Initiatives for Central Conferences. “While it was originally created by African authors for African readers, today the series is finding an international audience.”

Titles — published in English, French and Portuguese — range from polity for The United Methodist Church in Africa to preaching to evangelism. “As DRI developed local publishing teams in southern and West Africa, we began to see the need for texts from African authors who understood how evangelism, discipleship and homiletics

are different in the African context than in America or Europe,” Oliver said.

“At the time there weren’t many pastors or lay people who had the expertise or time in the midst of pastoral ministry to write these texts.

So DRI staff approached the Faculty of Theology at Africa University and made an appeal for manuscripts the faculty had already written and invited them to author new texts that would train people in the Methodist way.”

As titles were published and printed, they were stocked at the Africa University book store. However, distribution challenges remained. Now, through the E-Reader partnership between DRI and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the AMS and other titles are available electronically for students and faculty to download and carry their entire “library” to class, home and church.

For a complete list of resources in the Africa Ministry Series, visit https:// bookstore.upperroom.org/ Products/CategoryCenter/ DR!DRI/Africa-Ministry-Series.aspx.

Discipleship Ministries

Open Table for teens accepting applications

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The editors of The CEB Women’s Bible are (from left) the Rev. Christine A. Chakoian, the Rev. Judy Fentress-Williams, the Rev. Jaime Clark-Soles, the Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli and the Rev. Rachel Baughman.

Abingdon releases CEB Women’s Bible

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he recently released CEB Women’s Bible can be an excellent resource anytime – and especially in March for Women’s History Month.

While the Bible is far more than a history book, it does include the stories of ancient people – including women – and their practices. The new volume from Abingdon Press is the latest specialty edition of the Common English Bible, a collaborative effort by mainline Protestants to provide a contemporary translation strong on accuracy and readability.

This Bible, like most of the other special editions, offers Holy Land maps, introductions to the books of the Old and New testaments and footnotes. Unique is its emphasis on the women in the Bible.

An index lists all of the women, named and unnamed, in both testaments. There are biographical sketches of many — familiar figures, such as Mary and Naomi, but also Merab, Junia and even Mephibosheth’s nurse.

pen Table youth theology institute will host up to 30 high school students from around the United States July 16-23 at the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana.

Open Table is a weeklong immersion experience for rising high school sophomores, juniors and seniors. Students live on

MARCH • APRIL 2017

Brief articles draw on scripture to address such issues as fertility, birth control, miscarriage, menopause, abortion, same-gender love, head-covering, “God as Mother,” body image, glass ceiling and harassment.

All five editors are women.

The Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli and the Rev. Rachel Baughman are United Methodist.

The Rev. Jaime Clark-Soles teaches at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. All 80 of the commentary contributors are women. The team includes mainly seminary professors and pastors, but also Christian novelists and a rabbi.

“I think the vast, inclusive number of women’s voices that we have represented in the writings is beautiful and wonderful,” said Gaines-Cirelli, senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington.

Adapted from a story by Sam Hodges originally published by United Methodist News Service, umns.umc.org.

campus and spend time thinking and talking about the story of the Christian tradition and its affirmation of God’s call on their lives.

Open Table is grounded in the United Methodist tradition, but is open to students of all denominations and faith traditions. Go to www.evansville.edu/opentable to learn more and to apply.

United Methodist Interpreter

Readers respond

”We asked … you said …“ Several weeks prior to finishing each issue of Interpreter, we email a question to readers asking them to respond with a short answer of 50-75 words. A select few are included here.

Find many more responses at Interpreter Online, www.interpretermagazine.org.

FOR THIS ISSUE, WE ASKED,

“What is the most meaningful or most moving part of your Holy Week observance or Easter celebration? Why?”

YOU SAID ...

For me, and for so many in our congregation, the most meaningful and the most moving part of our Holy Week observation has been our Maundy Thursday worship service. Watching men, women and children of all backgrounds, ages and races wash each other’s hands (our traditional version of the foot washing Jesus did for his disciples) is a powerful experience, and one that is highly anticipated each year.

The Rev. Ken Blanchard, Agawam UMC, Feeding Hills, Massachusetts I absolutely love getting up at 6 a.m. to attend the annual Easter Sunrise Service.

We drive to a church family home where a bonfire is warming the pre-sunlit air.

Voices merge with guitar accompaniment. The sun resurrects along with the dedication of Christ’s body and blood – the celebration of Communion. All of my senses are awake and praising the miraculous coming of Jesus and our redemption from sin.

Karen Bray, Cashmere (Washington) UMC I was baptized on this glorious day our Lord and Savior was raised! This time has and will always have tremendous meaning to me.

J.B. Brown, Pearl River (Louisiana) UMC Maundy Thursday moves me most.

After worship, our church has a prayer vigil ending at noon Friday. People sign up in 30-minute slots. Several sleep at church, taking turns to pray. Some come to church to pray for 30 minutes. Some (mostly elderly and invalid) pray at home.

I bring prayer requests to the sanctuary.

I light candles, kneel and pray. I add my prayers. I meditate on the sacrifice. I weep. I rejoice.

Shirley Durr, Epworth UMC, Minneapolis, Minnesota The most moving part of Holy Week observances has been the Service of Tenebrae. I was blessed to have a pastor who did an extremely moving and effective service with the last candle extinguished as he said, “It is finished.” It gave me chills.

Such a heart-wrenching experience giving the shock and utter despair of Jesus’ death.

Paula Eifler, Pine Island UMC, Saint James City, Florida Our local Ministerial Association holds an ecumenical Good Friday service at a different church each year. We worship together as a community, all in one place. It is a solemn service, usually ending with everyone leaving the sanctuary in silence. I always feel the Spirit moving.

Sandy Gorsuch, Reedsburg (Wisconsin) UMC For me, experiencing the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week is the most powerful event leading up to Easter.

Fourteen stations tell the story of Jesus’ last day on earth. This small pilgrimage – or walk – to the cross with Jesus, along with the images, scripture and meditations at each station, give me the greatest understanding of Jesus’ journey and of God’s sacrifice for the world.

Ellen J. Green, Salem UMC, Keedysville, Maryland

United Methodist Interpreter

MARCH • APRIL 2017

Without question, my mountaintop moments come during our choir’s Palm Sunday cantata. Being in the choir is a privilege because we experience the passion and spirit in the responsive faces of the congregation and in our own hearts as we reflect on the lyrics and the beauty of the sung message. It is the Resurrection re-lived and a humbling cleansing of the soul. We are redeemed again, even as we are yet sinners.

Bill Hanse, McEachern Memorial UMC, Powder Springs, Georgia I have done a dramatic reading of the Passion story on either Good Friday or Palm/Passion Sunday. Several simple sound effects add greatly to the impact.

A drum plays in the rhythm of a heartbeat. For Jesus being beaten, someone hits a leather strap against a wood block.

As Jesus is nailed on the cross, there’s a sound of hammering. As Jesus’ death approaches, the drumbeats get louder, then stop abruptly.

The Rev. Katherine Makus, Sundance (Wyoming) UMC The greatest part of Holy Week is that we hold revival services during the week leading up to Easter Sunday. During the week, we see lives changed through the preaching and testimony services, as well spirit-filled singing and to top it off with Resurrection morning.

The Rev. James Rice, St. Luke UMC, Sheffield, Alabama

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BY CECILE S. HOLMES

Through the centuries, sinners now seen SPIRITUAL SELF-AWARENESS as saints drew away from the world, turned Suzanne Stabile, author and speaker, to worship in lay and clerical communities, instructs others in deepening their spiritual sought simplicity in daily life and work, and journeys through the Enneagram, a system of encountered God in contemplative prayer, art classifying personality types based on a nineand song. pointed star-like figure. The figure is inscribed within a circle in which each of the nine points Similar winds of spiritual formation blow (numbers) represents a personality type and today through United Methodist ministries, churches and seminaries. The paths followed by its psychological motivations.

“It’s not about learning differences,” said these 21st-century pilgrims take many shapes.

Stabile. “It’s about different ways of seeing the So do their rules, patterns of prayer, psalm and world.” She oversees The Micah Center, part of song, and their psychological and theological the Trinity Life in the Ministry program that systems. Some are rooted in historical Christishe founded 31 years ago with her anity. Others draw on practices with husband, the Rev. Joseph Stabile, an different religious, philosophical and associate pastor at Highland Park psychological overtones.

United Methodist Church in Dallas.

“God created us the way we are, and we’re all different,” said the Rev. With the Enneagram, Suzanne Roger Owens, a United Methodist Stabile said, people learn that an and associate professor of Chrisimbalance exists within them. Once identified, it can be dealt with. Stabile tian spirituality and ministry at sees applications for the Enneagram Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in church life as congregations work in Pennsylvania. “We shouldn’t be to grow the programs they offer. surprised that the different aspects of our personalities are the ways “If we offered the right kind of through which we can relate to God.” Suzanne Stabile programming that people could use INTERVARSITY PRESS

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St. Francis of Assisi found his spiritual center among the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. St. Julian of Norwich took off alone to have mystical visions of Jesus in private prayer. St. Benedict of Nursia established a balanced pattern of living and praying to glimpse the glory of God.

MARCH • APRIL 2017

United Methodist Interpreter

PITTSBURGH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Spiritual for mation

DREW UNIVERSITY

CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

in silence, solitude or St. Ignatius would invite him or her into for the spiritual journey towards contemplation. “contemplation.” That meant the retreattransformation, it would include Gifts and talents vary; ant used the senses to reflect on a Gospel programming that brings up the need for prayer, worship, passage imaginatively and utilizing seeing, thinking, brings up doing and community and spiritual hearing, tasting, touching and smelling brings up feeling for various growth always remain. Most so that the Gospel scene became real and people. Then we would actually important is recognizing that alive. be building a foundation for all “different sorts of prayer Both practices and many, many others the other things that we want to The Rev. Roger L. Owens practices or styles do meet still are used in group and private retreats. happen,” she said. different needs for different people and Many retreatants also want spiritual Offering an example, she said, “Eights also for people at different points in their direction, in which a person augments on the Enneagram are passionate, but lives,” said the Rev. Andrew private prayer and worship with they are feeling repressed. And fives on Dreitcer, director of spiritual regular meetings with a spirithe Enneagram have a limited amount of tual director – not a therapist or energy every day. And every social encoun- formation at United Methodistcoach – but a trained companter costs them something. Fives and eights related Claremont School of Theology in California. ion to help one grow closer to are never going to be comfortable sitting Those styles meet particiGod. around a table and sharing with other pants’ needs and form people At Drew Theological Sempeople some story from their lives or their inary in New Jersey, the Rev. feelings. If you want to build a relationship in particular ways.

