The Divine Conspiracy: The Mystery of Israel

Posted on June 12, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

Dan Brown’s biggest mistake in The DaVinci Code was forgetting that Jesus was Jewish. We will never understand Jesus unless we consider what God was up to in the Old Testament.

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What’s the largest Turnip you’ve ever seen?

Posted on June 8, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

The 2006 session of the Central Texas Annual Conference is now over. We concluded on a hot Wednesday afternoon in Waco.

Hot as it was outside, it remained fairly cool inside. the closest thing to dissension was a couple of representatives from smaller churches pleaded, during discusison of the budget, that we are straining smaller churches. Both mentioned the old addage that “you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”

Interestingly, though, earlier in the day, we heard a similar whine on behalf of the big churches. The new pension plan that has now been accepted by our conference, has the larger (more accurately, the higher paying) churches paying a far lower percentage on their salaries toward the overall pension than are the smaller (lower-paying) churches. The leadership of the Board of Pensions defended this by throwing out some utterly irrelevant stats about what a high percentage of the overall apportionments these big churches pay. Awwww, poor, poor, big churches….

The truth is, churches, no matter their size, pay a fairly eqivalent amount of apportionments as a percentage of their overall budgets. So, yes, churches that spend more money on themselves pay more apportionments.

I think that no matter what size your turnip is, the addage is likely still true. Perhaps we are beyond the time of pitting “big churches” against “little churches.”

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The Divine Conspiracy

Posted on June 7, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

I’ve finally managed to upload the audio for the Divine Conspiracy sermon series (yes, I stole the title from Dallas Willard – but the content has nothing in common). This is my response to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code.

In the first, The Mystery of Israel I suggest that Brown’s biggest mistake is forgetting that Jesus was a Jew. We cannot understand Jesus unless we understand what God is up to in the Old Testament.

In the second, The Mystery of Jesus I examine the life and ministry of Jesus. Finding clues that point not only to the humanity of Jesus, but also to the notion that he is something more also, I suggest that the best response to the mystery of Jesus is what do what Philip told Nathanael, “Come and see.”

In the third, The Mystery of Salvation I investigate the nature of salvation, through the Old and New Testaments. We see, contrary to much common belief, that it is much more than merely being forgiven or going to heaven when we die – MORE not less.

Each link will take you to a page where you’ll have the choice of listening via streaming audio of downloading an mp3.

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Truth or Inspiration?

Posted on June 5, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

People like to hear stories of success and happiness. I’m ok, you’re ok. That’s part of the genius behind movements as diverse as the Chicken Soup series and Guideposts.

I was talking to a pastor friend tonight whose Annual Conference has just begun. Once again they announced that membership of the conference is up. They take great pride in the fact that almost alone in United Methodism, they’ve been growing for over 20 consecutive years.

Except it’s not a fact.

Sure the statistical reports speak of growth. But the growth isn’t real.

My friend told me of a fellow pastor who moved to a new congregation and found hundreds of numbers on the roll that he couldn’t even match with names. The logical (and Disciplinary) thing to do would be to correct the role via charge conference action. But his DS disallowed it. “We don’t do things like that in our conference. That’s too negative. We grow here.” [Paraphrase of a paraphrase, but the general idea]

So conference-wide growth isn’t real, but at least it’s inspirational. But maybe not. My friend says everyone knows the growth numbers are fictional. This growth regime is what John Kotter calls “happy talk,” a mechanism to derail and prevent change. We don’t need to change, after all, if we’re already doing a great job!

I think we’re better off engaging Creative Tension (Bill Fritz wrote the book on this). Set a goal – in this case a conference growing in membership. Then tell the truth about the distance from that goal. Let the distance you have to cover create tension that impels you forward. Truth inspires better than fiction. Fiction lulls us to sleep. We might feel good about ourselves, but that is the way of death.

