I was a stranger and you welcomed me

In 1982 I agreed to coordinate a night shelter at Trinity UMC near the State Capital. I had been volunteering at the nearby shelter at Central Presbyterian. As that shelter became dangerously overcrowded, the need for additional space became apparent. Trinity’s shelter operated during the cold months of February and March that year, and I was often scrambling for volunteers. If you had told me then that thirty-one years later, the problem of homelessness would be even worse, I would not have believed it. Those of us who were coordinating church shelters in 1982 thought that we would be able to solve the problem of homelessness by opening a few shelters.

Over these 31 years, I have accepted that God has called me to connect the church to those we would call “the least of these” according to the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. When Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” I see this as an opportunity to see the face of Jesus in the faces of those we serve. If Jesus comes as a homeless person, sometimes Jesus has had a bad day! He may come to us as one who is ragged, smelly, or delusional. When I accept these encounters as a way to experience Jesus, I look for what he wants to teach me through these meetings. An encounter with Jesus challenges me to question my assumptions, to put my faith into action, and to work to bring about change to policies and systems that cause people to fall into homelessness.

As Director of the Housing and Homeless Council, I have had the opportunity to see people all over the North Georgia Conference who are putting their faith into practice by serving people in need in their communities. When churches contribute to the Homeless Offering, the funds are distributed as grants to ministries all over the Conference. Members of the Housing and Homeless Council make site visits to the applicants, and we come back and report on all the good work that is going on as we seek to serve Christ in the person of the homeless and hungry.

--Rev. Virginia Tinsley, director of the NGa Conf. Housing and Homeless Council.

God Is Still In Control! 

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

Re-Advent Yourself

The prayerful preparation of Advent seems to always compete with the constant call of Christmastime conspicuous consumption. I have wondered what could actually slow us down enough to change the way we make decisions in these hectic days before Christmas.

Anne Rex, pastor at Fields Chapel near Canton, designed a unique Advent gift for members of her congregation. She passed out a laminated “master” card (pictured below) and asked everyone to put the card in front of the credit cards in their purse or wallet. Then during the intensity of the Christmas shopping season, she invited her people to look at the card and to ponder the five questions before making any purchase.

The questions continue to echo:

1. Do I really need this item?
Does the person I am buying it for really need it?
2. Can I afford to just buy something rather than investing myself more fully in my relationship with the intended recipient?
3. Does my giving recognize the injustices that litter our world today?
Will this product be a dust catcher or merely find its way to a future yard sale?
4. How might we give gifts that really endure?
5. Have I remembered the real birthday boy on my shopping list?
Can you ever BUY Christmas? Maybe Christmas can only be born.

Ideas are just ideas unless they actually change our behavior and change us. So now I keep one of these cards in my wallet, in front of my credit cards, forcing me to ponder my own spending habits every time I reach into my wallet, calling me to go deeper in my own Advent journey as I make more room for what Christ is trying do with me. So perhaps it’s not just how I spend the money God has entrusted to me, but how I spend my time, my energy, and my thoughts.

How might your spending change this Advent?

-- Blessings and Peace, Rev. Dr. Phil Schroeder, North Georgia Annual Conference


God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

We Are The Church Together

We looked at one another and pointed and made motions as we sang.  I always feel a little silly doing the song.  But, I remember it well.

The longer I live, the more I find my memories to be like snapshots in my mind.  They come and go; they are here at one moment, then gone the next.

One of my favorite memories is that of standing in my home church as a young adult (which really was not too long ago) leading children and youth in singing Hymn 558 in our United Methodist Hymnal.  I am sure all of us in the Cal-Pac Conference hold advanced degrees in hymnology.  But, just in case my assumption is not true, let me note that I am talking about the hymn, “We Are the Church.”

I am the church!  You are the church!  We are the church together! All who follow Jesus all around the world! Yes, we are the church together!

Is this a part of the hymn that we sing as a local church? A Mission Area?  A District?  A United Methodist Church?  The call to be together in this fragmented world is visibly obvious.  It does not take long to notice just how many people throughout our neighborhoods, if not the world, feel so alone.  And, the ways in which we keep ourselves from others is many times all too normal: we drive alone in our cars, put on earphones when we listen to music in public places, and we sit behind computer screens for a large portion of the day.

The question is: how might we minister in this environment?

Our way is to offer the church in the name of Jesus to all!  And, let us not forget that "offer" is a verb.  I was excited to experience this verb in action as I worshiped at one of our local churches this past Sunday.  The preacher, the worship, the greeters and the people all consistently and genuinely echoed this call to community in their own loving and biblical way.