“If you look at Catholic reliTanya Linn Bennett said stuwith fives and eights, go build a house for gious orders, their frames have dents examine a cross section of Habitat for Humanity.” The building or a certain intentionality about traditions in spiritual formation other service is also a prime way for five them, about where they want and field education classes and and eights to grow spiritually. you to end up,” he said. “Then Suzanne Stabile sees a crying need The Rev. Andrew Dreitcer in her sociology of religion class. they have certain formative Those include using the Enneafor self-study. With Ian Morgan Cron, practices. The Benedictines gram and the Myers-Briggs she co-authored The Road Back to You: An Type Indicator, an introspecEnneagram Journey to Self-Discovery (Inter- were more traditionally focused on silence and the absence of tive self-report questionnaire Varsity Press). But why use the Enneagram designed to indicate psychologto grow one’s self-awareness? “Your Ennea- words and images as ways to get closer to God. Their prayer ical preferences in how people gram number is not determined by your style emphasized silence and perceive the world and make behavior. It’s determined by your motivarepetitive psalms that moved decisions. tion for your behavior,” she said. you into silence and into inte“It’s such an individual rior stillness and an absence thing,” said Bennett, Drew’s PRACTICES AND PERSONALITIES of imaginative and conceptual associate dean for formation Some Christians flourish in small, and vocation. “But then they intimate groups. Some prefer solo seeking, activity.” probably want also to have finding a deeper relationship with the The Rev. Tanya Linn Bennett the opportunity to practice a divine in quiet contemplative prayer, in PRAYER: THE ESSENTIAL number of the very traditional and ancient meditation and soulful walking. Still othWhatever the form or theory, the spiritual disciplines.” She sees value in ers need regular community, preaching, experts agree that each individual can both the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs the joy and peace of worship and frequent deepen his or her relationship with God for understanding which practices may be fellowship with others. Others want a through self-understanding and the study helpful. straightforward path, turning to online and practice of prayer. For example, some Movement prayer, music, singing, tools such as The Upper Room’s guide to of us learn best through listening to music, liturgical dance and iconography are spiritual types found in the Living Prayer doing artwork and singing. Others access more popular. “We know for example that Center section of the website. paths to God through thinking or deep singing is good for your health and that Taking the quiz (www.carlmccolman. meditation. being part of a group that meets regularly net/2016/03/02/contemplative-personaliSome might digest a Scripture pasto sing together improves your health,” she ty-type) reveals whether one is a: sage through lectio divina, a Benedictine »» Sage, thinking or head spirituality; practice, intended to promote communion continues.

Sometimes prayer forms itself. In one »» Prophet, servant and world changer; with God through reading, meditation and of Bennett’s formation classes, students »» Lover, spirituality from the heart or prayer. focused on fasting. One suggested fasting emotions; or a Another style is linked to St. Ignafrom electronics, while others said they’d »» Mystic, someone who finds God tius Loyola. When a retreatant came,

United Methodist Interpreter

MARCH • APRIL 2017

15

done that. So the one intent on fasting “actually brought a love feast,” Bennett said, “symbolizing that we too often fast from being with the people who enrich our spiritual lives.”

The trick, say the experts, is to explore prayer forms, recognizing that the prayer style we need – like the worship style we need – links to different life experiences.

“People change,” Dreitcer said.

Citing the experience of deep grief, he explained, “Let’s say we have someone where their grief is taking the form of just the inability to feel any comfort. This happens to people who are lonely. ... It’s important for them to look for a prayer style that allows them to rest in a loving presence. That could involve imagining God as a loving presence. For some that form might be a warm light, for others, being held in the arms of a loving mother or simply walking with Jesus.”

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION HELPFUL

Owens stressed the value of finding a spiritual director. “These are people who sit with you to discern the presence of God

in your life. When you begin to pay more attention to yourself and your life, you can discern the next step to growth in God,” he said. “So paying attention to personality type can be part of that – who you are and how God wired you.”

Many seminarians today will be bi-vocational clerics, Bennett notes. She sees herself training people to be “public theologians” who will discover their life calling in multiple settings and assist others to do the same. Dreitcer added that since Claremont’s program is interfaith, his students draw from many religious traditions. “They are not only Christians, but also Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and others,” he said.

Regardless of their tradition, he continued, “the students tend to discover that to get through the first year of seminary, it

becomes very important for them to find some sort of spiritual practice and indulge in it, even if they’ve never done that before.

Most of them are engaged in some way to ‘change the world,’” he said. “And they’re burned out. They find out that these (spiritual) practices sustain them not only in their lives, but in their studies.”

As it was in the beginning, so it still is.

The paths to wholeness, prayer and communion differ. The goals stay the same: spiritual growth and intimacy with God.

MORE ON SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

“Spiritual Direction: Nurturing the Journey toward God,” Interpreter, January-February 2017, www.interpretermagazine.org/topics/ spiritual-direction-nurturing-the-journey-toward-god Hearts on Fire: Fellowship of United Methodist Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders, https://fumsdrl.org

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Cecile S. Holmes, longtime religion writer, heads the journalism sequence at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications. In 2016, she was awarded the Religion News Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

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T H E

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BY EMILY SNELL

“The writing insisted on being written.”

still, small voice of God,” which “requires deep listening, unhurried time and patience.”

COURTESY LINDY THOMPSON

COURTESY KARLA KINCANNON

“There’s an opportunity in our culture today to proclaim good news, to inspire and encourage That’s how Lindy Thompson, a poet people in a more visual and lyricist who attends Christ United CENTERING, INVITING way,” he said, describing Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, “I’ll spend a few minutes how he tells biblical stodescribed the role of writing in her life. in centering prayer or lectio ries through sand art. “It “It just comes up from within me,” she divina (sacred reading),” Kinappeals to everyone. It’s a said. “Writing is my God-response. Difcannon said. “Then I’ll use my vehicle for communicatferent things that I see or hear or dream, non-dominant hand and begin ing the gospel and good it’s like dropping something into a pond to paint intuitively. There’s no news in a non-traditional and the input settles to the bottom, and end product in mind. What I’m then something is going to come up and doing is trying to paint an inner The Rev. Karla Kincannon (left) way.” assists a participant in one of Kincannon said present itself in front of me and wait to be landscape of what’s going on using art as a spiritual written.” with me. Frequently, there will her workshops. practice can facilitate In 2013, Thompson began working be an image that emerges that healing and lead to forgiveness and greater with Mark Miller to combine her lyrics I didn’t know I painted that leads to an self-awareness. with his music. A well-known United opening in my spiritual life.”

“This creative contemplation helps us Methodist composer, organist, music and The Rev. Gary Shockley, an elder in transform our inner baggage so we don’t worship leader, Miller is also associate the Western North Carolina Conference, have to carry it anymore,” she said. “Then professor of church music at Drew Univer- uses art full time to help individuals and our hands are really free to love our neighsity in Madison, New Jersey. congregations experience God. bor. Creative expression shows us who we For Miller, music helps Shockley – who does are and also who we are created to be.” him encounter God. sand art performances, “Music takes me out of illustrates children’s books myself,” he said. “The basis and uses art to help conCREATIVITY IS NATURAL of religion is that people gregations with church Regardless of the type of artistic can understand there is planting – starts any artistic practice, Shockley encourages people to something beyond ourselves, endeavor with a prayer view creativity as a way to live into their something bigger to give our blessing. identity as God’s handiwork. lives to. Music was the way “I literally invite God “Because we are created in the image of for me.” to be fully present and God we are, by nature, creative, and we are The Rev. Karla Kincanallow me to be a co-creco-creators with God,” Shockley said. “I try non, director of spiritual ator with God on whatever to help people understand that creativformation at Aldersgate I’m working on,” he said. ity is not just about visual arts or music.

United Methodist Church “There’s always a sense that Let’s expand this notion of what artistic Mark Miller was the composer in Alexandria, Virginia, it’s more than my two hands creativity is and help people consider the and Lindy Thompson the lyricist working.” connects with God through possibilities.” for “Teach Me to Fly,” one of visual art.

Shockley’s sand art minThompson also believes there are the songs presented at the 2015 When she’s painting as istry is quickly growing as a many ways to encounter God through convocation of The Fellowship a spiritual practice, Kincan- of United Methodists in Music & way for people to meet God creative endeavors.

Worship Arts. non is waiting to hear “the in a new way.

“I absolutely think that writing can United Methodist Interpreter

MARCH • APRIL 2017

17

COURTESY GARY SHOCKLEY

Sand is the medium of choice for artist/preacher the Rev. Gary Shockley.

be a means of grace for people,” she said.

“Clearly, for millennia it has been a practice that people have used to explore life, explore their understanding of God, and explore their own soul.”

As part of that exploration, Shockley and Miller both said they believe Christian artists have a call to be prophetic in their creative work.

“We are to shine a light on injustice, inspire acts of mercy and help others in their humble walk with God,” Shockley said. “The world needs us.”

In composing music or leading worship, Miller aims to “bring people into the

mystery that we call God and also connect people to issues of how we treat one another and how we live out this mission of social justice.”

Creativity as a spiritual practice is for everyone, Kincannon said.

“In the United States, we have understood that art is relegated to a few who are somehow special or gifted. In many other cultures, this is not the case,” she said. “Everyone has the right and the joy and the privilege of self-expression. I do believe the arts are for everyone, particularly when used as an expression of the inner life.”

NO RULES

Thompson encouraged people to try writing as a spiritual practice.

“Commit to making a little bit of space for it, and don’t judge yourself. Just let it be whatever it is,” she said. “If there are

any rules, I’m not aware of them.”

For those who want to engage in musical expression but don’t consider themselves experts, Miller recommended a lighthearted attitude.

“You have permission to do things that haven’t been done before,” he said. “An attitude of permission-giving and an open spirit of playfulness, I would encourage those values.”

Whatever expression is chosen, Kincannon said creativity can provide “a deeper sense of knowing God.” “It doesn’t necessarily solve problems or change the outcomes of where I find my daily life, but it does give me an abiding presence of God as a reality, as a felt experience.”

Emily Snell is a freelance writer living in Nashville, Tennessee. She writes frequently for Interpreter and other publications.

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‘PRAYGROUNDS’

A

ENCOURAGE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME

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BY CRYSTAL CAVINESS

As the band at Trinity United Methodist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, played the first chords of “All the People Said Amen,” 22-month-old Liam sat on a soft blanket on the floor at the front of the sanctuary playing with a red rubber ball. A few measures in, the toddler stood up, moved to the aisle and started bouncing up and down with the rhythm of the music.

When the music ended, Liam returned to the blanket, sat down and resumed playing with the ball and other soft toys around him while the service continued just a few feet in front of him.

“Liam definitely feels the Spirit with the music and message, even as a toddler,” said Kaitlyn VanHaren, Liam’s mom and a member of Trinity.

TREND AROUND THE GLOBE

Trinity is among a growing number of churches adopting a trend to incorporate space near the front of the sanctuary for young children to sit and play during worship services. The concept, called “praygrounds,” is taking root around the globe.

