A week ago Wednesday afternoon, our Senior Management Team was having our weekly meeting in my office when our Teaching Pastor Mike Bowie went into a seizure. He had no prior known medical conditions that would give cause. He was taken by ambulance to Upper Valley Medical Center, where it was discovered he had a tumor the size of a baseball in the right frontal lobe of his brain. He was taken by care flight to Miami Valley Hospital where surgery was performed on Friday, February 1.

Tragedy and death come knocking at our door unexpected. Mike told me before the surgery that he just wants to be here for the well-being of his children. It is through the unexpected interruptions in our lives that we realize how little control we really have.

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We live in a post-Christian, post-denominational world where Christians can no longer afford to segregate themselves on the basis of theological differences. The time has passed when we can define ourselves with the tired old labels of conservative or liberal, evangelical or charismatic, Catholic or Protestant. All who have faith in Jesus belong to him. Everyone who serves his mission is a follower of his.

With that being said, I was reminded last week why I follow Jesus through the disciplines and accountability of the United Methodist Church (UMC). I met with a few visionary UMC pastors last week in Houston, Texas. We hung out together and prayerfully strategized ways that we could influence our denomination to live out of our great Wesleyan Theology.

Windsor Village and St. John’s UMC are great examples of what it means to “take the church into the world” instead of trying “to get the world into the church.” Rudy Rasmus, Pastor of St. John’s UMC, is serving the poorest of the American poor.

This email that I received after this past weekend’s message on “Desperate Households: marriage lessons from seasoned veterans” represents the true status of many of our marriages:

“How do those old people do it – you know, stay together so long? You see, my pain for years has been my marriage. And I really haven’t looked for a solution. For every negative trait my spouse has, I can mention ten for myself. That song about “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” really hit home. I just want to go back to where we started in our marriage, but I’m not sure I can. My mind will stray….. but my body never has. I’m not sure about my soul anymore.    
 
”We’re just like most couples in America, maybe even on the high side of the curve. We buy homes, we work, we play, we invest, we worship and we send our kids to school. It seems like over the years, however, we’ve grown apart instead of closer. However, there is always a glimmer of hope when something good or bad happens to the family, and we pull together. That feels good. I just want that feeling all the time or a little more often. Hopefully, we’ll find our way. I just thought I’d send a note to let you know you’re stirring the pot, and I think it’s good.”

Many of us feel isolation and loneliness in various seasons of marital commitment—sometimes for years or even decades. Making marriage work is a daily priority. I am thankful for God’s grace at work in our most important relationships.

I received an email that seems to be making its way through a network of concerned, conservative white Christians. It made blatant condemning accusations against one of the contending, and the only African American, candidates in the presidential race. Excerpts include:
 
-“Barack Hussein Obama was born to …a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and … a white Atheist from Wichita, Kansas.”
-Obama’s stepfather “introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL ISLAMIC teaching that is followed by Muslim terrorists.”
-“Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ.”
-“While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama has been photographed turning his back to the flag and slouching.”
 
This email represents racism in one of its most subtle and evil forms. Racism demeans human beings by demonizing character and creating an element of fear. This was exactly Hitler’s tactic against the Jews. It is one thing to openly debate a person’s political ideas, but it is another to make devastating accusations against his or her character.

Who has the right to judge another person’s faith conviction or call one’s conversion to Christianity an act of expediency for the sake of electability? No one can judge Obama’s heart but his maker.

In my Christmas Eve message on Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 25 regarding the separation of the sheep from the goats, I shared that in the coming day of judgment we will all be judged--not just based on our profession of Jesus--but also on how we have served Christ in the afflicted and oppressed. As a result, I’ve received emails asking if I believe in salvation by works, grace or both. My answer? You can’t separate them. If we have truly experienced God’s grace in our lives, that grace will cause us to demonstrate the fruit of Christ’s heart in the lives of other people. The same things that consume the heart and attention of Jesus will consume us.

Salvation is clearly a gift from God that is activated by faith. Good works are the evidence of salvation—not the cause. But, the Protestant theology of many Americans has reduced salvation by faith to a passive and easy “believism.”  They tend to give the impression that all a person needs to be saved is a right theology. Perhaps the origin of this thinking can be traced all of the way back to the 16th century reformers. Martin Luther himself was reluctant to include the book of James within the biblical canon. He wrote a preface to the book of James concerned that it contradicted the Apostle Paul by “teaching justification by works.”  

The evidence of true conversion is a commitment to the work of Jesus. At Ginghamsburg, many people have come to faith in Jesus through the experience of serving others. This February, we will start a message series on the book of James, bringing together works and grace, focusing on the best of both the Protestant and Catholic theology, embracing all 2000 years of the Church’s great teachings.