Category: Faith Stories

Faith Stories: The Walk

Faith Stories: Walking This Path Together

As I think about this Walk that we are on, our capital campaign and the two-phase building project, I am grateful for our St. John’s community. When I look back over the years, realize that God has changed us along the way. He has changed from a self-centered congregation to an others-centered congregation. These are two terms I learned in my Companions in Christ group. We are studying a book titled A Good and Beautiful Community. In it, Dr. James Bryan Smith gives an example of a self-centered congregation. He said it was an aging community who knew they needed young people in their congregation to survive, so they asked him to bring the college students to their church, he could teach a Sunday school class there, and they would make a contribution to the campus ministry program where he worked. It worked a little while but the students stopped coming to worship, and the church stopped their donations.

Dr. Smith goes on to describe another experience where a congregation, an others-centered Congregation. The group said their church would like to reach out the college students in their area. They asked Dr. Smith what the students needed. He said that students, of course, like to eat and they like to make connections with other people. So the church began offering meals for college students, and as they ate with the students, they came to know them. They were interested in their lives, and they exchanged lots of hugs. This congregation became the famous Chapel Hill UMC in Wichita, Kansas.

How does this relate to St. John’s? Well, I have noticed a change over the last several years. I think the turning point was when the children’s center closed. When you think about it, we just offered a place for the school. We were not personally involved as we were 40 – 50 years when we began the Mini-School. God closed that door, but he opened a window.

He gave Theresa Sandifer a vision, He said, “Feed my sheep.” Under her leadership, we read books, learned about the operation of a pantry, and three years ago, The Shepherd’s Market opened. What’s the difference? All of us at St. John’s are involved. We volunteer; bring food on Grocery Bag Sunday, and advocate, Jay’s term, for the importance of the pantry. Not only are we feeding our neighbors with groceries and meals, but we are connecting with them by getting to know them, and we listen to their stories. We share lots of hugs, and we even share communion on Tuesday mornings. We are feeding our neighbors both physically and spiritually.

And that’s not all. Did you notice all the missions that were highlighted at the Mission Fair a couple of weeks ago? We are reaching out to the community with Opening Doors, the Wildwood initiative, Angel tree and GRACE Camp. And of course, our youth and children’s programs, for example the Trunk-or-Treat event next Sunday will attract many of our neighbors. We are also reaching out to the world with our missions to India, Mexico and Cuba and the support of missions through the UMW.

As far as this building project and capital campaign are concerned, I can see and feel the excitement and commitment of the whole congregation. Over the past 3 years, many have worked, studying the needs of the congregation, both for ourselves and for our outreach to the community. Under the leadership of Danielle and Phil and Jay, we now have definite plans and are ready to go. If you were at that church conference a few weeks ago, when we voted unanimously to go ahead with the project, you felt the excitement also.

So do you see what I have been talking about: God has led us to change from a self-centered congregation to an others-centered congregation?

I would like to share one other way I see God leading me. I have had the building program and capital campaign on my prayer list for many months. One morning last summer, God said, “Why don’t you make a set of Paraments for the campaign?” Paraments are the cloths that hang of the Communion Table and here at the pulpit. So over the next few months, God has led me to create this path, representing the place we are walking on our journey. As I was quilting the path, God spoke again. You see, I made stones in the path by quilting circles. There are some large stones, many medium sized ones, and some smaller circles. As I am sewing, God said, “That is just like the capital campaign, there will be some large contributions, but many, many medium-sized contributions over the next three years, and there are those important smaller gifts, the $5-10 pledges, which will all add up to the $1.5 million.

God is leading us, St. John’s, and we are walking on this path together.

Joyce Perry
As presented during 11 a.m. worship on Sunday, October 18, 2015

Faith Stories – The Walk Testimony – October 18, 2015 from St. John’s UMC Baton Rouge on Vimeo.

Faith Stories: Help My Unbelief

The Walk! Something we have been hearing about for some time around St. John’s. We should all have a pretty good understanding of what it is about. It’s about our Capital Campaign to raise money to improve our sanctuary and gym. We want to upgrade and renovate the gym into a more welcoming and functional family life center and to serve our clients at the Shepherd’s Market. We also want to renovate and add a narthex to the sanctuary. These are needed as we continue to “Walk” and serve God on this corner of Renee and Highland Road. Plans and details have been developed over the course of the past couple of years. And here we are today ready to move forward with raising the money to start construction.

