by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
“So are we not having a bulletin anymore?”
This is the kindest version of this anxious question I’ve gotten. The most hostile was from my seven-year old: “Ever since we unveiled this logo you won’t snuggle with me anymore!” I reassured him the logo and the snuggle schedule are unrelated. And proceeded to snuggle.
The hardest part of my job is knowing what to tell to whom when. Our longtime leaders on the now-dissolved visioning committee have known for years that our new mission statement would result in visible changes. Last fall they kept asking, “When are these graphics appearing?” But most of y’all didn’t know any of this was coming. So when we unveiled the new logo and graphic identity and bulletin in late January, the vision leaders and all the staff said, “Finally!” Many of the rest of you were surprised or even shocked. What’s with all these changes? Why so fast and without warning?
Here’s what the graphics task force, the communications committee, and the communications staff have been up to with the bulletin. The one we have long handed out is phonebook thick, with most of its contents only of interest to few. How many of us need to know who wrote the tune to the next hymn in what year? What night the committee meeting is? We have screens and hymnals and email and a website for such details. The bulletin is focused now more on helping orient folks who are new to worship. What is church for anyway? What do we do and why? Tracy Smith helped me see the value in such explanations. “This liturgy stuff isn’t bad,” she said one day. “Do you mind stopping to explain it occasionally?”
Our next sermon series will have a brief order of service in it, so prepare to be less discombobulated! We’ll also stuff the announcements back in the bulletin. The bulletin–like all of us on Sundays–is turned now toward welcoming those least familiar with the church. New and unfamiliar? Sure. But it’s the right thing for us to do.
As for the new graphics, the reaction has varied. Folks more accustomed to business settings have seemed to me downright ecstatic. We have to be identifiable visually and business leaders know this. Others have been more nervous. Is the cross being displaced? Are we less Methodist now? Is red disallowed? (Answers: no, no, and no). Like my son, we see change that comes without warning and worry something we really fear is about to happen too.
The church is often resistant to change for good reason. The most important things about ourselves we will never change: Jesus, the witness to him in the scriptures, the truth about him in our traditions. The color of the logo? Not so much. The colors the graphics task force chose suggest the liveliness and vitality of a region like ours that cherishes the outdoors, and a mission that calls all people to discover “life in Christ.” We still love our denomination’s insignia. Our congregation’s logo tells a more local story about Boone with a cross-shaped path of discipleship through the mountains. Both are good. Only one is new.
Here’s where we are: the visioning group, led by Kelly Broman-Fulks and joined by Charles Stanley, Jim Deal, John Thomas, Bobby Sharp and a host of others, completed its work in the fall 2014 and handed the vision off to a number of temporary task forces. The graphics task force, led by Michaele Haas, is behind the new logo and graphics and banners. A First Face task force under Johnny Carson is revamping our practices of greeting guests. An interior design and chapel task force under Margaret Handley and Scott St. Clair is looking at how our interior space can signal “welcome!” instead of “we store stuff here.” A longer term project is a task force examining a future adult care facility and is co-chaired by Claire Cline and our new volunteer director of adult ministries, Patti Connelly. The overall work of the four task forces is overseen by Susan Jones.
There are obviously more changes afoot. But these changes are not designed to undo what is good about us. They are designed to sustain what is good and strengthen us for a future of doing what we have always done: being the body of Christ for the sake of this community’s flourishing. Nothing stays the same in this world. A house not maintained will deteriorate. So will any other human endeavor or created thing. But working hard to sustain what is good and to improve areas that need strengthening can make an institution last quite a long time–millennia even, as the church of Jesus Christ has shown.
And yes, snuggling is still allowed.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
A friend of mine was a pastor in Montreal. He was in his office one day when a limousine rolled in and an entourage stepped out. It was Rod Stewart. He and his friends asked, “Can we pray here?” Why sure! My friend said, wondering what to have him autograph. He apologized for the disarray in his sanctuary. “We’re under construction.” Rod Stewart responded, “Isn’t the church always under construction?”
Jesus-soaked wisdom from the man who wrote “Maggie May.” Sure enough, the church is always under construction. And so are we as persons.
As a church, we’re just off a fantastic weekend in which we unveiled our new logo and graphic identity (thanks to Michaele Haas for leading that task force and to Susan Jones for her overall leadership of the task forces). We had a terrific leadership meeting in the afternoon. After Kelly Broman-Fulks’ and Jim Deal’s rousing words we were all ready to run through a wall. Our Pathways sermon series in the sanctuary and in Crossroads will include sermons on our strategy icons for the next four weeks: worship, connect, serve, and grow. We’ll plan to do all four together this month.
We had an excellent year in lay leadership in 2014. Our staff-parish committee has some recent successes to report. We have made a hire in our mission coordinator position: the Rev. Laura Beach starts work with us on February 1st. She is an elder in our conference and will ably fill Luke Edwards’ shoes, which Jaimie McGirt has done on an interim basis of late. Laura will lead us to serving Jesus in the vulnerable here and around the world. And then having met Jesus in his poor, we become different, holier, more like Jesus.
