Introducing U.P. (Unleashing Potential)

 “The seed that fell on good soil are those who hear the word and commit themselves to it with a good and upright heart. Through their resolve, they bear fruit.” (Luke 8:15)

NOTE: The following is the content of a communication shared with our congregation about our stewardship journey during the month of October 2020…

While 2020 has certainly been an unprecedented year for everyone, due to the continued support and generosity of people like you, our church is in good overall financial shape, tracking very closely to our original annual financial goals. We know that we’ll continue to have challenges to manage, but our staff and lay leadership are up to these, and we are excited about the future that God has in store for us as we move into 2021! To prepare for this future, we wanted to share with you our plans for this year’s October stewardship journey.

While many people think of stewardship as a way to plan a financial budget for the coming year, it actually involves much more than this because it also includes forms of participation such as prayer,  small group participation, worship attendance (in person and/or virtual), financial giving, service/missions/outreach, sharing our faith, and others.  You may recognize these as our United Methodist vows.  This year’s journey will be called “U.P. – Unleashing Potential”, and through it we’ll all be invited to unleash our potential for God by being good stewards of these and other forms of participation.

So, how will this year be different? Traditionally, we ask every member/family to fill out and turn in a commitment card, used to help formulate a church budget for the coming calendar year.  Due to this year’s unique context and challenges, however, we do not feel this to be appropriate for our preparation for 2021.  Instead, we are inviting you to sit down with your family and discuss your financial commitment to God for next year through McKendree UMC.  Then, print an U.P. commitment card (find and download it HERE) in one of two ways as a personal tool/reminder of that commitment:

            ● You can keep it at home with you as a personal reminder of your promised commitment.

            ● Alternately, if you would like for us to confidentially help hold you accountable for your commitment by including it on your contribution statement, you can still turn it in to the church office.

Regardless of your choice, our staff and finance leaders will use their knowledge and understanding of our church’s current giving patterns to put together a responsible 2021 budget for our church.

In addition to how you choose to use your personal commitment card, we also want to invite you to do one of two things related to your actual financial generosity:

            ● Please continue to give faithfully to the work of God through McKendree UMC through one of the many ways we have (online, text-to-give, bank bill-pay, mailed check, or dropped in our secure church mailbox outside the Fellowship Hall).

            ● If you are able to increase your annual giving to help offset the giving of those who’ve been negatively impacted by this crisis, we invite and encourage you to do that, as well.

If you’ve experienced financial challenges this year, we understand if you feel that you are needing to cut back your financial giving next year.  However, you can still give in other ways:  through your prayers; your “presence” (online or in-person); your service to others; and through how you share your faith with others.  If this is your situation, know that we love you as part of our family, and want to do everything we can to support you (If you have needs, please contact Pastors Brian or Paula to confidentially discuss how we can help you during this time).

Regardless of your situation or circumstance, remember that stewardship is about more than just money.  It’s about unleashing our potential (U.P.) for God through the various ways we participate in the work and ministry of our lives in and through God’s church.  While this is certainly a challenging time in history, we are convinced that God has blessed McKendree UMC, and that – with your support – we’ll continue to have an important and vital role to play in sharing Christ and His love with our community and world. 

Will you continue to be part of that work?

A Discernible Wobble

 “In  the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

A few years ago, the pastor of my home church shared an article in their newsletter that want to pass on to you today:

            “I read a while back the excited announcement of a group of astronomers who had discovered 10 more planets circling neighboring stars, the closest of which is 10.5 light-years from earth. That's a long way but probably still close enough to interest some of our more ambitious real estate developers.

            The astronomers couldn’t yet tell us whether any of the newly discovered planets might sustain life. In fact, aside from their existence, not much can be said about the planets at all. You see, no one has actually seen them. So, you might reasonably ask, if we can't see them, how do we know they exist?

            It works like this: The gravitational pull of the planets causes the parent stars to wobble back and forth. That wobble, in turn, causes a slight wobble in the wavelength of light coming from the stars. And that wavelength of light is indeed measurable from here on earth. And so, from a wobbling light, scientists can reason their way back to the presence of a planet.

            Makes sense to me; not that I know anything about astronomy, but I do understand the logic. It is, after all, central to our Christian theology. Call it “Wobblology,” if you will.  We talk about it all the time in the church.