Raise money! 1.5 million dollars! WOW THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY! I admit when I first heard this amount, I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, thought about it and became scared. $1.5 million!

Although I have not been a part of the actual planning teams, I have been fortunate to have participated in many retreats and meetings when we discussed the progress being made to identify our needs and form a plan. We usually began these meetings with a devotional. Each time these devotionals leaned heavily on our faith in God, citing scripture and personal experiences.

Now I have faith and I believe in the power of God. But $1.5 million? That scares me! As I thought about it more and more, the more scared I became. Then I was reminded of the father who brought his son to Jesus to be healed. He asked Jesus if you are able would you take pity and help my son. ”23 Jesus said to him, “If you are able!-All things can be done for the one who believes.”24 Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24)

That was my first reaction when we started talking about raising this amount of money. You could probably say I was a little negative, and you would be right! How was St. John’s going to raise that kind of money? Are we able?

Well, I began praying asking God to “help my unbelief” and to help me find a way to participate fully in the financial part of this plan to help us improve our facilities so that we could indeed be more inviting and feed people both spiritually and physically. I prayed, prayed and prayed about it. I listened, listened and listened for God to answer!

Over time my negative thoughts began to disappear, to recede into the back recesses of my mind and they were replaced with positive thinking about this building plan and capital campaign. The more I prayed and listened about it the more positive I became. You see, God was helping “my unbelief.”

Also those doing the planning chose a name that really gets our attention, “The Walk!” Now some of you may wonder how or why that came about? Think for a minute with me. Since you and I first accepted Christ into our lives as our Redeemer/Savior, we have been on a journey. A spiritual journey with God, walking along with Him, talking to him, listening to Him, and having Him as a part of our life. So we have been and are on a Walk with God.

In Hebrews 11:1 we read this, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” So we are on a specific Walk with God right now, asking for his help and guidance as we enter into the final days of our Capital Campaign.

We have things hoped for; to renovate our gym and make it more inviting and to serve as a true family life center, and to renovate the sanctuary and add a narthex. They are both not yet seen today. But as we look into our future they are definitely in our eye sight. Yes, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And with the help of God our “unbelief” can be changed into a strong and confident faith with conviction that God will not only show us the way but will lead us on this journey, both individually and corporately.

So today, although I was scared at first mention of $1.5 million, I am very positive and upbeat about the success of these projects. So let us continue together to “walk by faith, and not by sight.”

Thank you.
Mike Allen
As presented during 8:30 a.m. worship on Sunday, October 18, 2015

 

Faith Stories: Impermanence Becomes Permanent

It’s amazing how quickly a sense of impermanence can become permanent.

Without being too cryptic, all this means is that one can be in this place or that temporarily for so long that temporary becomes the norm. An impermanent state is something that most people experience at some point in their lives. We often don’t really explicitly leave home. We leave for school, and then after a couple of years realize that we don’t make it home as often as we used to, and maybe a couple years after that realize that the place where we feel most comfortable is no longer the “home” we left.

Such a realization is a good thing. What it really means is that you’ve found a new home, but the old labels stick. The result is a sense of being temporarily between home and some abstract future home, and church is often one of the elements caught in this transitory norm.

This is an illustration, then, of my mindset when I first arrived in Baton Rouge almost five years ago. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a church. I’d been a lifelong United Methodist, only my church was a two-hour drive from where I had lived for the previous six years. Credit to my wife Kristine, who when we were first dating wanted to find a church to attend on Sundays and invited me to join her search. Credit to sheer distance as well. It’s one thing to live 125 miles away from your “home” church, but when that number balloons to 1,000, you’re not fooling yourself any longer.

We found St. John’s, just down the road from other churches we had visited, liked what we found, and kept coming back. What drew me then as now is the way St. John’s emphasizes translating faith into action, and also constantly encourages careful discernment and reassessment of just how we as individuals are called to act. I have attended St. John’s just long enough to say with confidence that these characteristics go beyond the work of any single pastor. These characteristics are traits of St. John’s.

