Living Like the Moss

This past Sunday I closed the sermon with an illustration from the radio program, On Being with Krista Tippett. In an interview from February of 2016, Tippett spoke with bryologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, an expert in moss. Some of her observations had me saying out loud, “This is what the church should be!” I am printing below what I shared on Sunday as an invitation to live more like the moss. I also encourage you to check out the whole interview at the link provided below to experience the wonder of God’s creation.

Mosses are not good competitors at all, and yet they are the oldest plants on the planet. They have persisted here for 350 million years. They ought to be doing something right here. And one of those somethings is their ability to cooperate with one another, to share the limited resources that they have, to really give more than they take. Mosses build soil, they purify water, they are like the coral reefs of the forest, they make homes for this myriad of all these very cool little invertebrates who live in there. They are just engines of biodiversity. They do all of these things, and yet, they’re only a centimeter tall.*

Let’s ask ourselves the following questions
1. How might I cooperate with other people?
2. How am I sharing my resources?
3. How will I give more than I take in the kingdom of God?

all good things to each of you,
Dr. Darian

* https://onbeing.org/programs/robin-wall-kimmerer-the-intelligence-of-plants/

Reading, Watching, and Listening in August

Every month I’m setting aside one week to share in this space about movies, books, and music that have especially spoken to my heart recently. These are not advertisements for you to go out and buy these items. They are not suitable for everyone, but I hope this will invite us to consider what we’re reading, watching, and listening to. God speaks to us in all kinds of ways, and great conversation can arise among us from where we’re hearing God speak.

1. Selma (movie): I am embarrassed to say that I’ve waited so long to watch this movie, but I am so glad I did. Director Ava Duvernay does a superb job of recreating the voting-rights marches from Selma to Montgomery. I was especially moved by David Oyelowo’s portrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which really captured his pastor’s heart. Rep. John Lewis, who is a key part of this story, passed away only two weeks after I watched the film.

2. Walk Through Fire by Yola (music): While streaming and shuffling individual songs are the norm, I still prefer listening to whole albums from beginning to end. I love every song on this album, although Dog-stor Isaac is partial to “Ride Out In the Country.” Yola’s voice is rich and deep and beautiful, and she describes her music as “country soul.” It is so good for the soul, too.
3. The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi (book) and The Lazy Genius (podcast): I started listening to Kendra Adachi’s weekly podcast during quarantine, and it may be my favorite find of the year. Her motto is “to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don’t.” Her recently released book has principles to help you fulfill that motto.

Through which books, movies, shows, music, and podcasts is God speaking to you these days?

all good things to each of you,
Dr. D.

UNITY: Being of One Peaceful Mind

Next Sunday we will embark on a 5-part worship series around the word, UNITY. While division easily turns us away from each other, unity calls us to turn towards one another even when we disagree. This series builds on the two worship series that preceded it, the first being on PEACE, and the second being on the mind. My hope is that what we explore in the weeks ahead will move us as God’s people towards being of one, peaceful mind.

A beloved hymn that declares the unity of a peaceful mind in the Church is “The Church’s One Foundation.” I especially love this verse:

Elect from every nation, yet one o’er all the earth
her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses, partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses, with every grace endued.

Samuel Stone wrote “The Church’s One Foundation” in 1866 when he was 27 years old and serving as a priest in England. We could easily gaze back across history and think of his words coming from a land far away and a time long ago. The reality is that the Holy Spirit gave him the powerful poem in the midst of great conflict and unrest in the Church, and its message is vital for us now.

The peace of our one Lord, Jesus Christ, and the mind of that same Lord are all we need to move towards unity. Let us press on to the one hope in him as we listen to his Word together.

all good things to each of you,
Dr. Darian

Blessing The People Without the Crowd

On Sunday we heard Matthew’s account of Jesus’ healing and feeding many people. It is a “miracle story” familiar to many of us. There is the miracle of healing. There is the miracle of five loaves and two fish feeding over five thousand people. There is also the miracle that somehow twelve disciples managed to organize the people and distribute food with no planning!

None of us planned to be living through a pandemic this year any more than the disciples had planned to manage a pop-up restaurant in a deserted place. Sometimes when our human planning halts, God’s divine planning surprises us with miracles. It’s true that we cannot gather in a crowd of “5000 men, in addition to many women and children” (the Bible has some odd ways of measuring attendance, doesn’t it?). But we can still bless each other with our love and feed each other with encouragement.