            It works like this: If you follow the movement of Christians in the universe, you should discern a certain wobble - an alteration of course that implies the presence of another force. That wobble might be a word of grace here or an act of compassion there or a stranger welcomed as friend or some unmerited kindness in an unlikely place that sets the Christian apart from the rest of humanity. "There, do you see?" I can imagine some objective scientist noting. "There is definitely something different about the movement of those Christians and the light they emit." Reason your way back and you will discover the cause - the presence of Christ and the gravitational pull of his love.

            In the end, there is no greater evidence for the existence of a divine love than the people who dwell in that love and no greater evidence for a Savior than the people who have been saved. So, wobble on, and in your wobbling bear witness to the Christ whose love changes everything.”

            (--Thanks to Rev. Mark Westmorland, former Senior Pastor of Fayetteville First UMC, Fayetteville, GA for his

               words from that church's newsletter)

Wow!  What a great reminder of the power of our influence on others!  I pray that as you live out your faith in your home, your workplace, your school, at the grocery store, online, on social media, and even on vacation, you'll have a “discernible wobble” about you that points others towards the reality and power of Christ!  Remember that God loves you and I do, too!

My Racial Autobiography

 “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” (Luke 12:48)

This past summer, our church began a task force to explore what we can do as God’s people to begin addressing racial injustice and inequality both in our community and world.  The first fruit of this effort is something we’re calling “The Story Project” – a forum for members and others to be able to share and listen to the personal stories, experiences and testimonies of each other regarding race.  You can read all the stories HERE.  However, as part of my blog for this week, I wanted to share my own racial autobiography that will be included in “The Story Project” initiative:

“Growing up in the 1970s multi-racial community of East Point, GA (near the Atlanta airport), racial discrimination, inequity, and injustice just weren't on my radar, much less concepts like “white privilege” or implicit bias.  After all, some of my best friends and playmates in school were African-American (one of whom is now Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court!), so consequently I thought of myself and my family as very open in terms of race relations.  And by the standards of the day, perhaps we were.

What I failed to recognize or understand at the time, however, is how the experience and life of most of my African-American schoolmates was very different from my own (and not always in  good ways), and how – despite my desire to be “color blind” (which I mistakenly then thought was a good thing) – I lived a very insulated and privileged life.  Growing up, I rarely wanted for anything material, never witnessed crime or violence immediately around me, never experienced discrimination because of the color of my skin, and my parents were never pulled over on the road for that reason, either.  All the people I remember my family socializing with were White, as was my church and my neighborhood.  Yes, I occasionally had my African-American friends over to my house play, but afterward, we went back to our own separate existences. 

Throughout my childhood, youth, days of college, and even my early years of ministry, I continued to have African-American friends, and considered myself (I thought) a champion for racial equality and justice.  Yet, in one of my later church appointments as Pastor of a nearly all-White church, I found myself surprisingly ostracized by many members for even suggesting that we as a church needed to look hard at our role over history in supporting (perhaps unintentionally) the inequities of that community. 

The good news was that, despite these challenges, with excellent leadership from our civic and religious leaders like our Mayor, Police Chief and Sheriff, Pastor-colleagues, and others, over several years that community made significant strides towards acknowledging its racist past and embracing a new inclusivity upon which to build a better future (more about this in a future story).

Through this experience, I came to realize that racism – which I thought had died back in the 1960s, and to which I had been oblivious in the 1970s and 80s – was alive and well in many subtle ways, and had instead merely gone underground, awaiting a new crisis to expose it once again (as the events of this past year have shown true).  I also learned that ALL people (including myself) are “privileged” in some way – racially, economically, socially, politically, materially – because ALL of us live life better than some others at least to some degree or another.  The question is not whether or not we are privileged, but what do we DO with that privilege?   Do we use it to help bring about a better world? Or do we use it to justify our denial about the differences and inequities of our world?  

In the Bible, Moses, Samuel, King David, the Centurion whose servant was healed by Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Gamaliel, Paul, and many others were all people of “privilege.” But they used their privilege to make a difference for the kingdom of God.  My prayer is that I would be able to do the same in my life.”

Always remember that God loves you and I do, too!