Methodist

Giving of our _ _ _ _, our treasure, and our talents.

/ Jason Hyer / Leave a comment

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As a full-time seminary student (ATS represent!), part-time pastor (no such thing if you’re doing it right), husband (guy who mows the yard, remembers birthdays and anniversaries, and honors his wife), father (provides spiritual guidance as well as embarrass his children in front of their friends), and a guy holding down a full-time secular career (amazed that he hasn’t gotten fired yet for missing work due to the previously listed items), to say I have demands on my time is an understatement! I list all of that not to brag or attempt to gain sympathy, but to illustrate a point…

I’m kind of busy.

I am not alone in this busyness; it is all around us. You’re probably sitting reading this there at your desk, kitchen counter, or in the drive-thru line at school right at this very moment… taking a breather between the next thing that requires your time. There are constant demands on our time, and each new request requires giving up time that can be spent on other needs. As I’m writing this blog post, I should be authoring a 10-page final paper for a class, but I’m taking the time to share a confession instead…

I don’t take enough time to spend with God.

There, I said it. It’s out in the open now. Whew!

Am I alone in this? I’m going to take a wild guess and say, “that’s a big NO there Jas-a-roon-oh.” (Sorry… I really shouldn’t do accents, especially in the written word.)

Here is where things get a little sad (but also exposes a glimmer of hope)…

We do this to ourselves.

I didn’t have to accept God’s call and take on the workload of graduate school (though I could not imagine all of the blessings that have come from it already). I didn’t have to accept God’s blessing and marry my wife (though I can’t imagine accomplishing all that I have without her). We don’t have to tell our children “yes” when they want to join a sports team. We don’t have to tell our pastor “yes” when he asks you to help lead a ministry (as much as he may want you to!). There are so many “good” things to which we could say no. Unfortunately, we don’t say it because we tell ourselves, “that will be good for me” or “it would be good for Bobby Sue to play on that travel team (name changed, my apologies if your child is named Bobby Sue).”

“If Satan can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.”

Now we know that Satan can’t actually make us do anything, he, after all, was conquered by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He does, however, retain the power to tempt us to do all sorts of bad things. The crux being, as I’ve pointed out above, we can get busy doing many good things as well as bad. The point is, all of the things we do are distractions. They are distractions from being in a personal relationship with God.

Now here’s the hook… here’s the rub… here’s the application (as my preaching textbooks say)…

We can choose to take more time to be with God… wait… not take… give more time to God. Wait (again), how can I give God time, he’s God?! Spend time with God? Ehhh… forget it…

Whatever word or term you use, there must be more of it set aside for growing in our relationship with our creator. He, after all, has created all of this thing we call time.

I recently gave the most hypocritical sermon I have ever given. I stood in front of the congregation describing all of the important reasons we should be spending more time with God, knowing that I was not doing an adequate job of it myself. As I said the words, I could feel the Holy Spirit convicting me of the plank in my eye, and I may have even said something along the lines of, “your pastor needs to learn this message as much as anyone in the room.”

This convicting illuminated the hope that I alluded to earlier. I had the power to make my own decisions. I chose right then to grow and mature in my spiritual formation and set upon asking God for his help in this quest. You see, while you may have the blessing of free will, nothing is possible without God. With his help, I have embarked upon a series of practices that include; getting up at 5:00 am for an hour spent in the Word and intercessory prayer, meeting with and absorbing spiritual formation practices from other pastors, devotional readings from the saints that came before us, and I regularly pray throughout my day with a small leather notebook filled with the names of those for whom I pray (You’ll not find me without this important journal of praises and concerns). This list is not all-inclusive, nor is it an attempt on my part to “earn grace,” but merely tools to recognize the grace that is already being poured out in my life.

You’re probably thinking, “But Jason, you just listed all kinds of new demands on your time!” and you’d be half right. With the insight and strength gained during these times of devotion, I am better equipped to face my day and the challenges that it will present. I’m also more willing to say, “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to decline” to new requests and more accepting of less than perfect scores on coursework.

While I did add spiritual practices to my schedule, I now do not consider this a demand at all, but an invitation… an invitation to grow in my relationship with Christ.

This is an invitation that is open to all.

Every good relationship we have, or have had in the past, requires time spent with the other person. Real time. Real sharing. Real emotions. Real… love.

Please don’t neglect the most important relationship of your life.

God is love.

