preacher

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

 

 

 

 

Obedience.

/ Jason Hyer / Leave a comment

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Do a Google search for images using the word “Obedience” and you’ll be greeted by an assortment of images falling into one of two categories… religion or dogs. Go on. Try it. I’ll wait a moment for you to click back to this page.

…

Times up!

Why are the top images for the word obedience related to God and doG? Is there a correlation due to the spelling, as I’ve highlighted by my use of the capital “G”? Is there something else at play here?

When we give a dog a command, do we have its best interest in mind? (Other than the quick answer of, “Ha! Not when I tell him to get me a beer!”) Let’s look at some of the commands we may give a dog. (And in full disclosure here, I do not have, nor have ever had, a dog.)

When we yell, “STOP!” at our dog that’s about to run out into the street, aren’t we looking out for his best interest? Can you think of other commands that are for his good? What about when we talk him for a walk? Is that in his best interest or ours? Granted we also benefit from the exercise, not to mention the lack of poop on the floor.

What about when God gives us a command? Is he looking out for our best interest, or just wanting us to do cheap parlor tricks?

God gives us commands because it’s in our best interests as well. But due to our lack of obedience we tend to mess up things in our lives, as well as the lives of others.

What follows is a highlight from my experiences over the past week as I seek to come more fully into obedience with the path he is leading me on my walk of faith with him.

Last week one of my assignments posed the following question:

What are the most significant insights into the nature of the life of faith that church needs to hear? Why?

I present to you my answer that I would go on to develop into a 30-minute sermon on the example of obedience that Jesus provides to us with his triumphant entry into Jerusalem given yesterday as my first Palm Sunday Service.

“The single most significant insight into the nature of the life of faith can be précised with just a single word…

“Obedience.”

If forced to give more than one word, it would be…

“Absolute unfailing obedience to our Lord.”

Every downfall of man, every… single… one… can be traced back to our failing to follow the commands of our God. Adam and Eve broke the one rule they had to follow! The people of Israel… golden calf… one rule again.

Jump forward to our times and us “moderns” living under the New Covenant.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34 NRSV)

Cheat on your spouse? Broke the one rule. Murder your brother? Broke the one rule. Get drunk and wrap your car around a telephone pole? Broke the one rule. Become arrogant and bring destruction down upon your head? Broke the one rule. Sit on your hands afraid to step out in faith and accept your calling into full-time ministry for six years? Broke. The. One. Rule. (Only one of those was me by the way!)

We must as Christians be obedient to our Lord and Savior. Why? We’ve already established that we cannot earn our salvation, that it is an utterly free gift received by grace through faith, then why must we be obedient?

God has shown in his glory since before he brought order to the chaos that he has our complete and total best interests at the very core of his being. When we are not obedient we are doing something that is going to result in harm to us. In return, he only desires for us to be faithful and trust in him through our worship. And worship in its true obedient form is love. Holy. Complete. Love.

Amen?”

Deitrich Bonhoeffer said this about obedience and faith…

“For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.”

Obedience is following a command when everything in us wants to do the opposite. Obedience is wanting to run out into that street to chase the spinning tires of the speeding car.

May we all seek greater clarity and discernment of that voice in our ear telling us not to poop on the floor.

Amen?

 

“Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.” – (Romans 16:25-26 NIV) 

 

 

Grace Chapel

/ Jason Hyer / Leave a comment

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The sign modestly reads “Grace Chapel.”

This sign, and the picture of it, encapsulate everything one needs to know about the ministry of our brothers and sisters in Christ at the Korean United Methodist Church of Bloomington, Indiana. This congregation, nestled on a small parcel of land directly across the street from Indiana University, isn’t about flashy services, grand architecture, or giant pipe organs. This church, under the leadership and vision of Pastor Daeki Kim, is all about reaching an age group that most of us are ill-equipped to serve or even relate to… those going to college.

Here is the unassuming Pastor Daeki now!

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If the challenges of reaching these young men and women were not enough, they have the added focus of reaching international students. As you probably surmised from the sign, their specialty is reaching those from South Korea. But Pastor Daeki has dreams of having multi-national outreach and services involving students from all over the world!