“Often, parents and children sit in the back of church, hoping not to disturb anyone,” VanHaren said. “I have found that children, especially Liam, are more attentive and active in the service when they are United Methodist Interpreter

MARCH • APRIL 2017

A circular sanctuary includes Grace Space, the prayground at First United Methodist Church in Holland, Michigan.

in the front of the church. There is more to see, hear and respond to that way.”

Melanie C. Gordon, director of ministry with children at Discipleship Ministries, has seen praygrounds in a number of countries.

In 2014, Gordon participated in the Wesley Pilgrimage in England. “I was amazed at how many churches had a space carved out in their sanctuaries for children and adults,” she said.

“Everything was small and childlike. When I asked what the space is used for, I was told ‘We like for our children to be in worship with us.’”

On a trip to Sweden, Gordon worshiped at Abrahamsbergskyrkan (Abraham Mountain Church) in Stockholm where preschoolers seated near the front of the church in the prayground stay busy with crafts and books during church worship. Then a United Methodist congregation, the church is now part of the Uniting Church in Sweden.

“They wouldn’t even think about the children being anywhere else but in worship,”

ways of engaging children in worship.”

A prayground does not negate the need for a church nursery, leaders say. Rather praygrounds supplement existing spaces. Most churches continue to have nursery and Sunday school ministries.

RADICAL HOSPITALITY FOR YOUNGEST CONGREGANTS

20

Often, church leaders view praygrounds as part of the welYoungsters enjoy the prayground at Abrahamsbergkyrkan coming ministry. in Stockholm.

“The prayground is a space where children can see and be engaged, a Gordon said. “You could tell the children space that’s especially for them,” Gordon were used to being in church, because said. “It’s a way of offering a radical hospithey were very comfortable in the space. I tality to children.” thought it was wonderful.”

Beth Hagemeyer, director of children’s education at Community United MethodALL GOD’S CHILDREN WORSHIP ist Church in Napierville, Illinois, agreed.

TOGETHER “Our prayground has been a wonderful Encouraging parents to bring their way to welcome all to worship,” she said. young children into the worship service In addition to the prayground, the church and placing them near the front may be continues to offer a 20-minute children’s unprecedented in many churches. In recent decades, the trend in most mainline church activity for which youngsters can denominations has been toward children’s leave the sanctuary.

Grace Space, the prayground at First church. There, youngsters are taken to United Methodist Church in Holland, a child-oriented service or activity in a Michigan, has brought positive responses space outside of the sanctuary for all or from members and visitors. most of the service.

“The first day we started it, we hap“I’m not sure where it started, but for the past 30 years, there has been a struggle pened to have a guest who thanked me about having children in worship,” Gordon at the end of the service, not only for the warm welcome, but for having a space to said. “Should they be there? Are they worship with her children,” said Tania learning anything?

Dozeman, student pastor at the church, “What’s been found over time is that and a consultant for the Michigan Vital when children who are separated out of Church Initiative. Dozeman led the the worshipping community get to an age designing of the prayground. to decide for themselves if they want to be “Grace Space is a statement to the a part of worship, they will likely decide entire congregation that we are making not to be part of worship because it hasn’t physical and spiritual space for families,” been part of their life. We know enough Dozeman said. “We are now embodying about the brain development of a young our inclusiveness and intentionality. This child to know they need opportunities to is a way to ‘walk the walk’ for churches be part of something, so they see it as an who talk about desiring more families in important part of who they are. their midst.”

“We are all adopted through our In addition to providing a physical baptism into God’s family, so we need to worship together,” Gordon said. “We know space for young children, the Rev. Lynn Piers-Fitzgerald, senior pastor at Holchildren need to move and have some land First, said that praygrounds offer active time, so we need to find creative

MARCH • APRIL 2017

United Methodist Interpreter

an opportunity for spiritual formation to begin at an early age.

“We want children to witness their parents and other adults worshipping to show that this is what our life looks like together as children of God,” she said.

Trinity Church’s Glenys Nellist is a vocal praygrounds advocate.

“I’m passionate about including young children in worship,” she said. “I have a passion for getting God’s word into the heart of little ones. I was immediately drawn to this idea.”

Nellist, coordinator of children’s ministries in the West Michigan Conference and a children’s author, and Nichea Ver Veer Guy, Pathways to Discipleship director at Trinity, teamed up to develop their church’s prayground.

“Children bring an energy and this unashamed love of worship,” Nellist said.

“If we can get past this fear of how much noise there will be or how much distraction there will be, then I think the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

“I want young parents and families to know there’s an intentional space for your child in the front or toward the front,” she said. “When the space is near the front, the children know they are part of something bigger than themselves.”

On the Sunday when Liam started dancing to the worship music, Nellist was standing nearby.

“When I saw Liam dancing, I was in tears and his mom was, too. Everybody in the congregation responded to that. This is not just impacting one little life that gets to hear the liturgy and dance to the music.

If we can find a way to implement these in every United Methodist church, it will impact their congregational life.”

The command to bring children into worship services may date back to the church’s earliest days.

“I believe when Jesus said ‘Don’t block the children, let them come to me,’ I can imagine that the tone was firm,” Gordon said. “‘Let them come to me.’”

Crystal Caviness is a public relations specialist at United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Spiritual for mation

C O M M U N I T I E S

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W I T H

G O D ,

O T H E R

P E O P L E

BY EMILY SNELL

In a world that can seem increasingly divided, United Methodist leaders point to community as a way to find real connection and

The cast and crew experienced community as they produced “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at Dilworth United Methodist Church.

spiritual growth.

DISCOVER SELF, RECOGNIZE GOD’S WORK

Yoo said community is a place for understanding and growth.

“Community is a place I can discover my true self,” she said. “A safe place, my belonging place, but also a challenging place that nudges me to grow deeper.”

The Rev. Matt Seaton, associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, said being

21 COURTESY SALLIE ANNA BARTON

Sallie Anna Barton, director of youth and young adult ministries at Dilworth United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, said her role involves helping people find community that is “warm and comfortable” and feels like “home away from home.”

“I have been so nurtured and supported by Christian community that I want everybody to have that,” she said. “I think that’s one of the greatest blessings the Lord gives.”

The Rev. Mi-Sook Yoo, associate pastor at Barrington (Illinois) United Methodist Church, sees a direct connection between relationship with God and relationship with others.

“By loving God, you’re loving your neighbor,” she said. “When you move closer to your neighbor, you’re moving closer to God.”

in community gives people more opportunities to recognize God’s work.

“When we hear about the saints, both present and 2,000 years past, we’re able to hear and learn from others who have gone through various trials,” Seaton said. “We can re-appropriate what God has done in their lives, and we can see how it relates to our own lives.”

Barton said her church provides a unique opportunity for relationship each year by inviting those in the larger Charlotte community to join in producing a musical. Spending time together on a shared interest is a great way to build community and invite others into the church, she said. It may also be the first step toward being part of a community where

United Methodist Interpreter

MARCH • APRIL 2017

spiritual growth is the goal.

“I have relationships with people because I spent time with them and got to know them,” she said of some of the cast members. “It’s a really neat community-driven ministry.”

SAFETY, VULNERABILITY

According to Johnny Sears, director of The Upper Room’s Academy for Spiritual Formation and Emerging Ministries, creating a sense of safety is a vital aspect of community.

“We talk about the Academy creating safe space for people to be in communion with God, themselves, others and creation. When we say ‘safe,’ we’re not meaning everything is going to be to your

preferred liking,” he said. “It’s really more about stability. It gives you the ability to be vulnerable, which then allows you to move past the illusions that we wrap around our lives. We can go deeper and get to know more of our whole self and God’s creation.”

Learning to embrace vulnerability was a key aspect of Yoo’s Academy experience when she participated in the two-year program starting in February 2012. Now she strives to lead by example in that way with her congregation.

In Kairos groups, he said, “the emphasis is on relationship-building, community-building, with the intent of having Christian community that’s able to talk about how God’s interacting in each one’s life. Each person can seek encouragement, advice or consolation or prayer.”

Listening is another powerful catalyst for community, Sears said.

“Listening is the first modality,” he said, explaining a key attribute of the Academy. “It’s about each person sharing

Give yourself a chance to really invest in a group and see how it works out for you.

It’ll change for you if you find the right niche.”

Finding community can take time, especially if relationships have been damaged in the past.

“We all get burned by people,” Seaton said. “It’s just going to happen. If you fall off a horse, get back on the horse. Maybe you need to find a different group. Be encouraged to confront rather than run from problems. Take a different sort of engagement with community.”

22

The Rev. Matt Seaton

DISCIPLESHIP MINISTRIES

COURTESY PHOTO

COURTESY PHOTO

DIFFERENCES BRING GROWTH

The Rev. Mi-Sook Yoo

“I tell my story. When I open myself up, they can join my story by telling their stories, too,” she said. “We are companions.

Although we can work on our devotion and piety by ourselves, when we come to the community and do it together, there is power. This spiritual discipline is an essential practice.”

Some of the power of community, Seaton said, is found in being honest with one another.

“When we come into Christian community we’re able to help reflect back to others that growth needs to happen,” Seaton said. “We are human and fallible and unable to see when our blind spots keep us from seeing areas we need to grow in.

It takes a certain kind of community to do that. It’s a kind of community that’s held together by truth and able to speak in love.

And that love is characterized by kindness, gentleness, self-control.”

Seaton’s congregation provides different opportunities for Christian education and for sharing the everyday spiritual journey together.

Johnny Sears

from their own life and their own experience and the rest of the group is holding that space for them and honoring that.

We listen one another into being. There’s something beautiful that happens in that.”

ENGAGEMENT ESSENTIAL

While times of solitude are an integral part of the spiritual journey, Sears said faith always leads to interaction with others.

“Authentic spirituality will always lead back to community, to deeper engagement with the world. It’s never something you do in isolation,” he said. “If you’re really engaging the work of the Spirit, it’s going to compel you to be engaged with others.”

Participating in community is “a step of faith,” Barton said, challenging people not to let others’ failures be a hindrance to finding community with them.

“Don’t let those things keep you from something wonderful,” she said. “It’s investing in yourself as a disciple. Try whatever your church or another church has to offer until you find the right one.

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United Methodist Interpreter

Though uncomfortable in the moment, Sears said struggling with personality differences could be a tool for long-term growth.

“Often times the way that God works, you’re in community with the person you would least choose to be with,” he said.

“There’s some formation that happens in that because that person has something to teach you about yourself. Being in intentional community means you’re committed to this relationship even when things are challenging or difficult and your preferences aren’t necessarily met.”

In those challenging moments, “God meets us,” Sears said. “We learn to see the face of Christ in others.”

This aspect of community is crucial, especially in a culture where people are divided.

“We don’t have enough places where people really engage in encountering otherness,” Sears said. “Because of that we haven’t developed those muscles to be with people who aren’t just like us or don’t think like us or have the same values as we do.”

In a fast-paced world that often focuses on differences, Yoo said it benefits God’s people to acknowledge how interactions have a lasting impact on one another.

“Our lives are inseparably woven together with God and each other,” she said. “We never just pass by as strangers.

