United Methodist Reporter Blog

September 11: A Day for Prayer and Peace

The Council of Bishops has released a statement today (below) in regards to September 11. Let us all  remember to keep the day as one of prayer and peace.

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As we approach yet another September 11, we are reminded that the world we live in continues to be fragile place where emotions and tensions run high. There are not many of us who will ever forget where we were on that September morning nine years ago. We should never forget those whose lives were taken away in the horror of just a few hours.

September 11 should be, for all of us, a day of prayer for peace in this world. It should be a day for quiet remembrance and reflection as we seek to find and live in the ways of peace. We think of Jesus pausing on his way into the holy city of Jerusalem on the day we call Palm Sunday. He wept over the city - not so much for what was about to happen to him, but because the people did not know the things that make for peace (Luke 19:41-42). We suspect he still weeps, looking out over the world we currently inhabit.

September 11 should be a day of prayer for rebuilding and restoring relationships, and for reaching out to find ways to work and live together in this world. It is not a day for burning the holy book of another faith tradition. Tragically one person has garnered headlines for advocating such a thing. There is nothing of Jesus in such an action. In fact, as we recall, there was a time when the disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven on the perceived enemies for refusing to receive Jesus. No, Jesus said; in fact he "rebuked" those who advocated such a means. (Luke 9:51-55). Such an action is not the way of Jesus, nor the way of peace and love.

There was a meeting earlier this week in Washington, DC, of religious leaders of many faith communities.  The United Methodist Church and its Council of Bishops was represented by its Executive Secretary, Bishop Neil L. Irons.  The members of the group, in a formal statement, said:  "We are committed to building a future in which religious differences no longer lead to hostility or division between communities. Rather, we believe that such diversity can serve to enrich our public discourse about the great moral challenges that face our nation and our planet. On the basis of our shared reflection, we insist that no religion should be judged on the words or actions of those who seek to pervert it through acts of violence; that politicians and members of the media are never justified in exploiting religious differences as a wedge to advance political agendas or ideologies... We work together on the basis of deeply held and widely shared values, each supported by the sacred texts of our respective traditions. We acknowledge with gratitude the dialogues between our scholars and religious authorities that have helped us to identify a common understanding of the divine command to love one's neighbor. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all see an intimate link between faithfulness to God and love of neighbor; a neighbor who in many instances is the stranger in our midst. "

"We are convinced that spiritual leaders representing the various faiths in the United States have a moral responsibility to stand together and to denounce categorically derision, misinformation or outright bigotry directed against any religious group in this country. Silence is not an option. Only by taking this stand, can spiritual leaders fulfill the highest calling of our respective faiths, and thereby help to create a safer and stronger America for all of our people." **

We urge all of us to approach the remembrance of September 11 in prayer and hope for peace; and in resolving to do everything we can individually and collectively to live the way of Jesus. It is our prayer that this weekend be filled with prayers and not the fires of hatred and irrational rage.

Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster

President, Council of Bishops

Bishop Neil L. Irons

Executive Secretary, Council of Bishops

 
**Full statement and list of attendees available at:http://www.isna.net/articles/News/Beyond-Park-51-Religious-Leaders-Denounce-Anti-Muslim-Bigotry-and-Call-for-Respect.aspx

 

40 days of prayer starts today

 How often do you say you will pray for someone or something and then forget to actually do it? When I was in elementary school, I was always afraid of leaving someone out of my prayers. After rambling off a list of family members, friends, teachers and pets, I’d round every prayer off with, “and bless everything else too, God! Amen.”

Well, for the next 40 days the United Methodist Church is making a commitment to pray specifically for college campuses and you should too.

Why?

Because every fall, more than 17 million American students head off to college and university campuses (plus millions more worldwide) to become the next generation of teachers, accountants, mothers, fathers, doctors, CEOs, journalists and ministers. In college, they will grow and learn to make decisions that will shape their lives and the world around them, and it should be our prayer that as they make these decisions, learn these lessons and become these people that they do so having been shaped by Christ. 

The purpose of Pray40 is to call the Church to pray for college students and to help college students learn to pray.

The prayers have been written by campus ministers, college students, bishops, authors, pastors and other leaders, and collectively, they express a heart for God to inspire, challenge and transform the lives of college campuses and individuals.