What if we each found ways to reach out to five people this week with a word of love and encouragement? Here is an example:

1. Using our Back-to-School Prayer Challenge as a guide, contact one teacher to let him/her know you are praying for them.
2. Send a handwritten note to a fellow church member to say you miss seeing them.
3. When you talk to a family member, whether in person or on the phone, speak a word of encouragement.
4. On social media, go one step further than the “like” button. Leave a comment on someone’s photo or post about how valuable they are.
5. Send a text or call someone simply to say how much you appreciate them.

If each of us could bless five people this week, what a crowd of encouraged, beloved folks we would all know by this time next week!

all good things to each of you,
Dr. Darian

Following Up & Following Through

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. (Romans 8:26-28, The Message)

Don’t you love reading unfamiliar translations of familiar Scriptures? Different translations can shed new light and offer fresh revelation. These are the same verses on which we reflected this past Sunday, a passage that calls us to seek “the mind of the Spirit” through prayer.

What comfort there is in knowing that the Holy Spirit prays for us when we don’t know how to pray. At the same time, the Spirit wants to offer us language to speak in prayer, too. We must try to pray even when we struggle with the words. We learn that language by immersing ourselves in a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

This week let us endeavor to follow up and follow through on our part in prayer. Set aside at least five minutes per day, preferably more, to spend with the Holy Spirit in prayer. Perhaps you will write your prayers down. Perhaps you’ll simply pray, “Come Holy Spirit,” and spend the rest of the time in silence. Perhaps you’ll sing a hymn and meditate on the words. Whatever form those prayers take, we must get in the habit of hallowing, or setting aside as holy, time everyday to learn from the mind of the Holy Spirit.

Let us move forward in deep hope that all is well, and all shall be well, for God is with us!

all good things to each of you,
Dr. D.

The Church’s New Essential Work

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the leaders on our church’s task force made an observation that well describes a new, essential work of our congregation. Bill Maclean, our lay member of Annual Conference, described our newfound streaming of the worship service as a mission field and an a means of sharing the gospel. He said it so well that it was like hearing a well-spoken sermon! We all said “amen” in agreement, as many of you have since then, that we need to continue and improve our online ministry.

Insert here a round of applause for Art Shirley (I’ll pause to give you time to clap for him). Art volunteered to bring a tripod and run an iPhone for Facebook Live that first Sunday of quarantine, and every week since has faithfully researched and experimented and added to our setup. Colby Brister began working with him on the endeavor, and last week a small group of us met with a digital consultant to learn more about our options. This same consultant will train volunteers at the church when that time arrives.

What do we need most in our online ministry’s next steps? YOU!

Yes, we are hoping to build a good team of volunteers who can run the cameras. And please don’t say you’re not tech-savvy. The best volunteers for the online ministry are curious about learning something new and willing to follow directions. I feel sure many of us meet those criteria!

If you are interested in being a part of this new, essential work of our church, please let us know. If you know someone whose gifts would work well in online ministry, tell us who they are. The only way we can keep this ministry going is with the work of your hands contributing to it.

Let us keep up the good work that God has entrusted to us!

all good things to each of you,
Dr. D.

Reading, Watching, and Listening

Every month I’m hoping to set aside one week to share in this space about movies, books, and music that have especially spoken to my heart recently. These are not advertisements for you to go out and buy these items. They are not suitable for everyone, but I hope this will invite us to consider what we’re reading, watching, and listening to. God speaks to us in all kinds of ways, and great conversation can arise among us from where we’re hearing God speak.

1. Live At Home by Cageless Birds (music): The Cageless Birds are a community of artists, musicians, and teachers in western North Carolina who offer a number of resources to grow in relationship with Jesus. I love a live album of acoustic worship music that takes me into God’s presence.

2. So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (book): I’m trying to be more intentional about listening to the voices of people of color, and Oluo’s book was recommended to me by a lot of folks I respect. She is a brilliant writer who challenges me to rethink some of my own mindsets simply by listening to her experiences. (The book does contain strong language.)

3. Knives Out (movie): It’s funny, it feels like an Agatha Christie mystery novel, and I love a movie with a cool house for its main set. I doubt I’ll be using it for sermon illustrations, but it was certainly entertaining and a nice escape from reality for two hours. (The movie does contain some violence.)