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2006 Episcopal Address

Posted on June 3, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

Things are BIG in Texas. I’ve heard many times that the Texas Annual Conference is the largest in the denomination (it’s not – either in terms of membership or area covered). We have the largest churches (we surely have some large ones). We like to think we’re something special. Unlike those western and Yankee outposts of United Methodism, we’re still growing. Or so we think. But not any more.

In her Episcopal Address Monday, Bishop Huie told us that our worship attendance was down by a thousand last year. Corrections in three large churches combined to produce a hit of 7700 in membership. Worst of all, 45% of our churches had no one join by profession of faith. If you’re not familiar with UM terminology, “profession of faith” means that someone is making a first time commitment to Jesus. And we can’t even brag that “at least we’re not as bad as everyone else,” since the national rate is only 42%. Ouch.

Bishop Huie said this poor performance – she called it a “dismal failure of Christian discipleship” – was completely unacceptable. She called on everyone to repent – not just in the comfort of our hotel room, but then and there.

Additional points from her address:

  • 2005 was a good year for giving. The TAC paid its full obligation to the general church. We hadn’t done that since 1972.
  • As bishop, she has observed that most churches ask for young pastors. The problem is, only 1 pastor in 20 is under 35. We have some serious recruiting to do. [We might also want to consider the long complicated road to being a pastor.]
  • The biggest thing we need to do if we’re going to turn the church around and get to the business of reaching people for Jesus is prayer.
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Do They Really Mean It?

Posted on June 3, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

The first night of Annual Conference (when we had a youth service) some folks (not youth) were passing out buttons. The buttons featured the United Methodist marketing slogan, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,” but added an additional line: “… No Exceptions.”

I don’t think they really mean it.

Do they really think it’s a good thing in all circumstances to have our hearts, minds, and doors open? I sure don’t.

It gets mighty hot in East Texas in the summer time. Not just hot, humid, too. In this climate air conditioning is a great blessing. In some parts of the country you can get by without air conditioning, but it’s tough here.

The downside of air conditioning is that it costs money. My wife said that our electric bill went up $50 last month because of the heat. Since we like both air conditioning and saving money, we try to insulate our house. We also try to keep the doors closed. While it’d be nice to be able to afford air conditioning the out doors, it’s not only really expensive; it’s also not very effective.

But maybe that’s not an exception for the Button People. Or maybe they’re only talking about church doors. Unfortunately, I find an exception there also.

Last summer an arsonist found a way into our youth building – and did what arsonists do. The building was a complete loss. Since many in the church had poured themselves into the renovation of the building over the previous couple of years, many hearts were broken. While the arsonist likely entered by breaking a window, we’ve not felt very welcoming toward other practitioners of the crime. We try to be pretty careful to not only keep our doors closed, but also locked, when no one is around.

But maybe the Button People don’t have a church building to protect, so that’s not an exception for them. I still have trouble believing they keep their hearts, minds and doors open to everything all the time. Minds open to atheism? Hearts open to hate and revenge? I doubt they would claim that. Of course, I don’t know the Button People personally, but I’m more inclined to attribute weak logic than poor character to them in this case.

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Getting beat by the Lutherans

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

While many of our Annual Conferences will be taking up resolutions opposing the war in Iraq, the Lutherans are taking the opposite approach. They are sending their own troops!

Driving through Waco this afternoon, I noticed a Lutheran Church, the specific name of which will remain withheld, had posted on its marquee “Support our troops.” They’ve sent their own troops?

Ok, to be fair, they didn’t specify that they were sending troops to iraq, so it is presumptuous of me to imply that the Lutherans were raising a military. But I cannot imagine a Christian group encouraging support for one Caesar’s armies over those of another Caesar, so we are left with two options.

Either

1) The Lutherans are raising an army to be deployed somewhere

OR

2) The Lutherans are using militaristic methaphors to describe their commitment to spreading the gospel.

Either way, it seems that The United Methodist Church is being left in the dust.

