 
 This has been a hard and distracting week for many with everything from weather-related disasters to economic chaos. In addition to Hurricane Ike’s devastation along the Gulf Coast, in Ohio 1.92 million people were left without electricity when Ike’s winds blew through on Sunday. Some of you in our area may still be without power. For me, again, how we handle these situations always comes back to our life disciplines. My book Momentum for Life, which is about the five daily disciplines that I practice, was just re-edited and re-released this May to broaden the audience from pastors to being applicable for the general public. I’m flying today to San Jose to tape a satellite broadcast for the CCN network that will air on Friday about these disciplines that I call DRIVE. The "D" in DRIVE represents the first and primary discipline—Devotion to God. Regardless of what we are going through, this discipline lays the foundation for our actions and reactions during challenging times. Here is an excerpt:
"The practice of daily devotion renews my sense of purpose. The stronger and more compelling the why, the greater the creativity and energy in my life. A big why makes for uncompromisable integrity. This is why Jesus withdrew, to create a margin of devotion as the first act of his day. 'Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed' (Mark 1:35). Devotion was the first discipline of his day. This daily practice renewed the why in Jesus' life and gave him the resolution to keep his focus on his ultimate God-given date with destiny on the cross in Jerusalem. He did not waver in the face of temptation or abandon the mission amid the frustration of fickle followers.
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"Devotion brings me back to my true center. My work is not the center of my journey, nor is ministry the center of my life; God is. My identity is that of a servant. Jesus the Messiah didn't assume the head place at the table but assumed the servant position of washing feet. This is why we call everyone active at Ginghamsburg either "paid servants" or "unpaid servants." A "staff member" works for the money, and a "volunteer" can drop the task when it is not convenient, but servants sacrifice of themselves for the good of others. If you seek to lead or to affect others by your example, your privileges and rights decrease as your responsibility and influence increase. Influence is not about personal accomplishment and recognition. It is about serving God by building people. It is not about us. We are servants of God Almighty, doing only what God asks of us! When you assume the kneeling posture of a servant you must look up to God. You are reminded that God is not a cosmic waiter at your beck and call, waiting to be motioned over to bless your latest business deal. God revealed himself to us through Jesus as servant, and we are most like God when we are serving. "The discipline of daily devotion reminds me of my mortality. I realize that my time is short: I'm going to die! It creates a sense of urgency." (Excerpted from Momentum for Life by Michael Slaughter, published by Abingdon Press, 2008.) God bless... 
 I spent time during my August break outlining my next book project (working title: RELIGION RIGHT—Rediscovering the Message and Mission of Jesus). The Church in every generation tends to stray from the DNA of the first century Jesus movement. My first inkling that something was not working—that the crowds were coming but not really changing—resulted in my book unlearning Church, which I wrote in 2000. It was one of the early works that was labeled “emergent.” I worked the first part of this year doing a rewrite with my editorial team at Abingdon Press. The updated version was just published last month. Here is an excerpt.
"UnLearning churches must be environments of trust. They must create safe spaces where the Spirit can work through people’s inquiring quests for God. They welcome people who don’t give or have all the "right" answers. They invite people to ask honest questions without chastising folks for struggling with the answers. They create communities of grace-space, allowing seekers the freedom to deal with the deepest questions of their hearts.
"Through their own honesty, congregational leaders can demonstrate that the church is a safe space for questioning. When leaders are transparent in the questions they are asking, they gain credibility and authenticity with those looking to them for spiritual guidance. How am I as a pastor supposed to tell you what to believe when I don’t have all the answers either? I was once spiritually blind. Jesus opened my eyes and made me see. He was resurrected from the grave and changed my life. But there are many days when I still pray, "I believe; help my unbelief." In fact, it’s one of my most frequent prayers.