-Amen

 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror  and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.  – James 1:22-25

 

 

 

 

Deep Breath

/ Jason Hyer / Leave a comment

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Ahhhhhhhhh. Deep breath… relax.

That’s the feeling I have right now though that is not me in this photograph. It’s surprisingly hard to find a picture of a man taking a deep breath. (I wonder if that’s because we so rarely do it.)

I’ve just finished with my January term class, TH601 – The Theology of John Wesley taught by Dr. Kenneth Collins. For those of you who do not know, John Wesley was an ordained Anglican Priest, who is credited with founding “Methodism.” Though you should also know that he was vehemently opposed to the Methodists splitting apart from the Church of England to form their denomination (the Methodists would wait until a few days after his death to make that jump).

This class was a new breed of learning for me; it is aptly named “intensive.” The format is one week of lectures on campus, one week of prep for the mid-term exam, and then one week of prep for the final exam. The mid-term was just two questions while the final was only one. My mid-term answers were seven pages long, and my final was four (still waiting for grades to be posted for the final). Interspersed through all of the lectures and exam questions was the required reading. This required reading consisted of four books all written by Dr. Collins, as well as 49 Wesley sermons.

Oh, and did I mention the class assignment? It was outlining 16 of Wesley’s sermons. Sounds easy right? Yeah…about that. John Wesley lived for most of the 1700’s. His writings are appropriately 18th century English. Our assignment was to summarize each paragraph of each sermon and put it into our words, in modern English, naturally. I finished my assignment with just a few hours to spare, and it was 11,000 words covering 43 pages (single spaced).

I am seriously considering not taking an intensive next January!

The good news is that this class, while an incredible experience, is now behind me. I have the next eleven days to take a few deep breaths and relax. I’m already getting antsy, though. I keep eyeing my syllabi of the three classes I’m taking for the Spring semester that starts February 8th. I can’t help but think I’m missing a great opportunity to work ahead on those class assignments…

Reflections from the class:

Wesley was a wreck in his early life. Theologically his beliefs were all over the place. He would get started down a particular path of thought, following in the teachings of Luther, a’ Kempis, the Moravians, and many others, only to reverse course after discovering the truths as he saw them contained in Scripture. In his early life he was a Christian in word and deed, but not in his heart, and not from a place of love.

That all changed for him one evening at Aldersgate in England. That night Wesley would experience his profound conversion experience and set off down a path that led to his theological ordo salutis… his order of salvation. This doctrine of salvation would serve as the basis and framework for the group called “Methodist.” In this order is spelled out; how to seek one’s salvation from sin, how to seek one’s freedom from the bondage of sin, how to become liberated in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, and how to become entirely sanctified (holy).

We Methodist don’t hear much about John Wesley’s theology in our churches now. We’ve drifted far from where he wanted us to be. That being said, we do some of the things he wanted us to be doing well… we feed the hungry, help the poor, and clothe the naked. But despite the politics, despite the press, despite the views of some of our leaders, we must get back to Wesley’s message… correction… the Gospel’s message… of the reconciling power of Jesus Christ.

In his early years, John Wesley was thrown out of nearly every church, he preached in. He was thrown out because he questioned the direction of his church. He was thrown out for confronting the hypocrisy he saw coming from the pulpit and the people. He faced those people he regarded as marginal Christians, those Christians that went to church every Sunday out of habit than out of an act of love and worship. He did this not to be a jerk, or because he thought he was better than others. He did this out of love. He didn’t want people to be content where they were, with the little they were doing. He called others to grow in their holiness to glorify God.

And when he was thrown out, when he was persecuted, God blessed him. He noted in his memoirs of those early days that when he started preaching on the atoning blood of Christ, and that Christ was the only way to salvation, the Spirit blessed, and the people came. The very first time he stepped up on a tree stump, the very first time he did “field preaching”, three thousand people showed up.

What do we do to revitalize and bring people to our churches of any denomination?

We preach about Jesus Christ. With every breath, we sing his praises. With every word we push people to be more than they are at this moment, but more humble than they were yesterday.

Jesus Christ is the source of this power. Jesus Christ is the source of this love.

Following Wesley’s conversion, he never waivered from his overriding theme of Holy Love and Sola Fide (Faith Alone)… that being it is only through the utterly free grace of God, and our faith in him, that we are saved. It is God’s love for us, and not our works that will provide our salvation, our “new birth” as a child of God, freed from the Spirit of bondage and liberated in the Spirit of adoption.

God is Love.

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3 NKJV)