Currently, the “year-round” members of this church (numbering less than 50) provide services to hundreds of students. The services offered are not just worship oriented, they include many educational, devotional, youth, and outreach programs. On Sunday many regular members attend an early service then move to their kitchen, where they prepare a traditional Korean meal for the students attending worship services later in the day. Think back to how appreciative you were of free food when you were in college, now imagine being in a country where you can’t easily find your version of “home-cooking.”

As you can guess, ministry, of this type is filled with difficulties. Please allow me to share some of their unique challenges:

  • A very limited number of “giving units” support hundreds of temporary visitors (i.e. students).
  • Pastor Daeki needs to teach his message in a very short amount of time.Existing students are graduating and new students are arriving each semester.
  • Being that Pastor Daeki and a large number of his congregation are Korean, our language differences can present challenges.
  • Greater than the language barrier; our cultural differences can be very pronounced.
    • We Americans can be like “bulls in a china shop” (quite unintentionally) while the Korean people tend to be reserved and humble. (I’ll never forget the look on the Pastor’s face as I neglected to take off my shoes when entering his home. He was quick to hide it, and would never call attention to my rude behavior, but I quickly realized my error).
  • And finally, did I mention these were college kids they’re ministering to?!

Here are some of their talented students now!

 

Pretty big list of challenges isn’t it? Would that be enough to discourage and scare you away from even attempting a ministry such as this? Most of us if being honest with ourselves would say, “No way, this isn’t for me!” But not Pastor Daeki, their church leadership teams, and their lay leaders. They stood up and said, “Here I am Lord!”

Here’s the wrinkle; here’s the need. This is the parsonage… the home… that Pastor Daeki, his beautiful wife, and their children live in…

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Looks quaint from this recent Google street-view doesn’t it?

Well here is a shot of the conditions within…

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Let that sink in a moment.

Here’s another…

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Out of respect for Pastor Daeki and his family, I’ll not show interior shots of the “livable” spaces. I’ll not show the evidence of rats and mice in the home. I’ll not show the cracking walls and the falling plaster. I’ll not show the single bedroom that the pastor, his wife, and his two very young children shared last winter because there wasn’t enough heat to warm the home.

What you do see in these pictures is mold, visible presence of standing water, and a foundation that you can quite literally see through.

These aren’t pictures from a third world country. These aren’t pictures from far off missionaries. This is Bloomington Indiana, USA… directly across the street from one of the most prestigious music schools in the world.

Thankfully before the cold weather arrived this year this came to our attention via the South East District’s amazing Superintendent, Beverley Perry. A team of volunteers descended upon this basement, killed the mold, painted every surface, fixed the furnace and heating ducts, and installed a new sump pit with a new pump.

These volunteers also stood up and said, “Here I am Lord!”

The repairs, while taking care of the immediate needs of health and warmth for the family, are just temporary in nature… they are a bandage. What this parsonage needs, and what this congregation cannot do on their own, is to be demolished and a new one put back in its place.

I can already see an argument forming in the minds of some to this idea (I say this because I myself thought it initially). Are you saying like I did, “Why not tear it down, fill in the hole, and pay the pastor a housing allowance?” or, “Why not just sell the property?” Or are you even thinking, “How did they let the home get in such disrepair?” This parsonage is not in this condition due to the competency level of their trustees, their leaders, or anyone else. The parsonage is in this condition because they were too busy doing the real ministry of Christ to worry about themselves.

Oh… did I forget to mention that Pastor Daeki awakes every morning… very early in the morning… walks across the alley, and leads a bible study? Did I mention that the family opens their home up to others? I probably don’t have to point out that most college students do not have a car on campus and this is particularly true for foreign students.

Pastor Daeki is not going anywhere.

Will you stand up and say, “Here I am Lord!”?

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Hey look, they’re silly just like us!!!

 

Like them on Facebook!

 

 

God gets out his 2×4… from spiritual whisper to a smack up side the head.

