Category: Stories

Last Sunday afternoon I was frantic to find Charlie’s backpack. If you didn’t know, Charlie has been playing Flag Football with a local League and they practice and play every Sunday afternoon at Lake Howell High School. The week before, Ryan had brough him home from the game and left his backpack and water bottle at the school track and field,  and after several calls and emails, I didn’t get any answer. Our son Charlie has LOVED Flag Football and he is on Team Thunder, which is perfect, because if you don’t know, Charlie is the kind of kid that you hear before you see. And so Team Thunder is so very appropriate for his loud voice. He wears cleats to play in and in the backpack was his pair of school shoes that are his favorite. All week long we limped by with different shoes, which to a seven-year-old is a travesty, but we made it work. And so, on this Sunday afternoon, I was determined to find this backpack, so help me God. And God helped me, that is for sure.

All game long I looked for it. I asked the coaches and the volunteers if they had seen it. No luck. I tried to find the groundskeeper, but again, no luck. And then this incredibly energetic woman on a golfcart wheels up as we are packing the car and is smiling at me. Her name is K. Johnson, and she said, “I heard you were looking for a backpack…” I shouted, “Yes, thank you so much!” I then did the happy dance. And then she said these words. “I have been driving around this field all afternoon long asking each person I saw, if this was their backpack, but I had no luck. I knew I would find the owner, but I just had to keep looking.”

And in that moment, I felt a profound sense that Jesus was there with us, not because of a stupid backpack or a pair of shoes, but because lost things, always have a way of being found.

I want to be like K. Johnson who tenaciously works to reconnect a lost thing back to where it belongs. I don’t know how long she went person by person in the heat that day, but isn’t that a picture of Christ? Taking each one of us who is lost and tenaciously asking around until they are home again? The Bible says it like this:

¹⁰ “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.^[11] 

¹² “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. ¹⁴ In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”

In the Parable of the Wandering Sheep from Matthew 18, Jesus never gives up looking for us and in fact prioritizes the lost one over the 99 already found sheep. This sometimes makes those in the “IN” crowd of Church a bit frustrated because we want attention and care too. But what stood out to me that day as K. Johnson shared how much she cared was her determination to find us, the owners. And I thought about how the church could be a little bit more like K. Johnson that became bold enough and tenacious enough to go person by person, space by space and help those who were lost to find their way back to God. If you have ever been lost, you know how important it is to be found again. And so this is a small example of my first world problem, but it reminded me of the joy that is shared when something lost has been found. And the joy it brings God’s heart when a wandering sheep finds her home.

Do you have a child, or a spouse, or a sibling, or a friend or a parent that feels lost to you? We all know someone, maybe God has laid them on your heart as you read this. If you do, this is your encouragement to never stop trying to show them Jesus. Don’t give up, don’t lose hope. The journey of faith is a marathon, not a sprint and we are in this together. May we be people, who with Joy get to know and share the love of Jesus with all people and are open to being used by the Holy Spirit to reconnect that which is lost, back to God.

AMEN

The Gift of Lament: Embracing Vulnerability and Honesty with God 
By Rev. Philip Allred

We all love the moments in life when things are going well—when faith feels easy and everything makes sense. But let’s be honest, there are also those seasons when nothing makes sense, when the floor falls out from under you, and you’re left wondering where God is in the mess. That’s where lament comes in. 

Lament is this honest, vulnerable space where we can come before God and say, “This hurts. I don’t understand. I’m scared.” It’s all over Scripture—from the cries of the Psalms to the groans of the prophets to Jesus Himself crying out on the cross. It reminds us that God can handle our rawest prayers. 

When the pandemic hit, our family found ourselves in one of those seasons. The consulting business we’d built from the ground up collapsed overnight when churches shut their doors. We had no clue how we were going to pay the bills. It felt like the world we had built was slipping through our fingers, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. 

In that season, all we could do was cry out to God. I remember walking for hours, pouring out every fear, every doubt, every frustration. I told God, “I don’t know where this is going. I’m scared. I’m angry. I don’t even know what to pray right now.” But in those moments, something holy happened. I wasn’t given all the answers, but I did sense God’s presence walking alongside us in the unknown. 

That’s the thing about lament—it’s not a quick fix or a tidy prayer that wraps everything up with a bow. It’s the long, honest work of trusting God with your pain, even when you don’t have a clue where the path leads. And in that vulnerability, we often find a strength we didn’t know we had. 

