United Methodist Reporter Blog

Preventing domestic violence, a TV special

Did you know one in every four women experiences domestic violence in her lifetime?

Nearly 75 percent of Americans personally know someone who is or has been a victim of domestic violence, and 30 percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.

With these statistics, it’s inarguable that there are members in our congregations who are caught in the cycle of abuse and are looking and hoping for the church to act out against such violence.

The United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) is providing the resources needed to empower the victims of domestic violence and push the local church into conversation and action. Until March 1, local ABC-TV stations will be airing I Believe You: Faiths' Responses to Intimate Partner Violence, an hour-long documentary on domestic violence and how the faith community is responding.

The documentary was produced with the support of the New York Board of Rabbis, United Methodist Women, Presbyterian Women, the Evangelical Church in America, Odyssey Networks, the National Council of Churches and a consortium of Muslim organizations.

Small groups and Sunday school classes are encouraged to watch the documentary together, and GBSC’s new resource, Building the Movement through Film, explains the benefits of a public screening and provides discussion guidelines and ideas as to how churches can prevent domestic violence.

To find out when the program airs in your area, click here. (If you don't see your state or community listed, please contact your local ABC affiliate to encourage it to air the documentary.)

 

For more ideas and information about what United Methodists are doing to combat domestic violence, visit the United Methodist Women website.

 

Would Wesley tweet?

Blackberrys, iPhones, tweets and Facebook statuses may be more Wesleyan than we think.

It used to be that Wesleyan Holy Clubs would chronicle their day in 15-minute increments, but now United Methodists are more likely to keep a rolling list of appointments, notes, tweets or statuses saved to their cell phones or desktops. Nonetheless, they’re participating in an old Wesleyan practice.

The Rev. Tom Arthur of Sycamore Creek United Methodist Church in Lansing, Mich. will most likely pull out his Blackberry when asked to recount his daily time use.

“That’s the main thing I use my phone for, to keep track of where I’m supposed to be and when,” he wrote in a Duke Divinity Call & Response blog post. “So here in my pocket was a record, a journal if you will, of how exactly I use my time. It was a little scary. What did this journal say about me and my ministry? What did it say about what I love?”

“Keeping a journal of how one used his or her time was a key method of spiritual growth for the early Methodists,” he wrote. “I suspect that Wesley would be proud of these conversations I’ve recently had, and I’ve gained a new appreciation of how my smartphone is helping me grow spiritually.”

Other tech-centered projects like the Rev. Jeremy Smith’s Pastor’s 24 project on Twitter, and the Rev. Becca Clark’s new #OurExamen Twitter campaign call for lay leaders and clergy to examine their ministerial doings. A simple hashtag allows them to instantly (and easily) log praises, prayers, revelations and concerns, ultimately making note of where and how they see God working in their lives and the Church.

So what do you think—would John Wesley tote a smartphone and join the Twitterverse? 

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!

Pop quiz: What is Easter?

For anyone who might still have doubts, the Barna Group's latest survey reinforces that we don't live in a Christianity-saturated culture. When researchers asked a sampling of U.S. adults what Easter means to them, 67 percent defined it as a religious holiday. When asked to go a little further on that definition, just 42 percent said that Easter celebrates Jesus' resurrection or return to life.

Part of my church nerd cred comes from my involvement with worship in my local church. Yesterday afternoon, I met with the pastor, the music minister, and one of our congregation's youth to plan this year's Maundy Thursday service. As the three adults chattered on and flipped through hymnals and books of worship in what probably seemed like a random pattern to an onlooker, I glanced across the table at the one who will turn 14 years old this week and said something like, "So, this is how worship gets planned. Impressive, huh?" She responded, "Actually, I think it's kinda cool." Relieved to know that we weren't boring the living daylights out of her, I instantly felt more comfortable talking with her about forming a plan for how she and others will begin the worship service with movement and action as our pastor reads the words found in Luke, "Go and prepare..."

Our Maundy Thursday service is traditionally not that well-attended. I wonder now, having looked at the Barna Group's bar graph, how much our small numbers on that evening have to do with how few people, even in our own congregation, understand how significant that night was in Jesus' life, and in our life together.

Easter is coming. Let's tell folks about it.

"How is it with your soul?"

I've been thinking about that traditional Wesleyan question since I reviewed the proof copy of Bishop White's most recent column (Feb. 26 issue).

Almost a decade ago, I took an 8-week course from my then-pastor called "The Methodology of Methodism." There were only three other people in the class, and one of them was my husband; yet, when we faced up to how the original Wesleyan small groups related to each other, the question "How is it with your soul?" just seemed too daunting.  "We're not there yet," I remember my pastor saying. Everyone nodded in agreement and we moved on to our next topic.

Given that recollection, I honestly didn't expect much when I posted the question as a Facebook status update yesterday. But I got quite a few comments from that experiment, some of them amusing ("Medium Well") and others downright raw ("aimless and drifting"). And there were lots of references to the classic hymn text by Horatio G. Spafford (number 377 in the United Methodist Hymnal). While it's a helpful hymn to many, I couldn't help but wonder if those folks were giving the answer they thought I wanted.

Perhaps we should be more intentional about asking each other how we are -- how we really are, rather than that "How're you? Okay, well, I was calling because..." kind of inquiry. It can be hard, because to ask the question, we have to be willing to hear the honest answer.

Might make for a worthwhile Lenten practice.

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.

Tithing, part 2

Friday's blog post on tithing prompted several comments, both here and on our Facebook page, so I thought I'd stick to the same theme today.

Everyone who commented regarding the "before or after taxes" question agreed: Your tithe should be calculated based on your income before taxes. (By the way, the question was tongue-in-cheek during the news staff meeting; I think everyone agreed that before taxes is the way to go.) That said, if you're working your way up to tithing, giving 10 percent of your after-tax income could be a worthy milestone to celebrate as you move toward the goal.

One commenter differentiated between tithes and offerings, with offerings being over and above the 10 percent given to a church's operating budget. There are probably differences of opinion on that one.

Another commenter provided some statistics about how proportional giving decreases as income increases. I'd seen similar figures before, but it's no less surprising to me now. It seems that widow's mite observation Jesus made still rings true today.

So, who's working toward tithing? Who's already doing it? Who's comfortable talking about it with, or in front of, their fellow believers? Just a few questions to consider.

Holy Week desktop pilgrimage

Our friend Donna Adair of St. Paul's UMC in Houston has let us know that St. Paul has added the Stations of the Cross to its Web site:

Visual meditations on the “Stations of the Cross” were dedicated to the worship and music ministries of St. Paul’s UMC in the Spring of 2006 by their creator, Thomas Hardin. Now an architect in London, he was at the time a Rice University student and a member of St. Paul’s Choir. This gift was combined this year with devotional text written and compiled by Rev. Shelli Williams as she conducted the Lenten study, “The Way of the Cross: A Journey through the Stations of the Cross.” These works were an integral part of the church’s Holy Week Labyrinth Walk.

I've taken a quick tour of it this morning to see whether I wanted to link to it (obviously, "yes!"), but plan to spend more time with it later in the week. Some of our readers might want to use it for meditation as we make our way to Good Friday.

Incidentally, for years now, I've thought of Good Friday as having an advertising-style tagline... "Good Friday: Can't Have Easter Without It!" I guess lots of people do essentially skip Good Friday, if they're more bunny-centric Easter types. But to me, it's an essential part of the wonder that comes with being a Christian: it came down to this. It really did.

It's a sense of wonder I pray I never lose.