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?
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
I’m grateful for several sightings of life abundant in our midst lately.
I spent time with a young woman recently who has felt rejected by other churches. She has been homeless at times after a heart-breakingly difficult upbringing. She is student age now, but not in school, she is working to stay housed, to make money to return to community college. She came to our church promising to give Christianity one last chance, but no more. I asked what we did to help her meet Jesus anew, become part of a church again, find her way into a job, to housing. “You let me be who I am,” she said. Seems simple, but it’s life-changing. And we are really good at that.
Our community in Todd, Blackburn’s Chapel, continues to bear fruit in ways we couldn’t have planned. Recently two college students stood and testified about the change in their lives from attending our church there. One has been our piano player for worship. She brought her friend, and both have found faith again in ways they did not anticipate. Blackburn’s is starting a new Sunday School class. It’s aimed at longtime Todd residents, not really at the student demographic. But both girls told Pastor Brandon they’d be back for the first Sunday School class. “We can’t wait,” they exclaimed. This worshiping community of ours, which costs not a single dime to our Boone campus, continues to bear fruit for us.
We recently had our annual fall Bazaar, and every year I hear new stories of faithfulness from our 30 year history. Ron Henries told me of a woman years ago whose family lost everything in a fire. She turned up with an empty station wagon and returned home with it full, on us. The Bazaar is about more than the money we raise to reduce our debt and the tithe of our earnings we give for local missions. It is also about the huge amount of grace we invest in our community through gift cards to local social workers and charities. I met one family that weekend whom I had previously invited to worship. She said she would attend sometime, but has not yet on Sunday morning. Then there they were in our building–for the Bazaar. Clearly this was an easier first step than coming for a worship service. A step offered for them to climb toward God, by virtue of a sale that turns garbage into mission. Amazing.
I met with a man lately whose family is moving toward joining our church. He had a few questions. He has doubts at times. He’s not near as good as he feels Christians should be. And he has had other churches look down on him. I was proud to report that our church is really good at not being judgmental, at accepting all people wherever we are. “Everybody everywhere matters,” we say, and believe, and act accordingly. He cried a little. “You really mean you think your church would have me and my family?” Yes, I replied, because Jesus adores you all and wants to draw closer to you. I’ve rarely felt more proud of our congregation.
Except maybe this one time. We’ve all heard about the tragic death of Anna Smith at Appalachian. Her family had her confirmed in a Methodist congregation in the High Point area. And the day after her body was discovered, her father worshiped in our church. He told me how grateful he was for ours as a place of refuge for him. I expressed our sorrow to him, and our admiration at his courage for coming to worship. He told me about the tattoo she had, visible in her photos. “Contrary to popular belief, she did not get that to please her father,” he joked. It was a sunflower. She had considered this carefully–a sunflower can grow alone or in groups, it turns and faces the sun all the time. “And I came into your church today and saw that beautiful arrangement of sunflowers,” he said (thank you Mary Carolyn Abernathy and God bless you Cheryl Marshbanks, in whose honor they were there!). He saw those flowers and gave thanks.
Signs of life are all around us. Let’s stop and give thanks occasionally. And keep turning toward the sun.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
Do you remember the pattern of a new semester? Everything is fresh–new teachers, new subjects, new books, new routine. If you’re a nerd, like me (and not a few others among us in this academic town) all this is nearly thrilling.
Then a few weeks into the semester the work hits. The first tests, exams, papers, in short, work. Suddenly what seemed new and fabulous becomes difficult, the new patterns routine, the teacher who once seemed witty and exciting grows quirky and annoying. This is the key point in education. Will we press through the tedium and find the blessing at the other end? Or will we do just barely enough to get by?
A new semester has started and also matured. Public school and local college students have been back some weeks. Professors have new work too–papers to grade, tests to evaluate, leading them to wonder (like their students) whether assigning all this work in the first place was a good idea.
Here at Boone Methodist a new semester and a new academic year are underway as well, replete with fresh beginnings. We have been in a sermon series on the surprising faithfulness of God, which is about to give way to a new series on our new logo and graphics as a church. Confirmation begins this Sunday, with a new crop of young boys and girls set to become men and women as they profess faith in Christ for themselves, some of them seeking baptism in the New River next spring. Club 45 begins in children’s ministry as well, meeting at 3:45 (get it?!) on Wednesdays for bible study and disciplined pursuit of friendship, the way we Methodists do (for more information, contact Colette Krontz).
Youth group starts this Sunday as well, featuring new small group leadership and a new crop of students. As ever we will be sure no student is missed as they attend. All will be met where they are at in small group and not left alone there but encouraged toward deeper following of Christ, and so more full life (for more information, contact Andy Ellis).
