Goody Fridge

That's right! A Goody Fridge! We have Pink Lemondae, Dr. Pepper, Seven UP, Candy Bars, and Freezey Pops. And everything is only a quarter.

If there's anything you would like us to keep here, please let us know.

Time to Brainstorm & Small Group Ministries

I know we are looking forward to summer, but we will be back here in no time at all. As we move into the summer, we will begin into fall planning. So here's your opportunity! What kind of events, ministries, etc. . . would you like to see here at the Wesley House next year.

It's easy to leave a message. Click on the word "Comments".

This year we had two student led small groups. As we prepare for next year, I would like to be able to be able to prepare promotional materials which include possible small group ministries. If you are interested in leading a small group, please let me know. I will also be posting this on our website.

A Spring Time Homecoming

For most of us, Homecoming is a Fall event. But with the snow melting, the cold air warming, why not a great Spring time party!

April 25 we are holding a Homecoming for alumni- students, board members, and Wesley House directors. General activities will kick off at 2:30. A tour of the campus will be offered by our R.S.O. president, Karrie Juengel, and bunches of finger food. At 5:30, we will all gather upstairs for a time of worship and sharing. Rev. Meredith Rupe, long time Wesley House director, will be dedicating our Communion table to a pair of former students he pastored here in Big Rapids. There will also be time for you to share your own experience and joys.

Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Holy Week Events

I know many of you will be gone towards Easter. For those of you who will be here in Big Rapids, I wanted to let you know that there will be two community wide Holy Week events.

The first is a celebration of Maundy Thursday at Immanuel Lutheran Church (http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Big+Rapids&state=MI&cat=Immanuel+Lutheran+Church#a/search/l:::Big+Rapids:MI::US:43.698101:-85.483597:city:Mecosta+County:1/m::16:43.691206:-85.493712:0:::::/so:Immanuel+Lutheran+Church:::r::25:::::/e), 6:00 P.M. Maundry Thursday celebrates the final Passover Jesus shared with his Disciples.

A Good Friday Service will be held at the United Church (http://www.mapquest.com/maps?name=United+Church+of+Big+Rapids&city=Big+Rapids&state=MI&address=120+S+State+St&zipcode=49307&country=US&latitude=43.698035&longitude=-85.483951&geocode=ADDRESS&id=6587597) starting at 12:30. I will be participating with many other local pastors at this service.

This is a great way to prepare yourself for Resurrection Sunday if you are in the area.

Home Coming

April 25 the Wesley House will be celebrating Home Coming. Invitations have gone out to former directors, board members, and students. There will be a tour of campus at 2:30, after which we will gather back at the House for snacks and fellowship. A worship service will kick off at 5:30. I haven't heard back from Jeanne, but I am hoping she is able to make it as well.

The Bible & Blue Parakeets

An interesting blog from Free Methodist Bishop David Kendall on how we read the Bible. WAIT! Before you avert to another fabulous bookmark, think about how we have been reading the Bible together and its place in our own faith community. This is short, easy to read, and interesting.

If I could I would require every Free Methodist (and encourage all other serious followers of Christ) to read Scot McKnight's, The Blue Parakeet. Let me tell you why.

One of the crises, perhaps near (if not at) the root of all our crises, in the church is the inability to make good on our claim that the Bible is, in fact, God's Word. We're not even sure what it means to say that. When I say "we" I'm talking about most of our people and some of our pastoral leaders. In what sense is this book--The Holy Bible--God's Word? And, so what? What differencee does that make? Aren't there as many interpretations as there are interpreters? Doesn't everyone just support what they already think by finding it somewhere in the Bible? The list of questions goes on.

Scot McKnight observes that no one applies everything in the Bible and everyone "picks and chooses," or "adapts and adopts." That is, everyone treats some parts of the Bible as God's Word for today and totally binding, and other parts as not applicable any more, and for various reasons "safe to ignore." In some cases, totally binding portions are to be found surrounded by numerous portions that most confidently ignore as no longer of consequence for today. For example, the second command to love neighbor as self is found in the book of Leviticus (see 19:18). On no less than the authority of Jesus we recognize the claim this command has on any serious Christ-follower, at the same time we ignore most of the specific commands surrounding it in Leviticus.