Through which books, movies, shows, music, and podcasts is God speaking to you these days?

all good things to each of you,
Dr. D.

The Work We Don’t See

At last week’s staff meeting, we talked about a topic that I had been avoiding: the two lights above the choir loft, high in the ceiling, that had burned out. I did not like the idea of someone having to climb a high scaffolding to change those bulbs, but my fears were somewhat eased when I found out we could change them through the attic and not on a ladder. Still, that was a long way up for someone to climb up and then crawl across to get to the bulbs.

Paul Fowler, who came on the staff as building superintendent in January, was the “someone” who changed those bulbs last week. When we arrived for worship on Sunday morning, the light was greater and brighter. We did not see Paul’s work of crawling across the attic and changing the lights, but we saw the fruit of his work.

Over the past few months, your church staff has faithfully worked in ways you couldn’t see to continue bringing the comfort and connectedness of the church to you. They’ve rehearsed music for Wednesdays and Sundays, taken crash courses in ZOOM, mailed curriculum, answered numerous phone calls, adapted to using new, potent cleaning solutions, among other tasks. They have lived out Jesus’ command of humility, “to not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-4).

What quiet work that others may not see is God calling you to do this week?

I encourage you to take a moment to thank Paul, Ron, Julie, Gail, Kyle, Rachel, Polly, and Jace for the literal and spiritual light bulbs they’ve been changing and the attic spaces they’ve been navigating for the good of our church. And let us keep our eyes open to others we might thank for their unseen work. Behind every new light bulb is a faithful witness to the light of Christ.

all good things to each of you,
Dr. Darian

* We will resume in-person worship for 50 people this Sunday, July 5. Details on the reservation process are in this newsletter and on the congregational address video, which is on You Tube and Facebook.*

All The Right Equipment

About ten years ago, I took up bike riding as a hobby. It had been an all-caps LONG time since I’d been on a bicycle, but the joy and freedom and fun came right back to me. After riding a borrowed bike for months, I decided to invest in my own. I naively believed it would be easy: walk into the bike shop with a budget, pick one within that budget, and take it home.

Then came the questions: what kind of terrain will you be riding? Road, mountain trails, or both? If you’re going to be on mountainous trails, won’t you need a GPS tracker? How many gears do you want, depending on the type of terrain? And did you know that shoelaces can get tangled in the pedals? Do you already have a helmet?

It’s a miracle I ever chose a bike with all those decisions! When I got overwhelmed with all the wheels before me, the salesman brought me back to reality with two statements: “All of this is about keeping you safe while you ride. All the right equipment will keep you safe.”

Preparing to regather for in-person worship in the midst of a pandemic has felt a lot like choosing the right bicycle and equipment for an unknown road. We can ride more confidently and freely and joyfully if we know we have done everything possible to keep ourselves and fellow riders safe. In the church building, the right kind of equipment to keep us safe are things like masks, hand sanitizer, minimizing contact surfaces, and distancing in smaller groups at first that we can grow with time.

I encourage you to tune in this Thursday night at 6PM on Facebook Live and YouTube Live for a congregational address from members of our task force about what to expect as we prepare for our first in-person worship gathering of 50 or less on Sunday, July 5. Let’s get our helmets ready and ride into the beauty of God’s future.

all good things to each of you,
Dr. D.

What We Need To Know: Plans for Regathering

• The first Sunday when you can register for in-person worship will be Sunday, July 5, at 11AM.

• For right now, we need to limit attendance to 50 persons. However, know that the church’s task force and staff are working diligently to find creative ways for more of us to worship together safely. While we are starting with one service and 50 people, the hope is that we will be able to increase those numbers in the near future.

• For the immediate future, because we are limiting to attendance to 50 people, we ask that you not sign up for two Sundays in a row to allow everyone an opportunity to come.

• If you wish to attend an in-person gathering, we are requiring everyone to make a reservation through Eventbrite. The reservations will open on the Monday before a Sunday worship service, and the deadline to sign up will be Fridays at noon. The link will be https://fumcwestpoint.eventbrite.com. Details about the registration process were in the letter mailed to church members and constituents.

• If you are not comfortable making the online reservation and require some help, you may reach Julie at the church office (662-494-1658).