Mission update 4

We had our last day at our mission site.

The team effort staff have told us we are too far ahead and that next week wont have enough work to do.  We took it a little easier today and doesn't some time getting to know the homeowners of the house we were working on.  Turns out that Mr.  Cruse use to be a world famous chicken breeder! 

We managed to get a good portion of the shingles on before we had to say goodbye.  We were very blessed to get to serve the Cruse family this week.

We got back to camp, hit the lake, dinner, and then chapel.  At chapel we heard a an amazing territory from one of the staff members about  labels and how they can affect us and others.  We then had some group time and then headed for bed.

Mission trip update 3

It was another great day in Tennessee.

We continued our work on the roof.  We organized a better system and got so much done.  We are finished putting plywood on and starting on the tar paper and shingles.  After a hard day of work, Mr. Cruze (the home owner) shared some delicious home grown grapes with us.  Best. Grapes. Ever.

When we got back to camp we had some fun.  The camp we are staying at is actually a white water resort.  Three owner of the camp actually built the area we are staying in specifically for teameffort.

There is a lake,a chapel, and some high ropes elements ,(which we used today)

All in all its the nicest mission trip facility that I've personally ever stayed in.

We enjoyed some chicken fried streak for  dinner, and then we headed for chapel.

We heard a very impacting lesson on pride and how it can get in the way of us serving God.

Now we were back to bed for some hard work tomorrow.

Mission trip update 2

Today we started work.

This week we have been assigned to help build a roof over a trailer home.  This will allow the home to run more efficiently, thus lowering the utilities for the family.

Everyone from Stilwell is on this project and we are joined by 3 adults and 5 youth from northern Virginia.  Its been great getting to know them and work beside them.  We are also being assisted by a member of the teameffort staff.

Today we started putting plywood on the already built frame.  This is a process known as sheaving (we all just learned that today).   the students were very active and ready to work.

We came back to camp.  Swam in the lake and had chapel service.  Tonight's service was all about leading to let go of the unnecessary thing you don't need that are keeping you from serving God..  Finally we had some good group time on the pond and  now getting some sleep for tomorrow.

Mission trip update 1

We are getting off to a fabulous start here on our trip.  Currently i am updating from Nashville.  The drive has been going great. 

We got off to a slow start,  but we are well on our way to Copperhill.  Last night we stayed at Broadway united methodist church.  It turned out being a great place to stay, having showers, a gym, and even a pool.  (no we didn't use that last one haha).

Last night we talked about serving the Lord and putting what wewill be doing the next couple of says over our selves or what may be going on at home when we left or when we get back.  We discussed this point using Joshua 25.  The students z also took advantage of the old church and had a great time scaring each other.

When we woke up, we got ready to go and enjoyed some coffee and doughnuts with others before heading of to Sunday school.  There we talked about dishonest temptations and how to avoid them.  Finally we went to service where pastor Joe Beal talked about taking a break from our crazy life and enjoying ourselves e every so often. (a great message for our trip.)

Now with our bellies full, and being well rested, we are making our push for Copperhill. We are all very excited to get there! 

UMC Re-draw of Conference Lines

Last week, Nebraska, Kansas East, and Kansas West all voted to become one conference, the Great Plains Annual Conference.  One of the big reasons cited to why we should join together is a sharing of resources.  Why should we have three separate boards, offices, and committees that do the same work? Why not join them together and let them share resources?  That got me thinking; what if we did that for more annual conferences?  Right now there are around 55 or so Annual Conferences. Here is a map of them:

http://lenwilson.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/UMC-Conferences.jpg

So, after sitting down and taking the figures I found here:

http://lenwilson.us/the-top-25-united-methodist-annual-conferences/

I sat down and redrew the conference lines.  Yes, I am aware that this probably proves that I have no life, and, no, I don't expect this to go any further than, "what if's?"  but I thought it'd be kind of fun/ interesting.  When I started out, I made a couple of rules for myself:

1) Do not split a state into two different conferences. (this was more a "for-fun" rule than anything, and kept me away from the temptation to make some of states with bigger membership in the UMC into more annual conferences) 

2)Every Annual Conference has to above 100,000 members

3) No annual conference should go above 525,000 members

4)No unrealistic size (aka: you can't have an annual conference stretch from California to Kentucky or from North Dakota to Texas)

 So here it is folks: The NEW conference boundaries (as made up by one Bryce Bowers)