Judy Wyndham starts work with us in our administrative offices on February 1st. She came highly recommended by several longtime trusted leaders of our church and will help us in work that Denise Stanley has done brilliantly as a volunteer in communications. The trustees have pushed us to have someone in our foyer to be the face of the church greeting everyone God sends our way. Judy will be ideal at this. The words “administration” and “ministry” have the same root for a reason. Judy’s contribution to our ministry will be inestimable.
We have also made a hire in our kitchen to coordinate all our work in feeding our youth, our children, our elderly, and our community. Lynn Rollins has experience as a chef and kitchen coordinator and will start in early March. Her hire does not mean we don’t need volunteers to cook–we always will! It means when we volunteer we’ll have someone showing us how to do it well. It’s been said that Jesus eats his way through the gospels. When we meet over food he is present, in the breaking of bread. Lynn will help lead us all in this holy work.
These hires and lay leaders are guiding us all toward “loving our community and inviting all to discover life in Christ.” As one of your pastors I know this word isn’t enough, but frail words are all we ever have: thank you. God is with us. Let’s rejoice.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
Several of you have asked about the trips I have taken with folks from Boone Methodist. I’m delighted to share a little.
I believe deeply in the Christian practice of pilgrimage–that is, traveling together to meet God. A pilgrimage is different than a trip. With a trip you go the fastest way possible. With a pilgrimage you go expecting to come back different. It is hard to say in advance precisely how Jesus will meet you on a pilgrimage. Some are expected–where you’re going, with whom, what the purpose is. Others are not–God is always a surprise.
This church has a long history of pilgrimage, even though we haven’t necessarily used the word. We have sent mission teams to Guatemala for more than a decade. We have sent pilgrims to Walk to Emmaus retreats for decades. These have come back ready to work for the renewal of our congregation in ways that have brought new life to all of us. I was grateful to participate in Emmaus about a year ago and to see for myself what a blessing it’s been to so many. Our youth ministry has hiked Wilderness Trail for a week in a trip that has transformed countless teenagers’ lives. A newer pilgrimage is one several of us have gone on to see the work of Zoe in action in Rwanda.
This year I have invited a handful of you each to travel with me to Mepkin Abbey outside Charleston, South Carolina, to Hope College in Holland Michigan, and to Israel. These have had different goals. The Trappist monastery is a place where monks–professional praying people–fulfill the Psalmist’s promise to praise God “seven times a day” (Ps. 119:164). I have found that the monks have taught me how to pray in ways I never imagined before. Those who have gone with me have found something similar. The trip to Hope didn’t initially have pilgrims thanking me (Michigan in November–woo hoo!). Several leaders of our 8:45 worshiping community traveled to witness The Gathering at Hope College, a campus ministry in an ornate gothic church that draws more than 1000 students per week. We also worshiped at Pilgrim Reformed Church in Holland Michigan and took back copious notes from each place. If you’ve noticed 8:45 worship has been rich lately, thank those who went and have led differently since. Our Israel group had a remarkable time seeing places Jesus and the disciples touched, walked in, prayed in, and died in. I trust those who have gone on each trip will never be the same.
I myself have always loved to travel, and have found leading pilgrimages to be a way to travel that blesses our church. They remind us that life is a pilgrimage. If we have our eyes open God will constantly surprise us.
If you have interest in these or another pilgrimage please let me know. I warn you–you won’t come back the same.
We have some noteworthy changes coming to our pastoral staff. The most significant is that Denise Stanley will step away from her regular office work as our communications director. She has lent countless hours to this work and has made our staff and entire church better for it–be sure to thank her. We will have to make a hire part-time to replace her. She isn’t going anywhere! She and Charles just want more time to devote to their family at this important stage of its life. She will continue to serve in our church in countless areas and in individual projects on behalf of the staff.
Patti Connelly has agreed to serve as a volunteer Director of Adult Ministries starting January 1. Patti is seeking ordination as a Methodist deacon in West Virginia and has been serving among our older adults as a volunteer for some months now. As with all our pastors she will not do the work alone. She will see that we all do the work together. Please see Patti or email her with ideas for helping folks from early retirement age to 100 to see the face of God and become more like Him.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
I’ve never liked the bumper sticker, “God kissed the earth and called it Boone.” Don’t get me wrong–I love Boone. But the slogan undoes one of my favorite traits of North Carolinians: we’re humble. Wataugans included! But maybe there is something to this kissing the earth thing.
The first time I saw the Church of the Nativity, 20 years ago, I was underwhelmed. It’s old, cramped, dank–while it’s cool that Christians have worshiped there since the 300s, it’s really really old. Its worshipers are mostly Eastern Orthodox, whose dark icons and drab clerical wear and overwrought decoration didn’t appeal to me spiritually. Still don’t. Being there again this time reminded me of these shortfalls. The small door to the outside I preached on Sunday is terrific. The cramped mash of people heading to the spot of Christ’s birth is claustrophobia-inducing. Some parts of the holy land are not so awesome.
