I have a good friend who struggles with anxiety and depression. She has a real medical condition that she has been prescribed medication to help treat. It is a real struggle that affects how she lives her daily life.
A few months ago, she attended a United Methodist Church in a neighboring Conference where the pastor preached on the passage where Jesus tell us, “Do Not Worry.” The pastor essentially said, “If you worry, then you are not a Christian.” He harshly condemned people who struggle with worry and anxiety, saying that those people have a lack of faith. He said, “If you worry or struggle with anxiety, then you don’t really trust God.”
I know someone else who struggled with the loss of one of his close friends who passed away. In fact, he was right by his friend’s side when he died. He attempted to give his friend CPR but was unsuccessful. As you might imagine, he had a hard time dealing with this deep sense of loss. He also had a hard time dealing with this traumatic experience. He felt guilty.
His parents suggested that he should go and see a counselor. They made an appointment with an older minister who ended up challenged my friend about his faith. “If you were truly a Christian,” the pastor said, “Then you wouldn’t be sad that your friend died. Instead, you would be happy because he is now in heaven.”
Wow. Really?
When my friends recounted these stories about these two pastors, it made my blood boil. I’m sorry, but I have to completely disagree with these two “colleagues” of mine.
Who said you have to be okay all of the time?
No one can be happy 100% of the time. We all have good days and bad days. We all experience ups and downs. You don’t have to act like everything is okay on the outside when it feels like your whole world is falling apart on the inside. Your feelings are your feelings. Let yourself feel.
When I experienced a deep loss of someone close to me who had died, the best thing that someone said to me was, “Whatever you are feeling, it is okay to feel that way.” In other words, “It’s okay not to be okay.”
These pastors who think you have to have it together all the time are just dead wrong. It makes me wonder, have they even read the Bible before? The Bible is full of stories of people who are inadequate and don’t have it all together. We can think of numerous examples of people in Scripture who experience deep pain and sadness, and that doesn’t mean that God can’t still use them. Scripture reminds us that you don’t have to have it all together in order to be in relationship with God.
God is with you, whether you are happy or sad. God is with you, whether you are experiencing faith or doubt. God is with you, whether you are on the mountain or in the valley.
God is with you, and God will meet you where you are. There is always hope that things will get better. God’s grace is always there to surround us and overflow in our hearts and minds.
Those who know that God summons the sun to rise are confident that, whatever tomorrow brings, it will also bring God with it.”
– Thomas G. Long, (Long Matthew 1997)
God is not going to leave us where God found us. There is hope for a future, because God moves and works in our lives all the time – But maybe right now you are in a place where it seems hopeless. And in the meantime, just remember…
I am honored to serve my second year as the Keith Church lay leader.
What exactly is a lay leader? An effective lay leader, as defined by the UMC Discipleship Ministries, functions as the primary representative and role model of Christian discipleship and faith lived out in the church and in daily life. The lay leader works with the pastor to fulfill the mission and vision of the congregation.
Another important function I fulfill is to serve as one of the two lay voting members of Keith Memorial UMC at the Holston Annual Conference; 2019 was a voting conference.
After devoting 2018 Annual Conference to orienting myself to the Holston Conference leadership and organizational structure as well as to the daily agendas, worship services, and business meetings, I arrived at the 2019 Conference, held June 9-12, eager to be participatory.
Pastors Dave, Andrew, and fellow laity Tim Womac and I met for a pre-conference briefing. We were eager to present our church offering of $1343 towards opioid recovery efforts as well as delivering our 92 health kits for residents of Zimbabwe, yet Pastor Andrew’s commissioning on Wednesday, June 12as provisional member was even more exciting. We also previewed the process of voting for delegates to General Conference 2020 and to Southeast Jurisdictional Conference 2020.
Tim and I prepared to vote for six lay delegates to General Conference (GC) and six for Jurisdictional, plus two alternates,from a slate of 28 nominated laity. Dave and Andrew would vote for their six clergy delegates to GC and six clergy delegates and two alternatesto Jurisdictional from approximately 600 Holston Conference clergy!
In advance of Annual Conference, the pastors, Tim and I received the Holston Conference Book of Reports, published annually, which includes official voting instructions along with brief biographies of the 28 laity nominated in advance of the conference. These biographies and photos of the nominees were very helpful as Tim and I deliberated.
The theme of the 2019 Holston Conference was Healing Hands, and our hands were very busily engaged praying, writing, applauding, greeting, cupped for Communion, and VOTING.