There’s joy and celebration when we realize we are all connected to each other.

That’s the direction we have to move together as humanity.”

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Spiritual for mation

B E I N G

RECONNECT TO GOD

The center works to reconnect people to God through nature through classes

I N

T H E

BY ERIK ALSGAARD

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and nature walks with practice of spiritual disciplines.

How could you get re-connected?

“Go outside; it’s really as simple as that,” Norcross said. It doesn’t matter if you live in the city or the most rural area of the world, going outside and paying attention to what God has provided is the place to start. “There’s something of nature virtually everywhere.”

The Center’s website offers 12 spiritual practices a person or group could do to find spiritual inspiration.

“By reconnecting us with The Rev. Jeanne the wisdom of Torrence Finley nature infused in our faith story, we reconnect with our deepest selves; we reconnect with the Creator and with the creation,” Norcross said.

The Rev. Jeanne Torrence Finley, a retired clergy member of the Virginia Conference, has written about spirituality and nature. In 2009, she signed up for Master Naturalist classes and started a sketch book as a way to keep a nature journal.

At the same time, her daughter started chemo treatments. Finley went along to offer support.

“When I was sketching nature, even at the cancer center with my daughter, I found it was a contemplative discipline for me,” she said. “I felt more connected to God. It became a spiritual practice to help me get through that period. It gave me a steadiness that I didn’t get in any other way.”

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Every morning, Beth Norcross wakes up and finds the sun. In the process, she also finds the Son. “Paying attention to the sun for 30 seconds first thing every morning helps to center me beyond myself, centers me in God,” she said. “It helps me notice the changes in the natural world.”

Finding God in nature has been her passion for a long time, Norcross said.

The founder of the Center for Spirituality in Nature (www.centerforspiritualityinnature.org), she is also adjunct faculty at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., where she has developed and teaches courses on eco-spirituality and eco-theology.

“Every person I’ve encountered has a story of finding God in the natural world,” said Norcross. “It also has the opportunity to be a great unifier; something happens in the natural world that can be shared by everyone. It’s a place where I don’t think God is more present to us, we are more present to God.” Norcross’ reading of Scripture tells her that the natural world was humanity’s first way of encountering God. “We were hungry and there was food coming from the earth,” she said. “What’s that about? Who is that provider? Eventually, we began to construct a theology around the provider.”

If we lose that connection between God and what God created, Norcross believes we are cutting ourselves off from an important aspect of our faith.

S H A P E D

United Methodist Interpreter

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Beth Norcross

WORSHIPPING THE CREATOR

Many people, Finley said, are fearful of spiritual practices that involve nature thinking they may contain “new age” connotations, such as worshipping a tree and not God. “God made the tree; God loves the tree,” Finley said. “We’re not worshipping the tree but the one who made it.”

Finley recommends several books for people wanting to connect more with God through nature. Among them is Last Child in the Woods in which author Richard Louv coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder.” Finley agrees that keeping children away from nature, for whatever reasons, removes a key component of faith development.

“My parents brought me up outside,” she said. “It helped me see the connection between God and nature.” She urges parents and churches to go on field trips or to take a day trip to a United Methodist camp or retreat center to learn about nature – and draw nearer to God. The Rev. Erik Alsgaard is an elder and editor of Connection, the newspaper of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

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Spiritual for mation Listen as Whitney Simpson talks about finding sacred spaces in this segment of “Get Your Spirit in Shape.”

I recognize these spiritual practices are non-traditional. Yet God does not define what our time apart is to look like, God simply invites us to “come away” to a secluded place and rest in his presence (Mark 6:31 CEB).

Do you long to “come away” with God but simply are not sure where to start?

Are you stuck in a rut or do you have false expectations of blissful quiet time apart?

Are you too busy to consider what a restful spiritual practice may look like? Discovering delight with God does not happen by accident nor is it always picture perfect.

That is one reason I savor time with God as practice, not perfection.

Years in the church have shaped my life. We had community meals, fellowship, outreach opportunities, choir, Bible study and more. These were all good things in S T A R T I N G O R R E S T A R T I N G community; yet I never really felt like the S P I R I T U A L P R A C T I C E S church equipped me to “come away” and spend time with God privately.

What I learned about

BY WHITNEY R. SIMPSON this as an adult came after a health crisis that forced me into solitude (Jesus) said to the apostles, “Come by yourselves to a and rest due to my health limitations. In this mansecluded place and rest for a while.” Mark 6:31 CEB datory and very secluded time apart, I discovered practices, many of us Do you pray? It may sound like a silly being with God takes struggle. Why is this? question, but pause and consider it. How practice and intention. It and when do you set aside time for private is something we can only prayer or other spiritual practices? Do PRACTICE PRACTICES discover for ourselves. your practices invite you to “come away” What if rather than While it is never perfect, and rest with God, or do they feel like yet something you must spending time alone with another item on your never-ending task check off your Christian God in our own praclist? task-list, you practiced tices makes us better You can pray with scripture, with simply being with God equipped disciples for prayer beads, with color or with your body. in ways that bring you Whitney R. Simpson the body of Christ.

You can meditate silently, read aloud, delight and offer your soul embrace breath prayers or talk with God rest? After all, practice is both a noun and in your journal. The truth is, I spend time a verb.

HELPS FOR PRIORITIZING with God in each of these ways. Don’t There is not a one-size-fits-all We hear God’s nudges, we understand worry, not all at once. I practice various approach when it comes to spending why, yet it may remain a challenge to priways of praying because my personaltime with God. Maybe at some season oritize a time of spiritual practice. Longing ity longs for creativity and variety. This in your life, it seemed that in order to for rejuvenation? Consider the following: approach can be encouraging for some and connect with God, spiritual practices had »» What? What kinds of activity or restful downright scary for others. The spiritual to look a certain way. Christians today time apart from the world draw you journey offers an invitation for embracare not afraid to talk about meeting God nearer to God? Do you prefer variety ing personal quiet time apart with God, in a variety of ways. There are those of or consistency? Do you need active not dreading it or seeing it as a chore. us who meet God on a yoga mat or while or quiet opportunities for listening to Unfortunately, when it comes to spiritual praying over paper with a box of crayons.

God? COURTESY PHOTO

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United Methodist Interpreter

Whitney R. Simpson is the author of Holy Listening with Breath, Body and the Spirit.

As a spiritual director and retreat facilitator, she incorporates yoga and other ancient tools.

She is certified in spiritual formation, is a 500-hour master yoga instructor with Holy Yoga Ministries and a certified lay minister.

Simpson lives with her family in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. Her website is www.exploringpeace.com.

B E G I N S

A T

H O M E

BY JULIE DWYER

Growing your faith at home doesn’t have to involve hours of reading the Bible, studying Scripture and meditating.

Spiritual growth for families and individuals can begin with baby steps.

“The very first thing that I encourage people to do is just start looking for God in everyday life,” said Kara Lassen Oliver of Nashville, Tennessee, author of Passing It On: How to Nurture Your Children’s Faith Season by Season.

“As parents and just as disciples, where is God and can you articulate that? That starts from the moment we wake up to over breakfast to the drive home from work and going to bed at night. Just being attuned to God’s presence is the primary or the starting place in the home.”

Faith formation at home is more important than ever as people attend church more sporadically.

“The space that allows the most opportunity for persons to connect with God and grow in their faith then is in their home and in their family lives,” said the Rev. Tanya Marie Eustace Campen, director of intergenerational discipleship for the Rio Texas Conference.

WHERE TO START

So how do families and individuals get started on the road to spiritual growth at home?

“Start simple and pick one thing,” said Campen. She suggests starting with a simple prayer at the dinner table, “Thank you, God, for this food,” that the family repeats daily at the same time.

Oliver, mom to a 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, advises The Rev. Tanya Marie Eustace Campen against creating something new. She recommends finding places where families are already together and using that time to pray and talk about where God could be found today.

“Where we started, when my kids were probably 2 and 7, was around the dinner table. We did what’s called ‘sads, glads and sorrys’ COURTESY PHOTO

»» When? Discover your own routine.

What time of day works best for your lifestyle? Carve out the space in your day just as you would any other important appointment. Morning and evening are obvious choices, yet do not forget about those little chunks of unused time when you could practice being with God. »» Where? Consider setting apart sacred space in your home – a special prayer chair, the corner of a prayer closet, a place dedicated to Bible study, art creation or journaling. »» How? Start where you are and release where you long to be – a few minutes of spiritual practice is better than no practice. Do not be afraid to try something new, especially if the old feels stale. »» Need a reminder? Install a prayer or meditation app on your smart phone.

Consider wearing a reminder, like a piece of purposeful jewelry. Place your favorite Bible, journal, pens or crayons by your bedside as a visual cue to prioritize your time in practice.

No matter where you are on your spiritual path, be kind to yourself. Release expectations of what being with God may look like and simply choose to “come away” and be with God. Spending time in spiritual practice is not a “pass or fail” experience. God created each of us uniquely. Discover how God invites you to “come away” and then practice. After all, practice is both a noun and a verb.

Creator God, help me come away, to practice being in your presence and discover rest with you. Amen.

United Methodist Interpreter

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— just going around the dinner table and asking, ‘What made you sad today? What made you happy?

And is there anything you need to say you’re sorry for?’

“It’s become so much easier over the years when they have problems at school or a fight with a friend, whatever it is, to bring God into the conversation because we started doing that when they were young.

It’s more natural.”

Right before bed and driving to or from school or extra-curricular activities also are great times to start faith conversations.

Campen said it’s important to recognize that it’s not going to work perfectly the first time you try it, and parents need to be upfront about that.

“It takes practice and sometimes it feels awkward and sometimes we’re not in the mood to do it. But, if we go through the motions and practice it anyway, it becomes a part of who we are.”

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Spiritual for mation

SYMBOLS AND BLESSINGS

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In her book, Oliver focuses on everyday symbols that people see and can use to remind them of God’s love. She includes a loaf of bread signifying charity and an empty plate as a reminder that we depend on God. They are easy conversation starters, she said, and kids often get excited to share the symbols they spotted each day.

Oliver, who works at Discipleship Ministries, said the symbolism works for children of all ages.

For preschoolers, the empty plate, for example, can be a reminder that God is with them as they eat their meal. For high schoolers, the conversation could move to fasting and sacrificing for their faith, she said.

Campen urges families to offer regular blessings.

Making a cross on a child’s forehead and delivering a blessing can be powerful, she said.

“If the one thing that we do is bless our children and remind them that we love them and that God loves them, that’s all we need to do.”

She said to keep blessings short and simple and to begin the ritual at bath or bedtime.

“Do it over and over again,” she said, even if it feels messy and uncomfortable.

She recommends silent blessings for teenagers and also urges leaving sticky notes on steering wheels for teen drivers or on the bathroom mirror where they will see it before school.

READING SCRIPTURE

Oliver and Campen agree that reading the Bible should be a regular occurrence in the home.

“We can’t lead our children where we haven’t gone.