Lament isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It’s faith that’s been through the fire. It’s a way of saying, “God, I’m showing up with everything I’ve got, even if what I’ve got today is just tears.” 

Psalm 13 captures this so well. The psalmist cries out: 

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me? 

It’s as if the psalmist is giving us permission to ask the hard questions. But even in the same breath, they choose to lean into trust: 

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 

That’s the gift of lament—it lets us hold both. The pain and the trust. The questions and the hope. The tears and the stubborn belief that somehow, even here, God is with us. 

Yesterday afternoon, a group of clergy and lay leaders gathered at a Regional Gathering to hear from our Bishop, Tom Berlin. All this week and next he is meeting at a handful of churches to share his vision for the rebirth of the United Methodist Church in Florida. We met at First Church Melbourne and had worship and a time of listening and preparing for our upcoming Florida Annual Conference the first week of June.

The Bishop started with the image of how he had seen a video of a diver in a cage in open water surrounded by feeding sharks and then one actually got into the tank and everyone wondered if the diver survived. The diver did survive and the shark eventually got out, but there were some tense moments when that shark was in the cage with the diver and it felt like all hope is lost. And then he said, that we are living in times now, where there is a giant shark in our cages and the church needs to be ready to respond. The Bishop went on to explain that there are several areas in our current culture that feel like an angry shark is thrashing around. One place is in our economy, one place is in our constant stream of the news cycle and the other is in the way we respond to the divisiveness of politics as people who love Jesus.

The Bishop then asked the question I tried to ask this Sunday in my sermon: What do we do as Christians living in this divisive country? And his answer surprised me, it shouldn’t have, but it did. He said it is time for us to reclaim our unique identity under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and surrender to him as Lord. We all are pretty comfortablecalling Jesus Savior and asking to be saved from our sin, our broken circumstances and saved for eternity; but it is another thing entirely to surrender ALL of our lives to Jesus as Lord. Every great story in our tradition starts with Surrender. And we surrender not by engaging in the doom and gloom of our reality but in turning those divisive conversations into opportunities to share a witness both with our words and actions.

Then he invited us onto the rooftop with him and asked us to get onto the proverbial rooftops of our churches and to take a few minutes to look outside the walls of the church to see the homes, apartments, schools, communities and concerns that are right around us. The Bishop reminded us that Jesus came to set the oppressed free and to love and serve the vulnerable. In our current economic realities with the shark in the cage, we will have even more vulnerable and oppressed people closer to the zero margin of not knowing if they can pay for rent, feed their children or afford medicine. We are inching closer and closer to this and his advice for us, the people called United Methodists, is to allow that witness of our faith to take action as well. It is not helpful in these times to bury our heads in the sand or assume someone else will fix it. But his encouragement to all churches in the Florida United Methodist Conference is to prepare now for what is coming and to be ready to feed the hungry and speak for the vulnerable and lift up the oppressed when the time comes.

I share a picture with you of Bishop Berlin standing in front of a bunch of food items that he and one other person bought this week that they plan to donate to a church in their area. It was a challenge for us to think about how we can encourage our children and grandchildren and neighbors and friends to be more generous. For Mother’s Day this year, I have asked my kids not to buy me a gift, but to use that money to buy food and contribute to a food pantry or church that is meeting the needs of the most vulnerable and I invite you to join me.

As we ended our time together we prayed through these verses in Proverbs that most clearly articulate the heart Methodists have for personal and social holiness.

Proverbs 14:21 says:

21 It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor,
    but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.”

I pray that this Scripture, these devotional words and the Holy Spirit will speak to you this week as you continue living into the person God has called you to be and that you may be strengthened to live out that call to feed and tend the sheep.

AMEN

Scripture: Luke 19:37–40; Luke 23:1–5; John 18:36
Holy Week Devotional by Rev. Philip Allred

Holy Week begins with a parade.

However, this is not the type of celebration Rome would have envisioned. Rome showcased its generals, military triumphs, and displays of power—processions filled with soldiers, war horses, and trophies from victory. In contrast, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a humble colt rather than a war horse. He carries no weapons but instead brings humility. His procession features the ordinary and the overlooked. The crowds proclaim, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”—an inherently subversive claim, for in the empire’s eyes, the title of king already belongs to Caesar.

This marks the initial indication that Holy Week represents a confrontation. Instead of swords, it involves truth; rather than violence, it embodies love. Jesus does not shy away from the world’s powers—he boldly approaches their stronghold, declaring through both words and actions that another kingdom has arrived.