The Sunday afternoon Laity Session in Stuart Auditorium commenced with instructions on voting with pre-printed ballots to be read by a Scantron machine. Holston Conference opted for the public school testing standby in order for both laity and clergy to elect our General Conference delegates efficiently.
More nominees for Lay Delegates were made from the floor during the Sunday Laity Session, and twelve more laity were added to the 28 already nominated. Tim and I now encountered a slate of 40 potential lay delegates to pray for and discuss.
Voting commenced on Sunday evening following opening worship, where we listened intently to Bishop Taylor preach for Pentecost, “We gather more aware of the differences than ever before. God does not love us ‘if.’ God loves us, period, and God invites us to embrace that same love for all his children.”
Our first ballot vote, in which 543 valid lay votes were vast, resulted in no laity elected for GC although vote “leaders” emerged, several of whom had served the Holston Conference as lay delegates to the special called General Conference in February 2019.
Keith Church’s Rick Lay serves as our Hiwassee District Lay Leader, and he certainly experienced a fascinating first time as teller and counter of ballots. Laity ballot two, on Monday, resulted in no election, and finally in laity ballot three 24-year-old Emily Ballard was elected with 322 votes to be our first lay delegate to General Conference 2020 and to serve as the laity leader. On ballot four, Conference Lay Leader Del Holley was elected.
After three days and 13 total ballots, which included hundreds of ballots counted by hand as the Scantron machine “malfunctioned” on Monday, the laity elected all six of its representatives to General Conference by Wednesday, the final day of conference.
All 40 of the lay nominees remain on the ballot throughout voting. We were reminded multiple times to NOT vote for laity who had already been elected. As there is no “winnowing” of nominees, the voting process is lengthy and can become frustrating, but the process assures full representation of all 40 nominees. No nominee feels slighted or excluded from the voting.
The Jurisdictional voting process for six laity transpired more swiftly on Wednesday afternoon but was also multi-ballot. The Holston Conference elected two high school students to the Southeast Jurisdictional laity delegation, 17-year-old Reagan Kelly and 16-year-old Nate Roark, to serve along with four other lay delegates and alternates. And, of course, our congregation is very proud of our own Pastor Dave for his election to Jurisdictional as clergy.
Holston Conference leaders celebrated the election of a significantly younger delegation. A total 15 out of 26 delegates are 40 and under.
I mention the young representatives in particular as during my childhood in the UMC I did not witness youth or young adults in leadership positions. My adult professional life has centered on the education of adolescents and young adults, and I was filled with hope for the future of the UMC that the Holston Conference’s first elected lay delegate to GC 2020 is a young woman. I pray this inspires our youth and young adults to become more engaged in the life of Keith UMC as well.
Sydney Varajon, a young adult from our own congregation, served as an at-large lay delegate from the Hiwassee District and participated in all lay voting also.
During Del Holley’s Lay Leader Report, he implored us to “choose the path of devotion. Recommit yourself to sharing the good news of God’s love, claim the power of the Holy Spirit, that the Kingdom of God may come upon the earth.”
Tim and I are grateful that our clergy and congregation entrusted us with the privilege of representing you at 2019 Holston Annual Conference, and we are well pleased with the six lay delegates we participated in electing for GC 2020, who will comprise the 182 Southeastern delegates. General Conference 2020 will host 862 total laity and clergy delegates from the entire UMC.
The words of Revered Leah Burns from Second UMC of Knoxville resonated with me throughout conference: “My story is peace…not as the world gives, but as Jesus gives. Peace is what Jesus gives.”
(For UMC history buffs: Rev. George R. Stuart, for whom Stuart Auditorium at Lake Junaluska is named, married my husband Stuart’s 3rd great grandfather’s daughter Zollie Sullins. Rev. Dr. David Sullins was then president of Emory and Henry College. George R. Stuart is the origin of my husband Stuart’s first name. Stuart is not a direct descendant of Zollie but of her brother William Blair Sullins.)
It was great to be in the Gathering to share in worship this past Sunday. One of the songs that Josh and the band played was a song I’ve been hearing on the radio a lot these days. Andrew’s fiancé Ally sang it so beautifully and so poignantly on Sunday.
It’s a song that started out on the Christian radio stations and then crossed over to mainstream radio. I can hardly get in the car without hearing it come on the radio. I’ve even had the experience once of hearing it on two different radio stations at the same time! Maybe you’ve heard this song, too. It’s by a young woman named Lauren Daigle, and it’s called “You Say.”
