May 5, 2013

Innovations in Ministry at First UMC Palo Alto and Trinity UMC Mountain View

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I am writing to share the news that our Bishop, Rev. Warner H. Brown, Jr., and the cabinet of the California/Nevada Annual Conference will appoint me to 70% time at First UMC Palo Alto and 30% time at Trinity (Mountain View) UMC, effective July 1, 2013. Let me say right away that a great deal of prayer and consideration went into this decision. I want to encourage you that this is a decision born out of faithful and creative thinking and at its heart seeks the very best interests of the ministry of Jesus Christ in this place. It is also an open door to our future ministry and I can imagine God inviting us to some combined blessings shared between us at both First Church and Trinity United Methodist Church.

Rev. Kristie Olah, our District Superintendent, and I have met with the Staff Parish Relations Committee where this plan received unanimous support. Together we will be living into the changes it will bring and our SPRC will help explore the new vision of pastoral staffing and other staff needs.

Mostly we have thought about this in terms of how I will spend my time. I think this is helpful. In approximate terms let me say that I will preach at Trinity, provide Pastoral leadership in the continued work of their Visioning Team, and visit the sick. In addition to Sunday work, that means I will include about 1 day per week of focus on Trinity. I will continue to be present and in servant ministry at First Church as a fully committed part of your Pastoral Team, including participating in the preaching schedule for Sunday mornings.

I affirm this plan and am encouraged by the positive and helpful benefits that I believe it will bring to both First Church and Trinity.

Pastor Kristie Olah will work with Trinity to navigate the financial participation part of this transition. I am confident that we are moving in a healthy direction for First Church. I take very seriously our leadership promise to this congregation of a revised, balanced budget as from July 1. We can now anticipate keeping that promise. It also relieves us enough of the chronic money woes that we might plan carefully for dedication of our resources to ministries of children, youth and young adults.

I’d also like to lift up important work, already underway, that will become key to the way forward. Firstly, this appointment change for me is not an appointment change for Pastor Sadie. We will continue to be blessed by her presence, energy, passion and visionary sharpness among us, thanks be to God! At the same time, Pastor Sadie and I are moving to a smarter, more equitable, more faithful model of Pastoral Ministry. We have worked together and under the affirmation of the SPRC will initiate a Co-Pastoring model, stepping away from the traditional hierarchical “Senior” and “Associate” naming of the Pastoral team. In this way we can fully share ministry for the good of the mission of the church and fully live into our gifts and graces as individuals. Also, we can continue to enhance a strong pastoral team. We are moving the church toward equity in clergy roles and status.

This is the day that the Lord has made. It’s not exactly the day that any of us, including me, could have imaged God was making. However, I earnestly believe this moment in our church life has God’s Holy Spirit all around it. And that gives me great encouragement. The timing for us as we seek to hear our own calling more clearly could not be better. I believe, as Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, that “hope does not need to silence the rumblings of crisis to be hope.” We can at once acknowledge our reality together and yet embrace the hope that God promises ahead for us. I and Pastor Sadie are here for you in this time of change. We both believe in you, love you very much, and we know that together we can make it.

I ask for your prayers as we enter into this new season of ministry to which God has called us. If you have an interest in conversation, I am eager to hear from you. Please reach out to me or an SPRC member for continued clarity on this opportunity.

 

In Christ, Pastor Michael Love

 

April 27, 2013

MDOJCFTTOTW

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Clergy get to go to some really cool events. Just a couple examples of the really cool events we get to attend are called Seminary and Continuing Education (aka Conferences, Workshops, Retreats, and so on). At these events we gather with other clergy-types who, like us, really love Jesus and the people we are shepherding in their journey of faith. We get to network and learn about things that are really working to build God’s reign of Shalom. We are generally encouraged to try those things. We also hear about stuff that’s clearly not working. Maybe something that used to work, but isn’t anymore. But, sometimes we find out about something that never really worked at all but everyone was kind of keeping quiet about. These things we are generally told to stop doing right away.