Here is today’s prayer from the Rev. Tarah Trueblood, the executive director and campus pastor at the Wesley House and Campus Center at University of California, Berkeley.

Ready, set, pray. Can you make the commitment to pray for college students from August 23-October 1? And don’t worry, you can sign up to get prayers by e-mails, texts or even via Twitter (@CollegeUnion). See, you really have no excuse!

Letting Go

It’s hard to believe that summer is almost over and in a little over two weeks, my son will be a college student. For me, this brings a whole mix of emotions: happiness, pride, anxiety and quite a bit of sadness. It is hard for me to grasp that raising my little boy to be independent and resourceful has reached the point where I now need to let go.

When my son and I attended campus orientation earlier this month, the union was lined with tables set up for every interest and activity on campus. There were tables about eating plans, housing options, transportation, recycling, sports team tickets and student organizations. It was crowded and very overwhelming. As we are getting ready to leave, my son made a beeline to the campus ministries table. I have to admit, I was proud that my 18 year old son would think to continue his faith journey on his own.

Mallory’s story on college campus ministries had me look into the school's Wesley Foundation and we now have contacts and information. I also signed up to be a part of Pray40 to pray for college students. It's comforting to know that others will be including my son in their prayers.

As I am preparing for this reality of moving my son to college, the feelings are similar to helping him to learn to walk or how to ride his bicycle.  I know these events in his life have been preparing us both for this next step of him becoming a man. Just like learning to ride his bike, I’ll be here to brush off the scrapes and bruises and I’ll extend my hand to help him off the ground. I’ll give him a hug and offer encouragement and help him try again. That will never change.

And when I am praying for the college students during Pray40, I am going to add a prayer for the moms of these students as well. I know I miss those simple days of taking first steps and training wheels. And I know that I am not alone, as a mom, who could use the prayers for comfort and reassurance as I watch my son, a young man now, peddle down the road without me.

Perception? Reality? Correlation? Another stinkin' survey?

Over at Hacking Christianity, the Rev. Jeremy Smith has an interesting discussion going. Here's how it begins:

The Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church has an online version of their "health and wellness" report.  It has mostly to do with pensions (Zzzzzz wake me when it's over), but there are at least three interesting nuggets of demographic data that could spark discussion....

The data have to do with the more spiritually-focused section of the health and wellness survey; specifically, differences in how Local Pastors (those who are not ordained, but have training requirements) and Elders (fully-educated and ordained clergy) answer questions about sensing the power of God, feeling God's grace and love and knowing that their prayers have been answered. There also seems to be a difference in Bible-reading and prayer habits between age groups, with the dividing line in this report being age 45.

As can happen with survey results, these answers seem to be raising more questions over in Jeremy's comments section. In particular, folks are bringing up possible underlying reasons as to why the answers are different. Go have a look.

Got 30 minutes?

Earlier today I received an email from Jenny Smith of umcyoungclergy.com. This same website that hosted the 40 Days of Prayer effort earlier this year is now trying something on a more concentrated timeline.

On the evening of Thursday, December 17, from 9 to 9:30 Eastern time, the UMC Young Clergy group invites the wider church to "engage in 30 Minutes of Prayer for all who will encounter the Christmas message this season." They'll be using Scribble Live; the link in my previous sentence takes you to the event guidelines, and the link to the Scribble Live site itself.

For those praying along on Twitter, the hashtag is #pray30. You can also join the Facebook event page to stay connected.

Second family

Tyra Damm and I became friends because we have a couple of things in common: We write, and we're United Methodist. We've run a couple of her columns in the pages of the Reporter.

Tyra's latest column for the Life/Travel section of the Dallas Morning News is a reflection on what her local church means to her, and she presents a picture of gratefulness for it that I hope every Christian has the opportunity to experience with a faith community.

What she doesn't mention in this column, but has discussed in others, is the amount of support and prayer she and her household have received from their church, their "second family," since her husband Steve was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2007.

If you're reading this post, join me in lifting up a prayer for Steve, Tyra, Cooper and Katie, and for the church family, Holy Covenant, that embodies the love of God for them during this time.

The new, hot UMC number: 6

As the site to which I'm linking states, the UMC has 1 mission (no mention of 2 anything), 3 simple rules, 4 areas of focus (folks in the newsroom are sick of the plural "foci"), 5 practices, and now 6 questions.