Throughout the week, Jesus turns the symbols of the empire upside down:

• He enters the Temple not to uphold religious respectability but to disrupt its collusion with political power.
• He washes his disciples’ feet, refusing the ladder of dominance and choosing instead the basin of servanthood.
• He shares a meal, not with elites, but with friends—some of whom will betray and abandon him—proving that love is not earned but given.

On Good Friday, the empire does what empires always do: it silences dissent, this time with a cross.

They call him a threat to national stability. They say he’s undermining public order. They accuse him of inciting revolution.

And in a way, they’re right. He is leading a revolution—not with legions, but with love. As Brian Zahnd says, “Jesus didn’t come to start a religion; he came to start a revolution. Not a revolution of violence, but of love.”

This Holy Week, we’re not just remembering a story. We are being invited to live it.

The empire’s narrative is still alive in the world today—in systems that oppress, ideologies that divide, and the lies we tell ourselves about who matters and who doesn’t. To walk the way of Jesus is to reject the ways of empire—whether that empire looks like nationalism, violence, racism, exploitation, or any system that crushes the vulnerable to protect the powerful.

However, Holy Week presents a contrasting narrative: embodying the subversive gospel includes

• Choosing forgiveness when the world demands retribution.
• Showing mercy when the culture demands judgment.
• Standing with the vulnerable when empire protects the powerful.
• Loving enemies when the world teaches us to fear them.
• Carrying a cross, not to punish, but to redeem.

This is not just a nice idea—it is a different way of being human. A different way of ordering the world. A different kind of kingdom.

The cross is not just where Jesus died. It’s where the values of empire go to die. And the empty tomb is not just about life after death—it is about life before death, a new kingdom breaking through.

So, as we walk through Holy Week, may we see it not as a series of rituals but as a revolution. May we find ourselves caught up in the story of a God who defeats violence with peace, hate with love, and death with resurrection.

Let us walk this week not as spectators but as disciples—people shaped by the subversive nature of a different kind of king.

By Rev. Philip Allred

I recently returned from a pilgrimage to Argentina, a journey that was as emotionally difficult as it was spiritually rich. We sought to learn from Methodist churches and those who experienced one of the darkest periods in Argentina’s history- the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 that led to the disappearance of 30,000 individuals.

I listened to a man speak about his parents, who were taken by the regime and never returned. I stood in a former military base turned museum filled with faces—thousands of the disappeared—all tortured, all killed. Then I learned something that made the grief heavier: the U.S. government helped fund and train the Argentine military behind it all.

I left that day asking deep questions:
What is the Church’s role in the face of political extremism?
When do we speak up?
How do we discern the truth when even history itself is contested?

These aren’t abstract questions. Today, Argentina wrestles with the same divisions we do. Some deny the scale of the atrocities. Others cling to a version of history they believe restores order. And the Church is caught in the middle—divided, weary, and still trying to be faithful.

I thought of Jesus’ words:

“By their fruits, you will know them” (Matthew 7:16).

Truth isn’t just a claim; it’s what endures. It’s what produces justice, humility, and compassion. That’s the truth we must live by.

But alongside that grief, I also encountered something holy. I saw radical hospitality.

We were welcomed like family in a church, not polished and pristine like American churches. At this church, we enjoyed a prepared meal, sang together, and shared with them in laughter. I noticed they were organizing children’s programs—not to boost attendance but to bring hope to the community. Another church launched job workshops aimed at helping people achieve dignity and earn a living. Yet another church trained former sex workers and unhoused women in sewing to provide income for their needs and their families.

These communities weren’t wealthy. But they were rich in presence. Their ministry wasn’t flashy—it was faithful. This kind of hospitality was beautiful to experience. I was reminded of the early church in Acts 2:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… And they had everything in common.”

True community is not just programs—it’s people, showing up for each other. Creating space. Sharing what they have.

As I reflected on the political and social complexities I witnessed in Argentina, I found a mirror of our own challenges. Just as they wrestle with contested histories and deep division, so do we. Some churches there are deeply engaged in political advocacy. Others avoid politics entirely. Some lean more conservative; others more populist or progressive. But like them, we are asking: How do we follow Jesus in a politically fractured world?

I believe the Church must not perfectly align itself with any one ideology or party. Instead, we must evaluate every policy and every power through the lens of Christ—through the call to love, justice, and humility. Sometimes, this means we will align with a particular group or movement for a time, but our allegiance is never to them. Our loyalty is to the way of Christ, who calls us to stand with the vulnerable, speak truth, and pursue the peaceable Kingdom above all else.