(Edit: I made an error on the map.  The Bay Area AC is nonexistent.  It was an Annual Conference that exsisted in the early part of my research that was made up of New York and New Jersey, but I combined it to help New England with membership according to rules)

Like I said, proves I have no life.  I also made a chart of what the membership would look like in all the annual conferences.  Obviously, these numbers aren't perfect, and I'm willing to admit that I may have made a mistake but, here it is:

Obviously I had to break one rule in favor for another.  North Carolina and Texas as states have more than 525,000 United Methodists in them.  I elected to keep those states in tact.  At the beginning of the process, I had different annual conferences.  I had New Mexico and Texas as an Annual Conference, I had an entire Annual Conference made up of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois before it had to go to the way side so I could make the membership of some annual conferences greater.  I even had the Carolinas as one conference and Georgia/Florida as one conference.  I thought that was a good idea until I saw that those conferences topped out at almost 800,000 members!  (I figured that was too big).

After I redrew the conference areas, I went a little further and thought some more about how this plan would look, and came up with a few things:

1) All Missionary Conferences would remain the same.

2) Jurisdictions would be eliminated.  The United States would become one Central Conference and would have a meeting every four years the week after General Conference, and in the same city as General Conference.  Also, we would shrink General Conference to one week.

3) There would be an excess of bishops currently.  We could solve this problem in one of two ways 1) More than one bishop serves a conference and 2) (my preference) We would have one conference where all bishops would be up for appointment.  A committee would work out which conference wants what bishop, and the bishops left over could go back to being elders in their home annual conference.  Once the US Central Conference came around again, those bishops could run for election, as well as anyone else who wanted to run for bishop.

I'm sure there would be a lot of other complications, and this system would not work out perfectly and has a couple of flaws.  But, could you image what COULD happen?  Could you imagine the Gulf Coast Conference coming together and forming one large clean up day of the Gulf?  Or Methodists from Portland, helping a park chaplaincy program in Wyoming?  Or Red Sox fans getting together with Yankee fans and helping build a new campus ministry center in Maine?  Or Methodists coming together from Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, to collaborate and decide how to reach people that might need the love of Christ, together?  I think it could be awesome.

But again, this is just a dream.  An experiment.  And a bored 21 year-old Methodist geek wanting to brainstorm a different way.

(If you actually read through all this, feel free to leave questions or feedback)

Go On and Scream it from the Mountains

Sometimes, I have no idea what I want to write about.   This is one of those days.  I cannot tell you guys what I want to write about, but I really feel like expressing myself...so...here we go:

Things have been tough lately.  I've been challenged to trust God.  It amazes me how many times we say, "Just trust God, and everything will be ok."  That is TOUGH.  That means letting go of everything, absolutely EVERYTHING, and trusting it will be ok.  That can mean leaving a lot behind.  It could mean leaving behind very secure situations, great place, and even people you love.

However, there is something that I've really seen and learned in all of this.  God does want the best for us.  God is a just God.  But he is a loving God.  He knows what we need.

But, how would God know what we need?  How come we don't know what we need and just go after that?  Cause, quite frankly, we don't know.  How are we to know?  There is so many things that I don't know.  There are more things that I don't know than there are grains of sand in the ocean.  However, it has been my experience that whenever I do let go, things seem a lot better.

There is a story in the Bible, in Mark 4, about Jesus and his disciples being stuck on the sea when a huge storm comes up.  These guys were shaken and scared, so they go talk to Jesus (who was sleeping) and say "Teacher, do you not care that we are drowning?"  Now the scriptures paint this as a pretty picture.  But quite frankly, I picture these disciples, wet, tired, exhausted, and fear in their eyes, SCREAMING, yelling at Jesus, asking "DO YOU NOT CARE THAT WE ARE DROWNING?!?!?!" with the most desperation in their voices than there has even been in their entire lives.  These guys thought they were going to die.

That is how it feels sometimes.  It feels like we are going to die.  Maybe we know we won't literally die, but it feels like everything we have known will disappear.  We fight, we try to survive, we try to put the boat under control.  Than we come to Jesus, exhausted and desperate,  and ask, "WHY DON'T YOU CARE?!"  

In the Bible story, Jesus goes to the deck of the ship, and tells the storm to be quiet.  And the storm does.  I can only imagine this scene.  (I feel like when we read the Bible, we sometimes make it more tame than it actually was).  Usually, when one talks about the story, that is where they stop.  However, I feel like the power in this story is in the next line.  Jesus turns to the disciples and says:

"Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?"

Boom.