I suppose at this point it’s only fair to think about what I mean when I say something is working (or not). In the context of the United Methodist Church working means that we are moving toward fulfilling the mission of the church; Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. You may prefer the more compact, although almost certainly unpronounceable, acronym MDOJCFTTOTW. This mission has two significant parts (possibly four, but I am not going to that level detail here). The first is MDOJC. Sorry, Making disciples of Jesus Christ. This means simply that if you are in connection with First Church we will assume, in a very good-natured way, that you are curious about God, the Universe, and all the Big Questions. For United Methodists, Jesus summed things up pretty completely, so he is our lens. It is through this lens that we try to help people get at God, the Universe, and all the Big Questions. Now, I should be clear, you don’t have to be a disciple. All are truly welcome to search and seek. But, we are United Methodists and we are really most qualified to help you get from where you are to where you are trying to go by our witness to the one, Jesus of Nazareth, who taught us. As disciples we are really quite certain that Jesus really embodies best of all the outreaching love of God that changes lives and creates new possibilities through grace. So, MDOJC!

Alright. Then there’s FTTOTW. For the transformation of the world. We also assume, in a good-natured way, that your curiosity about God, the Universe, and the Big Questions is accompanied by a nagging sense that we (humankind) could do a better job of it (being humans, that is). We can confess, safely and without guile, that all signs indicate we need help if we are ever to really do a better job of it. Within our weakness lies a strength of conscience that causes us to yearn as one for peace, justice, safety, health, fairness, and all the things the Bible identifies as signs of the Shalom of God—a holistic, equitable, sustainable community.

Idealistic? Absolutely! But, so is democracy, art, baseball and even science. All the really good stuff is based on raising the bar to the Ideal instead of lowering it to the level of the Barely Endurable. The reason I believe this is that in Genesis—the story of humankind coming of age spiritually—God did not look at the natural world and say, This is Barely Endurable. God looks upon the animals, plants, the mountains, stars and moon, and galaxies, and even people and says with certainty, This is Good.

Taking God’s perspective with some seriousness, we want to do all that we can to move our families, community, nation and world closer to the Ideal of God’s vision; a vision of Shalom. A vision of a world that can be good. Thus, FTTOTW.

This then constitutes the guidelines for knowing when things “work” in the life of the church. Are disciples being made? In other words are people being welcomed, spiritually formed, and equipped for the call God has upon their lives? And, is the world better for it? In other words and simply, are disciples being sent into the world to shape and transform it?

Those are the only two questions we lucky clergy get to focus on when we go to the many cool events we experience. I think it must be that the long tradition of the church has found that these are the only two questions needed to frame all the other questions we encounter in life. We may think that there are a myriad of aspects, angles, and topics. But it really comes down to two. The only questions the church has ever been qualified to address; are we making disciples? And, are we changing the world? I believe with all my heart that when we do these two things we will find that we have done everything we need to do.

Shalom, Pastor Michael

 

March 2, 2013

when LGBT meets BSA and UMM…

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I have been watching the progress of the Boy Scouts of America as they seem to be moving toward a posture of inclusion and hospitality. If you have been following this story, too, you’ll know that on February 3, BSA officials met to consider lifting the ban on gay Scouts. This would be a turn-about from a July 2012 announcement that the BSA would continue their ban on homosexual Scouts and leaders. I am a Scouting dad, a Den Leader and Cubmaster of a local Pack in our Pacific Skyline Council, Stanford District. As a church we sponsor a Cub Scout Pack and a Boy Scout Troop. This news gave me hope.

Then came a couple of bumps in the road. The Boy Scouts received a lot of mail when word got out about this possibility. So they decided to wait until May and weigh the feedback. Feedback from polls, however, shows the public to be changing in favor of inclusiveness. A national poll released on February 6 found a solid majority of registered voters, 55 percent to 33 percent, favored ending the ban. More conservative Christian denominations, who sponsor a large number of Scout units are on the other side of the issue.

And then the United Methodist Men stepped up to the microphone and my heart sank. What came from our tribe’s Men’s organization was a bureaucratic and timid response urging that we should play it safe as a denomination and not challenge the BSA to be the best that they can be in their long tradition of raising up young boys and men for leadership.