Here’s what I’m bringing back from Argentina, which I will be processing in the coming months:

• Truth matters—not for argument’s sake, but because real lives are shaped by it. The Church must be a voice of clarity and compassion in a world of spin.
• Hospitality is Resistance—against despair, against division, against apathy. It’s what makes the Kingdom of God tangible.
• Kingdom allegiance means no tribal allegiance. Not red. Not blue. Not purple. But the radical love of Jesus, who sided with the least of these.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said,

 “You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world; let it even triumph. BUT NOT THROUGH ME.”

My prayer is that spin, lies, and disinformation come to an end with us! Let us be known not by our opinions or party but by our courage to tell the truth and our commitment to breaking bread with our neighbors.

Let us be a Kingdom Church where Christ is King, honesty is sacred, and the table is always set.

I want to share where I have seen hope recently.

Yesterday, I gathered with about 200 other United Methodist Clergy in Lakeland for 5 hours of worship, fellowship, learning, challenge and dreaming. It was our Clergy Day Apart and we do enjoy being together. Ministry is difficult at times and while I have a Covenant group and friends in ministry, gathering with other pastors to pray and worship and hope for the future was so good for my soul.

Our time was led by our Bishop, Tom Berlin and he started by painting a realistic picture of our current reality in this country and what the church is likely to face over the next few years. Then he walked us through a Pew Research Poll that tells us where those that are not in faith communities sit currently. According to this research, 62% of US adults describe themselves as Christians.

The Pew Research Poll found that of the US adults who participated in the research, this is how they describe their relationship to faith:

• 29% are religiously unaffiliated
• 5% Atheist (Belief in no God)
• 6% Agnostic (Belief in some higher power)
• 19% is nothing in particular
• 2% are Jewish
• 1% are Muslim

(I realize this only equals 64% and doesn’t represent the whole population, but it does give us, I think, a more realistic picture of the culture we live in.)

And of these same adults who were polled, 66% of adults who attend religious services say that most or all people in their services look like them.

These are the data points we now see lived out in our churches that are getting smaller and older and more homogenous. The above are simply facts and while facts are helpful in some things, they don’t always give us hope. We know that the church in America is getting smaller. We know that people who used to come to worship every week, are coming now only once ever 4-6 weeks and feel good about their attendance. We know that the church of the 1980’s and the 1990’s is over and we would be silly to go back. And you are all smart enough and wise enough individuals to feel that change, but we don’t stop there; don’t give up. Here is where I see the hope.

If there are 29% of folks religiously unaffiliated, meaning they grew up in some faith, but they are no longer associated with that faith anymore and there are 19% describe themselves as nothing in particular, that means, if you add up those two categories that almost 50% of US adults are still making their mind up about God and this thing called faith…how cool is that?! This means that US adults are still seeking, still questioning, still doubting, still yearning and the followers of Jesus, if they are brave enough, can make a safe enough space to allow them to question in community.

When John Wesley has trying to summarize what it meant to be a Wesleyan Christian in the 1700’s, he established our Three General Rules:

1. Do No Harm
2. Do Good
3. Attend upon the Ordinances of God (or stay in love with God)

Yesterday our Bishop proposed Three General Rules for the rebirth of a new United Methodist Church and I tend to like how he summarized them. I wonder if you could get behind these General Rules today.

1. Heal the Harm
2. Offer the Good of Christ to the Community
3. Teach People to Love God, love each other and love themselves, because they are deeply loved

Brothers and Sisters, what would that look like if we prioritized our time and our resources as people, as a church, as a faith family around these three things? If Christ is the great Healer, then let His hands and feet heal. If God is Good and Gracious, let us tell our neighbors about it. And if Jesus loved the world so much that he gave up his life to set us free, we have the best story to tell our community!

I don’t know about you, but hearts are opening and ears are listening and eyes are watching the people who call themselves followers of Jesus as we respond to these trying times. What new thing might God be up to as we obediently and joyfully respond to the work of the Holy Spirit?

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Within the church calendar, Lent is to Easter as Advent is to Christmas. It is a period of preparation. For the cross. For the resurrection. A period of preparation that begins with “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

The story that begins with the God of the universe putting on human flesh and entering the world through blood and water, ends as all human stories must: with death.

Christianity, predicated on following the footsteps of Christ — is about descent and not ascent. It is about surrender, it is about gratitude, it is about becoming nothing because, as Father Richard Rohr would say, “when we are nothing we are in a fine position to receive everything from God.”