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"In her book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott describes how she found a church that was a safe place for her. As the reader experiences the narrative of her life journey, with its earthy language, painful failures, and times of confusion and disillusionment, there is no doubting that her faith is real. She has invited the God of Jesus Christ to invade her life, and she credits her church as a people who accepted her when she was pregnant and unwed, as a place that continues to welcome her to ask hard questions. "My friend Scott Parsons, on a similar journey but a different road, makes connections for me. In 1998, at age fifty-one, he came to Ginghamsburg for the first time. During his third year with us, he made a faith commitment to be a Jesus follower. He did this in a community that’s striving to connect people to an experience of God, a community that lives in paradox, and that provides a safe environment to ask critical questions. "Here is what Scott says about his Jesus journey: 'I guess I’m still a seeker and always will be –but by way of a very convoluted path, I have come to a point of referring to myself as “tentatively Christian.” I got to this point by translating the essential vocabulary of Christians into meanings I could embrace. It has worked well enough that now I rarely feel the need to translate.When I think of a church setting out to make an appeal to a seeker like me – knowing my own attitudes and resistances – I’m very impressed that they’d even try. It seems to me like what they’re doing is similar to adopting children who have highly limiting and irreversible challenges and conditions – the kind only a miracle can overcome.For people like me, actions completely drown out words. Behavior – Christian behavior – is the only thing that will win us. There’s nothing more persuasive in the human range of acts. A brave “seeker church” operates on the certainty that God is much too great to be threatened by a seeker’s wild questions or unconventional speculation. It wasn’t arguments that ultimately made God real for me. I think it was the gradual turning of my attention toward God – something that happened because of Ginghamsburg Church. I had to be listening to hear God.As a seeker what have I been seeking? It has never been salvation or heaven. I’m not really interested in those wonderful gifts, although I won’t refuse them if they are offered. What I wanted was an encounter with a real God, someone who can take me higher.That encounter began for me one ordinary day when my mind was relaxed, and I suddenly realized that I knew that God was present around me. As for Jesus, I am still trying to understand him. I place faith in the idea that if I love Jesus enough, belief will fall to the side. And I do love Jesus.'"Scott Parsons is someone who asks lots of questions, and I hear God through Scott’s life. Scott came to Ginghamsburg as a self-described agnostic, although his attendance has been better than that of members. After a long period of critical questioning in a safe environment, he declared that he is a tentative follower of Jesus – a work in progress. "Imagine a people who live in an environment of grace and unconditional love. Imagine a safe space where we can be honest enough to work on our “stuff.” In this place we find the freedom to tell the truth of who we really are on the inside. We can move out of fear and into trust. We can begin to truly live and to make a difference in God’s created purpose, empowered to leave the safe spaces to practice authentic love in the dangerous places of life." (Excerpted from UnLearning Church by Michael Slaughter, published by Abingdon Press, 2008.) God bless...
 I have been meeting all week with the Ginghamsburg Senior Management Team here in Hayesville, North Carolina. We have been discussing Alan Hirsch’s book, The Forgotten Ways. One of the critical questions that we as Christian leaders need to ask ourselves: are we calling people to make a decision for Jesus or to become a disciple? Has the church in the western world lowered the bar of expectation and made access to Christ a watered down version of institutional easy believism or what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace"? Many people who make a decision for Jesus continue to embody the dominant values of secular culture, more passionate about partisan politics than faith. Hirsch most ably states that the greatest challenge to the viability of Christianity is not the rise of other growing religions like Islam but the spirit of consumerism within. The disciple of Jesus embodies the life, values and mission of Jesus. The disciple makes a high bar commitment to invest the entirety of her or his life in a radical movement. T. S. Eliot said, "The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief."
God bless...
 In today's polarized political arena, it is significant that post-modern churches are politically both conservative and liberal. I've been at Ginghamsburg nearly thirty years, and even long timers don't know whether I vote Republican or Democrat. I like to irritate both sides! Churches too often build themselves around ideas and causes, such as political parties. In Jesus' day, the Pharisees believed in everything and more, while the Sadducees believed in nothing and less. Jesus was neither. The emerging leader is neither. The gospel doesn’t toe any party line.