Kara Lassen Oliver

If we’re not praying in our home, reading the Bible in our home or considering the news in light of God’s presence ... then it’s much more difficult to have those conversations with our children,” Oliver said.

Campen recommends starting with a story that you know well and telling it to each other. Introduce Scripture slowly. Print out one verse from the passage that is going to be discussed on Sunday, she said. Put it on your child’s plate with their breakfast and begin the conversation.

She finds it “beautiful” when families who are “experiencing hard times can say, ‘I wonder if there is a Bible verse for that.’ And then they go looking together,” Campen said.

She also suggests practicing the Prayer of Examen.

Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life (Paulist Press) is a great tool for learning how to start the ritual in your family, she said.

“I think the best thing that we can do for our children and for ourselves is ask the question every day, ‘When did I feel close to God?’ or ‘When did I experience God?’ ... There’s a lot of power in the daily examen of just stopping and thinking about the day.”

Whether you are just beginning your faith journey at home or building on family traditions, turn to God for guidance.

“Pray about what is the next step for (your) family and then push through whatever feels awkward,” said Oliver. “Trust that God is leading you.”

Julie Dwyer is general church content editor at United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kara Lassen Oliver and Jenny Youngman discuss ways to celebrate faith as a family on this “Get Your Spirit in Shape” podcast.

TO LEARN MORE

https://igministry.com, the Rev. Tanya Marie Eustace Campen’s website. www.karalassenoliver.com, Kara Lassen Oliver’s website.

Praying in Color: Kids’ Edition (Paraclete Press), Sybil MacBeth.

Scrambled Starts: Family Prayers for Morning, Bedtime and Everything in Between (Upper Room Books), Jenny Youngman. www.illlustratedchildrensministry.com Faith at Home, www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/faith-at-home-2016

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United Methodist Interpreter

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Dr. Don Skillman

T H R O U G H

S E R V I C E

BY POLLY HOUSE

For many United Methodists, faith is something that cannot be contained. Their faith ignites a passion for serving others. They take seriously the passages in James 2 that say faith is shown through works.

For two men – one a physician, the other an active retiree – two of The United Methodist Church’s four areas of focus are especially ingrained in their lives: abundant health and ministry with the poor.

For both, the emphasis is on “with” – standing with those who are regarded as “the least of these,” listening to them, understanding their needs and aspirations, and working with them to achieve their goals, whether it be by providing medical care or securing a birth certificate.

In the Wesleyan tradition, their Christian faith is not a solitary journey. They are part of a larger community of people of faith who work to bring healing and dignity to those often lacking both.

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Included in this special edition are 16 additional pages in the front of the Bible with confirmation-related, official United Methodist material, including a brief historical statement, selections from the Articles of Religion, the Social Creed, and the membership covenant.

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DOUG EATON

SERVING HOMELESS PEOPLE

Bart Perkey greets children while on a mission trip to Honduras.

MEDICAL MISSIONS

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Physician Don Skillman is an infectious disease specialist from Helena, Montana. For almost 15 years, he has led mission teams to areas where people desperately need medical care. Along with medicine, he and his teams bring the love, touch and encouragement that comes when God’s people do God’s work.

“I tell people who go on the medical mission trips with me that I can’t promise the trip will be life-changing,” Skillman said, “but usually, it is.”

Photographs tell his own story. “In hundreds of pictures from these trips, I’m always smiling. I love this ministry. It’s so rewarding to help people who need it. It makes my whole Christian experience so much more. I’m at my best when I’m on a trip.”

Skillman, a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Helena, has led more than a dozen trips to countries like Brazil, Mozambique, Haiti and Honduras, and to New Orleans to help local people suffering from tropical diseases.

“We treat so many people,” he said.

“They need basic medicine. Everyone has worms and parasites. Most have bad teeth.”

In Brazil, Skillman and his teams work from the John Wesley Hospital Boat, calling it a “crucial part of medical ministry to the people in the Amazon.”

With the expressed purpose of providing medical and dental assistance for villages in the Amazon, the boat is a muchneeded clinic supported in part by the Advance, the denomination’s designated giving channel. Skillman said, “It stops in villages all along the Amazon. Brazilians (from outside the Amazon waterway and rainforest) are not likely to go into the Amazon. They see the area as primitive, dangerous, disease-ridden and snake- and mosquito-infested.”

Skillman said the people he and his teams see are appreciative that the volunteers have come and are generous with the little that they have.

“What is the most humbling for me, though,” he said, “is realizing the impact just our presence has on their lives. In a while, they won’t remember our names or what we looked like, but they will never forget that we considered them so important that we would come. We elevate their self-esteem just by coming from America.

It blows the kids’ minds that someone from America would come and play with them. It reminds me of what John Wesley said, ‘Don’t send help to the poor. Take it to them.’”

Skillman said that without exception, as the medical team volunteers are leaving, they talk about what the trip has meant to each one. “So many don’t have words, just tears.”

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United Methodist Interpreter

Bart Perkey has volunteered with various ministries to homeless people for more than 30 years.

“As you become acquainted with some of the people who are homeless, you become aware of how fragile life can be in our culture,” Perkey said. “We tend to think that people are poor and homeless because they don’t apply themselves or choose unhealthy behaviors. Sometimes that is true, but not always. For many, circumstances out of their control brought them to their current situation.”

Before he retired in 2014, Perkey, a member at Belmont United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, had been a volunteer with Room In The Inn. The ministry of Nashville area churches is best known for offering homeless people nightly housing, meals and safety during the cold months of the year.

Since retirement, he volunteers with Room In The Inn’s main office three days a week, five hours a day, working directly with homeless people to help them get identification cards or birth certificates, arranging for transportation to doctor visits and meeting a variety of other needs.

“It’s not always a lot of fun,” Perkey said. “Working with poor people can be challenging. A lot of days, I get angry. Some of the people we deal with are not pleasant people. I find it sometimes takes a lot of self-discipline for me to remain pleasant, smile and help them understand what I can or cannot do to help them.”

Perkey said he knew that when he retired he would need other activities to make him feel productive.

“A lot of my motivation for doing volunteer work is for my own mental and spiritual health,” he said. “If I get up every day, go out and engage in a useful and meaningful activity, I feel good about myself. It’s almost selfish on my part. I’m a student of Jesus and his teachings. You can’t see his life and not feel a sense of calling on your own.”

Polly House is a freelance writer and editor, who is now serving as editorial assistant for Interpreter and Interpreter OnLine. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Holy Week and Easter traditionally provide a wealth of opportunities for remembering, meditating and celebrating at church. Adults may set aside time for more intense prayer, study and service.

But what do families, especially those with younger children, do at home for Holy Week and Easter?

BY CINDY SOLOMON

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“While many families celebrate Advent in the home, it may be harder to observe Holy Week at home,” acknowledged Lynn Gilliam. “After all, it’s much easier to talk with our children about the baby in the manger than it is to discuss Jesus’ death and the events leading up to it. But just as the observance of Advent helps us to prepare for the celebration of Christmas, observing Holy Week helps prepare us for the joyous celebration of Easter.”

Gilliam, senior editor of Pockets, a magazine for children published by The Upper Room, shared several ideas to help families journey toward Easter together and then to make Easter a season long, rather than one-day, celebration: Have simpler meals. Fasting, one of the most ancient spiritual disciplines, is not appropriate for everyone, certainly not for young children.

But simplifying meals can remind everyone of the solemnity of the week leading up to sunset on Holy Saturday. Simply eliminating desserts is an easy way to do this.

Talk to your children about how giving up something we enjoy can remind us of Jesus’ giving up his life for us.

Read together about the events of the last weeks of Jesus’ life in your Bible. Children who are old enough and enjoy reading can read some of the passages to the family. “Easter Eggs with a Difference” (goo.gl/Hq1nH3) provides one way to read many of the pertinent passages with your family and talk about them.

Add the events of Holy Week to your family prayers. For example, you could pray, “God, we

United Methodist Interpreter

remember today how Jesus served his friends by washing their feet. Help us to serve others, too.”

On Easter Sunday, celebrate at home – as well as at church – in a big way. Make “Christ is risen!” banners to hang around the house. Have a special food. If fresh flowers – a colorful symbol of new life – are available, bring some in to decorate the spaces where your family gathers. Teach your children the traditional Easter greeting “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” and the response “The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”

Other ideas include: »» Give up technology (TV, cell phones, Internet) for a period of time and spend that time as a family engaged in community service. (This is another way to teach children about fasting.) »» Use an age-appropriate Lenten Bible study or read The Legend of the Easter Egg (Zondervan) by Lori Walburg. »» Plant seeds (marigold, petunia or grass seeds) in an eggshell carton filled with dirt; sprouting seeds send a clear message to children of the power of new life. »» Check Pinterest and online blogs for Lent- and Easter-related craft ideas. »» Host an at-home foot washing ceremony on Maundy Thursday using the account of the Lord’s Supper in John 13:1-11. Washing someone else’s feet, especially for children to wash their parents’ feet and each other’s, can be a powerful experience. »» Watch the sunrise together on Easter morning (the time of day the Resurrection was discovered) before going to church.

TALKING ABOUT HOLY WEEK

During Lent, Holy Week and Easter, children may ask pointed and difficult questions about why Jesus had to die or the events leading up to his death and Resurrection. While parents should be mindful about how they talk about the details, children can process them when shared appropriately.

“Children are open to the cycle of life and the reality that everything has birth and dies,” said Melanie C. Gordon, director of ministry with children at Discipleship Ministries. “We only need to make it simple for them. Talk to them in terms they will understand.

homebound people in the community to “One way to engage children in looking writing notes letting individuals know at the cycle of life during Lent,” Gordon your family is praying for them to baking offers, “is through a camera lens by seekcookies for the neighbor next door. The ing out images that help us turn to God.” number of people who could use Easter The Florida Annual Conference invites cheer is almost limitless and the joy of people to post pictures to social media Easter is good news for all. that relate to daily devotions on their blog.

Burrows offered an interesting idea “This is an excellent way to use media churches might consider. as a positive tool,” Gordon says. Rethink “When I was Church, www.rethinkchurch. a kid,” he said, org, is including a Photo-a-Day “one of the coolest on its website. things after Easter Sharing the painful and was to find that sad story of Good Friday with one chocolate your children can be challengegg that had gone ing. “We talk about the day unnoticed. It was Jesus died, that he died on a like a little bit of cross and that it hurt,” said Easter had snuck Mark Burrows, director of into the following children’s ministries at First week.

United Methodist Church in “I wonder Fort Worth, Texas. “But we what we could do don’t focus on what people did as church leaders to Jesus. Instead, we focus on to have a few ‘Easwhat Jesus was doing for them ter eggs’ hidden — blessing the people, asking away. Maybe the God to forgive, even blessing choir doesn’t do another who is on the cross.” all their greatest Burrows reminds parents A toddler and her friend enjoy the 2016 “children can’t un-see images Easter Egg Hunt at Hillcrest United Meth- ‘hallelujah hits’ on odist Church in Nashville, Tenn. Activities one morning, but or un-hear words.” He contin- at home during Holy Week can prepare saves some for the ues, “I work very hard to be youngsters — as well as adults — to following week or honest without being graphic.” more fully experience the joy of Easter. two.