Bolstered by the call to action at St. John’s, I tentatively became more involved. I helped unload deliveries for The Shepherd’s Market and accepted an invitation to join the advisory committee for The Walk. Yet that transitory mindset stubbornly remained. I decided rather quickly that I would give exclusively of my time and my presence.

Deeper investments—financial investments—would have to wait for some uncertain time, at some uncertain church, in some uncertain town, after gaining some uncertain job.

This decision was in itself a valid one, formed through years of semester student fees and ramen noodle budgets. Besides, The Walk is a three-year campaign, and I will very likely have to move on in only two. I realized however, that it wasn’t a decision I had revisited for some time. Really, it was less a current decision and more a reflex born of the enduringly temporary status necessitated over the last decade by my career. Investing too deeply seems silly when you’re only in a place until you finish the bachelor’s, the master’s, the doctorate, that post-doc or visiting faculty position, that benefits-exempt non-tenured appointment; it seems silly until one realizes the thresholds are not getting any closer or better defined.

That realization was simple and at first blush had little to do with St. John’s. At both Kansas State and LSU—communities so temporary they virtually turn over every few years—I had voted for increased student fees to fund renovations to aged student recreation centers. I, along with my peers, signed up for the torn up parking lots, the closed off weight rooms and the bills for something I would never get to see. Yet the decision was an easy one, and I had even advocated it to skeptics, because a previous generation of students had done the same in the 1970s and 1980s. The parallel could not have been clearer. There it was, St. John’s reminder to reassess and be open-minded about the manner in which I was called to act.

That decision demonstrates St. John’s impressive capacity for action. Before moving to Baton Rouge, I felt called to give to my university and not a church because while I saw the positive impact of education every day, I had not seen similarly inspiring action in the church. That is not to say my previous churches did nothing, only that we all have limited resources and allocate them where they seem to have greatest impact.

The impact of St. John’s was clear, as well as the need in the community for more. For me, the reassessment was also indicative of the trust St. John’s has earned as we move ahead in growing our impact. I trust our church leaders when they say that every contribution is welcome, beneficial and important no matter how much or for how long.

The key is open-minded participation. I trust the legacy of our founders, that we have at hand a tremendous opportunity, and that I can contribute in a small way to that larger, lasting legacy. I trust I can invest for the better, no matter how long I actually get to sit in the pews on Sunday mornings.

Zach Isenhower
As presented during 11 a.m. worship on October 11, 2015

Faith Stories: Be Appropriate and Be Prepared

I remember learning the importance of “being prepared” back in the second grade. We only had two rules that year. 1) Be appropriate and 2) be prepared. I was fascinated by these rules- basically everything fell under them. You couldn’t talk without raising your hand because that would not be appropriate and you could not forget your homework at home because then you were not prepared. I remember being mesmerized that literally every scenario I could think of fell under those two rules. Throughout my time at U-High I really learned the importance of being prepared. I would make sure my booksack had everything it needed for the next day and set it by the door the night before school, and I used my planner religiously (a discipline I still follow today).

I consider my interest in rules and structure one of the leading reasons for why I wanted to become an attorney. The first general rule of thumb for a law student is to be prepared. As I learned in my first year of law school, where under the Socratic method of teaching, a student not prepared for class is excused for the day, with a certainty that he/she will be called on in the following class. Fortunately, I have never had an issue with that.<

My interest in rules continues to follow me. This semester in school I am doing significant research and writing on the rule of law as it relates to common law jurisdictions and their recent exodus from and objection of international courts. You can ask me later about what all of that other stuff is and I will be more than happy to discuss it with you, but I want to focus here on the theory of the rule of law. The rule of law, in its simple form is defined by F.A. Hayek as, “government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand – rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge.” Basically, knowing what the rules are prepares the individual and the trier of fact for following and enforcing the rules.