New intensive bible studies are set to begin to begin as well. Jeff McClain will lead a new Disciple II bible study that will meet for the academic year–please see him for more info. I will be teaching a new course called the Covenant Bible Study that will meet for 24 weeks and bounce back and forth between Old and New Testaments around the theme of covenant (email me if you are interested). Grant Dean is set to offer a new round of Financial Peace University, which applies biblical wisdom to a hard nosed approach to budgeting and debt reduction. Sign up with this Google form. Very few people I know feel they know the bible or their personal finances with enough wisdom–these studies will help.
Our firewood ministry starts afresh this Saturday morning. When and where else can you get in great shape swinging an ax or a chainsaw while doing good for our neighbors who are praying right now for heat this coming winter? (Contact Jaimie McGirt, our interim mission coordinator if you can help). Our 30th annual Fall Bazaar is in full swing on the way to our unloading Sunday after church on September 14 and the opening of the sale the following Friday, September 19. The hundreds of volunteers who lead in this ministry and schedule their holidays around this week insist they do so not so much for the mission, though that’s good (the proceeds pay down our debt and help many local people and agencies). They say they do the work because they love the time together in friendship, as they sweat and work and laugh together (contact Rosie for more information).
There is something wonderful about a new year, until it becomes hard work. Precisely then is when something exciting is about to happen, if we stick with it, commit ourselves, and seek Jesus and others together.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
You know how ministers in movies begin every wedding by addressing the congregation as “dearly beloved”? (we don’t do this in Methodist liturgies, but bear with me). That’s actually an ancient church practice of addressing all who come to church as “beloved,” that is, adored, by God. I often feel like addressing you this way, but it’d sound like something from a hackneyed film. I’m going to try it anyway:
Dear Ones Adored By Christ,
I’d like to tell you about two new initiatives at our church. One is our First Face ministry. Another is support for seminary students. Both are crucial and I ask for your prayer and support for each.
One, First Face. We had a consultant visit our church recently who approached our church like a guest would on a Sunday morning to show us how we do at welcoming. He suggests we spend a great deal more time and energy on our guests. We are good at being welcoming–none of us is here who wasn’t welcomed warmly by someone else (folks not warmly welcomed simply don’t come back, let alone join). But we may have placed less emphasis on this than we should recently. Folks on our welcoming team feel like they’re taking their turn at a chore that not enough people help with. And too many doors and hallways look empty, and so uninviting, as folks arrive Sundays.
What if instead we saw the chance to welcome new people as a chance to meet the risen Christ? “Greet every visitor as Christ,” St. Benedict charged monks and nuns in the 5th century–and they were people who wanted to get away from the world! Genesis 18 is an Old Testament example of Abraham and Sarah offering hospitality to strangers and only learning later that their guest is the mysterious Lord of the universe. Hebrews 13 charges us to treat guests as angels. Every person who approaches our church is here for a reason–sometimes a heart-breaking one. They have had something in their life change that sends them searching. A greeter or usher gets to be the face of Jesus for that person. Someone has been praying hard that this meeting goes well. The next step depends on you–your warmth, your reception of them, whether you’ve prayed beforehand. Through 1000 unspoken messages they’ll detect whether they’re welcome here and whether you’re excited to see them.
Susan Jones and Johnny Carson are leading an effort to improve how our church does with the 1500 guests we receive each year. We need more people in more places ready to receive guests. Expect us to call on you from the microphone, in personal conversation, through your Sunday School class. This is an all-hands-on-deck mission critical priority (as Johnny puts it!).
The second ask is to help support the seminary students on our staff. This may seem strange–don’t pastors show up ready-minted, educated and ready to go? Often yes, but those pastors who have risen through our ranks have not. Colette, Luke, Andy, and Vern were each hired by Boone Methodist for a specific ministry area. As their competence and confidence has grown so has their fruitfulness. Colette finishes her coursework at Duke for her master’s degree in September and walks in May. There is a reason our confirmation service was our best ever last April: Colette is a better children’s minister than ever. And her schooling is the reason why. Vern is studying at United Seminary in Ohio for a degree he has to have as a local pastor. Luke is at Asbury and Andy is working on the same MACP degree at Duke as Colette. Each is growing into who God calls them to be, and each will show greater fruitfulness for years to come on our staff. Brandon Wrencher, our new pastor at Blackburn’s Chapel, is finishing his degree at North Park in Chicago. He and the others have received support from both Methodist Men and Staff-Parish. I’m asking that we all support them further.
You will hear more about specific ways to do this shortly. If you feel compelled to give now, a check designated to “seminary support” would be a great way to do so. I know what it is like to come out of college in debt. Because of this, I have gifted my wedding honoraria this summer to the new seminary scholarship fund. Thank you for continuing to support our staff as they challenge us all to grow closer to Christ.
