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Showing posts from May, 2008

Worry - Matthew 6:24-34

As I'm finishing up my sermon for Sunday, I'm really loving Eugene Peterson's version of this text in The Message (with my emphasis added) : Matthew 6:24-34 (The Message) 24 "You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both. 25-26 "If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. 27-29 "Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion

Review: Prince Caspian

When The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came out in 2005 (can it have been that long ago already???), I was less than thrilled with the job done on putting one of my very favorite books on film. Still, as a dedicated fan, I felt obligated to check out the next installment in the Chronicles of Narnia: book two (in the correct , original order), Prince Caspian . Prince Caspian is not my favorite book in the series, but still, it's an important part of the whole. I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought this film was much better than LWW. Actually, I've seen Caspian twice now, with two different sets of family. This movie takes more liberties with the book than did LWW, but I think the choices pay off and make sense in transitioning the book to the screen. Acting wise, standouts include Peter Dinklage , (he was especially good, and I wish I'd seen him in more things) playing Trumpkin, Skandar Keynes , playing Edmund, and Anna Popplewell , playing Susan. Actually, all fo

General Conference Wrap-up Reflections: Points of Joy

As a (I think) last post about General Conference , I want to share some of the moments that brought me joy - because despite the exhaustion, and despite the disappointments and emotional lows, there really were times of great joy and hope as well, and I really do love being at General Conference. *The Connection - Really, the greatest joy for me of being United Methodist is the connectional nature of the church. I love going to events like GC because I love seeing so many people from so many parts of my life all in one place, all brought together by the church we still love even when it is so hard to stay part of it! I saw friends from undergrad, colleagues from my two conferences, NCNY , and Greater NJ , including getting to spend time with my once pastor Bruce Webster, another NCNY delegate who is now retired and living in Florida. I got to see most of the GBCS staff, which I especially enjoyed since I had to miss my last board meeting. I got to see friends from seminary. I got to s

General Conference Wrap-up Reflections: Legislative Committe Work

When I was a lay delegate to General Conference in 2000, I chose to be on the Faith and Order legislative committee. Which paragraphs of the Discipline are covered by what legislative committee changes somewhat every four years, and in 2000, Faith and Order dealt with nearly all the petitions relating to human sexuality. I wanted to be right in thick of it, and I didn't want to miss any part of the conversation. Eight years later, things have changed. Oh, I still like being in the thick of it sometimes, and it was still a little hard not to be in the legislative committee working on those issues, but now after being on the board at GBCS for eight years, I've developed some real passion (and hopefully even some real knowledge) for the social justice issues we are so engaged in as a church. Church and Society, Section 1, dealt with issues divided into six subcommittees: Economic Justice Environmental Justice (my group) War and Peace International Issues Worker Rights/Immigration

General Conference Wrap-up Reflections: Worship

Worship at General Conference was a wonderful gift, a highlight in the midst of such long and stress-filled days. The worship leaders were Mark Miller and Marcia McFee. Mark was the director of the seminary choir while I was at Drew , and his role has since expanded to include more and more teaching responsibility at the seminary as well. I don't think I ever found my worship life so fulfilling as when I was at Drew, so naturally, I was quite looking forward to worship at General Conference. We opened worship, naturally, with "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing," and "And Are We Yet Alive?" I like all kinds of music in worship, including some good old traditional hymns, and there's nothing like thousands of people singing "O For a Thousand Tongues." Worship standouts throughout the week: The service (Thursday?) where the communion liturgy was woven throughout the whole worship service. The bishops (throughout conference) sat on the floor, surrounding

General Conference Wrap-up Reflections: Human Sexuality

I'm finally home from General Conference, and beginning to recover enough to put some thoughts together. I'd hoped to write much more than I did, but the schedule just really made that impossible for me - I don't know how other folks got so much blogging done. I have several different sets of things I'd like to write about, so I am going to try to take them topic by topic for the next few days, and hope that by the time I'm done, you aren't wishing you'd never hear of General Conference again! The voting related to issues of human sexuality happened on Wednesday, April 30th, which happened to be my birthday. I figured depending on how the voting played out, I could have a really good birthday or a really bad one... I went into General Conference expecting our official stance on human sexuality to remain unchanged again for another four years. I didn't expect change to come this time around. But once I arrived in Fort Worth, there just seemed to be a sens