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Mar 1 2017

Stories and details of last Sunday’s shootings in Orlando have filled this weeks’ news. Every time an event reminds me of the reality of terrorists I wonder, what can we do? I’m skeptical of simple solutions, and I’m skeptical of solutions offered by people living far away from the daily reality of terrorism. That’s why I took it seriously when Humphrey, a church leader that lives in Pakistan and regularly travels into ISIS- and Taliban-controlled territory, sat across from me at lunch a few weeks ago and said, “What we really need is more love.”

“What we really need is more love.”

Rev. Humphrey is the bishop for churches across Pakistan. About half of the churches he leads lie in territory controlled by Taliban or ISIS. Every time he goes to these churches – which he does frequently – he runs the risk of being kidnapped and having terrorists tell the government that they’ll kill him if their friends in prison aren’t released. From someone living in the midst of that kind of reality, I expected his proposed solution to be something other than “more love.” I figured that that kind of answer becomes less prominent the closer one lives to life-threatening danger. But as Rev. Humphrey talked I began to understand his response.

The bishop reminded me that for Christians, our goal is to spread a life-transforming faith in Jesus Christ. When people come to know Jesus in such a way that they take on his self-giving character, then hatred and its expressions like terrorism wither and die – not quickly and not without cost as Jesus’ story reminds us, but wither and die they do. Jesus spread that kind of faith and taught his followers to spread it through agape, the Greek word for love that means not good feelings but good actions done for the sake of others. The bishop shared stories of Christians caring for sick and wounded Muslims including one ISIS fighter that said he had never experienced the kind of love he experienced at the hands of his Christian caregivers. The bishop told me that acts of love by Christians are causing life-transforming faith in Jesus Christ to spread in Pakistan.

Rev. Humphrey’s words and his faith challenged and encouraged me. He offered a long-term solution to terrorism that’s simple to say but challenging and costly to live out, and he offered that solution as one who regularly spends time in terrorist-controlled territory. God calls us Christians to spread a life-transforming faith in Jesus Christ through action-oriented love of enemies and strangers and those in need. With God’s help, that’s something we can do wherever we live, and it has the power to overcome hatred.

“What we really need is more love.”

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

This week representatives elected from Methodist churches around the world began meeting for General Conference. This happens every 4 years and provides a forum for debating changes to our structure, processes, and stands on social issues. We expect a lot of debate around faith and homosexuality. I anticipate several likely outcomes.

First, media will focus on where we fail to live up to our ideals of debating.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church taught Holy Conferencing as a means of experiencing God. He believed that when Christians gathered and sought to discern God’s will together, God would make God’s presence known. Holy Conferencing requires that the participants assume they don’t already know God’s will and use debate as a way to see things from different perspectives. Unfortunately, we Methodists (and humans, generally) find it really tough to live up to that ideal. When we fail, it tends to make the news.

Second, no major changes will result.

In a short number of years the United States has seen a dramatic shift towards greater acceptance of homosexuality. Other parts of the world have not experienced that same shift. General Conference decisions result from votes of Methodists from all over the globe, so those decisions will likely not change Methodist policies against ordaining homosexual clergy or against UM clergy officiating same-sex marriage ceremonies, for example.

Third, not everything will be about sex!

For example, General Conference delegates will celebrate the United Methodist Church’s role in the huge decline in global deaths from malaria (48% fewer deaths in 2015 compared to 2000) and will seek to discern God’s will about forming a special group focused on improving global health.

Finally, whatever happens at General Conference, our mission will remain the same.

Methodists all over the world will continue to recognize God’s mission to us to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And at First United Methodist Church Richardson we will continue to live out that global mission through our particular mission: with open hearts and minds, we Welcome people for Christ, Grow people in Christ, and Serve people with Christ.

If you’re interested in learning more about major decisions General Conference will address, see http://www.umc.org/who-we-are/general-conference-2016-major-legislative-issues

For my perspective on why Christians read the same Bible yet reach different conclusions about homosexuality click on the sermon link below.

Homosexuality and the Bible

See you Sunday!
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

Next week I’m speaking at our church’s MOMSnext group on the topic of “fierce flourishing.” I feel unqualified. Each day I face a mountain of uncompleted items on my to-do list. It often grows and rarely shrinks. My reality isn’t what I think of when I think of flourishing. However, in preparing to speak I’ve remembered some words of Jesus and discovered a simple practice with the power to transform my stress over unfinished to-do items.

John 17:4 records that on his last night with his disciples Jesus said that he had finished his work. If you’ll let me get all language geeky for a moment, the Greek word translated as “finished” means fulfilled or completed. It’s the word you use when you’re done with the work you set out to do. Yet, Jesus left so much undone. Imagine how many people Jesus didn’t heal or how many didn’t hear his words of forgiveness. With so much undone, how could Jesus say he had finished his work?

In the pamphlet Tyranny of the Urgent, Charles Hummel suggests that Jesus could say he had finished, because he never intended to do everything. Unlike many of us he didn’t expect himself to do more than was humanly possible. He had realistic expectations about what he could do, knew what God wanted him to do, and did it without worrying about what went undone.

A few weeks ago I stumbled into a simple practice that’s helping me let Jesus transform my to-do list stress into something that feels a bit closer to flourishing. I had so many items on my electronic to-do list that I made a paper to-do list with just the highest priority tasks. As I completed each task, I drew a line through it, but unlike my digital to-do list, these completed tasks remained visible. When I got to the end of the week, my uncompleted tasks sat among a collection of completed ones. My to-do list now had a companion “to-done” list bearing witness to my accomplishments.

I felt pretty good about all I had done, and imagine how good I would have felt if I had prayed for God’s guidance about what to put on my to-do list in the first place! Always room to grow

See you Sunday!
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson