Tag Archives: Jesus

The Hope for The United Methodist Church

I was fourteen years old, doing drugs with my friend, when a man knocked on the door. He had a microphone that he held to his throat. And in a strange, mechanical voice, he invited me to church.

This is how Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of the aptly named Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, made me sit up.

Not that I really needed to pay attention. No one who attended the West Michigan Annual Conference this year was snoozing when he was on stage.

Adam Hamilton founded the Church of the Resurrection in 1990 with just four people. Today, it is the largest United Methodist Church in the USA, with a staggering 18,000 adult members. We, who serve in leadership in the same denomination, know that we have much to learn from him.

Here, on stage, was a speaker, pastor, and preacher passionately in love with God, with Jesus, and with the denomination he serves.

Adam Hamilton believes that if there is one church that stands a chance of transforming the world then it is ours: The United Methodist Church– as we open wide our hearts, our minds, and our doors; welcoming ALL without judgment; struggling together through questions and doubts; and striving to lead authentic lives that reflect our faith.

But it wasn’t just his message that gave me hope for the United Methodist Church.

It was the man.

It is conference policy to collect and return visiting speakers to the airport. For several years, this has been my husband’s wonderful privilege…but not this year. Adam had requested that a young, newly-ordained pastor be his driver.

Sitting in the conference bookstore, I saw why. I was witness as he came in, with his roll-away suitcase, getting ready to leave. His young companion was by his side. Adam quietly took her over to the table where the many books he had authored were sitting; and proceeded, one by one, to pick them up.

Do you have this one? What about this? Did you get the companion DVD to this book?

That one is out of stock, the bookstore clerk replied.

Can you please order it for her? asked Adam quietly. And put everything on my account.

After making sure that his young companion had every book he had ever written, Adam then thanked the bookstore staff for being there. And left.

This pastor is someone who practices what he preaches; who kneels by his bed every night; who humbly and quietly follows Jesus. And who encourages me to do the same.

And I think about that man with the mechanical voice. The one whom God called to knock on Adam Hamilton’s door and interrupt him as he was taking drugs; the one who could have been at home lamenting the state of his health, but who chose instead to listen to God’s call on his life and to obey the voice that had him knocking on stranger’s doors.

I wonder if that man would ever know the enormous impact he had on that one, fourteen year old life, and how, because of what he did, thousands upon thousands of lives are being challenged, and changed for the better….including mine.

There is hope for the United Methodist Church.

My Favorite Place to be on a Saturday Morning

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It feels like a dream come true. And it is.

Here I am… standing on the banks of the lake, on a beautiful spring, Saturday morning, under blue, blue skies with hardly a cloud in sight.

We have been in the Holy Land less than one week. But already I know that this is my favorite place.

This is Lake Galilee: the same hillsides, the same water, the same waves; the very same place where Jesus fished, and walked, and cooked, and prayed. No holy shrine or church is built on this site…at least not on the shores where I stand.

We climb aboard the wooden boat and sail out across these famous waters.

I can’t quite believe that I’m here. I look out at this picture postcard view of the very slopes where Jesus fed five thousand hungry people; the green hillsides where crowds once gathered to hear his voice, and the mountains he climbed to pray.

We reach the center of the lake and pause, while the anchor plops beneath blue and plumbs the depths to hold us safe in place.

I’m holding Love Letters from God and I stand to read the story of how Jesus calmed the storm on Lake Galilee. I remember penning those words long ago, and if someone had told me back then that one day, I would be reading that story in the middle of the very same lake where the events took place, I never would have believed them.

But here I am, reading the story called Wind and Waves. Except there is no wind. And there are no waves. I finish talking and close its pages. We all close our eyes. And for the next few minutes, it’s hard to imagine that we are on a boat at all. Something magical happens.

There is no movement. And there is no sound.

No seagulls call. And no breeze blows.

No water laps. And no engine drones.

No fishes splash. And no voices speak.

There’s only silence. And stillness. And God. And our thoughts.

And everyone can feel it…. something powerful in this moment, something we cannot hear, or see, or articulate. But it’s here.

And in the silence, I seem to hear the whisper of those two little words, echoing down through the ages, spoken in this very place, over these very waters, all those long years ago.

Be still.

And it’s in the stillness that I hear the call; I feel the power; I know the peace.

Of One who once walked on these waters, and calmed its waves, and whispered into the wind.

Be still.

boat on galilee

The Happy Place

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No-one knows for sure if the cave I stand in front of is the real tomb where Jesus lay. But I like to think so.

Of course it helped that the sun was shining that day; that birds were singing high in the treetops; that blossom was blowing in the wind; that voices were raised in song, echoing around The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem and filling it with peace.

We wait patiently in line for our turn to step inside. I see the small doorway cut out of the rock; I see a huge circular stone standing nearby, like the one that would have been used to seal the entrance;

I see people stepping out of the tomb. They are smiling.

And then it’s our turn.

We step inside. It is quiet. And empty. And for a moment, we don’t say a word.

But when we do, it’s my sister that says,

This is a happy place.

And I laugh at her perfect pronouncement. She is so right! And I don’t feel like I have to whisper in here, as I have done at most of the holy sites. And I don’t feel like I have to tiptoe in here, like I did as a child in the graveyard, afraid to step on the tombs of the dead.

This is a happy place! This is not where we find the dead, but the living!

The tomb of Jesus is a happy place. This is not where we find the dead, but the living!

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And we step out through the open door, just as Jesus did, two thousand years ago, where sunshine waits to greet us, and promise whispers in the air.

We step from darkness into light, and celebrate with every spring flower who has pushed her way out from darkest earth to find the place where she can bloom.

JESUS IS ALIVE!

The Stones Under my Fingers

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Even though the sun is shining today, it’s cold in this pit. I knew it would be. I already had the chills when I read the sign announcing One Way Crypt.

We’re underneath the house of Caiaphas. descending into its lower depths by the stone circular steps. But this is not the way Jesus came in here. There was only one way in for him. And only one way out.

Jesus was lowered through a narrow hole in the roof. There would have been nothing careful about it. He was dangled on a rope, dropped in the darkness on the cold stone floor. And left. Alone.

This is the pit where Jesus spent the last evening of his life. It’s just one of the many prisons underneath the house of the High Priest. But it’s the deepest. And probably the darkest.

And as I run my hand over these rough, icy stones I wonder…if they could speak, what would they tell of a young man from Galilee?

Did he run his hands over these same stones too? Because those were powerful hands!

Weren’t they the hands that first molded the mountains and swelled the seas? Weren’t they the hands that scooped up dirt to give sight to the blind; that commanded a storm be still; that healed the lame with just one touch?

And if all that is true, then surely this pit did not need to be a One Way crypt at all. There would have been several ways out for Jesus. He could have dissolved the stones with his little finger; molded a stairway in an instant, or commanded the pit disappear.

But he didn’t.

I doubt if he even curled those powerful hands into fists and pounded on these walls, as I surely would have done.

In a moment I’ll climb those steps and leave this horrible place. I will probably sip on a cappuccino and maybe browse the gift shop, as tourists do. I’ll sit in the sunshine where it’s light and warm. My escape from the pit will be an easy one.

And his could have been too.

But instead Jesus chose to wait until they hauled on that rope, and dragged him through that narrow hole, his body banging and scraping and bleeding against those icy stones….on his way to the cross.

And it’s not until I’m actually here, in this horrible pit, that I realize the enormity of the choice he made.

The one way. The only way.

And that it was for me.