As the pastor of a Reconciling Congregation, I feel it is my call to respond and make a few remarks. I am of one accord with Rev. Andy Oliver, an elder from the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. Once again, he observes, the people of God are in error as we drag our feet and ask for “more time” to consider ministries of justice and equity. His litany of our reluctance to speak prophetically begins with the Pharaoh’s plea for more time to Moses; reminds us of our failure to witness against slavery; confronts us with our inability to yield power and the vote to women “too soon;” convicts us of our foot-dragging when called to integrate our worship life; embarrasses me when remembering the halting response of the church to giving women full and equal leadership roles in the United Methodist church and pulpit; and brings it to our current state of affairs with our 40 years of waiting in the arena of including all people in the life of the church.

Rev. Oliver ends with these words, “The chorus of the privileged majority gets sung again and again, “we need more time,” and the latest group to join the refrain is the United Methodist Men. More time means more boys subject to bullying and exclusion. More time means higher rates of suicides among gay adolescents. But perhaps the most crucial reason we don’t have “more time” is because we need to stand up and be United Methodist Men. We are not a church that has any more time for injustice.”

It would be easy to aim our protests solely at Scouting, but I think God’s finger may be pointed at us. Let’s change ourselves as we seek to change others. Let’s move the UMM to a position of justice and inclusion so that our voice as a church may be added to the other voices already calling for equity and fairness. Then Boy Scouting will be able to lean forward with the growing support the polls show for them to do the right thing.

I look forward to a conversation with you about this important topic.
Rev. Michael Love

With much thanks for the editorial collaboration by
Doris Lippitt
Sandra Florstedt

And grateful for the initiative of
Mary Ann Michal

 

February 19, 2013

We Are All on a Journey to Hope

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Like a wheel within a wheel. (Ezekiel 1:16)

This Lenten season we are on a Journey to Hope. Using resources from our United Methodist connection, we have been inviting you to a deeper examination of your faith. I hope that you have been able to join the trek in some way as we travel with Jesus to the cross. Our destination is, of course, the victory of Easter, but we don’t want to get there too fast. The road to Calvary is a place of powerful tradition; a deep and abiding faith witness in its own right. This witness is ours to claim. We are fully aware that God’s promise of the Empty Tomb is nothing less than a promise that the forces of death and oppression will not burden God’s children. Even so, as we look ahead in anticipation of the Easter sunrise, people of faith constantly proclaim that God’s Hope is available in the precious here and now of every circumstance.

Our theological task is to bring the Gospel of Hope to bear on real life circumstances along the way. Our lives are made up of many real and complex elements; our relationships, self-esteem, work, temptations, money problems, suffering and death. Our faith is real and complex as well, rightly adapted to the application of God’s grace in the midst of our practical experiences day to day. We bring our faith into high focus when engaging moments involving the multifaceted experience of our individual and corporate living.

I believe the Journey to Hope can share a significant and valuable assurance with you; that God is near and has a heart to give you strength and vision at every stage of your life. And that God has a strong concern for the inter-relatedness of all the creatures and creation. Quoting now from the Journey to Hope resources, “those on the journey learn how faith in Christ is relevant to everyday life and how having a faith community can make all the difference.” I would add that an attention to faith brings me into a closer understanding of God’s vision of community, as it pertains to my family, my town, and the world we inhabit. God’s vision is what we call God’s Shalom; a vision for equitable, just, reconciled, sustainable and peaceful human-community.

The Journey to Hope must share this wider vision as well. God’s Shalom is bigger than an individual spiritual adventure for any one of us. It’s an all-encompassing claim on our lives. It doesn’t only apply in one setting or time-slot, it spills out into all of our daily experience. How much we miss the mark of Shalom while on this all-inclusive adventure convicts us of our need for intentional and regular work at this. It is in a community that Journeys to Hope that we can expect the safety, spiritual guidance, and accountability needed to equip us for what John Wesley called “personal piety and social holiness.”

My faith confession includes, in part, an understanding that Jesus didn’t come to save just me. His work was bigger; he came to point the way to God’s Shalom for us, all of us, every last one of us. God’s Journey to Hope is for every person and every creature and for the planet and cosmos itself. And while I cherish my personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ, I don’t see that as the end of the business between us. I suspect you don’t either. This Lent, my prayer is that you will join the Journey to Hope; seeing God’s grace with the widest possible view of it. Let’s start with how God calls us to follow a vision of Shalom as a church, but let’s not stop there. May we, by God’s grace and power, see the wheels within the wheels of our inter-relatedness to all human-kind and all the creation. With that vision, may we always act with charity, compassion and love.