/ Jason Hyer / 2 Comments

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Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
  — Acts 2:17

I’ve often struggled with discerning God’s call in my life, as I’m sure many of you have experienced as well.  Since I’m so close to the issues, and because I’m human, I tend to put too much of my feelings, wants, and desires into the situation.  I’ve remarked many times that if God is going to call me into full-time pastoral ministry he is going to have to smack me in the head with a 2×4. At times I’ve felt the call into ministry only to eventually talk myself out of it.  Convincing myself that what I was feeling wasn’t really “The Call”, but merely a moment of spiritual high.  These…. let’s call them “spiritual whispers” … were often following a very uplifting event in my life.  Often times following a Sunday in which I preached a message, lead a mission trip or outreach event, I would go to my pastor and excitedly tell him, “I’m ready, put me in Coach!”.  He would give me that “look”.  I’m sure you’ve seen that look… you know the one…he grins, but on the inside he’s thinking “son, you have no idea what you’re saying”.  I’ve gotten that look many times over the last six years.

This time was different.  This time there was no doubt what God was telling me to do.  This time there weren’t any murky “signs” to decipher or discern.  This time there weren’t even any feelings involved.  This time God called me by name… literally.

Please allow me to explain.

On March 8th I was given the opportunity to preach at Asbury United Methodist Church in Columbus, Indiana (https://www.facebook.com/asburyumccol?fref=ts&ref=br_tf) in place of the head pastor Dave Blystone (Dave’s Blog) who was traveling in Israel.  Dave mentioned that he would like me to teach on John Wesley’s Prevenient Grace.  I had no idea what prevenient grace was (it’s divine grace that precedes human decision by the way), but I set about learning all I could on what John Wesley had to say about it.  Little did I know at the time, but God was nudging me along a path.

Before I even started preparing this message I stopped, humbled myself, and prayed that God would remove me from the message, that the words I wrote and the words I spoke be his and his alone.  A peace settled over me and I wrote out the entire message word for word in one sitting.  Understand though that there were hours spent researching the many forms of grace our Lord provides.  My time spent preparing messages in the past have always been when I feel closest to God.  It feels like I’m having a two sided conversation with him, rather than just me doing all the talking.  For this message I felt especially close to him.

March 8th quickly was upon me, but there wasn’t the usual nervousness or tension that comes with public speaking.  The people at Asbury UMC were open and welcoming, even allowing me to play my bass guitar with their worship team in second service.  I delivered the same message to both of their services that day (March 8th Sermon) and let me tell you it was both exhausting and exhilarating (for more insight into that read: 10 Things You Forget About Pastors) . Monday morning saw me back in my pastor’s office.  Before I could even finish walking through the door, my pastor fired off the question, “so… ready to go into full-time ministry NOW?”.  (I have a feeling he was expecting the usual “put me in Coach” conversation we have had every other time I’ve preached).  This time…again…was different.  I told him (paraphrasing here) “nope, not this time, it was a great experience, but I’ll stay with what I’m doing”.

Oh how I was in for a shock…

I was just two weeks from the events detailed here: Part One: And it all started in a Captain D’s.

Let’s skip ahead to the end of Part One where I have now had God show up in my life in a very real and physical way (well he was always there, but I wasn’t as open to him as I should have been.. see the definition of prevenient grace again).  God has just revealed to me that he finds me worthy.  Worthy of doing His work and worthy of being used in his plans.  It’s around this time that I come to the realization that it’s time to start paying back this kindness.  It’s time to do more than just float through life accepting all these gifts, but not passing them on to others.

At this point let me point out a couple of things.  I know that I can never repay God.  I know that I do not have his power or ability to even come close to paying the price that Christ paid for us.  So let me describe it this way… it’s time for me to start thanking God in more than just words.

With these thoughts spinning in my mind I went to sleep one night… and I dreamed dreams.

In a dream God came to me as a ball of light too bright to look at directly.  An arm reached out holding a bible that was open, but the words were in a language I could not read.  At this point God spoke and said “Jason, open your bible and read Tithus Chapter 2”.  I instantly woke up, then woke up Jennifer to tell her what had happened.  I’m sure she thought I was crazy as I described this dream to her at 2am.  I reached for my bible turning to the Table of Contents to search out this book of Tithus.  Turns out there isn’t a book of Tithus, but there is a Titus.  While it is technically a “book” of the bible it is less than two pages long (depending on your version).  For those of you that don’t know (as I myself didn’t until I did the research) the book of Titus was written by Paul to encourage a young pastor on the island of Crete.  Here is the contents of chapter 2:

Teach Sound Doctrine

2 But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine. 2 Tell the older men to be temperate, serious, prudent, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.

