Facebook posts some of the most inspiring videos. Today I saw one of a 106 year-old woman who met President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at the White House. She danced with joy as she fluttered over to embrace POTUS and Michelle--part of her and, I assume, the White House's celebration of Black History month. Imagine what she has seen over the years. She was 8 years old when the U.S. entered World War I. She lived before radio and television and even sound movies. She was born before the Titanic set sail or Fenway Park opened its gates.

And she is filled with joy and she exudes it today. What a gift!

See the ABC News video at http://abcn.ws/1mRTx9u or https://www.facebook.com/abcnews/videos/10154138970368812/

Wesleyan Church Planting Resources

 (Pictured here is Christopher Coon, writer of Failing Boldly, one of 4 new books in production for Path1)

I am so excited about publications in process through Path1's "Wesleyan Church Planting Resources." We have four books in production with more on the way after that. Here is a listing of what's coming:

1. Flipping Church, edited by Michael Baughman, founding pastor and curator at Union--a Coffee House/Church in Dallas, Texas. Mike's book includes contributions from a number of church planters from around the county, including a foreword by Kenda Creasy Dean and Mark DeVries (Church Cartographers) and chapters by Michael Baughman, Trey Hall, Amanda Garber, Matt Miofsky, Owen Ross, David Rangel, Olu Brown, Elaine Heath, Doug Cunningham, Derek Jacobs, and Jerry Herships. These writers will show us how new church starts are turning conventional wisdom about the church upside down.  
2. A Missionary Mindset: What Church Leaders Need to Know to Reach Their Community--Lessons from E. Stanley Jones. With so many non religious and nominally religious people living in our communities, being in ministry feels a lot like being a missionary in a foreign land. Why not draw wisdom from the best of missionary practice to learn how to reach a non-Christian context? We draw upon E. Stanley Jones who worked among the people of India for 60 years as well as other missionary experiences.   
3. Planting and Multiplying African American Churches, edited by Candace Lewis and William Chaney. Learn wisdom and best practices from exciting church planters working among African Americans. 
4. Failing Boldly, by Christopher Coon, a co-founding pastor of Urban Village in Chicago. He tells the story of how failure can be the stepping stone to insightful progress in reaching new people with the gospel. 

These books will be valuable resources to fuel the new church movement in the United States. I'll be sharing more details and publication dates in future blogs.

(Not so) Snowed In

It's been almost three years since I moved to Nashville, Tennesee. One thing I've learned is that iced road surfaces are more dangerous than snow. Today we had both and many offices, including mine, were closed for the day. Not much snow fell, but the moisture coming from the southwest hit cold air from the north and put down a nice layer of ice on the roads. Better safe and at home than sorry on the road. So today I am working on several writing projects and plans for the year. I'm especially excited to be in touch with two young pastors who are doing great ministry and who are writing about it. I'll let you know more once we have more time to discuss things.

For now, I wish for you a safe and dry day!

Humility and Braggadocio

Stephen Cherry, dean of King’s College in Cambridge, England, and an Anglican priest, is the author of several books, including Barefoot Disciple, which unpacks what it means to embrace humility today. Cherry talks about humility as the behaviors, attitudes, values, and practices we incorporate into our being that lead us to live more like Jesus. Humble followers of Jesus make God real to others.^[i]

 

Of course the irony of “humility” is that once you claim to have it, you don’t have it. It is a most difficult subject to write or talk about. Cherry contends, “We cannot make ourselves humble . . . we should aspire to humility.”^[ii] It seldom comes to those who seek it. Rather, it flows from one’s character.

Church leaders who have a missionary mindset and want to reach their communities for Christ give honor to the gospel when they aspire to humility. We live in the age of “the selfie,” when so much attention is directed to ourselves. Moreover, our culture broadcasts the braggadocio behavior of celebrities and politicians as if that were something to aspire to. 

Why not aspire to humility?

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[i] Stephen Cherry, Barefoot Disciple: Walking the Way of Passionate Humility (London: Continuum, 2011), p. 39.

^[ii]Ibid p. 42.

I remember January 1968

I remember participating in a peace walk in Newark, New Jersey, in January (or was it February?) of 1968. I was a teenager at the time. My home church, the Chatham United Methodist Church (Chatham, New Jersey), had invited people to participate. I went with several others who gathered in the church parking lot and we drove together. The summer before Newark--like most major cities in the United States--erupted in riots that resulted in buildings burned down and stores and homes destroyed. There had been pent-up frustration at the lack of progress in civil rights. Pent up frustration for a lot of reasons. This march in Newark would be in solidarity with the people of Newark. It would bring people together, black and white, to walk through the neighborhoods most affected and give witness to a new day, to the hope of rebuilding and to the ongoing effort to bring about human and civil rights for all.

As we arrived and began to gather together to begin the march, a rumor circulated that Martin Luther King, Jr. would come and join us. He did not come, but I remember how excited we were at the prospect. It energized just to think that he might be there.

The march went well. It was peaceful and there were many people from all over the state who joined together. I remember seeing my speech teacher among fellow marchers. She went to a different church but we saw each other and even walked together for a while. I gained newfound appreciation for Mrs. Tousley that day that lasted the rest of my high school years. 

Only a few shorts weeks later, Martin Luther King went to another city to participate in another march in solidarity with workers. That would be his last. 

I'll never forget that day in Newark and the the feeling that I might get a chance to see him, even walk with him. I am so glad there is a day set aside to remember.