We all pick and choose--that's a fact we cannot deny. We all also recognize the principle: "That was then and this is now" when it comes to the application of the Bible. Though all of us who take Scripture seriously do this, we seldom pay attention to how or why we do it, and we often disagree in our treatment of specific texts in the Bible.

McKnight notes that many people read the Bible primarily as:

• a collection of laws or
• a collection of blessings and promises or
• a Rorschach inkblot onto which we can project our own ideas or
• a giant puzzle that we are to puzzle together or
• orchestrated by one of the authors in the Bible as the Maestro for the others.

The problems with each of these are clear upon reflection:

• The Bible is more than laws, and each law connects to a context.

• The Bible is more than blessings and promises; there are some warnings and threats as well.

• The Bible is something that comes to us from God and not something onto which we can impose our wishes and desires.

• The Bible is a story to be read, not a divinely scattered puzzle to be pieced together into a system that makes sense of it all.

• The Bible is a collection of retellings of the Story (McKnight calls them "wicki-stories of the Story") and each author, each Maestro, is but one voice at the table (see p. 209 for both lists)

In The Blue Parakeet, we have an excellent description of how to read the Bible that makes sense of the whole Bible as God's Word. He elaborates the themes of Story, Listening, and Discerning as key components for God's people to read the Scriptures with tradition (not through tradition) so that we may faithfully tell the story in our day in our way (i.e., in a way that is appropriate for the current circumstances facing us. Scot McKnight offers here not only a description of how to read and apply the Bible, but then also shows us how it works in relation to the question of women in ministry.

As I say, if I could I would make it required reading. But, then, I really can't do that. And, I'll leave it for you to learn what all of this has to do with blue parakeets!

What Do You Think?

Most churches are combating decline, the United Methodist Church included. This is despite the growth of many southern annual conferences. Surfing the net I came across a blog put together by Emergent Nazarenes, another child of John Wesley. It predicts that the Church of the Nazarene will cease to exist as a viable church within fifteen years unless it North American leadership gives way to global leadership. Check it out:

If the Church of the Nazarene is to survive the shock waves of globalization sweeping around our world Americans within the denomination need to surrender their dominate positions within the church in favor of a growing and globally pluralistic power structure.

The next reformation will be the reformation of the 'outsider' of the 'other'. This non-western reformation will tear down the grip of colonialism and prestige that many in the American churches wish to preserve.

We must humble ourselves, and assume the role of guide as our brothers and sisters begin to own the leadership and direction of our global denomination rather than fight it.

We Americans must have the humility to see ourselves as only a part of God's global mission field and be willing to accept aid and direction from foreign missionaries where we have lost our ability to navigate our own culture.

Where we have wrongfully assumed that our nation is specifically blessed by God for leadership we must repent of our arrogance.

We must strive for local impact informed by a global focus and mission.

If we continue to ignore the signs of the times indeed our time is short.

UPDATED:

It's been some time so I'll add a few qualifiers:

Local Nazarene churches will persist, however the denomination will need to surrender even more if it's power to the local congregations to determine what a faithful Nazarene community is in that context.

It will need to follow more of a decentralized 'Starfish' model of ministry.

The church needs to reorganize largely under the context of Missions with the main focus of the church being pursuit of God's mission in each context. We must reclaim missiology as the informer of all of our ecclesiology and stop thinking of it as something those 'called people' do over 'there' and think of missiology as something we ALL do RIGHT HERE.

An interesting comment was left afterwards:

I think your call for humility (clearly the call of the gospel) is right on. But this is complex for those who identify with the emerging church. Because...and this ironic, while we hope for international sharing and diversity, in all likelihood this will mean that the church as a whole will become more conservative(for lack of a better term) than less. Some will champion this as good news, right? But it will make some of us a bit uncomfortable--we might find the CON fifteen years from not even more difficult to exist within.

Do you think anything here speaks to us in the United Methodist Church? How? Why?