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Mar 1 2017

photo by David Faulkner / CC BY-NC-ND

I got to spend Tuesday morning this week with 124 kids (plus 68 adults & teens) that have been creating a musical they’ll share at our 9:45 and 11:00 worship services on Sunday morning. We closed our time together with prayer, and I asked, “What should we pray about?” Two young boys raised their hands. I called on the first, and he said, “the shootings.” The second boy put down his hand and then raised it again and asked, “Which ones?” It turned out they had two different shootings in mind.

I long for a world where children don’t have to ask for prayers for a shooting or to clarify for which one. I have some suggestions for how to create that world.

Prayer is a good start toward that world. The Bible teaches that humanity’s propensity for injustice and violence is rooted in spiritual brokenness that only God can heal. However, we also have a role to play in creating a more just and peaceful world.

An old Jewish teaching says that it’s better to give 1,000 small gifts than 1 large gift, because the habit of giving will transform the giver into a more generous person and ultimately have more impact. Most of us won’t have the opportunity to make one large impact for peace and justice, but all of us can take small daily actions that promote them. I can strike up conversations with my neighbors I don’t know, especially those with a different first language or racial background. I can choose to give the benefit of the doubt to others rather than assume they act out of malice. As our senior pastor, Clayton, encouraged last Sunday, I can listen to the laments of others. I can also participate in ministries of FUMCR that help me get to know people I wouldn’t otherwise meet, such as our partnership with Mark Twain Elementary School, Body and Soul, or one of our other Mission and Outreach ministries.

Any given small act that promotes peace and justice will not likely change the world, but many small acts taken by all of us consistently over time will change us in ways that ultimately will change the world.

I hope you’ll join me in taking those small acts.

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

Image courtesy of meepoohfoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lots of my friends will celebrate freedom this weekend. A few of them also get excited about going to jail.

A few years ago I received an excited e-mail from a friend telling me about an event she was going to on the weekend. The e-mail concluded with the line “I might get arrested!” More recently I was talking with another friend that was excited, because in the fall he’s going to a prison he’s never been to before, one where “they had a riot a while back, and someone died.”

My first friend was headed to a non-violent protest about an issue related to social justice. She desperately wanted others to notice the injustice she saw, and getting arrested would have been a clear sign that she had gotten someone’s attention. I don’t think she ended up in jail that weekend, but I’m pretty sure it’s still one of her goals.

My second friend belongs to the Kairos prison ministry. They go into prisons over weekends and share their faith with inmates. They and prison administrators have seen the positive impact that Kairos makes, so everyone is excited about going into a new prison, especially one with an acute need for something positive.

The gospel of John emphasizes that everything Jesus did, he did by choice for the sake of others, including getting arrested. Free to do anything, he chose to do things that helped others no matter the personal cost.

This Independence Day weekend I’m thanking God for the freedoms I enjoy in the United States. I’m remembering that people gave their lives to secure those freedoms for others. I’m remembering Jesus and my friends that follow him, who freely choose to help others even at cost to themselves. And I’m looking for ways to be more like them.

This weekend I’ll also be exercising my freedom to assemble with others and worship God. I hope you’ll join me! Access will meet at 11:00 a.m. in Mays Hall at First UMC Richardson.

Have a great weekend!

In Christ,
Rich

 
Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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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