7 Keys of a Powerful Life

Dillon Rooke at Hot Metal Bridge
Pittsburgh, PA -- A New Thing!

What a wonderful summer.  Thank you for making the time available. Thank you for the wonderful ministry that you cared for with such skill and faith.  Thank you for welcoming Pastor John for your needs;  he did a marvelous job.  Thank you for daring to be God's called people of Love.

Here are some quick observations:

Seven themes arose for me:

o Community -- intentional outward reaching relationships;

o Listening -- Deep, constant, responsive listening to one another and the world;

o Flexibility -- The speed and risk-taking were amazing, faith-filled, and a consistent theme;

o Prayer --  Every last group spoke of prayer and discernment;

o Authenticity --  Holding conversations about all of life in everyday language of faith;

o Focus -- on calling, people, mission and strategy at hand;

o Tables-- There was a lot of eating!  A place of relationships, learning, caring, & holy conversation.

Three Commonalities:

o All sought to Love with the "Everybody's Welcome" Love of God and it showed. 

o All worshipped-- and no two worship services were the same. 

o All cared for administration, staffing, funding, education familiarly and experimentally.

In the weeks ahead I'll be listening to you and to the Holy Spirit for where this takes us.  I have some ideas and invite you to what I hope will be monthly food and conversation.  I do know that we've accomplished some amazing things with God's grace and there are things we have not accomplished.  I do know that continuing to do exactly what we've been doing doesn't hold much of a future and I also know adapting quickly is hard and necessary.  And finally, I do know that God has entrusted this community and congregation to all of us, so it won't be me telling anyone what to do, but God guiding us all.

I'm excited about the possibilities.  Check out the September sermon series on some of the Themes, they're archived on www.pfumc.us.  Join in the fun of food and conversation together in the weeks ahead.  Pray diligently.  Talk with your Koinonia group about where God is leading.  God is doing a new thing!  Can we see it!

10,000 Joys in Jesus Christ, Pastor Dave

This was written for the Palmyra First UMC Newsletter October 2016

10 Gifts of Rest and Renewal

Fountains, living water, captured
my imagination and lens this summer.

Renewal has been a planned part of the summer Study and Renewal leave.  My training, my job and my culture teach me to seek and report tasks, but they seldom encourage rest and renewal.  Thank you for being a part of God's design for rest.  

Below are 10 Gifts of Rest and Renewal.  They are refreshing and wonderful.  Just recall a time you've had time with a friend for a long lunch, or a weekend with no scheduled tasks...nice, eh?  Here are 10 of the gifts that have renewed my spirit:

1. No Evening Meetings, allowing time for family and offering a restful stopping place at the end of each day;
2. Walking an average of 5 1/2 miles each day has entertained life-giving prayer, transportation, engagement with the world around me, and improvements to health;
3. Traveling in my truck, navigating the countryside.  I enjoy the adventure of new places and conversations with new-found friends;
4. Woodworking offering creativity and clear accomplishment.  (I love working with people, and it's hard to know how much is accomplished on any given day.)  I finished my Ukulele, built a Cajon (wooden drum), and crafted several walking sticks;
5. Family Time with Penny, the kids, grandkids, my sisters and their families...it's just great to have some additional weekends when they're free, and a slower pace permitted quality time for family;
6. Worship at Many Tables means that I've experienced the ministry of others and enjoyed the variety in the Body of Christ.  I've worshipped on the boardwalk by the ocean and with a homeless congregation,  in satellite congregations and in historic downtown churches.  Each place and people sharing gifts, experiences and insights;
7. Learning growing from my natural curiosity, partnered with time to explore everything from places to people, books to museums--every experience a building block;
8. Pacing that is life-giving.  In our American/Western Culture I/we frequently live as if there were not enough time in the day.  The truth is that God has made plenty of time for that which is important and necessary.  This summer I'm remembering the core of those essentials;
9. Encouraging Conversations with friends, colleagues, and all those who surround me too often gets hurried in the busy-ness of life.  This summer offered reminders and invitations that it is OK to be right here, right now;
10. Emptiness draws attention that which makes me richly filled.  There have been moments of personal emptiness beckoning me toward new spiritual and emotional resources.  There have been times of emptiness felt in lost routines, causing me to appreciate deeply the loving congregation that has walked with me through a dozen years and a summer of study and renewal.  What a gift...thank you!