During these conversations, “Then, don’t ‘advertise’ it. Members it’s good to remind children that somewho show up the Sunday after Easter are times feeling sad is OK and that God is rewarded with a little something extra. If with us even in our sadness. you do this every year, people start to catch on. They think ‘Hey! This place doesn’t EASTER IS A SEASON simply trot out their finest one Sunday To continue the celebration througha year and then go back to the usual. We out the Easter season, Gilliam suggested “creating a family worship space — a table, better not miss, because one never knows what Easter eggs this church has tucked a corner of the family room, wherever the away!’” family can gather — if you don’t already have one. Decorate the space for Easter Cindy Solomon is a marketing consultant with symbols of new life — flowers, a budding branch, pictures of butterflies or baby and content writer living in Franklin, Tennessee. She will be looking for that animals (invite children to draw these or unnoticed chocolate egg after Easter. Parts cut them out from old magazines), etc. In of this story were adapted from articles the days following Easter Sunday, gather published earlier by Lynn Gillliam (www. there each day as a family to pray together and read a short passage of scripture about umcdiscipleship.org/resources/observingholy-week-in-the-home) and the Rev. Joe the events following the Resurrection.”

Iovino, content writer for UMC.org (www.

Another post-Easter Sunday activumc.org/what-we-believe/teaching-childrenity is to practice kindness and helping about-holy-week-telling-the-whole-story). others. This could range from delivering flowers leftover from a church service to

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New

arents and elementary school teachers often praise the wisdom of children. Each day, teachers see how easily children make friends, then take one another’s hand and head off for the playground. The depth of their children’s prayers often surprise moms and dads.

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The innocence, wonder and hope of children will be at the heart of The United Methodist Church’s advertising campaign in the United States this year. Through the words of children sharing their thoughts about open hearts, minds and doors, the denomination is extending an invitation to people searching to give their lives deeper meaning.

The advertisements feature elementary-aged youngsters answering questions such as, “What does it mean to have an open heart?” The children’s inspiring answers reveal what seems to be a special connection with God. They know things many adults seem to have forgotten and often reduce complex ideas to their simplest, most profound truth.

“This campaign encourages us to pause and see the world as young people see it,” said Dan Krause, general secretary of United Methodist Communications. “The openness and loving spirit that children offer to their communities can be the perfect invitation for people considering a visit to their local United Methodist Church.”

The “Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.” tagline has been part of the denomination’s advertising and outreach efforts for 16 years. The new ads ask viewers to ponder what life would be like if everyone loved with open hearts, minds and doors as children do.

When describing what it means to have an open heart, viewers will hear Lilly share, “You’re open to love anybody that

Garrett (right) and the Rev. Jacob Armstrong get acquainted during the taping for the advertising campaign The United Methodist Church will use this year. “Live Childlike” is the theme for the ads that will appear on digital and print platforms and on cable television.

UMCOM/KATHLEEN BARRY

AD CAMPAIGN FEATURES WORDS of CHILDREN

Watch the video introducing the new advertising campaign for The United Methodist Church and preview several of the spots.

needs it, because a lot of people in this world need to be loved.”

“When people have an open mind,” Alisyn teaches, “the world could be a much different place, if everyone just gave each other a chance.”

“An open door,” Trip adds, “is going one step further and saying, ‘Oh yeah! Come on in!’”

The ads conclude with a statement of hope and invitation: “We believe that together, through God’s love, we can make it happen.”

The first set of ads – running now through June – focus on the core values of The United Methodist Church and will continue with messages about Easter, love and kindness. The ads are running across the United States via print, digital platforms and cable television.

The Rev. Jacob Armstrong, pastor of Providence United Methodist Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, interviewed the children drawn from United Methodist congregations in the Nashville area.

“What we’ve been going for is something that’s not packaged, something that we didn’t create and feed to the kids,” Armstrong explained during the taping, “but just came out of their hearts.”

MARCH • APRIL 2017

United Methodist Interpreter

In the advertisements produced at the United Methodist Communications studios, the children show things about God adults might have forgotten. They impart wisdom about love, serving others, friendship and miracles. Also, in addition to speaking about how to live into the church’s aspirational promise of “Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors,” the youngsters teach about the meaning of Easter and Christmas.

“To see God’s love through the eyes of children is a wonderful experience,” said Jennifer Rodia, chief communications officer at United Methodist Communications. “You can see that God is real in children. Sometimes as adults, we lose sight of the fact that God never leaves our side.”

Adapted from articles by the Rev. Joe Iovino, web content manager, and Laura Buchanan, public relations specialist, at United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tennessee.

Be part of the campaign for Easter

Local churches can still be part of the campaign during Lent and the approaching Easter season.

Find more details about resources at www. umcom.org/rethinkchurch.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

New

UMCOR SUNDAY is MARCH 26 their own. While UMCOR is not a first-response organization, it stands ready to accompany communities in need over the long haul of their recovery, until they are well on their way to establishing a “new normal” after a crisis.

UMNS/MIKE DUBOSE

“UMCOR Sunday” replaces “One Great Hour of Sharing” on the denomination’s calendar of special Sundays with offerings. General Conference 2016 changed the name to reflect the offering’s support of UMCOR, which was founded more than 75 years ago.

“This action aligns our language with the image and reality of support for UMCOR,” said Thomas Kemper, general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries, following the name change. “UMCOR is one of the most well-known and effective ministries of our church, and I think our membership will welcome the name change for the annual day to celebrate and support this dynamic work.”

A part of Global Ministries, the denomination’s mission agency, UMCOR is dedicated to alleviating human suffering around the globe. Best known for its work in disaster response, UMCOR also supports programs and projects in health, sustainable agriculture, food security, relief supplies, disaster risk reduction and more.

UMCOR targets its efforts in places where natural disasters, war or conflict have done so much damage that communities are unable to recover on

In August 2016, Edna Rajan stacks cleaning buckets from the United Methodist Committee on Relief at a United Way warehouse in Lafayette, La.

In the United States, UMCOR operates in collaboration with relief teams organized by annual conferences. Internationally, it works through partner organizations and, at times, its own in-country offices, depending on need.

UMCOR currently has offices in Sudan, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti.

UMCOR’s International Development Unit facilitates long-term community development and empowerment in areas of great need. UMCOR uses integrated solutions to address root causes, working

United Methodist Interpreter

UMNS/MIKE DUBOSE

nited Methodists worldwide will celebrate “UMCOR Sunday” on March 26, the fourth Sunday of Lent. The special Sunday observance includes receiving an offering to cover administrative costs of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the denomination’s humanitarian and disaster relief agency.

EditaTante describes her experiences as a survivor of the 2013Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, Philippines.

alongside local communities to develop assets in water, sanitation and hygiene, sustainable agriculture and food security and nutrition.

The UMCOR Sunday offering and designated gifts are the agency’s major sources of revenue for administration. One hundred percent of other gifts go to the causes for which they stipulated. UMCOR receives no money from the apportionments paid to the general church by congregations.

These gifts help UMCOR provide many critical services, such as: »» Travel and lodging expenses when disaster response personnel visit disaster sites for assessments, training, support or follow-up. »» Material resources for volunteer programs at UMCOR Sager Brown and UMCOR West, depots

UMCOR Sunday

where supplies are stored before being shipped to disaster sites. »» Production of the UMCOR website, hotline and church resources. »» Travel to training programs or to share UMCOR’s work with annual conferences and congregations. »» UMCOR participation in ecumenical and international conferences and meetings of mutual support in disaster response, global health and development.

Any funds received on UMCOR Sunday above those needed for operating expenses are channeled to underfunded programs where they are most needed. They also allow UMCOR to respond to disasters immediately after an event and before other funds are raised.

Polly House

By action of General Conference 2016, UMCOR Sunday will be observed annually on the fourth Sunday of Lent. If this conflicts with other events, local churches are encouraged to choose another date that works for them. Resources such as bulletin inserts, posters and more are available at www.umcgiving.org.

MARCH • APRIL 2017

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BY JOEY BUTLER

SMALL AND LARGE STEPS MAKE CHURCH CARBON NEUTRAL “ALL CREATION IS THE LORD’S, AND WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAYS IN WHICH WE USE AND ABUSE IT.” THE BOOK OF DISCIPLINE 2016, ¶160

Small steps, big difference

switches automatically turn off the lights in unused meeting rooms. Several refrigerators and one freezer were replaced with Energy Star-rated models, reducing appliance energy consumption by 50 percent. Crawl spaces and some walls had insulation added.

“Achieving the small steps built motivation to move on to bigger goals,” Downing said.

Mary Beth Downing suggests several small steps churches can take toward creation care: »» Plant trees. »» Replace appliances, when necessary, with energy-efficient versions. »» Change to low-flow toilets to conserve water. »» Compost and recycle. »» Consider starting a community garden. »» Upgrade regular light bulbs to CFL or LED. Above all, encourage church members with a passion for environmentalism to take action.

“Find a group of like-minded people.

If you have four or five people who are excited, you’ll do something,” she said.

COURTESY MARY BETH DOWNING

Festival of God’s Creation – April 23

Christ’s disciples are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. The United Methodist Church designates one Sunday each year, usually the Sunday closest to Earth Day (April 22), as a Festival of God’s Creation and urges churches to incorporate creation care into their worship and study. This year’s observance is April 23. For resources to celebrate creation care in your church, visit www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship/church-civic-holidays/ festival-of-gods-creation.

An annual Earth Day fundraising luncheon helps support Mountain View United Methodist Church’s goals of staying carbon neutral.

There was also a big push to raise awareness and educate all church members on energy-saving techniques, such as turning off lights and appliances when not in use and closing doors. The combination of electricity use reductions resulted in a 36 percent drop in electricity consumption between 2008 and 2015.

The church just finished a month-long Sunday school series on the environment, focusing on how Wesley’s “Three Simple Rules” — do no harm, do good and stay in love with God — apply to creation care.

“God really gave us everything we need if we would just be smart enough to use it wisely. All the healing we need is right here,” Downing said.

COURTESY MARY BETH DOWNING

34

ne church that takes its creation-care ministry to heart is Mountain View United Methodist in Boulder, Colorado.

In 2009, Mountain View’s congregation began discussing the idea of installing solar panels on the church building.

The goal was to become environmentally responsible while exploring the financial benefits of saving money on energy.

Mountain View worships in a large building — 43,000 square feet — and was paying more than $10,000 annually for electricity as of 2008. By 2011, Mountain View’s net electricity costs were cut almost in half, thanks to solar and other improvements.

