Presby-Musings

Not too long ago, one of my parishoners forwarded me an email that had been sent to them.  The author of the email was a denominational representative from the United Methodist Church named Sandy Jackson.  I call this her " Jerry Maguire Memo."  If you don't know what that is... well, just watch the movie Jerry Maguire and you'll figure it out.  At any rate, I am not sure what the "higher ups" in the UMC thought of this brilliant, biting and stream of consciousness outpouring from one of their own. I sort of wish someone from the Presbyterian Church (USA) bureaucracy would dump something similar.  It might give me some hope.  As it stands, this memo says a lot of awesome stuff, calling out the Church on it's own hypocrisy and lack of real mission.  Here it is...  It is time.  Maybe it is beyond time. We have talked long enough.  We have taught, preached, written articles, published books, created websites and blogs, and spe...

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is underway in Minneapolis. Every two years Presbyterians of the PC(USA) stripe gather for several days of...  I really am not sure how to describe what happens at our GA gatherings.  I do know that each time we have one we seem to grow a little more divided and a little more irrelevant as a denomination.  But that's just my opinion. But the people who are there, working, meeting, worshiping and trying to "reason together" as Christian brothers and sisters seem to be enjoying it--or at least are energized by it. On the first day of GA219, Cynthia Bolbach was elected Moderator for the next 2 years.  She takes over the stole of Moderator from Bruce Reyes-Chow , who was one of the youngest Moderators in recent history (the first from my generation since I became a Presbyterian), and without a doubt the most technologically savvy.  Chow did a great deal to revolutionize the role of the Moderator an...

One of the worst things that you can experience as a kid is being picked last for teams on the playground. There’s not much that sucks worse than that, to be honest. I would like to say that I don’t know what that feels like. I would like to say that I was never picked last, because then I could sort of maintain this image that I have of myself---an image of a guy who was always so athletic, so popular, so good looking that he never watched all the other kids on the playground get picked for a team while he stood there in shame and self-pity staring at his shoes. A few years ago, when I was still doing youth ministry, I would play football or basketball with my students during our youth group gatherings. Prior to the games, I would name two captains and then they would divvy up the players among them. It wasn’t the best way to divide teams because the process itself usually ended up categorizing people based on friendships and athletic ability. Then I started to notice that I was ge...

I was driving down the one decent four lane highway that cuts a swath through my little town, connecting it with some of the other little towns that make up North Lake County, FL, and eventually leading to Orlando and civilization. That's not exactly need-to-know information, but perhaps it gives you an idea of where I live. Oh, and by civilization, I mean anywhere where the Starbucks is not inside a Target. Check that. I consider myself blessed to even have a Starbucks in my little town. Well, technically it's in one of the little towns that the four lane highway connects with mine, but whose splitting hairs? At any rate, there was a highway and I was on it. So as I am driving, I see this bald guy wearing a Superman costume on the side of the road. And the bald guy in the Superman costume is holding a "T-Mobile" sign with an arrow pointing to the strip mall behind where he's standing. I deduced two things: 1) The T-Mobile store was undoubtedly hard up for cu...

I have to preach a sermon in less than 24 hours, and I've been sweating over it all week. Quite literally. I sweat a lot when I work out. And when I mean a lot, I mean more than most people. The other day I went to a spin class and really worked up a sweat. I looked around at the people in my class, most of whom were women. They were sweating, some of them anway, but not like me. My wife was next to me and she just sort of glistens. I was literally pouring sweat. It flowed out of me like I was being squeezed like an orange. Beneath my cycle there was a huge puddle. I watched as drops would descend like rain to the floor, literally splashing as they landed. It was flat out nasty. No one else had a puddle under their cycle, not even the other dude that was in the class. He had a couple of drops to wipe up when all was said and done. I needed a squeegee and a mop to clean mine. I wondered where all that water was coming from, and why I seemed to be shedding more than mos...