Posted in Current events, Theology, United Methodism | 3 Comments

Bishop’s Book List

Posted on May 17, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ve heard about the many changes happening throughout the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, our Episcopal leader, is not only providing energy, but also encouraging engagement with ideas from inside and outside the connection. I’d heard of a list of books for a while, but just recently requested a list.

Following are a couple of the books Bishop Huie has asked the cabinet to read:
 
Good to Great, Jim Collins
Good to Great and the Social Sector, Jim Collins
Holy Conversations
 
She has recently ordered the following books for herself:
 
The Life You Save May be Your Own, Paul Elie
Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner & Emma Laskin
Crossing the Unknown Sea, David White
Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
How to Change the World, David Bornstein
Callings, William Placher
Leading Lives that Matter, Mark Schwehn & Dorothy Bass
 
Here are books she has recommended to Cokesbury for inclusion in their annual conference bookstore:
 
RADICAL HOSPITALITY
Radical Hospitality, Homan & Pratt (Paraclete Press)
Hospitality of the Heart, Marilyn Brown Oden (A-Peak Publishing)
Making Room; Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Christine Pohl
Reaching Out; The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, Henri Nouwen
Where God Happens, Rowan Williams and Desmond Tutu
 
50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN
She Offered Them Christ: The Legacy of Women Preachers in Methodism, Paul Wesley Chilcothe
Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women, Paul Wesley Chilcote
Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism, 1760-1939, Jean Miller Schmidt
 
OTHERS
Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, David Hempton, (Yale Press)
The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman
The Present Future, Reggie McNeal
The Art of Possibility Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

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Pension Quandry

Posted on May 15, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

I would be happy to have some perspective on this. The Central Texas Conference, like many if not all Annual Conferences, will be establishing a new way of figuring clergy pensions for 2007. For more information about the new plan in general, please check the General Board of Pensions site.

Here is the way our conference Board of Pensions is proposing we fund it: each church will pay 12% of each clergy’s compensation package, up to the DAC (Denominational Average Compensation), then an additional 5% on the entire compensation.

Thus, some churches will be paying a total of 17% of their clergy compensation towards pension. On the other hand, a church that pays its clergy $150,000 (and we have at least a couple who do) would pay only 9.2% total. For a specific example, the cost to our cabinet-level folk will be 11.3%.

Sure, in actual dollars the higher paying church is out quite a bit more money. As a percentage of its budget, though, the larger, higher-paying church will be spending far less than the smaller churches.

I ran the numbers provided by the Conference Office, and a flat rate of 14% across the board would adequately fund our conference’s pension. In response to this suggestion, I was told that our largest two churches already pay 10% of the total apportioned budget of the CTC, and that this would be too much to put on them.

I wonder how many of the smaller churches, many of which are declining anyway, will be driven under by this new plan, which shifts more budgetary weight (as a percentage of budget) to them, rather than to the larger churches.

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Selling Jesus

Posted on May 13, 2006 by Richard Heyduck

I remember listening to Keith Green back in the early 80s. In those days I thought he was a better speaker than singer, though it was the latter he was best known for. I remember hearing him inveigh against “Jesus Junk,” the sentimental mementos we fill our homes with. Well, Nathanael Blake seems to be on the same page as Green. Here are his final comments:

Treating Christianity as an industry, a business with a profit margin, has corrupted the church, and the crowning achievements of the CMI are at the core of the refuse pile. It’s time to end the token preaching to the choir, the coded religious messages, and the charging of money for events that supposedly exist to preach the gospel.

Get out. Those who want to create worship and devotional music, go back to where you belong, which isn’t arenas, festivals, and clubs, but churches. The rest of you, go out into the world; claiming Christianity and presenting Christian messages in your songs won’t prevent you from succeeding…if you have the necessary musical ability (U2, anyone?).

Quit pretending that Christianity is a brand name, because there will be Hell to pay for it, in the most literal sense. If Christianity is true, then there are lost souls dying and going to Hell all around us, while the church sits and sells Jesus to itself.

Go read the whole thing. I’m happy there are still some young trouble makers out there.

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