6 Questions for the United Methodist Church is a follow-up to the 40-day prayer campaign spearheaded by Jenny Smith, Ben Simpson and others who have become involved at www.umcyoungclergy.com. I received an invitation earlier this week and added a few questions to the list myself. One of the people I invited has asked me how this effort is different from any other conversation we've attempted in recent years. My answer? I don't really know how different it is, but I figure it's worth giving it a try.

So, if you're curious, go visit the site, and follow its link to the list of questions on Google Moderator, where you can add new ones and vote for those already posted. You can also follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #6qumc, and become a fan on Facebook. We'll see what comes of it when the push concludes on September 30.

40 Days of Prayer begins today

A while back, Ben Simpson suggested engaging in a communal, intentional time of prayer for the United Methodist Church. The idea spread through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, and now here we are at Day One of the 40 Day Prayer Campaign hosted by United Methodist Young Clergy (a blog maintained by Jenny Smith).

The first of 40 prayers is now posted. Each day will bring a new prayer written by a different United Methodist young adult leader. All are invited to join this group in prayer.

"I'm tolerant of everyone except intolerant people."

Ever heard that phrase?  Ever thought it?

Well, that's essentially what we're hearing now in response to the news that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Inauguration.

The short version: one side doesn't like Mr. Warren's stance on gay rights, and the other can't believe Mr. Warren agreed to pray for a President who is pro-choice. I'm not going to outline the reaction in great detail, because Ben Witherington and Adam Hamilton have already shared some thoughtful observations on their blogs.

I've noticed we aren't hearing near as much about retired United Methodist pastor and civil rights activist the Rev. Joseph Lowery giving the benediction. But Jeff Weiss posted it on the Dallas Morning News Religion Blog, which is where I learned of it yesterday morning. (It has since been distributed throughout United Methodist church-nerd circles.) Maybe people just think the Civil Rights Movement is too boring these days?

Blown away...

By this story, which poses a theological conundrum. According to this news story on KHOU-TV in Houston, folks at Windsor Village United Methodist Church are attempting to pray Hurricane Ike away. 

“We speak to Hurricane Ike and we command the winds and the storm to dissipate...,” prayed the parishioners on Tuesday.

OK, "dissipate" is good, but if their prayers are answered so that the storm veers south - sparing Houston, but slamming Mexico - was that really a good outcome? 

Hurricane Katrina: Prayer of remembrance

This blog usually goes dormant on weekends, but I wanted to get this out here as soon as I had permission, with yesterday being the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and with Hurricane Gustav having already begun to wreak havoc in the Caribbean, killing 71 people so far.

This prayer was written by two Mississippi Gulf Coast attorneys, Reilly Morse and Tom Teel.

Rewriting the History of August 29th : A Prayer

Thank you for letting me understand homelessness,
living without power, without television,
without cool air in the heat.

Thank you for letting me understand hunger,
the pleasure of dry clean clothes
and the relief of place to sleep.

Thank you for letting me understand
the deep and overwhelming sadness when forces,
beyond our personal control,
take the loved, the familiar, the usual.

Thank you for my needfulness
and Thank you for my newfound empathy
for those were homeless before the storm and homeless now,
for those hungry anywhere,
for those in need everywhere.

Thank you for the opportunity
you provided to help my neighbor,
to be my brother’s keeper,
to serve food, to patch roofs, to clear yards,
and to start mending that which was broken.

Thank you for the chance to change ourselves,
from a reprieve from the normal commercial day,
for teaching us to make do, to get by, to improvise,
for drowning our conceit, complacency, callousness
for silencing the noise,
for stopping the clock,
and for the chance to act our best when the worst occurred.

Thank you for the people who reached in pulled out the living,
cradled the dead, comforted the broken and torn apart,
wept for the splintered and uprooted.

Thank you for the people who didn’t wait
who came right away, who opened their homes,
who emptied their shelves, their closets,
who cleaned, fed , healed, held us,
who told us our spirit was amazing,and who keep on coming.

Thank you for people who measure
their faith by their actions,
and measure their action
by its consistency with their faith.

Thank you for all the people we have met,
who are new friends, new loved ones,
new brothers and sisters, new neighbors.

Thank you Katrina.
Not for wind, not for water, but for the appreciation
of the things no storm can shatter,
no water can wash away,
no wind can move.