Today is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena. I wouldn't have known this, except I heard it on a podcast that I subscribe to that tells me about these kinds of things. It also plays beautiful music and there are people reading Scripture with beautiful accents from all over the United Kingdom. The podcast is called Pray-As-You-Go , and you should definitely check it out. When I arrived back at my office, I dutifully looked up St. Catherine of Siena, and I found this prayer, which I will relate in part: O blessed Catherine, turn thy benign countenance towards me, who confident of thy powerful patronage call upon thee with all the ardor of affection and I beg thee to obtain by thy prayers the favors I so ardently desire (mention your request). Thou wast a victim of charity, who in order to benefit thy neighbor obtained from God the most stupendous miracles and became the joy and the hope of all; thou canst not help but hear the prayers of those who fly to thy heart - that heart whi...

I am attending the National Pastors Sabbath, which is sponsored by the Presbyterian Church (USA), the mainline Protestant denomination that I happen to call "home." Our main speaker this week was supposed to be renowned scholar, teacher and preacher Walter Brueggeman, but he was unable to attend due to a family issue. One of the other speakers this week, Frances Taylor Gench (author, minister and professor at Union Theological Seminary) gamely stepped up to the plate to fill all of Dr. Brueggeman's speaking and workshop spots. I am glad she did. Now don't get me wrong. I would listen to Brueggeman any day of the week, and consider it an honor. But on this particular weekend, I needed to hear what Gench had to say. Gench is the author of the new book "Faithful Disagreement: Wrestling with Scripture in the Midst of Church Conflict." She was also a member of the Peace Unity & Purity Taskforce for the PC(USA). Since I had just finished reading N.T. Wri...

This past week marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The night before Reverend King was killed, he delivered his final sermon, which was strangely prophetic. "Like anybody I would like to live a long life," Dr. King preached. "Longevity has its place. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he has allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I have looked over, and I have seen the Promised Land." I was an infant, not even five months old, when Dr. King was struck down by assassin's bullet outside of his Memphis hotel room. In my lifetime we have gone from that moment of national tragedy and shame, to one of celebration (despite party affiliation) and pride with the election of our country's first black president, Barack Obama. Someone said that Obama's election was the "down payment" on Dr. King's dream. Dr. King once said, "Darkness cannot drive ou...

I graduated from Florida State University in 2000. It was a momentous year. First, the world didn't come to an end despite the predictions of countless doomsdayers including Pat Robertson and his ilk on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Y2K ended up being nothing but a few t-shirts and a lot of wasted news time. Second, after my 14-year college plan, I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and History. Yes, I was a double major. That's how I roll. Because it took me 14 years to graduate from college I was rather old by the time I did it. I was also married with a kid when I hit the college campus at FSU, which limited my ability to rush a fraternity and stay out all night raiding panties, or whatever it is those kids today do with their free time. I did get to spend a lot of time with students, however. And, since I was the student pastor at one of the local Presby churches in Tallahassee, and a field representative for a para-church college minis...

I was driving down Hwy 441 the other day. Hwy 441 is the main drag that connects Eustis, Florida--where yours truly lives--with Mt. Dora, Tavares, Leesburg and a dozen or so other little towns in between. All of these sleepy little burgs are about 40 minutes from the hustle and bustle of Orlando. So, I am driving down the road and I look over and see a sign that reads thusly: "Northland: A Church Distributed Meets Here on Sundays" There was more, but I was going 50 mph (the speed limit on Hwy 441 in that particular spot) and couldn't catch the whole thing. But what I caught was enough. Northland Church is a multi-site mega-church that has its home base in Longwood, Florida a much closer suburb of Orlando than Eustis--again, where I happen to be. It webstreams its worship services to some 1,200 sites all over the country and all over the world. They also have three other church sites in the greater Orlando area. Apparently, the nebulous areas that exists between Mt...

When I was a freshmen in high school my mother and father signed me up to take art lessons from Mr. Bohannon. He was a wizened old man, who walked with a cane. The year before I arrived at my school, he retired as the art teacher, a position he had held for some years. My mom thought it would be a good idea to cultivate what she believed to be my artistic abilities. At our very first session, Mr. Bohannon set a cup in front of me and had me take out my sketch pad and a pencil. "Draw the cup," he told me, "but don't look at your paper." I hesitated, but he nodded that I should continue. So I drew the cup without looking at my paper. The result was an abomination. Then he had me hold my left hand out in front of me, and do the same thing...draw it without looking at my paper. If I tried to peek at what I was drawing, Mr. Bohannon would reprimand me. I tried to follow the intricate lines on my hand, fingernails, knuckles, what have you. Again, the result...