The most recent goal of the church’s Green Earth Team has been to become carbon neutral. Money for carbon offsets was raised in 2016 during the annual Earth Day observance. After a five-year series of carbon-use reductions, the church achieved carbon-neutral status in summer 2016 following its purchase of the offsets and reducing its carbon dioxide consumption by 110 tons.

“This is all driven from the Holy Spirit,” said Mary Beth Downing, chair of the Green Earth Team. “The people involved (believe) that God’s creation is in danger and must be protected. It’s not just about ourselves; it’s about the call to live better and do more, as Jesus would want us to.”

While the installation of solar panels and an energy management system that adjusted the building’s power loads contributed to the reduction, Mountain View also adopted simpler, less expensive steps to achieve its goal.

Changing lighting was a big help. The church replaced about 100 light bulbs with compact fluorescents or LEDs, 26 exit signs with LED signs and 24 incandescent spotlights with LEDs. Motion-sensing

Joey Butler is a multimedia producer/editor for United Methodist Communications.

MARCH • APRIL 2017

United Methodist Interpreter

Installing solar panels, among other smaller improvements, helped cut Mountain View United Methodist Church’s annual electric bills almost in half.

NEW BISHOP ELECTED FOR LIBERIA Bishop Samuel J. Quire Jr. is the newest member of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church.

UMNS/JULU SWEN

Delegates to the West Africa Central Conference meeting in Côte d’Ivoire elected the former administrative assistant to the bishop of Liberia on Dec. 17. Quire, 57, will lead the Liberia Conference.

“It is one thing to win an election and another thing to be a leader,” Quire said, after celebrations of his election. “I cannot be a leader alone. It is not a Samuel J. Quire victory;

it is a victory of the people called United Methodists.”

Church leaders offered prayers for peace and God’s direction before the election marked by dissension over a now overturned rule that divorced clergy were not eligible to serve as bishops. South Carolina Bishop Jonathan Holston represented the Council of Bishops at the meeting. “I ask that you ask the Holy Spirit to work in you,” Holston said to the delegates. “Regard the ballot that you carry as a holy ballot.”

He also cautioned that the new bishop would not just be a bishop of the Liberia Area or West Africa but a bishop of the worldwide United Methodist church.

Quire holds a master of divinity degree from West Africa Theological Seminary in Lagos, Nigeria, and a bachelor of theology degree from the

Gbarnga School of Theology in Liberia. He has pastored churches and was director of the Bishop Judith Craig Children’s Village.

He was a clergy delegate to the 2004 and 2016 General Conferences, the 2004 West Africa Central Conference and the 2005 All Africa Conference of Churches.

While bishops elected in the United States get life tenure, central conferences — church regions in Africa, Asia and Europe — set the tenure of their respective bishops.

In the West Africa Central Conference, bishops may serve a maximum of 12 years.

Adapted from a United Methodist News Service story

by Phileas Jusu, communicator for the Sierra Leone Conference, and Julu Swen, a communicator in Liberia.

Bishop Samuel J. Quire Jr. and his wife, Richlain K. Quire, are at his induction ceremony on Dec. 31, 2016.

Photo: Paul Jeffrey

WHAT’S THE UNITED METHODIST COMMITTEE ON RELIEF (UMCOR) BEEN UP TO LATELY? Find out in the Spring 2017 issue of New World Outlook.

The Ministries of UMCOR • UMCOR’s unique place among faith-based and secular relief agencies • Disaster Response, near, far, and before a disaster strikes • Long-term development strategies • UMCOR’s 5 country offices • Water, Livelihoods, Shelter, Agriculture, Health, and Education ministries • Volunteers—trained and ready

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35

MARCH • APRIL 2017

Serving the world from the heart of London:

METHODIST CENTRAL HALL

BY JOE IOVINO

uring their visit to London as part of the 2016 Wesley Pilgrimage in England, United Methodist pastors and other leaders visited Methodist Central Hall, an impressive structure in a very busy section of London. Westminster Abbey is directly across the street and Big Ben is just a few blocks down the road.

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Opened in 1912 to celebrate more than 100 years of Methodism in England after the death of John Wesley, the Wesleyan Methodist Church built Methodist Central Hall in Westminster as the home of a London congregation and the worldwide headquarters of their denomination. The Wesleyan Methodist Church is one of the predecessor denominations of today’s Methodist Church in Great Britain.

Choosing to build across the street from Westminster Abbey, the site of coronations and royal weddings, the Wesleyan Methodist Church made a statement about its place in the religious landscape of early 20th-century England. As one United Methodist scholar put it, Methodist Central Hall said, “We’re here, and we matter.”

In the United States, The United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., makes a similar statement to American policymakers about the importance of The United Methodist Church.

THE WESLEYAN WAY

The church chose to raise the needed money to construct Methodist Central Hall in a uniquely Wesleyan way.

More than 100 years earlier, John Wesley employed a clever fundraising strategy. When the early Methodists sought to pay off the debt incurred in the building of the New Room in Bristol, they asked every member of the society to donate a penny a week.

To facilitate the weekly collection, Wesley divided the members of the society into smaller groups called classes, and assigned a leader to each class. Class leaders agreed to meet weekly with each member of their class to collect a penny and to pay for those who could not afford it.

Soon, Wesley saw relationships between leaders and class members as a wonderful way to assist Methodists in remaining faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. From these early roots, the small group ministry known as the

MARCH • APRIL 2017

UMCOM/JOE IOVINO

FOURTH IN A SERIES

class meeting was born.

In the early 1900s, the Wesleyan Methodist Church similarly asked every member to contribute a guinea (£1.05) toward the building of Methodist Central Hall.

They were to give no more. The church sought to receive “one million guineas from one million members.”

When the fund closed, they had exceeded their goal, raising 1,024,501 guineas.

MORE THAN A CHURCH

Also in the Wesleyan tradition of the New Room and other Methodist meeting houses, Methodist Central Hall serves not only the church members, but reaches out in loving service to the community surrounding it and to the world.

Wesley noted that part of being an “altogether Christian” meant loving and serving people. In his General Rules found in The Book of Discipline 2016 and at www. umc.org/what-we-believe/general-rules-of-the-methodist-church, he called Methodists to do good, to do no harm and to attend upon all the ordinances of God. While Methodist Central Hall was constructed with many of the needs of the church in mind, it was also to be of “great service for conferences on religious, educational, scientific, philanthropic and social questions.”

Through the years, it has done just that.

WORKING FOR PEACE

For example, when Britain announced a declaration of war against Germany in World War II, the Rev. William E. Sangster was leading his first worship service as pastor at Methodist Central Hall. In the weeks that followed, Sangster organized a shelter in the basement of the building where he and other Londoners lived and slept for 1,688 days — more than four and a half years.

When the war ended and the newly founded United Nations was organizing, they selected Methodist Central

United Methodist Interpreter

FACEBOOK/CENTRAL METHODIST HALL

Famed Westminster Abbey sits across the street and is easily viewed from Methodist Central Hall.

Methodist Central Hall in London was lit in blue on Oct. 24, 2016, as part of the year-long commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The building hosted the organization’s first General Assembly in early 1946.

urging the nations to increase opportunities and improve the standard of life for all women across the globe.

A plaque mounted on the outside of Methodist Central Hall and the “Minute Book” of that first gathering displayed under glass in the lobby remind visitors of the connection between the Methodists and this historic event.

UMCOM/JOE IOVINO

SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY AND WORLD

Methodist Central Hall is both a church and a location for many other events as it sits on a busy street in the heart of London.

Hall, also known as Central Hall Westminster, as the site of the first meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

From Jan. 10 to Feb. 14, 1946, delegations from the original 51 member nations elected the first General Secretary of the United Nations and appointed the first members to the Security Council. The first resolution the group passed was to establish “a commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of the delegation from the United States, read an “Open Letter to the Women of the World”

While the first meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations is probably the highlight of Methodist Central Hall’s history of serving the causes of human rights and peace, it is far from the only such occasion.

In that same room, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. each spoke.

It has hosted several inquiries, including part of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry to determine responsibility for the shooting deaths of 14 civilian protesters by British soldiers in Northern Ireland in 1972.

In lighter moments, Methodist Central Hall displayed the FIFA World Cup trophy in early 1966 in preparation for England’s hosting of the international football (soccer in the United States) tournament that summer.

It was the site of the first public performance of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” by Andrew Lloyd Webber whose father, William Lloyd

United Methodist Interpreter

MARCH • APRIL 2017

Webber, was musical director at Methodist Central Hall.

In recent years, Methodist Central Hall has been the place for many to ring in the New Year as part of the “Rock Big Ben” New Year’s Eve concerts broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

In many ways, Methodist Central Hall stands as a model of the continued work of John Wesley’s General Rules written not so long ago.

“It is therefore expected,” Wesley wrote of those who desired to continue in a Methodist society, “that they should evidence their desire of salvation ... [by] doing no harm,... doing good” and “attending upon all the ordinances of God.” As a place of worship and peace, a place where the world gathers to wrestle with difficult questions and communities gather to celebrate, Methodist Central Hall celebrates and continues in the tradition of the ministry of John Wesley and the people called Methodist.

UMC.org writer the Rev. Joe Iovino and United Methodist Communications photographer Kathleen Barry were part of the July 2016 Wesley Pilgrimage in England. The 2017 tour will be July 10-20.

Learn more at http://umcdiscipleship. org/wesleypilgrimage. This article was originally published as part of a series at www.umc.org. Find others in the Interpreter series at www.interpretermagazine.org.

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NATIVE AMERICAN MINISTRIES SUNDAY 2017 IS APRIL 30.

OKLAHOMA CONFERENCE/HOLLY MCCRAY

38

t is one of The United Methodist Church’s six special Sundays designated by General Conference to recognize and support particular ministries annually with a special offering.

Native American Ministries Sunday focuses the attention of church members on the gifts and contributions of Native Americans to society and the denomination. The special offering supports Native American outreach within annual conferences and across the United States

Four tribes were represented during the Native American dance presentation during the 2014 Council of Bishops meeting in Oklahoma City.

Tribes are Euchee, Seminole, Creek and Shawnee.

and provides scholarships for Native American seminary students.

Of the funds, one-half remains within each annual conference to build and strengthen Native American ministries. The General Board of Global Ministries uses the remaining half to develop and

strengthen ministries in the annual conferences and in Native American rural and urban congregations, ministries and communities and to provide scholarships for Native Americans attending United Methodist schools of theology.

NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE

In the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church, North Carolina has the largest number of Native American ministries established. A majority of the remainder are part of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.

North Carolina has approximately 125,000 Native American residents. About 2,400 of those are United Methodist. The North Carolina Conference’s Native American Cooperative Ministry brings together 13 congregations in five counties in North and South Carolina.

Pamela Brayboy Baker is ministry coordinator for the Cooperative Ministry. Baker, herself a Lumbee, sees the benefits of the offering at work in her conference.

“Our mission focus areas are outreach, leadership development and Christian education,” she said. “Our churches do a great job of reaching out not only to Native Americans in the area, but to everyone else, too.”

