Author: FUMCWP Admin

This past week our little family got away and spent 5 days up in the Great Smoky Mountains near Waynesville. A family from Ryan’s church opened up their mountain home to us and we decided to make an adventure out of it. The drive up there with three young kids was adventure enough, but we included a waterfall hike, a trip into Asheville, a visit to Lake Junaluska and an opportunity to teach our big kids how to ski at Beech Mountain…yes, we are tired.

Our week started off last Tuesday with a hike. Ryan had done his research and found an easy enough family-friendly hike up to Flat Creek Falls and so we packed a lunch and snacks and headed out. Remember, directions matter. When we finally arrived at the trailhead, the entrance had been washed away by a creek and in order to get on to the trail, we had to walk across two logs that were steady, but all that stood between us and the cold creek. Ryan’s parents were with us and so the 7 of us set off up the trail. Now I should note that while I love nature, I am not an “outdoorsy girl” but I want our children to love nature and so we give it our best shot. Time in nature gives us time to talk and laugh and sing with our kids and it allows us to notice things that we are often too busy or distracted to see. There is a lot to appreciate while out hiking, but this wasn’t a normal hike. What we quickly learned is that the path was distorted and rather hard to follow. There were times that the trail was obvious and clear and well maintained and other times where actual tree limbs had to be removed or rocks tossed down to cross through the mud. For the majority of the almost 6 miles, our tiny humans were troopers. But towards the end, their legs hurt, they needed a potty, and we all needed clear reassurance that we weren’t going to die out there.

You see, when we returned to our car (by another route, no doubt) we looked at the way we traveled on our tracking app and it was quite hilarious (see right photo). When I look at this view of the path we walked that day, I am reminded how important it is to know where we are headed, especially if we are taking others along for the journey. Having clear directions, or at least a map to follow is vital for the journey, both in life and in faith. Ryan is a skilled navigator of maps, but the trail had been distorted by a recent storm. In fact, we saw evidence of chain saws while we climbed that showed that others had come before us to clear the path and yet the path was still winding and unclear, steep and a bit unsafe at times.

Back at the mountain house that night with a warm meal in my stomach, I began to see the connection between directions on a map and directions on our faith walk. Even if you are the most skilled hiker or avid nature enthusiast, there will be times when you get lost. There will be seasons when you lose your way, when the path before you is distorted and unsafe. These moments may have little to do with your faith and everything to do with the storms of life. They are inevitable and unwelcome, but a part of the human condition just the same.

Growing up in church, maybe you learned that the Bible is the ultimate map for the journey; guiding and directing you towards the correct way of living. But I want to challenge that. Yes, Scripture is the primary source for understanding our faith. However I have shared life with many that find Scripture almost as confusing as hiking a trail after a storm. Words that were written down to bring life and bring us closer to Jesus can leave us perplexed or can be taken out of context. As Wesleyans, we hold to Scripture as primary as long as it is read through tradition, reason and experience. In order to have a deep faith, we need all four of these to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Because the truth of the matter is, there will be seasons in our life where we walk through storms, and simply reading the Bible will not bring about healing, or peace, or comfort for a grieving heart. There will be seasons that feel like hiking on a trail with no direction and we might be tempted to lose hope.

And so, when we find ourselves in times like these, I do encourage you to cling to Scripture, but do not neglect service and worship and fellowship and prayer and fasting and spiritual formation and being in community. Don’t let yourself believe that Christianity is a solo sport or a one-on-one hiking experience. No, we were meant to walk this confusing and winding and challenging trail together. We were created to lace up our hiking boots and carry one another’s burdens. We are meant to ask directions from those that have walked the path before us, and we are required to not give up even when there doesn’t seem to be any clear path forward.

If you haven’t already, may you find the people to “go hiking” with and may you find strength from other disciples when the path needs clearing or when the trail needs reassessing. Directions really do matter and we are meant to follow them together.

All three of our children wake up differently. Maybe you can recall how your children woke up when they were little and maybe my story will bring back a few memories.

Emmaline loves to sleep and still naps on the weekends, so often we will have to scoop her up and snuggle her on the couch in the mornings before she fully wakes up to start the day. Charlie, however, is ready to take on the world, every day and promptly flings his door wide-open and announces loudly, “Good morning!” And add to that that he’s usually the first one up. Ellie, we haven’t quite figured out yet because she loves waking up at all times in the night for comfort and feeding. Compared to even just 8 years ago, our wake-up routine is much different these days.