A few weeks ago, I heard it again, and I began to wonder how it is that this song has become so popular, has crossed over from Christian to mainstream radio so successfully, and has gathered so much attention that Daigle was invited to perform her song on the stage of this year’s Billboard Music Awards.
And then I realized: it’s her lyrics. It’s the transparency, the vulnerability with which she shares her struggles to come to know who she is, to claim her worth, her identity:
I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low? Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know
And that’s the moment when she unleashes the first “ooh-oh” of many in this song. These days, as soon as I start to hear the meandering piano part at the beginning of this song on the radio, I just go ahead and blurt out a big old hefty “OOH-OH!” much to the annoyance of my family members who happen to be in the car with me.
But who among us cannot relate to those voices in our own minds that try to tell us we’re not enough, that we’ll never measure up to somebody else’s (or even, or especially, our own) expectations of us? Who doesn’t wonder if our lives only amount to the grand total of the difference between the highs and the lows, the good days and the bad? As I shared with the youth at the conference youth assembly a couple of weeks ago, I’m 45 years old and I still fight those voices and wonder those same things.
Who among us doesn’t need to be reminded from time to time who we really, truly and most deeply are?
Then she kicks into the chorus:
You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing You say I am strong when I think I am weak You say I am held when I am falling short When I don’t belong, oh You say that I am Yours And I believe, oh I believe What You say of me I believe
What powerful words! Read them again if you need to. Absorb them. Let them find their way into your heart so that you can believe them and trust them, too. Let yourself be the “I” who is loved even when you can’t feel it, who is strong even you’re weak, who is upheld when you’re falling down and beheld when you don’t belong.
And if you’re the “I,” then who’s the “You”? Who’s the “You” she’s singing to here in this song? Who’s the “You” who gets to say who you and I are? Do you see? It’s God! She’s singing this song to God. That means this song is a prayer. It’s a prayer to God. This song that has crossed over to mainstream radio and has won all these awards and was featured on the Billboard Music Awards program is a prayer. And whenever we sing it in the car, or in church, or in the shower or wherever, it’s a prayer then, too.
It’s a prayer for God to remind us who we are, especially when we are so prone to forget it.
The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity.
So, who is the only one who can tell us who we are? Is it all these voices in our minds? Is it all those voices out there in the world? Who gets to say who we are? The only one who gets to tell us who we are is the one who made us, the one who created us, the one who loves us, the one who saves us.
Statue of John Wesley in front of Wesley’s Chapel City Road in London, England
Twenty-two years ago, in July 1997, my mom and I went on a Wesley Heritage Tour of England and Scotland with my home church, First United Methodist in Marion, Virginia. Our pastor at the time, Rev. J.N. Howard and his wife Ella organized and led the trip, and several of the adults in the church I had long known and admired as Sunday school teachers, ushers, and leaders went as well.Mom wanted to go, and I was free that summer,so I offered to go along as her chaperone, you know, to make sure she behaved.
We visited such places as the home in Epworth where John and Charles Wesley were raised by their parents, Samuel and Susanna. We visited Lincoln College in Oxford where they began meeting together in small groups and were called derogatory names like “Bible-moths” and “Methodists” (for their methodical approach to study and fellowship). We visitedAldersgateStreet in London where John had his heartwarming experience that assured him of his salvation. We visited historic Methodist preaching houses like the City Road Chapel in London and the New Room in Bristol. And we visited several other sites of general interest, such as Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral,the Roman baths in Bath,and Stonehenge.The history of both Great Britain and Methodism came alive for me that summer!
It was the summer before I started seminary in Atlanta. Tracy and I had met that spring, and by July our relationship was blossoming into something more than mere friendship. As I read my journal from that trip, I remember calling her from various pay phones in our hotels where I had tokeepfeedingpound coins every so often to keep the connection. Obviously, the connectionwaskept!
Three years later, after Tracy and I were marriedin 2000, we took advantage of an opportunity that was available at the time for seminarians to come and serve a one-year appointment in the British Methodist Church, which had more churches to serve than pastors available to serve them. We were appointed toserve five churches on acircuit inthefarsouthwesternmostpart of England, in the county of Cornwall,in a town calledPenzance, which until then I didn’t realize was a real place. I thought it only existed in the imagination of Gilbert & Sullivan. Tracy and I quickly came to appreciate this area as rich inCeltic,Wesleyan and Methodist history.One of the churches I served was called Wesley Rock, as the pulpit was built upon a rock from which John Wesley preached when he visited there.