Significantly though, my interest in rules could not be more evident than my love for the United Methodist Church. We are a body shaped by God with a strong Wesleyan influence of guiding rules. In fact, I am proud to claim that as a result of notifying the Publisher at the United Methodist Publishing House, regarding a formatting error, I am an official editor of our rulebook, the Book of Discipline. Without a doubt though, my love for the UMC started right here at St. John’s. My relationship with Christ would not be what it is today but for St. John’s and your continuous love and support over the years. I simply cannot begin to list all that you have done for me, so just know that it is extensive. And with that, I can say that I will be here no matter what, regardless of what our buildings look like. Although, I fully endorse our capital campaign and building projects for the following reasons.

It was May 2012 and my first Sunday as a staff member at St. John’s. Coincidentally, it was the same Sunday that our Youth Ministry Architects presented their report to the congregation, following their consultation the prior week. Not much longer after that, the church council was presented with three important proposals that were identified as immediate action steps in the YMA report. One of those identified action steps relating to the modernization of our buildings.

What I love is that God has continuously said YES to our building committee and its plans. It seems as though God has wanted us to focus our resources, time and energy into this project. For that I am thankful. I have had the privilege of following the plans for the building projects and the capital campaign every step of the way. Specifically, I have gotten my love for rules and being prepared from the best of them, my mother – who has endlessly been involved in the workings of our building committee and capital campaign. I am confident that she and her respective teams took every step with caution, precision and would not be here now if they were not fully prepared. I can honestly say that after all of the hard work over the last three years that I know we are prepared.

When I push my theory on the rule of law to its furthest boundaries we get the idea that to be successful, you need to prepared, and to be prepared you need rules to follow.

Jesus Christ asks us to follow Him.

Over the last several years I have seen St. John’s following Christ like never before. We have and continue to set and re-set the bar for both ourselves and other congregations around us on what it means to feed people, to glorify God and to make disciples. And because of that, I think He has prepared us for this Walk together.

Andrew Blackwood
As presented during 8:30 a.m. worship on October 11, 2015

 

Faith Stories: Patience

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on negative annoyance/anger or exhibiting forbearance when under strain. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.

The topic of patience has come up often in my personal life since fall 2013. At that time I was attending a Women’s Retreat where I had the opportunity to observe many of my St. John’s friends take key roles in the planning and execution of the weekend. During one of our sessions we were in the quiet sanctuary where it appeared to me that everyone had a purpose and a direction. I began to pray that I would hear God’s plan for me in this world; you know an easy answer or a simple task, but one that had meaning.

Instead of hearing some prophetic message of how I should proceed or how I would be of service to someone the only words I heard were “BE PATIENT,” and I heard those words loud and clear, very specifically the words were, Be Patient!

Not really what I wanted to hear, but I was actually content with those words – for the moment, but as the days and weeks after the retreat passed I was getting very IMPATIENT! I wanted to DO SOMETHING because it just didn’t FEEL like anything was happening in my life. I know many of us here at St. John’s have felt this way over the last several years with the progress of our building projects.

Well, just like I thought nothing was happening in my life and that wasn’t the case; the same has been true for the progress of the building projects. Over the last three years, as a church we have identified the areas of need for our campus, hired an architect, drawn plans for the gym (which are now out for bid from contractors), started on the plans for the Narthex, hired a capital campaign consultant, committed as a church to complete both phases of the project and now today we are embarking on our capital campaign to fund this project. Whew! That is a lot of work in three years. Part of me says now the hard work begins, or does it?

One of the lines in the definition of patience refers to the character trait of being steadfast. St. John’s for years has been steadfast in our efforts to be a light to others through service and gifts of time and money. Steadfast, I like that word – it describes our character as a church. A church that steadily moves forward persevering when times are easy or difficult, but always walking in faith. A church that is known in our community for feeding people both spiritually and physically.

As a church community we are not just beginning “The Walk.” We are continuing the walk that we have been on for 54 years. Although we all get impatient sometimes I know that this step in our journey as a faith community to raise $1.5 million is just that-a step. A step that we can turn into a leap with our prayers and our commitment, a step that will allow us to continue our mission and to be ready to take the next step.

For we, the people of St. John’s, walk by faith not by sight.

Danielle Blackwood 
As presented during worship on October 4, 2015

Faith Stories: The Walk Testimony – October 4, 2015 from St. John’s UMC Baton Rouge on Vimeo.