The United Methodist General Conference that meets every four years is currently underway in Charlotte, North Carolina. The official conference began on April 23rd and will end on May 3rd.
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The Pastor's Peace
Following a recent conversation, someone said, “Is there really anything we can count on being good now-a-days?” My response was quick: “Easter is coming!”
I would like to report to you that the Leadership Board is working on some very exciting and culture changing, church transforming, administrative things at this moment, but we are not.
Love, Lent, and Leadership! If I were to title the Pastor’s Peace for this month, that is what I would call it. There are a lot of good things to talk about, and it is hard to decide which one deserves attention.
It isn’t over yet. What is your typical practice immediately following the New Year Holiday? Do you quickly begin to make a game plan on when to take down decorations? Have you already returned those well-meaning Christmas gifts, spent those gift cards, and ate all those cookies? Maybe the excitement and the sugar high are wearing off. Now what?
As I write this Pastor’s Peace, Christmas day hasn’t even come. It feels like a little bit of a let-down to already be looking beyond what, to me, truly is the most wonderful day of the year. However, even at the time you are reading this, the truth is, Advent isn’t over yet. We are constantly living in a state of great expectation and preparation waiting for Christ to come again. This does not mean we have to keep our houses decorated or dip into savings some more to keep buying Christmas gifts. I know most of us are glad the business and extra energy the holidays ask of us is coming to an end. However, the waiting for Christ to come again has not come to an end. It isn’t over yet. The world around us tells us that we are still waiting for Christ to come again and make all things new.
Sometimes, the waiting is the hardest part. We are always looking for things to focus on to help the waiting seem more tolerable. Prayer is a great practice to focus on, and there are a lot of different ways to pray. As we are looking into the new year, I want to offer us a potentially new rhythm of prayer. A Sanctified Art uses a prayer practice called “star words.” Just as the Magi followed the star to Jesus, we will focus on a star word this year that will help lead us to Jesus in our daily lives. Some examples of those words include, joy, rest, bless, restore, affirm, connection, etc. Depending on the day, the meaning of that word can change. With that word remaining highly visible each day, it offers us an opportunity to ask Christ, “What new thing will you do in me?”
On January 7th, we will celebrate Epiphany Sunday. This is the day we remember the Magi meeting Jesus. When we dig deeper into this meeting, we understand it was the day Jesus was revealed to the gentiles. At both services, there will be an opportunity to receive your star word and follow that word to the presence of Christ. If you are not able to make it to a service, the words will continue to be available over the month of January.
Advent isn’t over yet, but the waiting doesn’t have to be the hardest part. Even in the weariness, we can rejoice as we utilize the tools given to us to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Amen!
From one light to another,
Pastor Hannah Loughman
Photo by Dee Johnson
This year’s Advent theme is “How Does A Weary World Rejoice?” I find this to be rather appropriate for what the world is currently facing. It certainly feels weary sometimes. However, if you know your history, the world felt weary when Jesus was born as well.
What a beautiful season it has been to sit outside and watch the community flock to the pumpkin patch, watch the youth enter the doors of the haunted house with equal parts fear and excitement, and to smell the rotten pumpkins drifting through the air as I sit on my front porch. Wait, what!?!?
Jesus is there in gourds, in pumpkins, in swan necks, in mushrooms, in warty goblins, in snowballs, and in Frankenstein’s head.
Change is hard. But God’s ways are good. It is in God’s hands we commit our future.
Changemakers come in many shapes and sizes. Changemakers have a variety of responsibilities. Changemakers encompass a large age range and a large range of capabilities. The one thing all changemakers have in common is the willingness to serve. This is where I jump in and ask, “Are you willing to be a changemaker?”
We will face a lot of division. We will face a lot of conflict. We will face a lot of things that take our attention away from the important work God is calling us to be a part of. But in that moment, we were able to set all of it aside and pour ourselves into the healing we believed could happen in the name of Jesus. In that moment, we set ourselves aside and put Jesus first.
I am asking you to join me in prayer, now more than ever, for this meeting of the Annual Conference. On Wednesday, June 14th, we will have a Special Session to vote on the churches that are choosing to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church.
There is a Tanzanian Proverb that says, “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”
After getting back in the car from picking Lincoln up at daycare, Jordyn insisted that I watch the video she recorded on her iPad while she was waiting for us. I assumed it would be of a song she was singing or a story she made up, but it wasn’t.
This time of year offers to many the opportunity to get out your map and check to be sure you are on the right path: the path that leads to Zion.
God has created us and placed us in times such as these. As followers of Jesus Christ with a passion to share the love of Jesus with all, we can make the soil around us vitamin rich and ready for good things.
What I truly appreciate about funerals is the knowledge that they all end the same. No matter the circumstances surrounding them, the ending message is the same. That message is not one of endings at all, but of new beginnings.
It does not just require faith to believe the promises of God will come to be amongst the believers of Sewickley UMC, but it requires faith to believe those promises might not look the way we expect or prayed for them to look.
As I sit to write the Pastor’s Peace for the November newsletter, it is only half-way through October. There are a few bold(ish) statements I would like to make in faith.
What do Vanocka, English Muffin, Yufka, Zopf, Naan, Bagel, Qistibi, Paratha, Obi Non, and Grissini all have in common?