There are more gifts to be appreciated and in this celebration I  rejoice that the familiar rhythms of pastoral life return later this week.  I look forward to reconnecting with the people of Palmyra First UMC-- I've missed you all.

I anticipate renewing familiar tasks with fresh eyes, seeing in the conversations of old and new, glimpses of transformed life promising hope-filled ministry ahead.  I'm excited about this next season of conversation, life and being followers of Jesus together. 

10,000 Joys in Jesus Who Gives Life

Pastor Dave

A List of earlier Study Renewal Blogs Here

I Talk to Myself-- Help!

Yep, I do, I talk to myself.  It's frequently my transition into prayer.  Sometimes when I struggle in prayer I feel like all I'm doing is talking to myself.  Yes, I do answer.  Yes, God answers!  Yes, the Holy is my help.  And, my praying doesn't always look the same.

A common thread in the places I've visited this summer is prayer, is that, "prayer" doesn't seem to look quite the same in any two places.  Many forms.  Many relationships with the Divine.  All connected.

Prayer at Nuevo Nacimiento UMC (New Birth UMC), Lebanon, PA looks like conversation with neighbors, musical praise, new ideas,  a night apart for listening, and indeed some of the usual hands-folded, or hands-raised prayers.   What I observed was that God answered prayers with the heart, the community, the world around and an inner voice of ideas.

Prayer at Calvin Presbyterian Church in Zelionople, PA permeated the work of the church in contemplative ways.  Outside the front door was a labyrinth for prayer walking.  In the processes of leadership and planning were moments for silence to listen for God.  Prayer included traditional and corporate prayers in worship liturgy.

Prayer at All God's Children UMC in Aulander, NC shone with action, caring for children, families and neighbors daily.  Prayer was often prayer on the move.  Prayer showed up around worship formed in the spirit of 12-Step meetings and indeed in more familiar ways.

Prayer's common ground was a deep and passionate relationship, connection, seeking-after God. Each community lamented moments that this relationship had taken a second-best position, and how secondary status led to disconnection in practical things like succeeding at tasks in ministry, lost vitality in worship, exit of people, wandering direction, and/or a loss of hope.  Prayer only needed this common ground of seeking God, not a common form.

So, I talk to myself and always believe God is ready to join the conversation.  My prayers are at their best and most exciting when I too am pursuing the Divine.   I find that God's not fussy about my skill, my method, my location, my tools...only my intention to seek the Holy.

In Shamokin, PA, more than 20 years ago, this truth began to find a deeper place in my life as I daily walked the neighborhood, past the culm piles and into town.  Each foot fall moved the rhythm of my prayers forward.  It was the rhythm of listening.  It was the rhythm of lives.  It was the rhythm of retreat.  It was the rhythm of silence.  It was the path to health and life seeking God.

Be encouraged in your seeking the Holy, God, Jesus, Spirit.  Jesus himself modeled conversational prayer on the road to Emmaus.  He gave us a guide to prayer in the Lord's prayer.  He shared contemplative prayer in his retreats to the wilderness.  He shared practical healing, feeding and life-giving prayers.  He celebrated God's grace and offered encouragement.

Maybe your self-conversations, walks, acts of kindness are where your prayers begin.  I'd love to walk with you in this journey of seeking God.  I'd value hearing the forms your seeking takes.  Tell me how it's going.

Emergency Vest -- No Worries!

The emergency vest is for servants.  I was serving at The Northeast Jurisdictional Conference of the UMC.  Here's the second update video from our Study Renewal leave.

One Step At A Time We Make the Road

A beginning in Savannah, GA

   "We Make The Road By Walking" is the title of a book by Brian McLaren on the story of the bible in our lives.  It is also how we do life.  A journey always requires taking a step at a time.

    In my last post I mentioned a bit about John Wesley's feeling of failure regarding his mission in Georgia.   Here are some of the reasons:

1. John was accustomed to success at Oxford and in much else;
2. He had come to bring the Gospel to the Native Americans,
   and he failed to understand their culture, needs and willingness to hear him out--no luck here;
3. In the new world John tutored a young woman, Sophie Hopkey, with whom, he fell in love.  Unwilling to act in a timely way, Sophie left and married another.  John, spurned, refused to serve communion to Sophie and her new husband.  Sophie's new husband, protective, brought civil charges against John (with a bit of a biased jury). And John high-tailed it back to England, heartbroken and disheartened;



Wesley Monumental UMC
Savanah, GA

4. As a well-educated and ordained priest of the Church of England, John was now doubting his salvation and his calling.

All, in all this was not feeling like a good season to John Wesley, but his journey and God's grace was still to unfold with next steps.

