What’s missing this Fall?

Don't Forget this Important Back to School Item

Unfortunately, a new item has been on more and more parents’ shopping lists this year: bulletproof backpacks. The too-numerous school shootings in recent years punctuated by the recent shootings in Dayton and El Paso have only reinforced demand for child-sized body armor. It is a sad commentary on American life that we would rather use active shooter drills to teach our children how to minimize casualties or equip our children with body armor than to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines and/or institute universal and comprehensive background checks. 

The reality is that our children are facing issues we didn’t while we were growing up. In addition to the proliferation of gun violence driven by domestic terrorism, they face a planet increasingly destabilized by climate change, skyrocketing costs for the higher education that they require to enter an uncertain economy, and a healthcare system that is almost unaffordable to all but the wealthiest. 

Parents want to prepare their children as best they can for this rapidly changing and increasingly hostile world. We sign them up for and encourage their participation in organized sports to teach them the value of physical exercise and teamwork. We push them to participate in extracurricular activities like Boy and Girl Scouts, music and art lessons, school clubs, and community service organizations to help them round out their personalities and college applications. We want them to have friends, so we set up playdates and drive them to meet their friends for movies and games. We do this because we want them to be prepared and healthy individuals. 

All of this is important to our children's development but a key question we need to ask during this back to school season is this: What are we doing to nurture our children’s souls and teach them how to care for the part of themselves that endures to eternity? The truth is that their soul is the one constant that stays with them as they grow up, graduate high school, go to college, enter the workforce, meet their spouse, start a family, and change jobs several times. It will be with them as they experience their own healthcare crises and care for their parents (us) in their old age. It will be with them as they take leadership of our economy’s businesses, our society’s institutions, try to solve the problems that prior generations bequeathed to them, and tackle the new issues that will emerge in their lifetimes.

At some point, their education will become dated and, unless they have learned how to teach themselves new skills and knowledge, it will begin to fail them. Their bodies will get older and will no longer perform with the peak athletic performance that allows them to dazzle their peers. The hard truth is that some of things that we consider most important deteriorate over time, and the best we can do is slow that decline. Our children may not yet realize this, but one day will hit them. Life is hard and it will batter and bruise us and wear us down. 

However, their soul and their relationship with the God is what abides throughout all these changes. Indeed, it is their spirituality and relationship with God that can best sustain them as they endure the storms and crises of this life. So what are we doing to promote the spiritual development of our children? What are we doing to connect them with a strength and love that can help them survive all the challenges of life and thrive in the midst of it all? 

As we enter the hectic pace of the fall school schedule, let us not only worry about school supplies and clothes, practices schedules and club meetings. Let us also encourage our children to invest their time and energy into a relationship with a God whose love can sustain them through the best and worst that this life will throw at them. We can give them no better gift than a deep and abiding relationship with the God who loves them and will always be with them. 

Grace and Peace,

Pastor John

St. Matthew’s Welcomes Everyone

Pastoral Response to the Special Session of General Conference

As you have likely heard, the special session of our denomination’s General Conference met this week to address several options to address our differences as United Methodists with regards to the full inclusion of LGBTQ members - specifically in the areas of marriage and ordination.

We are a global church and we are not of the same mind when it comes to this so many expected this special session of General Conference to be a difficult one. And it was. After a narrow vote, the option known as the Traditional Plan passed even though some of its components had been ruled unconstitutional by our judicial council. Other parts of this plan are still under review and what is ruled constitutional will go into effect in January of 2020. The Traditional Plan maintains our current restrictions on same sex marriage and ordination and adds enforcement measures for pastors, district superintendents and bishops who do not honor these restrictions.

For our LGBTQ members and our members who have family and friends who identify as LGBTQ this vote was incredibly hurtful. For United Methodists who believe our Book of Discipline when it says that the church should fully welcome and embrace all persons because all people are made in the image of God and have sacred worth - this vote was disheartening. They find it hard to understand why some are denied access to marriage or ordination of everyone is made in the image of God and has sacred worth. And even some who voted for the Traditional Plan are dismayed at the pain this vote caused so many. This has been a difficult and challenging week for United Methodists.

To help us understand in detail what occurred at General Conference and to address any questions you might have, we offered a forum on Sunday during our Sunday school hour. Our bishop and district superintendent will also be here on March 27 at 6:30 pm to provide more information and address questions.

At this point, I want to pause and affirm a fundamental truth about this congregation - we have always welcomed everyone and we will continue to do so. That is who we are here at St Matthew’s. As a pastor, I have always welcomed everyone and I will continue to do so. As United Methodists we affirm that all persons (regardless of their ethnicity, religious background or sexual orientation) are made in the image or God and have sacred worth. We will continue to be a church for all people and welcome everyone who comes through the doors. We will continue to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

There won't be any major changes right away. We will keep everyone posted and plan for the future together. In the meantime, don't let anything get in the way of loving your neighbor. Pray for our church and our denomination. Pray for all those who are in pain or feeling anger or grief at the moment. Be kind and loving toward those with whom you may disagree.

I suggest that we follow the General Rules that the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, set down for us:

Do no harm: Avoid speaking ill of anyone and treat everyone with compassion and empathy.

Do good: See who is hurting or troubled in your midst and offer them comfort. Actively look for opportunities to help others.

Stay in love with God: No matter our differences, the one thing that holds us together as a church is Christ. When we come together to worship and serve God we are brought closer together. Come to worship, take Communion, pray and study the Bible together. Let God be at work among us!

In Christ,
John