Bishop Schnase: What’s Your Letter Say?

From Bishop Schnase's Five Practices Newletter:

A colleague from another conference told me about a District Superintendent who has focused his teaching and leading on the Five Practices as he has conducted charge conferences, district training events, and pastoral evaluations. To sharpen the self-reflection of congregational leaders, more »

Wilder View - May 2009

As you may know, John Wesley is credited with starting the Methodist faith tradition. You might not know that early in his ministry he visited the colony of Georgia. At the time he considered the trip to be a horrible disaster. Upon his return to England, he questioned everything… whether he could be a missionary, a pastor, and even questioned his faith in God. During a small group study, he had an amazing experience. Methodists refer to this incident as his Aldersgate experience, and we celebrate it each year on May 24. ”In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. “ May 24, 1738.

It is hard to imagine that John Wesley, the circuit rider preacher who launched the mighty faith
movement that transformed England and North America could have ever been frightened or shaken in his faith. After all he was a spiritual giant! How could it be that he was ever discouraged, or questioned his faith?! It is only simple people like me that sometimes find themselves shaken right?

Something happened in that small group meeting that night. He found God’s Spirit in study. He experienced his own personal Pentecost. From that experience Wesley found the drive and power to proclaim that “the World is my Parish.” He created a vision for the church that led to dealing with alcoholism and illiteracy. He started a community credit union to help neighbors launch new businesses, fought against slavery, and turned the industrial England business upside down.

Pentecost is coming! We can experience God’s power in many ways. It can be a quiet thought that slips through our head, a kick in the seat of our pants to get us motivated, a stirring sermon (I hope), or a sensation in our heart that is ‘strangely warm’. Pentecost is when we celebrate the life and power of God’s Spirit moving in our church.

In the upcoming weeks, we will host several small group meetings we will meet on four Mondays, beginning on April 27th here at Lafayette Park. On May 4th we will meet at Centenary. On May 11th and May 18th we will meet at Lafayette Park. Each week we will begin with a fellowship time from 6 – 6:30, followed by a short devotional time. We will then break into three small groups; one will study basic Bible information, another will study how to pray, and the third group will work on planning our Pentecost worship and picnic celebration. Who knows, maybe in this small group you too will encounter the power of the Holy Spirit and find that your heart is also ‘strangely warmed.”


Happy Pentecost,
Pastor Kathleen

Time with Sharon: Dancing with a Wild Thing!

May 2009

“When the Day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”

Soon we will be preparing for Pentecost in the church. We call it the church’s birthday, and so it is. It is the day when Jesus’ worried followers were transformed into a bold community of faith, forged by the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and commissioned to take the gospel of Jesus Christ out into the world. This year, Pentecost falls on May 31st.

The Pentecost experience described in the New Testament was quite a happening! The promised Holy Spirit came swooping down to rest upon the Christian community like dancing flames of fire. Wind and fire! My imagination conjures up a vibrant, even somewhat dangerous, picture. I see a whipping wind blowing hats off and chairs over, coupled with the strangely exuberant, even ecstatic, expressions on faces of Jesus’ followers as their souls were filled by God’s mighty Spirit. Everybody’s eyes must have been pop’n!

By this account, this Holy Spirit-thing sounds like a wild thing.

Untamable for sure, for scripture tells us that the Spirit goes where the Spirit will (my loose translation of John 3.8). To let loose God’s Spirit then, is to unleash an authority that is powerful beyond human capabilities and disarmingly unpredictable. I suspect we ought to be taking it more seriously than we do.

To let loose the Spirit might result in our doing something we never dreamt of before, like going to Mexico to build a house out of cement blocks. It may prod us to take our Vacation Bible School out to the park, or transport kids in, to offer a worship service at a shelter, or serve a meal at a soup kitchen. God’s Spirit tumbling around inside of us may make us say “yes” when we were all ready to say “no”, give more deeply and joyfully, and begin loving that person that usually makes our teeth grind.

Yep, God’s Spirit is a wild thing.

When unleashed, the Spirit will stretch us, fill us up to the brim to be poured out and then filled again, and use us to move big rocks…even mountains. Then after all that work, when is seems it ought to be time for a nap, we may strangely feel like… dancing!

Dancing with God’s Spirit. Whoah…won’t that be wild. I’m in…are you?

Come and catch the Spirit unleashed. And wear your dancing shoes.
Pastor Sharon