My prayer is for this to be the standard throughout our Conference, not the exception.  These holy moments inspire me to believe that we must continually look for opportunities to live out, and live into, God's call for us to share ourselves with others in making disciples for the transformation of the world.

Yes, this is God's call: that we be the church TOGETHER!

--By Rev. Dr. Stephen Hundley, Cal-Pac AC, REFLECT email newsletter

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

“House Rules”

We have young children; therefore, we have house rules. You know the type: Do your chores. Don’t hit.  Clean your room. 

In the past, the kids would invariably do something they knew was wrong, only to say, “You didn't say that was against the rules!” (Kids are so good at technicalities!) Other times, they would just blatantly disobey. (Ugh!) So, in an effort to simplify and be more effective, my husband and I combined Mr. Wesley’s wisdom and a wise parishioner’s parenting tip into the “New and Improved Nelson House Rules:” 

1. Obey people in authority (parents, teachers, etc.). 

2. Do no harm to others: instead, do good to others. 

With the understanding that obedience and doing good produce positive consequences (yay!), and disobedience and doing harm produce negative consequences (boo!). 

We want our children to respect, obey, and appreciate authority so that one day that perspective will be broadened to respect, obey, and appreciate the authority of God in their lives, and in light of that, do good for others in the world. 

Case in point: Some of you may recall a Monday Morning in North Georgia I wrote in the fall called “Fruit in my Fridge.” In the article I relayed a personal story of when I said,  “I’ll know I’m RICH when my fridge is filled with fruit,” and later came home to find a huge bag of fruit hanging from my mailbox on a day when I had been seriously struggling with contentment.  

So, did you wonder who put the bag of fruit on my mailbox? 

Sherri is the obedient servant. When I learned she was my “fruit fairy,” I told her her how much the kind gesture spoke God’s love and provision right to my heart, right when I needed it.  And I asked her what possessed her to hang fruit from my mailbox, and she shared this: 

“Your words about being rich with fruit in your fridge tugged at my heart, and the Holy Spirit said, ‘You can do something about that, and do it anonymously.’ So I went to the grocery store, full of joy, and began to pick out the freshest and best looking fruit I could find.  I was so excited to think about you finding it!” 

I hope to teach my children through our family’s house rules the joy of obedience so that one day they can become the “Sherris” of tomorrow, obeying the Good Authority and blessing others with the positive, joyful consequences of doing good to others. Amen.
 
--Anne Nelson wife of Rev. Matt Nelson, pastor of Inman Park UMC in Atlanta. North GA Ann Conf.


God Is Still in Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

Lessons from the Neighborhood

When I was a child, there were adults in my neighborhood who played special roles. They were characters who entertained and taught us in their own special way.

There was Mr. W.T., who sat on his front porch and threw candy at us like it was a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Isiah, whom we called “Wise,” always had a sing-song rhyme of a wisdom saying that sounded more like “pool hall banter” than a proverb. And then there was Mr. Alvin, who was the self-proclaimed Sheriff of the neighborhood. He actually walked around with a toy badge and an unloaded Colt 45. He saw his job as making sure that things were running smoothly in the neighborhood. But if there were any signs of conflict, like Barney Fife of Mayberry, he would often complicate matters and someone else would have to come in and clean things up.

Mr. Richard, who drove his 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville like Richard Petty in the Daytona 500, played rule enforcer. He had the keys to the neighborhood park and wouldn’t allow profanity, violence, or mischief to occur on park grounds.
And there was Mrs. Patterson, who made homemade cupcakes and had a choice selection of grape, orange, or strawberry soda. We could buy a cupcake and soda for a quarter at her house - and get a lecture on the importance of saving money while we were there.

Many of the lessons I learned in childhood seemed to center around the basketball court in the neighborhood park. I watched my adult neighbors practice fairness, responsibility, and doing their share to make our community better. I learned about honesty, patience, compassion, generosity, courage, gratitude, forgiveness, loyalty, and respect by walking up and down the streets.  

But it didn’t stop there. I saw many of the same adults in church on Sunday mornings worshipping God.  They were ushers, greeters, lay speakers, Sunday school teachers, confirmation class mentors, and choir members. 

Like the mentors who trained their protégés by walking around using hands-on teaching; I was taught that character is about who we are and what we do when people aren’t watching us. I learned how to “walk the walk” of Christian character.

