A Glimpse of the Kingdom

Great story today from Suzy Keenan and United Methodist News Service, about a remarkable worship service last weekend in Philadelphia. You can read the full story here.

The story is about how two churches that split over segregation more than 220 years ago came together in worship for the first time since then. And the split changed the face of America.

As Keenan writes, "In the 1780’s, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones became the first African-American lay preachers at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, licensed by Francis Asbury, Methodism’s first bishop in America. The growing number of African members brought in by Allen and Jones led to the building of a balcony, completed in 1792. With the balcony came segregated seating. One Sunday when Jones was forcibly moved by a church trustee from where he was praying, Allen and Jones led a walk out of the African-American members. Allen began Mother Bethel Church, whose struggles with the overseeing church, St. George’s, continued with a “long, distressing and expensive lawsuit” over rights to self-determination. In 1816, the Supreme Court decided in favor of Mother Bethel, and Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal denomination."

You know, in the society and culture that we live in--often divided by race, politics, etc.,--it just does my heart good to get a glimpse of the Kingdom every now and then.

Where did that chocolate bar come from?

Cary McMullen, the religion writer for my local newspaper, the Lakeland Ledger, has a great blog entry about chocolate. Specifically, McMullen reports on some news from the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society that most of the chocolate we're going to eat for Halloween (and all year round, for that matter), comes from child labor.

Makes me think twice about how that chocolate got into my hands, and into my mouth.

You can read McMullen's blog here... which is always good and one of my must-reads every day.

Off to a good start

The opening worship for UMAC this year was at the Upper Room Chapel, in the General Board of Discipleship Building in Nashville. The music was amazing! The preaching, very nice. Bishop Sally Dyck (Minnesota) brought the keynote at lunch, noting that the author of the Gospel of Mark must be the Patron Saint of Journalists, since he invented a new form of communication: the gospel. She also talked about how "immediate" everything was/is for Mark...he obviously must have been on a deadline.

We're on a break right now, and a group of us from the Southeastern Jurisdiction will be getting together for dinner tonight. It's also the highlight of UMAC...the chance to network and fellowship with others doing the same ministry as I am.

Blogging from UMAC

At the moment, I'm sitting in the Tampa Airport (which is freezing inside right now--someone needs to turn down the AC!), waiting for my flight to Nashville for the annual United Methodist Association of Communicators meeting. I'll be blogging from the meeting through Friday, so that should be fun. Stay tuned.

This just makes me ill

I saw an AP story in my local newspaper this morning that just churned my stomach. The story reveals how some Christian clergy in Africa are claiming that children--yes, children--are witches. An "increasing number of children in Africa (are) accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of 'witch children' reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files."

If ever there was a reason for The United Methodist Church to expand its outreach in Africa (like it needed another!), this is it. As Paul Harvey used to say, "We are not one world. Yet."

The story is here.

Something in the air

Don't get me wrong; I love Southwest Airlines. One reason I love them is because they don't charge to stow a bag in the belly of the plane. Am I the only one who recalls the original reason airlines started charging cold, hard cash for bags? As I remember, the airlines said they needed to charge because the price of oil (jet fuel) had gone through the roof and that these baggage fees were temporarily needed to offset the steep increase. Well...guess what? The price of oil is now about one-quarter where it was back then ($75 per barrell today), but the baggage fees remain.

And they're a cash cow for the airlines.

I read this article that notes Southwest Airlines is looking for other revenue streams instead of the checked-bag feed trough. The article notes, "(Southwest) also expects to take in about $40 million a year for heavy bags or bags beyond the first two. Other carriers have claimed ten times that much in baggage revenues."

Ten times???

Remember when flying used to be fun?

I've got a secret

Just had the latest issue of "Divinity" magazine plopped on my desk, published by Duke University. Cover story is about www.postsecret.com, and how (if?) it relates to the church. People send in postcards to the Web site, writing down their deepest secrets. The Web master, Frank Warren, sifts through the 1,000 or so he gets every week and posts the 20 most relevant/poignant/funny/sad entries. Warren was at Duke for a lecture last March, according to the magazine, and drew a large crowd. My favorite quote from the article came from Paul Griffiths, who teaches Catholic theology at Duke. He said that PostSecret and the Catholic sacrament of penance are different. "The urge behind [sending in a postcard] is the same as what developed the Catholic tradition, but with one fundamental difference," he said. "For Catholics, it's not about making public announcements, but firmly intending an amendment to one's life. That second aspect is lacking in PostSecret."

So I made the local newspaper today in an article about the closing of a church where I've been volunteer pastor for the past two+ years. You can see the article here. It's never fun to close a church, and this was the first time I've ever had to do this. It's not like we couldn't see this coming; the church had been in financial trouble for years before I arrived (along with three other volunteer pastors). I'm curious to know what others may think about lessons to be learned from closing a church.