It was in the spring of our year over therein 2001that we learned I was to be appointed as the associate pastor here at Keith Church in Athens, Tennessee! It just so happened that the senior pastor at the time, the Rev. Dr. Stella Roberts and her husband Sam were leading a Wesley heritage tour very much like the one my mom and I had experienced. We arranged to meet up in Bath, and it was there I met some of myfutureparishioners, folks like Kate Bledsoe, Cindy Runyan, and Larry and Sarah Kerr. Stella and Sam have led several suchWesleyan heritagetours, including one this past spring, andthey haveimpacted the lives and faith of several people, just as these experiences have impacted my own life and faith.
This summer, you have an opportunity to have a similar experience of a Wesleyan heritage tour, though without having to take the timeaway from homeor pay the cost! For the next six weeks, Andrew and Iareleading a studyby theRev. Adam Hamilton called “Revival.”A few summers ago, Hamilton traveled with the samecompany as my mom and I did, andthisvideo studytakesus to some of these very same places that were so formative in the Methodistrevivalmovement– the rectory in Epworth, the collegegroundsat Oxford, the chapels in Bristol and London.I hope you will come along for this journey with us – Wednesdays at 6 and Thursdays at 11– and maybe you willexperience a heartwarming revival in your ownspirituallife and faith.
“I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never – I promise – regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst” – Luke 6:35 (MSG).
Most people don’t have a hard time loving the people that look, think, and act like them. It’s easy to love the people who love you back. It can be incredibly hard, however, to love those that society deems as “unlovable.” In this post we will explore 5 ways to love the “unlovable.”
What does it mean to be “unlovable?”
The “unlovable” are people that are especially hard to love. This may be because of something that they have said. This may be because of how they have acted. This may be because of a crime that they have committed. Whatever the reason may be, the unlovable are the people in our lives that we have a hard time loving.
How am I supposed to love Dylan Roof after he killed 9 church members during a prayer service at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, North Carolina?
How am I supposed to love Nikolas Cruz after he shot and killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Lakeland, Florida?
How am I supposed to love Martin Shkreli after he committed fraud, embezzlement, and hiked pharmaceutical drug prices from $13 to $750 per pill?
How am I supposed to love the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia where James Fields drive his car into a crowd of counter-protesters killed Heather Heyer?
These are obviously extreme examples, but there may be people in your life that you have difficulty connecting with, getting along with, and loving. Take some time and think about the people in your own life that you might have difficulty getting along with or that you might deem as “unlovable.” Keep that person in mind as we explore 5 ways to love the unlovable.
1. Remember that God is Love
First, it is important to remember that all human beings are created in the Imago Deior the “image of God.” God created humankind by breathing life into the dust. 1 John 4:8 says that “God is love.” Furthermore, Jesus calls his followers to love God ANDto love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 22:37). Christians have the opportunity to offer God’s love to the people that nobody else loves. When you come across someone who is difficult to love, it is important to remember that God calls us to the radical and difficult work of loving everyone, including our enemies. We don’t have to agree with everyone or condone evil behavior, but we are invited to share God’s love as we seek to live in peace with God and one another.
2. Prayer
Prayer is a crucial way to offer love to the people that you may have difficulty loving. Prayer is an opportunity for you to speak good things into the life of someone else. It allows you to speak good things in your heart and over time this may change the way you see that person. Make sure you pray for them, but also make sure you pray for yourself. Here is a hint: if you are praying “Lord, please change this person who is always getting on my nerves and make them better” then you are probably doing it wrong. Yes, prayer changes things, but perhaps the thing that needs to change the most is your own attitude.
3. Put Yourself in their Shoes
A great way to gain a deeper understanding of the person you have difficulty loving is by putting yourself in their shoes. Maybe that work associate that always snaps at you is going through a tough divorce? Maybe your neighbor who keeps playing loud music is dealing with an economic crisis? You don’t always know what folks might be going through in their private lives. Try putting yourself in their shoes and giving people the benefit of the doubt. Often times when people act ugly toward you it is because something else is going on in their life at home.
4. Find a Connection
One thing that holds people back from loving an “unlovable” person is that people think they don’t have anything in common – and if you get a democrat and republican together in the same room it may seem that way. But one great way to love someone that is difficult to love is by trying to find a connection with them. It can be anything – even something small! Once you have established some common ground it may be easier for you to communicate with that person. And who knows, you may begin to find more in common than you originally thought.