The Rev. Prentis “Trey”

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COURTESY PHOTO

SPECIAL SUNDAY HONORS, BENEFITS NATIVE AMERICAN PEOPLE, CHURCHES

The Rev. Prentis “Trey” Harris III

Harris III, pastor of Sandy Plains United Methodist Church in Pembroke, North Carolina, benefitted from a Native American Ministries’ scholarship when he attended Duke Divinity School.

“While at Duke Divinity, I was honored to receive the Native American Seminary Award,” Harris said. “To this day, I view that award as an affirmation of the call upon my life. The United Methodist Church provided me an opportunity through the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, to pursue a Master of Divinity.”

He added, “When United Methodists support the Native American [Ministries] Sunday, it gives students like myself, the opportunity to further themselves with higher education. As an undergraduate, I would never have thought that I would be able to attend Duke Divinity School because of finances. But, with the help of the Native American scholarship that I was able to receive, that dream came true.”

Gifts on Native American Ministries Sunday equip seminary students like Harris who will honor and celebrate Native American culture in their ministries and empower congregations to find fresh, new ways to minister to their communities with Christ’s love.

Polly House

United Methodist Interpreter

Available resources

A wide variety of resources is available on United Methodist-related websites to help congregations have a successful Sunday honoring and supporting Native American ministries. Among them are: »» Leaders’ Kit, www.umcgiving.org/resource-articles/ native-american-ministries-sunday-pastor-and-leaders-kit »» Calls to worship and other resources, www.umcdiscipleship.org »» Sermon starters, www.umcgiving.org/pastors/preaching »» Resources for 21st-century ministry, www.umcdiscipleship. org/resources/21st-century-worship-resources-for-native-american-ministries-sunday »» Places to visit Native American churches, www.umcgiving.org/ ministry-articles/native-american-ministries-sunday »» Relationship building, www. umc.org/news-and-media/ gc2012-starting-along-the-pathof-repentance »» List of Native American United Methodist churches, http:// s3.amazonaws.com/Website_UMCGiving/resource-files/ Native_American_United_Methodist_Churches.pdf. »» Downloadable e-book, http:// s3.amazonaws.com/Website_ UMCGiving/resource-files/2015_ Native_American_Ministries_ Sunday_eBook.pdf »» Ministry articles, www. umcgiving.org/ministry-articles/native-american-ministries-sunday

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People, personalities, passions

I Am United Methodist

40

COURTESY JOE HENDERSON

J

oe Henderson is a talented writer.

He worked more than 40 years in the newspaper business as an award-winning sports writer, covering such big events as the Final Four, World Series, the Olympics and several Super Bowls.

“I was living the dream because I love sports,” Henderson said. “But God asked, ‘What are you doing for me? I gave you the gift.’”

Henderson is also a longtime member of Temple Terrace United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida. About 15 years ago, he got involved in the church’s drama ministry.

“I used to fool around in community theater,” Henderson said. “I knew enough to get myself in trouble. I had never directed, but our pastor asked me to. We did two performances, both full.”

But after that, the drama ministry folded.

“When the new regime came in, the new pastor didn’t see the benefit of drama,” Henderson said. “It fell into disrepair. But nine years later when (the Rev.) St. Clair Moore came, he was open.”

The church purchased and downloaded scripts from several websites, but Henderson said he believed he could do better.

In February 2016, Henderson had the idea for an audience participation play set

Joe Henderson

on Maundy Thursday.

“When I told Pastor Moore about it, he said, ‘Do it.’ So, I wrote it,” Henderson said. “I can’t say enough good things about him. He gets it. Of course, Pastor Moore likes to know what’s going on in his church, so I would give him copies of the scripts to read ahead of time. He told me after the first couple of times looking at the scripts that he doesn’t want to read them ahead. He wants to be an audience member. I take that as a compliment and a responsibility.”

After the Maundy Thursday drama, an audience member went up to one of the actors, hugged and thanked him, saying that was just what he needed.

“He actually hugged him,” Henderson said. “We just looked at each other and said, ‘Wow.’” It wasn’t long until the

MARCH • APRIL 2017

TEMPLE TERRACE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, TAMPA, FLORIDA

pastor asked Henderson what he was going to write for Christmas!

Henderson wrote “Faith and the Manger,” a current-day play about a variety of people and how they reacted to the manger.

Temple Terrace is a diverse church, and Henderson wanted the cast of “Faith and the Manger” to reflect that.

“Everyone interested in being involved came to a meeting,” he said. “I passed out the script and explained each character. The people just sort of chose what they wanted to do, and we wound up with a good diverse mix.”

Henderson makes

COURTESY JOE HENDERSON

Joe Henderson

“I am United Methodist” is a regular department of Interpreter featuring stories of individual laity and clergy eager to claim their United Methodist identity. To suggest a person to feature, send an email to interpreter@umcom.org.

allowances and otherwise works with his actors.

“They are not professional actors. They have other jobs, and they can’t always be there for scheduled rehearsals. But we all do the best we can,” he said.

But fine acting isn’t the goal. “I tell the cast we aren’t performing,” he continued, “we are planting seeds.”

Henderson gives a big shout-out to Patina Ripkey, the church’s worship pastor.

“The drama really took off when she got involved,” he said. “The first few were just plays, no music. Patina had been there about a year, and she asked, ‘Why not include some music in the play?’ From her lips to my ears! She has a phenomenal singing voice and a magnetic personality. People want to be involved with her.

Her choir members want to be involved. I think there would be a mutiny if we did one without music.”

Polly House is a freelance writer and editor living in Nashville, Tennessee. She also serves as editorial assistant for Interpreter Annie Bennett portrayed Faith in the and Interpreter OnLine.

Christmas production of “Faith and the Manger,” a play written by Joe Henderson.

SEE JOE HENDERSON’S WORK ...

“Faith and the Manger” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLEdJY06cpQ) and several other plays are available on YouTube. For information about how your church might begin a drama ministry or for information about scripts, contact Joe Henderson at joehtampa@gmail.com.

United Methodist Interpreter

Getting wired for God

Technology Apps are appropriate for churches create new and fresh avenues for people to connect to the church.” At the same time he is working to encourage regular financial support for the church “in a new world for giving. Younger generations don’t have checkbooks.”

Not opening worship and other ministries to the world of the smartphone app user limits the ability of millennials and others in the younger generations to engage with the service and honor God The Rev. Jerome Brimmage with their finances.

Having also used an app as a visitor at another church, Brimmage saw the convergence of two driving ideas for an app to provide new ways for younger people in Lufkin to connect with the people of First Church.

Brimmage and his team began researching church app creators and eventually settled with Sub Splash.

In relatively quick order, they had an app ready for release that incorporated an online bulletin, registration, giving, attendance taking, announcements, sermon note taking and a live stream of

the worship service.

The staff launched the app digitally announcing it in their weekly email newsletter. They also used inserts in the paper bulletins that said, “Try our new app,” and gave instructions on how to find it on iPhones and Androids.

While Lufkin First Church won’t be throwing away the offering plates and the pew pads anytime soon, Brimmage reports there “haven’t really been any negative comments,” which is a feat in itself for most churches. It is not only the younger members and guests using the new tool.

Older congregants are also walking in the door comfortable with smartphones.

“For the most part people are glad that it’s on there,” Brimmage says. “They find it easy that they don’t have to fill out a registration pad or card.”

And the rise in usage of the app-based bulletin is actually saving the church money as it reduces the number of printed copies the staff creates each week.

The people of Lufkin First

LUFKIN FUMC/VICKI SHIMER

United Methodist Interpreter

Church are following in a long line of Methodist and United Methodist technological innovators. Rather than fighting technology, the Methodist movement has often embraced it with John Wesley being among the first to take full advantage of the printing press and moveable type. United Methodists today follow that example as we use the technology of smartphone apps to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

The Rev. Jeremy Steele is Next Generation minister at Christ United Methodist Church, Mobile, Alabama. He is also an author, blogger at jeremywords. com and a frequent contributor to MyCom, an e-newsletter published by United Methodist Communications.

Umeko Ivy uses the smartphone app developed for First United Methodist Church in Lufkin, Texas.

LUFKIN FUMC/VICKI SHIMER

T

he anecdotal evidence is everywhere. People are spending more and more time using apps on their smartphones each year. Research shows a 600 percent increase in smartphone usage since 2010.

Churches increasingly are following the trend of developing apps to serve both members and other people interested in the congregation.

For the Rev. Jerome Brimmage, pastor at First United Methodist Church in Lufkin, Texas, the value of a church app became clear when he visited a church during a family vacation. As he walked in, he received the message that the church had an app that would allow him to see the announcements, follow along with the scripture reading and take notes on the sermon.

Brimmage pulled out his phone, downloaded the app in a couple seconds and was ready to follow along when the service began. When it came time to register his attendance, he returned to the app to fill out the online form and clicked “submit.” A similar thing happened when it came time for the offering – he contributed online. When the service ended, the app emailed his notes to him as a pdf.

What the app allowed him to do during that hour of worship provided ideas for fulfilling a deep passion for Brimmage, “We are trying to

MARCH • APRIL 2017

41

Beliefs, practices, identity

To Be United Methodist I see that Sunday, April 23, is designated as the Festival of God’s Creation on the official United Methodist calendar. What is this?

What is the purpose? What should our church do?

The United Methodist Church designates one Sunday each year, preferably the Sunday closest to Earth Day (April 22), as a Festival of God’s Creation, celebrating God’s gracious work in creating the earth and all living things. Many congregations recognize the day in worship; others have special events or projects to observe it.

Discipleship Ministries has liturgy and other worship resources for United Methodists to use in celebrating the Festival. The resources, found at www. umcdiscipleship.org/worship/churchcivic-holidays/festival-of-gods-creation, are also appropriate for services on Earth Day. Genesis says it was God who created

the very first Earth Day: “The second day God said, ‘Let there be space to divide the waters into two parts.’ And it was so.

God called the space Sky. ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place and let dry land appear.’ ... God called the dry land Earth and the waters that were gathered together, Seas. God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:9-10, New Revised Standard Version On April 22, 1970, the United States began celebrating Earth Day annually, creating a movement that now motivates people around the world to use the day to consider the planet, demonstrate their love for it and enact ways to protect it.

Organizers anticipate more than one billion people around the globe will take part

in events this year engaging in environmental issues.

The General Board of Church and Society works with ecumenical partners through Creation Justice Ministries to rally Christians on behalf of protecting God’s creation.

The United Methodist Church is among 37 national faith bodies, including Protestant denominations and Orthodox communions, as well as regional faith groups, and congregants working with Creation Justice Ministries to protect and restore God’s Creation. Resources to mark Creation Justice’s Earth Sunday (the same day as Festival of God’s Creation) can be found at www.creationjustice.org/earth-day-sunday.html.

Resources for 2017 will be posted soon.

Adapted from an article by Jeneane Jones posted at www.umc-gbcs.org on April 14, 2016.

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