Giving thanks for our shared witness to the Goodness of God in Christ Jesus,
Pastor Michael Love

 

October 11, 2011

theology by the cup hits the road this week and next

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Theology by the Cup will be on the road this Thursday and next (October 13 & 20). I am preparing for my time in mission and service with the Bishop’s delegation to the Fijian Methodist Church. I hope that if you are one of our many members in the Redwood City area, you might keep the fellowship time in my absence. It’s from 7 to 8pm at Peet’s Coffee in Redwood City (corner of Broadway and Perry). The conversation is lively, the people are great and it will be a good addition to your week.
Blessings,
Pastor Michael

 

October 6, 2011

senior pastor and fijian lay leader to join bishop brown on fiji mission trip

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Nausori HighlandsNext Thursday, October 13, Lepani Verebasaga and I will be heading to Fiji on a mission trip. I have to admit that for a moment we weren’t certain if this mission was going to be possible. But God is paving a way and as I write, we are confident that all which needs to be set will be taken care of. I give thanks to the church for its support of my expenses through my pastoral expenses account and a generous grant from Outreach that supplied the cost of my airfare. We and about 25 other missioners from Cal/Nev Conference will depart with Bishop Warner Brown, Jr. and his delegation. We are bound for Fiji to meet with the head of the Fijian Methodist Church so that we may foster greater communication and cooperation in our global shared ministry. We will return on October 25.

While there we’ll tour Suva and Nadi, two main cities in Fiji, converse with leadership of the Fijian Methodist Church, meet with the Prime Minister and President, celebrate worship and travel to places in the countryside.

For our part, Lepani and I hope to make our way to Nausori, where we will visit the Lotu Bible School which is operated by the Bao Division (akin to UMC Districts) of the Methodist Church. At this school 100 students earn their diplomas in divinity. They are prepared to become Vaka Tawa, Local Lay Preachers. We understand that they need computers and copy machines, so a part of our visit will be to ascertain what support we might be able to suggest when we return to the States. I hope that you will keep this school in prayer that God may be making a path for us to be yoked in ministry across the miles. This could be the beginning of a missional connection for us at First Church.

We will take each of you with us in spirit and prayer. If you have any greetings you would like us to convey to the people of Fiji, please share them with me before we depart and I will be happy to carry them to Fiji with me.

Blessings,
Michael Love
Sr. Pastor

 

October 4, 2011

each day a new beginning

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Flowers at Vetheuil Claude MonetJesus was teaching his disciples about the reliability and grace of God and he said, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28,29)  In what way have you received God’s blessing this week?  In the midst of adversity, God is tending to us, so we can sustain the challenges. Even in the midst of a fairly regular week, God is tending to us, so that we might be alert to surprise opportunities to reflect God’s grace, in the same way the splendor of flowers reflect God’s artistry and glory. We have all, in some way received mercy, freely given by God who loves us. We are given new beginnings every day so that we might share mercy with others as our testimony of thanksgiving. I encourage you to claim those gifts; both the one received and the commission to share it.  Know that every mercy you can share reaches someone who has as great a need as you had when you first received it yourself.

See you in church,
Pastor Michael

 

September 30, 2011

when the lead breaks : dealing with disappointment

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Someone said that everyone is either just entering a stormy patch, going through a stormy patch, or has had a stormy patch in their past. When that happens to you then, you can know that you are not alone. It’s happened to us all at one time or another.  Storms even struck very early in the life experience of the disciples of Jesus. When it happened in the life of the early church, they reminded one another, using stories like the one today in Mark 5:35-41, to call on the name of the Lord. I hope that you can keep strong through any disappointments that you may be currently encountering. I hope to see you on Sunday among the congregation. This church is journeying together across the sea toward a shore that is God’s land of justice, equity, sustainability and grace.

Blessings,
Pastor Michael
http://www.firstpaloalto.com