And so on this day, we participate in a symbolism that holds together two things. The cross that is marked on our forehead is made of two elements, ash, from the palm branches of the Palm Sunday past, and this ash represents the dirt and mess of life. And oil, which represents the anointing of holy and sacred beings. Oil was poured on the foreheads of those being anointed to be kings or in positions of high and holy power. And so can we see the crosses of Ash Wednesday as a combination of both dirty and holiness; of messy and yet sacred promise?

In talking through our upcoming services with my husband Ryan this week (he is also a United Methodist Pastor) he shared something with me that I had never learned before. He said that the anointing happened on the forehead in the Ancient Times because it was believed that your hair was the gate to your soul. Because the roots of hair run deep, long or short, hair is very deep. It’s like the body and soul’s antennas transmitting energy from a higher realm, while also exuding the deepest, most inner parts of one’s being. Which is why we use the forehead for this cross. We hold on our foreheads a mixture of mess and promise; dirt and oil, sin and purity…but isn’t our life a combination or both of these things. Don’t we all live in these tensions every day as we walk with Jesus?

If Lent is the somber reminder of our human condition, then Easter declares that there is hope, but that hope lies not in escaping our humanity but in journeying through it. Because Lent also points us to the inevitability of suffering and how, even as followers of Jesus, we don’t get a “get out of suffering free” card. We know the hard truth that life without suffering does not exist.

One of my favorite authors, Rachel Held Evans reminds us, in Searching for Sunday, that healing comes when we “enter into one another’s pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome.”

Anoint it as holy. Think about that.

What would happen if we really believed that? That our suffering, our neighbors’ suffering, was holy? Holy not because God delights in suffering but because God came and joined us within it. Holy in the same way that Communion is holy — the spilled blood, the broken body — because Christ comes and meets us there. Not symbolically, but sacramentally. Incarnationally.

And so tonight, if you are receiving the imposition of ashes at our worship service remember that you are mortal. That you are human (with all the perils and frailty the term implies). And remember that being human is a holy thing. That our mortality is a holy thing. Sanctified by the One who came, the One who died, and the One who rose again.

May we all have courage to face our deaths and walk more fully into life.

Scripture: Numbers 27:1-11

In Numbers 27:1-11, we encounter Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Tirzah—daughters of Zelophehad—who boldly approach Moses and the assembly with an unprecedented request: to receive their father’s inheritance since he left no sons. Their courage and faith result in a remarkable response. God acknowledges their plea and instructs Moses to amend the inheritance laws, ensuring justice for them and future generations.

This story raises a challenging question: Did God change, or did the people’s understanding of God evolve? Pastor David posed this question in his sermon, inviting us to wrestle with how we interpret Scripture. Is God’s justice fixed, or is it continually unfolding as humanity grows in its capacity to understand and embody divine love and mercy?

I want to give you two different perspectives to consider as you think through this question, but both lead to the same answer. God’s grace is ever-expanding:

1. Pete Enns suggests that the Bible portrays moments where God literally changes God’s mind in response to human advocacy. You can explore this view further in an excerpt from his book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament: Does God Change His Mind?.

2. Brian Zahnd offers a different perspective, emphasizing that it’s not God who changes but rather our understanding of God. We grow, mature, and see more clearly the expansive grace that was there all along. Read more here: God and Genocide

Which perspective resonates with you? Do you believe God’s justice is fixed, or are we the ones throughout the Bible expanding our understanding of grace and mercy? Perhaps the truth lies in holding these tensions together—trusting the Holy Spirit to guide us into deeper truth while remaining open to the mystery of God’s wild and free nature.

As Richard Rohr reminds us:

“Now, believe it or not, we are threatened by such a free God threatens us because it takes away all of our ability to control or engineer the process. It leaves us powerless, and changes the language from any language of performance or achievement to that of surrender, trust and vulnerability…That is the so-called “wildness” of God. We cannot control God by any means whatsoever, not even by our good behavior, which tends to be our first and natural instinct.” 

Prayer: Gracious God, we thank You for the example of Zelophehad’s daughters, whose boldness expanded the community’s understanding of justice. Help us to remain open to Your Spirit’s guidance and to grow in our understanding of Your mercy and grace. May we listen, learn, and respond with courage to reflect Your unfolding love in our lives. Amen.

Thought for the Day: God’s grace invites us into an ever-expanding journey of discovery and transformation.