You Are Getting Noticed!

Hello Emmanuel,

Emmanuel is getting noticed.  Your Lay Leader Muriel Cunningham and I are traveling to Columbus on Thursday to meet with the Cabinet.  The Cabinet is a West Ohio Conference Ministry team made up of the 8 District Superintendents and the Bishop.  Muriel and I are going to have lunch with them because they want to know how a church the size of Emmanuel can have so many people involved in missions.

I’m not going to lie.  This is very cool.

It is cool for a couple of different reasons.  First, this is very affirming for Emmanuel.  Healthy churches attract the good kind of attention.  When people who want more churches to be healthy start asking, ‘how do you do that?’ then it affirms that we must be doing the right kinds of things.  Very cool.

Second, it is an opportunity for Emmanuel to expand our Vision—to not just focus on ‘making disciples of Jesus Christ’ at our local church level, but help others make disciples of Christ at their local church level.  We become a teaching church as well as a disciple-making church.  Very cool.

We have around 100 people involved in mission work throughout the year.  The combination of people giving and people serving allows Emmanuel to connect with the lives of so many people who have basic needs being unmet.  As I started compiling the list of all that we do, I became amazed again at the heart that Emmanuel has.  We define mission as ‘Go and Help’.  Here is our list.  If I’ve missed something, let me know.  I probably have.

Missions Team                                               

Traveling Pantry                                             

Inter Parish Ministry pantry                                       

IPM cart                                                         

Jackson Seed Ministry                                                                                   

Teen Challenge                                              

Clermont County Senior Citizens      

Saul’s/YWCA - Bare Necessities                                          

Saul’s Homeless Shelter – shoeboxes

Saul’s Homeless Shelter – food                                 

Back-To-School Bash                                    

Christmas Angel Tree                                    

School Dance  Groups                                               

Home School Groups                                     

Prison Ministry                                               

County Coalition Drug free                           

Camperships                                                   

UMW Fund Raising

Bake Me Home

Summer Impact

30-Hour Famine

Build-A-Bear – Ronald McDonald House

Mission trips – Columbia, Haiti, Russia, Mexico, Ireland, Kentucky

How does this happen?  It takes more than just having the heart of Christ.  I think it takes 3 things:  visioning, process and leadership.  I won’t go into the details here for fear of writing a book, but communicating a clear vision is the start.  Having a well-defined process helps ministry get implemented.  And, of course, you need a few chiefs to take charge and make decisions.  I believe Emmanuel has all 3.  Very cool!

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Teenagers And Our World Relgions

Hello Emmanuel,

I have a theory about the lack of young adults in churches today.  It is well documented that the 18-30 year-old demographic in churches across denominations is lacking.  Gaining momentum in Young Adult ministries is difficult as well.  So why is this?  Some might say that young people are strapped for time and money or that they are simply more mobile than ever before.  Here is my theory:

It starts with how the Church ministers to young teens.  As children enter their teen years, the Church does not adjust well to their development of independent thinking.  We expect a 14 year-old to react to a Sunday School teacher’s lesson the same as a 6 year-old might.  6 year-olds will more likely assume the teacher is smart and wise and knows all the answers.

Teenagers?  Not so much.

The Church needs to be equipped to answer tough theological questions that, if answered poorly, threaten the basis for our Faith.  Who is God?  How do you know the Bible is true?  How does this Trinity thing make sense?  Who did Adam and Eve’s kids marry?

As teens get older, we get less smart and not-so-wise in their eyes.  We need to be ready to give answers that help them explore their Faith, not minimize it.  We need to stop trying to act like we have all the answers and explore our Faith with them.  If not, they will wise up and realize that we don’t have all the answers.  And when they do, it will discredit the Church in their eyes.

The Youth are learning about other religions as part of their Sunday School program.  They are even visiting other houses of worship.  This can make some of us grown-ups nervous.  Why?  Well I think it is because we are sometimes afraid of what they might think.  We know they are thinking more independently.  What if they like Catholicism?  And, heaven… er….  Methodists forbid…. What if they like the Mosque? 

I believe education is a good thing…. As long as we are by the side of the youth and think alongside of them, we can explore Faith with them and show them why we are where we are… at Emmanuel United Methodist Church.  If we do not, when the teen turns 19, 20, 24, 26 years old, they will go off on their own and explore on their own.   They WILL find out that our way is not the only way.  And, often times, the reason for the Young Adult to leave the church is that they have felt tricked to believe a certain way throughout their childhood.  And as some of you know, they WILL exercise their independence.

So if the Young Adult is going to leave the Church, let them do so after we struggle in the faith with them as they are a teen.  Let’s not try to hide the rest of the religious world from them and get them to assume our way is the only right way (some call that ‘brainwashing’).  Let’s have open discussions with them and be the kind of teacher that isn’t afraid of the hard questions.  My theory is that the Good News is Good enough.  We don’t have to embellish it or pretend that it is better than it is.  If we are honest and vulnerable and faithful with our young people as they grow into adulthood then that is all God is asking of us.  And when it is time for them to be on their own, they will make their decisions, which is going to be true if we walk with them or not.

Let’s trust that God will speak to all of us in the Church, including our teenagers.  We can’t make them believe like we do.  But I can’t make you believe like I do either.  And yet God’s love and grace will be revealed to their hearts in time.  Let our conversations with them allow it to be revealed sooner rather than later.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe

Easter Exhale

Hello Emmanuel,

For those of you who don’t know, this is a big day for me…. No, not Opening Day… 

It’s the Easter Exhale.

Starting way back on Ash Wednesday, churches everywhere start the slow build-up to Easter morning.  It starts with a clear admittance to needing God and ends with a clear declaration of salvation by resurrection.  In between is this sense of anticipation that starts soft, but gets louder with each passing Sunday.  By the end, it is this roar of expectation.  Pastors want Easter to go just right…. to not allow Lent to end with some anti-climactic thud…. But to help people see and feel the miracle in their personal lives.  So much pressure, right?

And then Monday gets here and we let out a big sigh of relief.  It’s as if Easter hinges on how we implement our roles as Church leaders.  And when it is over, we feel we can relax a bit.  ‘Whew!  Jesus rose from the dead again this year!  Made it through another one!’

I often amuse myself.  Certainly, I don’t want to minimize my role.  As Pastor, I am in charge of getting the right ears in the right places to hear the right story.  And then I need to be prepared to listen to the hearts of others and fill any needs of hope and love where they are absent.

However, is the Easter Exhale really necessary?  I try to remind myself that the Good News is Good enough.  Does it need much embellishment?  Do we church leaders really need to work hard at helping the Good News look Good?  Or do we see ourselves as a little too important at times?

I don’t always know the answer to the above questions.  On one side is a sovereign God whose story is etched in stone (or printed on paper) through the eons and has trumped any human effort to silence its effects.  On the other side is the human tendency to become desensitized to the miraculous triumph of Christ and yawn through another Easter morning. 

Somewhere in the middle of the two sides is the church whose job it is to proclaim the miracle.  The church finds itself on this balance between seeing itself as the important messenger of God, but not seeing itself as so important that it becomes the Message.  Maybe that is why it is tiring work for me.  Striking that balance is not always so easy. 

So this Easter season I will exhale again.  But in the midst of exhaling, let’s not lose perspective on who we are and our role.  We must continue to reach out, welcome, inspire, teach and send forth.  We need to find new and innovative ways to keep from becoming desensitized to a Divine message of new life.  And as we do so, let’s keep our eyes on the Divine as the humble servants we are called to be. 

Another Easter Sunday has passed.  God is the Good One.  Let’s point people to Him.

God is Good,

Pastor Joe