3 Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

9 Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, 10 not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,[a] 12 training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior,[b] Jesus Christ. 14 He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

15 Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority.[c] Let no one look down on you.

There it was in verse 1… But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine.

I’ve often read of others that have had God appear to them in a dream, hear an auditory voice when no one was around, or see a vision.  I never thought I would be blessed with such an event in my life.  I spent the next 48 hours floating around on a spiritual high.  I’ve describe it this way to others… this was my burning bush moment.  It’s moments like these that make me scratch my head at non-believers.  How can one doubt the presence of our Savior?

But again… God wasn’t done yet.  I thought he had hit me upside the head with a 2×4, but it turns out he was just merely winding up his swing.

Next up in PART THREE…God prepares the path.

Acceptance

/ Jason Hyer / Leave a comment

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What an amazing letter to receive!

To my friends and family.

Jennifer and I, and our girls have finally accepted God’s call to enter full-time ministry.  To some of you this may be a shock, to others the reaction might be “Well duh, it’s about time Jason.”  You see for the last several years I have had the calling to become a pastor, a preacher, or whatever you call the person that stands in front of your church and delivers the message. I wrestled with that calling, telling myself it wasn’t real, or I wasn’t ready.  I’ve struggled with discerning God’s call in my life.  I’ve struggled with the signs he has given me.  My weaknesses got in my way.  Roadblocks were in front of me, placed there by the world and by my decisions. Three months ago, almost to the day, events started to transpire to both clear my path and to make my path clear to me.

I will go into those events in more detail in future blog posts on my website oldguyseminarian.org, but one of the biggest roadblocks was my education, or more accurately, my lack of education.  To be a pastor, you should have higher education.  It isn’t a strict requirement, there are lots of pastors that don’t have this, but it is highly recommended.  I have never had a day of college.  No Bachelor’s.  No undergraduate work of any kind.  It was a pretty big hurdle to overcome. I had never thought attending seminary was possible.

Just eight weeks ago I had a conversation with a young man, a seminary student himself, and a friend.  Evan Guse revealed to me that Asbury Theological Seminary (asburyseminary.edu) granted, though rarely, a “No Bachelor” exemption to attend their world renowned seminary.  Evan said it was setup for “old guys like you!” (hence the name of this website.. thanks Evan!) There were strict guidelines and prerequisites in place that had to be met to even apply for this special exemption.  I won’t bore you with all of the details in this post (I assure you I will in future ones), but I had to score very well on the Graduate Records Examination (GRE), as well as write several graduate school level essays.

Thanks to the power of our Lord I scored extremely well on the GRE.  I scored better than 87% of every graduate school applicant that has taken the exam in fact!  That certainly didn’t come from me, I boast in the Lord for that score.  I just was going to take the test to see how poorly I would do with zero prep work to have a baseline to work from!  Asbury also found my essays and application satisfactory and as evidenced by the above letter they have accepted me into their Masters of Divinity program starting this fall.

That’s right.. without a day of college I get to go to graduate school and work on a Master’s degree!

How’s that for evidence of the power of our God?!?!

Asbury Theological Seminary is located on a beautiful campus in Wilmore Kentucky, but don’t worry I have no plans to move there (yet).  Two-thirds of my degree will be completed on-line with the remaining one-third completed via “intensive” classes that will require travel to the Wilmore campus in the months of January and June.

This is going to be a lot of work.  I’m told the class load is intense.  We will need to lean on our family and friends for support in this calling.  My current plans are to continue in my job for the first semester of school then approach the United Methodist Church for a student pastor appointment within driving distance from our new home. This is also going to be a grand adventure, I hope that you will “follow” my blog and keep track of our progress here at oldguyseminarian.org.  Be sure to leave a reply below as you are lead.

Thank you to everyone that has poked, prodded, and pushed me along this path.  I wouldn’t be here without your love and support.

And thanks to our Lord for being a loving God, for being a God that always keeps his promises, for being a God that sent his Son to die on a cross for our sins.

In humble service to Christ,

Jason A. Hyer
Director of Mission and Outreach
Sandy Hook United Methodist Church
Student – Asbury Theological Seminary