Make a Home a Castle

I can’t believe it, but the Sun News has vindicated me. After years of ignoring many decorating trends in favor of using inherited items and family photos to adorn our home, an article in this morning’s paper stated that we should reflect who we are by following this same practice. By incorporating such treasured items into an overall plan gives “a nod to our roots.”

Over the years I do admit that I have spent hours pouring over the pages of home decorating magazines and changed colors and window treatments as advised by the professionals. (No more orange and avocado with heavy drapes in my house!) However, as we have moved from place to place it has become increasingly important to me to surround us with items that reflect family and family. From Grandma Owens’s rocking chair to grandchildren pictures, our space certainly offers a reflection of who we are. To us these special things make our house feel like home. We have also found them to be a great catalyst for sharing family history with our sons and their families. Although not a castle, I find our home to wrap us in its own kind of luxury and to be a witness of a family’s strength.

Learning to be the Body of Christ

For generations we have used a schooling-instructional paradigm as we define Christian education in our churches. That is, in a certain time and place and in a specific manner education is to occur. Although there are certain inherent elements of this that we constantly analyze and perhaps change, it is a basic model that continues to serve us well in some ways as we build up the church. We can read and recite scripture. We study a bit about church history, theological thought and Methodism. We are good students of Christianity and we give thanks for those who have helped us to be at this place on our journey.

However, we are realizing that it is in the everyday living that we can truly discover and be part of the Body of Christ. We learn while serving as Christ’s apprentices each day. We encounter the world and perform the scripture as interpreted within the traditions and understandings of our congregation. Our individual needs become secondary as we ask God in Christ for help in doing what is right, good, and loving as we walk our daily paths. We have a special opportunity for learning when together we open hearts and minds to new insight and understanding and respond to those who are in need of God’s grace and love. We truly experience spiritual formation. For in honoring the guest and stranger we welcome Christ himself. We are transformed and know what it means to be the Body of Christ. So, what changes in Christian education do we need to make as we seek to grow in understanding of our faith?

In Our Connection

An e-mail from my friend Cynthia reminded me how important it is that the local UMC church share the stories of our connectional ministries. She had heard of the four areas of focus for the UMC as named at the 2008 General Conference and was excited to know that we are involved in these matters. Over the next quadrennium, the church will seek to focus the work of making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world around these areas of ministry:

• Combating the diseases of poverty by improving health globally.
• Engaging in ministry with the poor.
• Creating new places for new people and revitalizing existing congregations.
• Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world.

For further discussion see this UMNS commentary.

This week the Council of Bishops approved a pastoral letter asking church members to participate in the healing. This document, “God’s Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action,” was started by the 2004 United Methodist General Conference. More than 5,400 United Methodists around the world have had input into the final document. “We cannot help the world until we change our way of being in it,” the bishops said in adopting the letter. The bishops recommend that this letter be read to congregations during the season of Advent.

If we understand that the Church exists to serve the world and that the congregations of the UMC connect with one another to effectively do so, we need to be more intentional about sharing connectional news and to be in conversation about it.