--Dr. Quincy Brown, Vice President for Spiritual Life and Church Relations at LaGrange College. North GA Ann Conf.

God Is Still in Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org

'Amazing Grace'

Grace is sometimes defined as God finding some favor with a person. But, is that the whole of grace? For me, grace is more substantive than a favoring – which can be momentary and changeable. God’s grace is an ultimate act of love. For God so loved the world that God gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever shall believe shall not die, but have the gift of eternal life. (John 3:16) This is more than finding favor. This grace is a sacrificial love that can only truly be grasped through spiritual awakening. God’s love for us is all-encompassing and enduring, whether we feel we are “in favor” or not.

The hymn "Amazing Grace" was written by the captain of a slave ship. It would be short-sighted to determine that God favored the captain over the hundreds of Africans he delivered to slavery and, perhaps, death. Yet, what God gave the captain was a testimony which beautifully conveys that God’s grace is available and offered to all. Today, this song, penned by someone who would be thought of as “unredeemable” by some, is sung by both the descendants of the author and the descendants of the Africans he transported as slaves—-with equal fervor.

As believers, we come to an understanding that we are all sinners saved through God’s grace -- the blood of Christ. “For ... grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). To know that God willingly allowed Jesus to suffer the pains of death so that we could be saved from our own sins and become one with Him, fills one with humility, rather than a sense of self-righteousness.  

I am eternally thankful to know that I am a beneficiary of God’s great love and grace; and in knowing, I daily seek a closer relationship with God. Whether in sickness or in health, whether in times of plenty or in need, I see God’s grace in my life. No other could raise me from my bed of affliction and cause me to walk again. No other could give me a calling to fulfill for His glory. No other could fill my heart with joy. No other could wash away my sins. It is in knowing God’s love—that Christ died and rose to save me—that I can sing “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

--Pamela Perkins Carn, coordinator of the Interfaith Children's Movement and a member of Central UMC in Atlanta. North Georgia Ann Conf.

God Is Still In Control!

Miss Lladale Carey

Web Content Producer

www.umcgiving.org

lcarey@umcom.org

And a Child Shall Lead Them

I am not a bumper sticker person. I’m not quite sure why I have this adverse feeling toward words and glue stuck to the bumper of my car, but I do. However, I do enjoy those who love bumper stickers. Their bumpers entertain me. Their bumper stickers cause me to chuckle; stir me through inspiration and at times make my blood boil in anger. 

A bumper sticker that once caused me to roll my eyes in a ‘whatever?!’ sort of attitude was the bumper sticker that read “Let Me Tell You about My Grandchildren!”  No longer do my eyes roll. I now totally understand and agree. You see I have the two most precious grandchildren in the entire world (I’m not biased at all). Caroline is four and Luke is two. They reach, touch and teach me in ways I never imagined possible.

Caroline (4) asks her ‘Shady’ (this is what they call Sharon, her grandmother) as she applies her make-up “Shady, what are you doing?”  “I’m putting on my make up.”  “But why are you doing that Shady, you’re beautiful just the way you are!”  Out of the mouth of babes comes a truth that speaks to the soul.  

Luke (2) is at the stage in life where he believes that a kiss heals all things.  Whether it is stumped toe, bug bite or an incision from knee replacement surgery, all one needs to do is kiss the violated area and the result is…all is well. You see a two year old believes there is power in a kiss. And a child shall lead them. 

I shall always remember the question of a child in my first appointment at Ebenezer UMC in Conyers. During ‘Small Talk’ (that’s we called the Children’s Moment in worship) Corey Kohlmeyer, age 6, raised his hand and asked this Pastor in front of the entire congregation: “Preacher Terry, why do we call ‘Good Friday’ good?”  

You could have heard a pen drop on the sanctuary carpet. All ears turned to see how this young ‘whipper-snapper’ of a preacher was going to answer a child. In that moment a child captured a worship service.

This week our Bishop will ask those candidates who offer themselves for ordination, “Will you teach the children in every place?” A simple but very important question! But I have to wonder if another question might also be appropriate. Perhaps Bishops should ask us all—laity and clergy alike, “Will we allow children to teach us in every place?” God speaks in all kinds of ways … I hope I’m listening. Now that’s a bumper sticker I just might put on my bumper!

--Rev. Terry Walton, senior pastor of Gainesville First UMC. North Georgia Ann Conf.

God Is Still in Control!

Miss Lladale Carey
Web Content Producer
www.umcgiving.org
lcarey@umcom.org