But I remember seeing her: an older woman speaking a language I didn’t understand. She threw herself on the stone floor of the Nativity, arms extended in prayer, and she kissed the place where, tradition has it, Christ was born. She kissed it over and over. The place itself is a silver star with 14 points for the 14 generations mentioned in Matthew between Abraham and David, 14 more between David and the Babylonian exile, and 14 more before the birth of Christ (remember all the “begats”?). As she kissed the star, I kept wondering, do they ever clean that thing?! But I also thought something else. This woman knows how to worship. I don’t know who she was or what country she came from. And it didn’t matter. She recognized Jesus. And I look forward to learning more about her in His presence one day.
The holidays approach. We are in our standard end-of-the-year money crunch, needing a strong conclusion to the church’s financial year to meet our financial obligations for 2014. We are collecting pledge cards for 2015 giving, hoping to improve on the half million or so pledged for 2014 against a budget of $1.2 million. We are also planning to worship–we have our Thanksgiving meal on Sunday evening November 23, our Advent Festival approaches the week following, November 30. We will worship during Advent with a healing service, likely on December 21, we will worship 5 times on Christmas Eve (4 especially for small children, 6 for all ages, 8 at Blackburn’s, 8 with lessons and carols, 11 with candlelight, communion at all). School will get cancelled, family will arrive or we’ll travel, work will stop, and the earth will exhale a little. The holidays are grueling and magic both. You know what I mean.
It is all good and it all has to happen. Which leads me back to the woman kissing the ground in Bethlehem. Who knows if this is the spot? Unlike our western imagination, which has Jesus born in a wooden building like a barn, places for animals in that part of the Middle East are usually caves. We saw caves throughout Israel and these would have been used as stables. The Church of the Nativity is built on a cave, purportedly the one in which Mary bore the One who bore the universe. The woman I saw 20 years ago was bearing in her spirit the One whom Mary bore in her body.
We don’t know of course whether this was the spot. As is often said in Israel ‘If it wasn’t here, it was certainly within a few hundred yards of here!’ But this is the heart of the incarnation. God kissed the earth and called it “salvation.” And that’s not just what brings us joy at Christmas. It’s what makes it worth getting out of the bed every single day of our lives.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
As I write I’m getting ready to be a pilgrim to Israel with a half dozen of y’all from October 21-31. The children prayed for us Sunday and off we go to walk where Jesus did. We covet your prayers and look forward to telling you our stories when we return.
The Christian practice of pilgrimage was born from trips like this–the faithful wanting to be in the place that God quite literally walked, to see the holy places, to come back different, transformed. The church realized that pilgrimage is a faithful practice because our whole lives are a pilgrimage. If we don’t come back home to God changed, we haven’t been paying attention.
You will be well “covered” pastorally while I’m gone. Jeff McClain will, as ever, see that pastoral care is done for those in need; Vern Collins will help him in that regard. If you call the church office to speak to a pastor you may also find yourself engaging with Colette Krontz, Andy Ellis, Brandon Wrencher–we are blessed with an abundance of pastoral staff and an even greater abundance of talent. My wife Jaylynn will preach our UMW Sunday on the 26th and Brandon will preach November 9. You’ll hear testimonies in the sanctuary services each of the next 6 weeks for our Cycle of Life series.
On October 26th we’ll commemorate All Saints Day, historically on November 1, moved up here for our Stewardship Sunday on November 2nd. We’ll light candles for those we’ve lost in the past year. I always think on this day of those I’ve loved who are now with God. And I take heart they pray for us now. Please come preparing to light a candle that day. The next Sunday November 2nd we’ll process forward again this time to offer our pledge cards and make a promise to God about what we’ll give in 2015 as we receive from God what cost him so much–the body of his Son. What an act of faith to plan what we’ll be giving over an entire year that is not yet, but which will come, God willing. Thank you for joining me in these adventures.
Another upcoming even to share is our Fall Festival. We used to call this Trunk or Treat and have our kids trick or treat in our parking lot out of the back of our cars (tailgates are well-used around here aren’t they?!). This time we’ll have the event in our gym with games, face painting, a meal and, of course, candy. This would be a perfect even to which to invite a friend on Halloween, please see your bulletin for more info.
Finally, for now, this: I’m struck by how invisible our pastoral staff’s work is. They are working hard, but if they’re doing it right most of us won’t see it. I think of long hours in hospital waiting rooms, preparing for difficult sermons or lessons, meeting with families or friends or others who are our mission, attending sports events or bedsides of nursing homes. Since this work is invisible, it might help if you have a chance to come along and see it. I got the idea of a “ride around” from Sgt. Bobby Creed of Boone’s PD with whom I’ve taken a shift or two (until I wear out at 4 AM!). So if you’d like to spend a day with me or one of our other pastoral staff we’d be honored. Let me or any of us know. It’ll help you pray for us better. And will help us pray for you.
Which is our job, after all, as long as we are on this pilgrimage together, isn’t it?