5. Love from a Distance
If the “unlovable” person is completely resistant to your efforts to reach out in love, then it is okay to remove yourself from the relationship. It is important to keep safe and healthy boundaries. After all, it takes two healthy people to form a healthy friendship. All you can do is reach out, but you cannot make someone equally return that friendship. You can, however, continue to love someone from a distance.
Remember that no one is truly unlovable. It’s not always easy to love people that we disagree with. It’s not always easy to love people who have committed heinous actions against others. You don’t have to condone their behavior, but Jesus says that you do have to love them.
Take some time this week and try out one or two of these recommendations on some of the people you deem as “unlovable.” My hope is that your heart would be filled with more and more love for God and your neighbor.
I spent one of the most fulfilling weeks in all of my years of ministry last week with the Holston Conference Youth Assembly at Emory & Henry College. One of Keith Church’s former youth directors, Laura Lambert McLean is now the director of youth ministries for the conference. Back in January, she invited me to be the speaker for this year’s Assembly. It was a joy for me to put together some messages about God’s grace and to share some personal stories of how I have experienced that grace in my own life. I also especially enjoyed sharing this week with our older son Noah.
On my first night of worship with the groups – they were divided up into junior high and senior high age divisions – I shared with them some of my reflections on the new Toy Story 4 movie. Our family watched the movie together last weekend, and it just seemed to fit in with the theme of that first worship service on how we are all created in God’s image and beloved by God.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t worry. I’m not going to spoil it (even though I will say beware the ventriloquist dummies!) But the main character Woody and some of Andy’s other toys are now with the little girl Bonnie, to whom Andy had given his toys in the ugly-cry ending of Toy Story 3. Now Bonnie is ready to start kindergarten. She wants to take a toy to school with her, but her Dad says there are no toys at school. Woody gets into her backpack anyway, and Bonnie’s off to school.
Pretty soon it’s craft time. With some help from Woody, she makes this toy doll out of a plastic spork – a combination spoon and fork – that he’d retrieved from the trash. She gives it red pipe cleaner arms. Wooden Dixie cup spoons for feet. Mismatched googly eyes. Little rubber band for a mouth. And she calls him Forky.
I immediately liked Forky. I used to have this pink rubber bendy spoon from the Baskin Robbins ice cream place with gangly arms and legs that I called Spoony. I used it when I taught at a tennis camp in college to teach the kids the correct stances and swings. I think BR still sells them.
But Forky doesn’t realize he’s a toy. He thinks he’s just a piece of trash. There’s this hilarious montage of scenes where he jumps in the trash can, and Woody immediately rescues him. He jumps in the trash again. Woody rescues him again. On and on. Again and again. But eventually Forky comes to realize that he’s more than a piece of trash. He’s a toy. And he’s not just any toy. He’s Bonnie’s toy. Bonnie created him herself, in her own image if you will. And she loves him. She looks for him when he’s lost. She sleeps with him under her arm. Bonnie loves Forky.
Here’s the thing I wanted these youth to know that very first night of our time together. I wanted them to come to the same realization as Forky, that they are not trash, that they are handmade by a loving God, in the very image of that God. That whether they realize it yet or not, they all bear some aspect of God’s character in their own lives.
Maybe it’s God’s creativity that is reflected in their own creativity. Maybe it’s God’s loving spirit that they reflect. Maybe it’s God’s generosity. Maybe it’s God’s concern for justice for those who are oppressed. Whatever it may be, every one of us reflects some aspect of who God is in who we are. That’s true of us. That’s true of everyone else, too. We are not trash. No one else is trash either. Everyone bears the image of God in some way or another.
I asked them, “you know you’re not trash, right?” And they nodded their heads that they did. And I hope they do, and I pray they’ll always remember that. Because the truth is that sometimes people can treat us like they think we are trash, disposable, dispensable. Sometimes we can treat others like we think they are trash. And sometimes we can treat ourselves like we think we might be trash, too. So maybe we need to be reminded from time to time that we are not trash, that we are all of us, every one of us, God’s beloved treasures, infused with the image and imprint of God’s very being, in whom God’s soul takes such great joy and delight.
So then we dipped our fingers in a shell bowl of water, drew a dripping sign of the cross on our foreheads and remembered with gratitude and thanksgiving that we are all of us baptized and beloved children of God. And then we went to have our evening snack. That was one of the absolute best things about Assembly – evening snacks!
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