On Sunday, Pastor Leah led us through John’s letter to the church in Sardis and she shared her own story about a church that was awake to God’s Spirit and welcomed a young, unaccompanied youth into their midst and it ended up setting her on a trajectory of answering her call into the ministry years later. And we are thankful for those churches that are wake and alert to the work of God in their midst. I don’t know about you, but I want to be a church like that, one that is ALIVE and AWAKE and ALERT. But sometimes, I am sure, we can remember seasons in a church or faith community when we circled the wagons and acted out of fear, not out of faith. Times when we woke up and feared what hadn’t happened over what God might be up to in our midst.

I had a parenting moment like this just this last weekend, when fear almost overcame faith. It is the kind of moment that all parents of school-aged kids have nightmares about and it happened to me. This weekend was full and in the midst of celebrating the end of another busy week and Emmaline’s third lost tooth, I went to bed early to get ready for the INUA race on Saturday morning. Ellie and I were up much earlier on Saturday than the rest of the family and right before we headed out the door, I heard this bloodcurdling scream from Emmaline’s room. I ran in, fully, expecting her to be hurt, or ready to throw up, and then with tears streaming down her face, she cried, “THE TOOTH FAIRY DIDN’T COME!” (Bring on the Parent Guilt!) We had forgotten, of course, in the busyness of the night before to help the tooth fairy deliver on her word. In a split second, I thought I may have ruined my oldest daughter’s childhood forever! I know, I may be a bit dramatic, but these things really do matter to a 7-year old!                     Dear Jesus, take the wheel…

I don’t know if it was the Holy Spirit, or parenting instinct or just that my coffee had finally kicked in, but I thought up a story, and thought it up quick and with Ryan’s help, the magic tooth fairy money appeared, and all was right with the world. Now go with me on this, aren’t we sometimes like a 7-year old, full of disappointment and fear? Overcome by our childish expectations of how we think this journey of faith should play out? Don’t we sometimes think first of the impossible, rather than what is only possible through faith?

My point, in connecting both the excellent sermon on Sunday and the parenting lesson from the morning before is asking myself, when it comes to being the church, how will I choose to wake up? Will I act in fear over what hasn’t happened rather than in faith about what CAN happen? Because I think you know which one I would choose and I hope you will join me. Because I want to be a part of a church that is waking up every day ready to face the brokenness of the world not with fear, but in faith. Knowing that God will always show up, will always deliver on God’s word and is a God that is constantly showing up and surprising us. I want to be a part of a movement that greets the day’s challenges with hope and a deep love for the one that gives us the gift of each day to begin with. I don’t want to be so wrapped up in my plans, that I can’t appreciate when the “tooth-fairy” doesn’t show up in the way I expect her too.  And finally, I want to be open to rethinking how God will deliver on God’s promises. Not always how I expect, or plan, but God is faithful to the end. May we be a church, may we be a people who choose faith over fear because are feet are firmly planted in God’s faithfulness.

AMEN

In our Parenting Class on Sunday, a group of us parents of young ones were discussing the sermon on Sunday and we were remembering the times when we were very passionate about our relationship with God. And how, just like in our marriages, our relationship with God takes nurturing and work. I can remember a time when I was really “on-fire” for God and it was when I was a Team Member at Methodist Youth camp. I loved serving, singing, sweating, jumping, cleaning and teaching youth all because I loved Jesus. I remember having a quiet time every day that I took seriously and looked forward to that time daily because I really felt a deep love and devotion for God. I remember walking through tough seasons over those four summers in my personal life but having that strong relationship with God was what grounded me. I didn’t understand the counselors that did not take advantage of their quiet time every day because I saw it as such a gift. And still to this day, when I think about the time in my life when I felt that I was closest to God, those four summers come to mind. I even have several journals that I can look back on and read from those quiet times.

Fifteen years later, I am reflecting on how different my life is now. I don’t have a carefree life and a fruitful summer job that pays me to love Jesus and serve others; today my daily schedule looks very different. I have a husband in ministry, three needy and exhausting (yet adorable) children, I have “real” life struggles, like bills to pay, debt to handle, health concerns, sick children, busy loved ones, denominational drama and the worry of the unknown. Don’t get me wrong, I have a life that I LOVE living, but it is very different from when I was 20 years old.

Yet still, I can find that passion for God in the midst of the struggle. I can grow my love for God and neighbor when I don’t see things working out as they once did. And in fact, I have learned more and more this year, that as I share about my own struggles, it opens the door for others to share their struggles and so together we find God in the comfort that we are not alone.

On Sunday, Pastor David used the metaphor of marriage to talk about the passion that the Church at Ephesus had lost in the second chapter of Revelation.

The two questions he asked were these:

Is your love for God as strong as it has ever been?