At a recent conference sponsored by Ginghamsburg, participants came from some thirty different denominational groups and ten different countries. A hundred years ago, our focus would have been on our differences, and we would not have met together. Today, members of a theologically conservative denomination might not even know or care that they are worshipping and learning alongside representatives from denominations on the other side of the spectrum. Instead, they focus on the commonality of our faith and commitment to Jesus Christ.
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We did a quick survey one weekend and found that more than nine hundred people who attend Ginghamsburg (a United Methodist church) view their primary religious identity as Roman Catholic! Many go to Mass as well as participate with us in the same weekend. I’m glad people don’t feel like they have to choose between denominations, because postmodern churches are both Catholic and evangelical. We've offered liturgical Ash Wednesday worship celebrations in recent years, and find they draw both people from all over the community. Many already have ashes on their foreheads, indicating they have already been to Mass or perhaps to an Episcopal service that day. "For centuries, the one sure way to tell a Catholic from a Protestant was to look for the dark smudge on the forehead on Ash Wednesday," began a Boston Globe article on changes in religious observances. "No more. Reflecting an increasing demand for ritual and decreasing hostility toward Catholicism among Protestants, a growing number of Protestant churches today will be offering worshipers the traditional sign of penitence and mourning." " 'Five-hundred years ago we gave up these rituals because we didn’t want to be Catholic, and now we’re saying there was a loss for us spiritually,' said Susan P. Dickerman of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ. 'There’s a tremendous yearning for developing spiritually.' " UnLearning churches also welcome nonbelievers to participate in the worship celebration. The church is for both seekers and saints together. Imitating the most popular church-growth models of the 1980s and 1990s, many churches offered special services designed to be "seeker-friendly," while saving the tough stuff for those who were already believers. Today’s churches are becoming both believer-focused and seeker-focused at the same time. It’s like the parable where Jesus says to go into the streets and invite everyone to God’s party: " 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests" (Matthew 22:8b-10). God’s kingdom is a paradox in which both believers and seekers are called together at the same time. (Excerpted from UnLearning Church by Michael Slaughter, published by Abingdon Press, 2008.) God bless...
 I am currently reading UNCHRISTIAN: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity…And Why It Matters. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Research Group and Gabe Lyons founder of Fermi Project, wrote it. Their research was done with Busters (born between 1965 and 1983) and Mosaics (born between 1984 and 2002). The findings reveal a growing chasm between the church and our inability to connect the gospel to a rapidly expanding secular culture. Fewer than one out of ten in this age group mention faith as top priority. The vast majority has a negative image of Christianity, unlike their Boomer parents who felt that Christianity made positive contributions in the world even though they might have not accepted it as a personal faith. The three most common perceptions that the Busters and Mosaics hold about Christianity:
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- Anti-homosexual (an image held by 91% of young outsiders)
- Judgmental (87%)
- Hypocritical (85%)
These are the images that come to a majority of people’s minds born between 1965 and 2002 when asked about Christianity. The research reveals that “outsiders” know what Christians are against but not what we are for. Many of these same folk don’t have a problem with Jesus but with Christians, whose attitudes of unacceptance and actions are so unlike his. This is a wakeup call for all of us who are called by Jesus name! Why is it easier to judge than demonstrate Christ’s redemptive love?  Our good friends Ann and Vic Haddad came and visited us at our mountain home for a couple of days. They have both been active at Ginghamsburg United Methodist since 1990. Vic introduced me to skiing, and we have experienced it together from the mountains of West Virginia to Vail, Colorado. Vic has been a co-teacher in a Sunday morning adult Bible class with Gary Cairns, who died unexpectedly last month. Vic reminded me how important it is to do the relationship things today for we don’t know if we will have tomorrow. We had a great time and created some awesome memories!  I also have a “to do” list that I am checking off this month: everything from landscaping (low maintenance variety in the mountains) to staining deck furniture.  This morning’s sunrise--I marvel at the wonder of God’s creation!
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