Those two sentences carry so much power, and so much weight.  Ya see, when we go through these storms in our lives, we try to fix it on our own, and we try to get our own way.  When it doesn't work out for us, we cry out to God, asking "DO YOU NOT CARE?"  But guess what, of course he cares.  He's always cared.  He's always been there.  Why are we so afraid?  Do we still have no faith that God will carry us out of it?

We must trust him during the storm.  It says in Psalms 34 that God is closest to the brokenhearted.  He promises us that.  He never promises us that those storms will be easy, or that trusting Him will be easy, he just asks us to do it, and return he will be there for us.

So, I challenge you (and myself) today to let go.  To trust that God can calm the storm in your life.  It might not be the way you want it to be, nor may it be in the time you want it to be.  We are all poor and powerless, but with God, we can make it through, because surely, he is God.  Go on, scream it from the mountains.

Why I LOVE religion and Jesus (a response to a video)

So I guarantee many of you have seen it.  It is all over facebook.  I have seen my friends from all different walks of life and proclaim that this video speaks to the heart and that it is a wonderful piece of work.  I will not deny that it brings up some interesting points, but I think there is more going on here than what is on the surface.  If you have not seen it, here is your chance.  Go ahead and click on it:



So, what did ya think?

It is a great message.  Jesus did come to save the world. He did come to bring salvation to a broken people.  If you watch this video you would come to a conclusion that religion is bad, and needs to go away.

Wait....what?

There seems to be a disconnect here.  Did Jesus really come to abloish religion?  What is religion?

Well, like any good young adult, I googled the definition of religion.  This is what came up.

So from this, to summarize, it is a belief, a worship, a discussion, and a system of faith.  Did Jesus really come to abolish that?

I've grown up in the church my entire life, so maybe I'm a little biased.  I've been a part of a lot of different things that one could call "church."  I've been apart of this religion known as Christianity for a long time.  I was taught how to love God and others.  In partaking in this "religion" I've broken down when facing life decisions or pains.  I've had to comfort my brothers and sisters who are going through the same thing.  I've sang songs with some wonderful people, and I've been up late at night discussing deep theological issues of the world.

But apparently, Jesus came to abolish it?

This is not a new thing.  For years I've heard this claim of "It's about a relationship, not religion."  May I propose a different outlook?

Both are needed.  A relationship with Jesus is a very vertical connection.  Jesus guides us on a path.  We need that relationship.  We need to walk with Jesus on this road, no matter what path he needs us to go on.  We need to grow and experience Christ in a relational level.

That's not all though.  I've seen so many people come to Christ and believe and call him Savior, but that is it. This world is a TOUGH place.  Sometimes we need other people to be on this journey with us.  We waver in our faith.  How do we strength it?  We get challenged from other people.  We get accountability from others.  We discuss our faith with others.  We worship God together.  You see, religion is a horizontal connection.  It is the people of Earth reaching up to God and bring heaven down to Earth.  It is feeding the hungry as a worship to God.  It is supporting each other.  We need to share that faith connection with people around us.  Man cannot live a lone.  We are made to be with others.

Now, I am FULLY aware that this religion has done some not so great things.  I cannot ignore the oppression and hatred that has been done in the name of Christianity.  But here is the thing, to those of you saying that you want to leave the church because of the oppression and hatred made by Christians...STOP!  TURN AROUND!  WE NEED YOU!

We are not a perfect people.  No one is.  The fact that there are a vast majority of you that believe religion needs to be dismissed because of the hurt it causes means that we need those same people to come help us change it.  Perfection is a journey.  We don't get it right.  We need your passion and your fire for Jesus Christ so we can do His work here on Earth, to bring the Kingdom of God to Earth.  I am begging, yes BEGGING, you to stay.  I will not pretend that I have it all right.  I will not pretend that religion has it all right.  We are a messy messy people.  But together, we can go on this journey.  Jesus commissioned Peter to start a church, a community of believers, a religion.  My life has been changed and shaped by religion.  I believe that Jesus came, not to abolish religion, but to fulfill the law and the Prophets.  Let's break bread together and celebrate this gift and this miracle and this love.  That is what religion is about.  We need to walk with Jesus and go in his ways and trust him.  That is what being in a relationship with Jesus is about.  We need both.  We need both belief, and practice.  Another beautiful collision.

If ya want a cool video to go along with it, check this one out:



A really good article on this subject can also be found here (warning:it is a VERY long read)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-morrell/jesus-and-religions-relationship-status_b_1213243.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008