As you might have already guessed, my love for God is NOT as strong as it has ever been. I just shared how there was a past season in my life where I felt my love for God as strong as it has ever been. To be honest, I believe that part of difference was because I had fewer relationships to pour into, part of it was being at Methodist Youth Camp on Holy Ground and part of it was my youth. As we learned on Sunday, we can REMEMBER or look back on the love I used to have and then it leads to REPENTENCE. Remember that the word, Repent means to find a new way of thinking about my passion for God. If I can REMEMBER that I had more passion once and I want to have more passion again, then my REPENTANCE is finding a new way to cultivate an old feeling in my current season.

The second question asks this. What nurtures your love for God and what eats away at it? Each of us will have a different answer about what nurtures and what eats away, but I can tell you what has never fueled my passion for Jesus is the Hypocrisy of his followers. And so, instead of pointing fingers, I try and practice authenticity in everything I do. I am usually the first one to be real or vulnerable or to admit that “Jesus loves my Hot Mess self” too!

At the same time, I benefit by surrounding myself with truth-tellers. Over the years, I have always seen my love for God grow when people I trust deeply tell me the truth.

“Rachel, you can’t be late as often as you are, it is disrespectful.”

“Rachel, you haven’t been a good listener lately”

“Mommy, put down your phone, I am talking to you.”

“Pastor Rachel, did you ever read that long email I sent you?”

There are other examples like this, I promise you, but here is the point. As these beloved individuals speak truth into my life, they love me in such a way that it feels as if God is speaking through them to me. Because sometimes, the words of others, are words from God and they are delivered with such grace and candor and concern, that we are left changed by their impact.

And so, I leave you with this. As you consider the passion you once had and the passion you hope to have again, are you surrounding yourself with people that speak God’s truth, in love, to you? Are you prepared to receive it? Are you open and authentic in your sharing with those you deeply love and are you able to see how God might be giving you a new way to think about your passion? And as you learn more, are you willing to nurture that passion and work for a stronger and more mature relationship with your Creator?

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN

In honor of the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement, I wanted to share a true story that involves my loved ones.  Before he was the Rev. Dr., he was a student at Boston University and my grandfather, James Marshall Smith, was in his class. Martin was from the Baptist tradition and my Grandfather, my Dad’s father was from the Methodist tradition. You may be wondering, wait, why did Martin go to a Methodist seminary, he was an ordained Baptist minister by 1948 after all, but he wanted to get his Doctorate. At that point, no colleges or universities in the south were admitting black students for PHD’s and so he ended up in the northern part of the United States at Boston University in 1951 where he studied ethics and philosophy. At some point during his Doctoral Degree and my Grandfather’s Masters’s degree, they were in class together. As a child, I remember hearing my grandfather share this connection and it has stuck with me ever since.  We were talking about the importance of this past holiday when I was in Middle School, and my Grandpa shared that he was classmates with this amazing man and so I asked him, “Grandpa, what kind of student was he? Was he a great preacher and orator even then?”

My grandfather responded, “Actually, he was rather quiet and shy. Unfortunately, he was the only black student in any of my classes at BU, but no, he never really spoke up or talked much in class.”

This surprised me of course, because the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King would go on to preach hundreds of times as a Baptist minister, and he would speak passionately and prophetically to thousands over his short lifetime. It was his voice, and others like it, that was the match that lit the flame for the Civil Rights movement.

And so what changed?

Simply put, we are not YET who we are becoming!

That is a powerful word, YET, and our God uses it constantly. As Wesleyans, we believe that we are called to personal and social holiness and that over time we strive to go onto Perfection. We are not YET perfect at loving God and loving others, but we are growing into becoming perfect in loving God and others. Throughout our everyday lives, we will have a chance to see how we are doing on this. And we will have our share of YET moments. Sometimes those YET moments are full of joy as we look back and see that we are different than we once were, more patient, more understanding, more respectful, more confident. Other times those YET moments will be moments of challenge. Maybe we will face conflict and wonder if we are really able to love our enemy as Jesus asks us to do. A relationship may fall a part and we are left trying to put back together the pieces with grace. We fight an illness or a health crisis or financial upheaval and get to see where our hope real lies. In other words, our lives will have many moments that test who we are BECOMING.  And the beautiful thing is that God loves us just as we are but at the same time, sees us as what we can BECOME.

My encouragement to you this week is that you ask God to start to show you what you are BECOMING. If this story from my Grandfather’s past taught me anything, it is that we are meant to GROW because God gives us the power to become our best self. And in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s case, God used his YET moments to grow him into who he was BECOMING. Those moments of challenge led to growth to take on the generational sin of racism, the unjust laws and policies of that time and to remind people of every background they we are all Beloved Children of God.

“^3-5 There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

Romans 5: 3-5 The Message

AMEN