Remember The Dream

I was twelve years old and watched King give the speech live on television as so many other Americans did that late August day of 1963. Having grown up in a mostly homogenous town that speech influenced me more than any other speech of my lifetime. It is not only worth listening to again, but worth living up to and sharing with others: Listen and watch again.

E. Stanley Jones and Martin Luther King, Jr., Part 2

Anne Mathews-Younes, the grand-daughter of E. Stanley Jones related to me the story of when her mother, Eunice Jones Mathews (the daughter of E. Stanley) visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta, Georgia. A copy of Jones' book, Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friends (Abingdon, 1948) was in the MLK,Jr. Library. In King's personal copy of the book are these lines handwritten in the margin:  "This is it! This is the way to achieve freedom for the Negro in America." 

There is no question that Martin Luther King, Jr. was influenced by the writings of E. Stanley Jones and his unabashed pursuit of peace through non-violent means. During this weekend, let us remember the values that King and Gandhi stood for in their leadership. There is an invitation here for all of us to embrace diversity, love of our neighbor regardless of race, class, sexual orientation or religion and an invitation to be in conversation with our neighbors about the issues of the day.

E. Stanley Jones and Martin Luther King, Jr., Part 1

Photo of E. Stanley Jones, reprinted with permission of the Jones' Family

Published in 1944, E. Stanley Jones' The Christ of the American Road laid out what the United States needed to do in order to live out the promise of the Reign of God. Among other subjects, it addressed head-on the sin of racism in the U.S. Drawing upon his friendship with and knowledge of Mahatma Gandhi, Jones outlined a way in which Christians—both black and white—could put an end to the insidious racism in the country. He advocated for educating the populace that the words of the Declaration of Independence—“liberty and justice for all”—mean for all. He called for a nationwide curriculum in public schools on race appreciation. He called on Christian churches to welcome persons of other races into membership. He called for a nationwide campaign to do away with discriminatory laws. If all of these actions failed to bring an end to racism, Jones wrote:

Then [African Americans], probably joined by whites, may have to resort to nonviolent non-cooperation by picking out certain injustices and then, through volunteers trained in nonviolent methods, refusing to obey these specific injustices and taking the consequences of that civil disobedience. This would be an appeal to the conscience of the country. [i]

I was stunned when I first read those words. He wrote this in 1944! He foretold the coming Civil Rights movement in America and the non-violent methodology that Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced.

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[i] E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the American Road, p. 180.

Jesus as a Migrant, Part 2

When news of Herod’s death came to Joseph in Egypt, it was time to move on. Logically, they would return to Judah, to where they had been in Bethlehem.  But news that Archelaus, Herod’s son, would rule that part of Herod’s kingdom, led them to migrate further away and to seek a different opportunity in Galilee.  Instead of going to Judah, then, they find their way to Nazareth. Safety.  Opportunity.  Sustainability.  In the case of the Holy Family these are not choices.  SOS lived itself out as a result of being persecuted, displaced and exiled.  The search for safety, opportunity and sustainability are the logical consequences of their situation.   

It is not so different today.  People who migrate are often forced to do so for their own physical safety and the safety of their families.  There are many people who never intend to migrate.  Yet, powers beyond their control force these families and individuals into migration.  Some are tricked.  Some are captured.  Some are sold into slavery. 

There are others whose life situations are such that migration offers the only apparent hope of opportunity.  True security is the goal of sustainability.  For Joseph, Mary and Jesus, the migration from ‘S’ to ‘O’ to ‘S’ ended in the town of Nazareth where Joseph was able to find safety, opportunity and sustainability for his family as a carpenter. 

We need a call to action for churches that would minister to today’s holy families for they are in our midst and they are in our neighborhoods. We need to remember that theirs is an S O S distress signal.  Every day we see migrants who are dying, innocents being slaughtered.  They cannot wait. May God grant our churches the wisdom, the courage and the vision to offer ministries compassion, love and community to migrants.

Jesus was a migrant, Part 1

In its first act after the birth of Jesus, the holy family became migrants. When Joseph, Mary and Jesus left Bethlehem in the middle of the night, they were responding to a message received in a dream from an angel to Joseph.  It was an S.O.S. The message was clear: leave Bethlehem now and escape to Egypt. 

The Matthean story of migration follows a pattern that has been repeated by people throughout history.  There is danger.  People flee to another land.  They seek safety, new opportunity and a sustainable future for their families. The international code for help, created over a century ago, helps frame the urgency of the issue.  Known by the Morse Code signal of 3 short beeps followed by 3 long beeps and then again 3 short beeps, we recognize the universal cry for help in SOS.  SOS in the context of migration today could be construed as a search for SAFETY, OPPORTUNITY, and SUSTAINABILITY. 

The first step in the holy family’s flight to Egypt is an attempt to be safe. The need can be so acute that there is not other plan than to find safety and find it fast.  

In this season of Epiphany, it is good to remember this story of the holy family's flight to safety. Check in tomorrow as we continue to reflect on Jesus as a migrant.

A space to pray

I am blessed to be able to pray in a splendid space. Just one floor down from my office is the Upper Room Chapel. Just entering that space evokes for me what E. Stanley Jones referred to as the prayer mood. A sense of the sacred emanates from the room. I can sit in the first pew and gaze upon a wood carving of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The sights and silence provide a wonderful sense of solitude where I can refuel for ministry.

This blog is not in any way associated with the organization and publishing entity that is called THE UPPER ROOM. I know many people who work there and who work for the international editions. This blog, however, while having a view of that wonderful space, is my responsibility alone.