    In London John found his way, on May 24th, into a Moravian Church on Aldersgate St. (We now refer to this as his Aldersgate Experience), where his heart was "strangely warmed."  He reconnected to God's love and grace in a personal way.  His "failure" was a next step that eventually led to a Methodist church in America on every crossroad of the new world.  (UMC.org UMC History)

Wesley UMC, Thunderbolt, GA

        A bit like the Emmaus Road (Luke 24) experience of the disciples, John didn't recognize God's presence in everything at every moment.  He did, however, find God's presence in the steps he was yet to take and in the places he could not yet see.  (Cf. Hebrews 11:1)

     We make our faith journey by walking one step at a time.  We don't usually see very far ahead.  We don't as individuals, nor as churches.  Just like the disciples and like John Wesley, God always has greater things beyond or moments of failure, discouragement and fatigue.

     So, we take a step.  We go forward, backward, sideways, but we take a step.  In the walk God is there to be found and grace with love ready to show up. 

     So what are your failures?  (I have mine.)  Can you embrace them?  Can you trust God to use them in the next steps of the journey?  I encourage you to join me in keeping notes, journaling, about your insights, prayers, thoughts, questions and ideas.   Then perhaps we can share, in due time.

    Grace and love in this step and in the next.

10,000 Joys in Christ

Pilgrim on the Journey with God, Pastor Dave

Here Are the Answers!

   Guy Noir, Garrison Keilor's detective character, is always,"seeking answers to life's persistent questions." Truth is we'd all like clear, quick answers to questions like: What should I do next? Is this the right time and place for this? What does God want? What should my church/community/group do next/now?

    In truth there are few easy answers. Psalm 62 starts, "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation."  Psalm 121 begins, "I lift up my eyes to the hills--from where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth."  Answers come in waiting, working, things bigger than ourselves--all the places that take commitment and time.  Answers come from things, the One, bigger than ourselves.

    Along the way on this Study-Renewal journey I have met a seminary student, several pastors, church interns, people of all sorts and all seem to rejoice in the time to renew, listen for God and to learn.  One pastor said "I'm jealous."  and another reflected, "It's important to have that time as we serve longer pastorates."  Although there seems to be a broad recognition of the need for renewal, listening and learning (the stuff of prayer), there is also a confession that few people of faith and congregations take time to meet the need.  We have a great start!

   Having seen the sites of John Wesley's first mission work in Georgia and reviewed his assessment of the effort as a failure,  I'm reminded that answers come with time, work, waiting and needing help. I expect to come home with new questions, ideas and conversations to hold.  (See previous posts.)  I suspect that I will come bearing no easy or quick solutions to our congregation's struggles to make disciples and grow.

    So, if we want answers, then we prepare for holy conversations with Holy Spirit redirections.  If we want new possibilities, then we commit to time with God and one another in fresh ways.  In September we're planning to have a dinner (I hope covered dish) and a time for representatives from Palmyra First to share learnings & insights from the summer.  Also I'll share a few learnings and insights.  I anticipate that from there we'll continue the conversation around tables (food tables, the Lord's Table, meeting tables, kitchen tables, restaurant tables...), maybe even a monthly food and conversation around a lunch, dinner or dessert!

   Yes, I'm seeking answers to life's persistent questions!  It will take effort and require persistent patience.  We'll do it together and the report of 2000 years of followers of Jesus Christ is that God has never let us down!

   I trust you will keep praying, learning, resting and sharpening one another, while I commit to doing the same.  I look forward to seeing you soon.

10,000 Joys in Christ
Student and Disciple Pastor Dave

Thanks & Prayers

Thank you to everyone at Palmyra First UMC.  This morning your support buoyed me up and sent me out filled with encouragement and joy.  Thank you!

Thank you to each person who offered personal words of hope, thanks and prayer.  Thank you to Dave Yascavage who pulled me aside before worship and prayed for me.  Thank you to Mike Poltonavage, the worship team and the congregation, who laid hands on me and offered prayers in worship.

I am overwhelmed with God's love through you.  Know that you all are in my prayers as we adventure together this summer on paths that diverge in geography, and parallel in faith.  God's speed Palmyra First.  God is at work!