The Means of Grace and Rural Ministry

I spoke a few weeks ago at the 2010 Convocation on the Rural Church, a gathering held for rural pastors in the North Carolina and Western North Carolina Annual Conferences that took place on August 23-25 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The theme for this year's convocation was, "The Grace of Rural Ministry." My own plenary lecture on Monday of that week was entitled, "The Means of Grace and Rural Ministry." In my lecture, I try to weave themes of the necessity of proper formation for mature discipleship, both individually and communally, together with a look at the effects of disciplined participation in the means of grace on persons and congregations.

I mention that because I noticed that audio recordings of the Convocation addresses have been posted online. You can access my presentation or those of any of the other presenters at this link. The audio has been posted to iTunesU, which makes it easy to download to your iTunes application.

The Convocation on the Rural Church is held annually and is sponsored by the Duke Endowment, the North Carolina Annual Conference, and the Western North Carolina Annual Conference. But it is coordinated and produced by the Thriving Rural Communities program at Duke Divinity School, which is led by the Rev. Jeremy Troxler.

Jeremy is an outstanding young leader in the United Methodist Church, who is doing a great deal to make sure that rural ministry is not forgotten within our connection. Check out the work of the Thriving Rural Communities program at this link. Besides doing so much for rural Methodist ministry in North Carolina, its published online resources can serve as an aid to rural ministry everywhere.

How great a fall did Humpty have?

In the children's nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty didn't meet such a happy end:

All the king's horses,
and all the king's men,
couldn't put Humpty together again.

Humpty's fall was too great. He was dismembered, fragmented, and broken apart.

Are we?

I think that's a pressing question. We live in a time when the cultural 'noise' is so great we can forget the first calling on us as Christians. The church is in trouble. And in order to rethink what it means to be the church, I think we have to remember the story in which God has called us to be a part.

There are two different senses of what it means to "remember," you know. One is simply calling to mind that which has been forgotten. But the other one - re-membering - means putting something back together that has been fragmented.

Kind of like Humpty Dumpty.

I look at the challenge of remembering and re-membering the church in my current United Methodist Reporter column. Take a look, and feel free to offer your feedback.

The Hogs: Week 4

The Littlest Hog on Gameday

In a thriller last week in Athens, the Hogs escaped with a big win over Georgia. This week, the stakes are even higher. The #1 ranked Crimson Tide of Alabama come calling to Fayetteville, bringing the most powerful team in college football into the Razorbacks' home stadium. The Tide are the defending national champions, and you know they don't want their march to the BCS Championship derailed by Bobby Petrino and the Hogs.

I don't remember a game quite like this since the fall of 1998, when the undefeated, 8-0 Razorbacks went to Neyland Stadium to take on the undefeated, 8-0 Tennessee Volunteers. That game is a particularly painful one for Hogs fans to remember, because it ended in a close, 28-24 defeat after quarterback Clint Stoerner fumbled the ball late in the fourth quarter and the Volunteers marched down the field to score a game-winning touchdown. Tennessee went on, of course, to win the national championship that year.

We aren't quite as far into the season this year, but the script has some close similarities. The undefeated, 3-0 Razorbacks are taking on the undefeated, 3-0 Crimson Tide. With 'Bama ranked #1 and trying to defend their title, this is exactly the kind of game any football team would want the chance to play. At least Arkansas gets to play it in their own home stadium, which should be an advantage for the Hogs.

There will likely be nobody amongst the national commentators favoring the Razorbacks in this game. And I don't blame them. Why would you doubt Alabama until they give you a reason to do so? Still, if anyone is going to beat Alabama this year, it could well be Arkansas that has the ability to do so.

The Tide has a more complete offense, featuring the passing attack of QB Greg McElroy and the receiving skills of Julio Jones, as well as the defending Heisman Trophy winning-RB in Mark Ingram. But Arkansas has perhaps the nation's best passing game, led by QB Ryan Mallett and including TE D.J. Williams and WRs Greg Childs, Joe Adams, Jarius Wright, and Cobi Hamilton.

In terms of team defense, Alabama has surely got the edge. But they are also starting a bunch of new players this year, and Coach Saban's squad hasn't been tested against anything near the caliber of what the Razorbacks will throw at them. Plus, Arkansas's own defense proved that its first two games were no fluke when it played well enough to beat Georgia on the Dawgs' home turf last Saturday. The Hogs deserve credit for a vastly improved defensive squad over last year's team.

The long and short of it is that I just can't go against my Razorbacks, not when they're playing so well and taking on Alabama at home. The Hogs may well lose this game -- but unlike last year's 35-7 thumping in Tuscaloosa, I think the difference is that Arkansas actually has the ability to win this time around. We just need our players to play lights-out football and Coach Petrino and his staff to come in with a dominant game plan.

 So without further adieu, here is this week's prediction...

Last week: Arkansas 31, Georgia 24 (My pick: Arkansas 28, Georgia 17)

Arkansas' Overall Record: 3-0 (Me: 3-0)

Saturday's Game: Arkansas Razorbacks Vs. Alabama Crimson Tide

Location: Razorback Stadium - Fayetteville, AR

Prediction: Arkansas 31, Alabama 28

Reason:
This will be the toughest game of the season for Arkansas. The Crimson Tide appears to have few weaknesses, if any. But no team in the BCS-era has ever gone undefeated in two straight seasons, and I don't think Alabama is going to be the first. This game is on Arkansas' home turf, and history shows that Ryan Mallett plays much stronger in front of a home crowd. Coach Bobby Petrino has a track record of taking teams to the 'next level' after he's had a couple of years to whip them into shape. This is Year 3 for Coach Petrino at Arkansas, and this is the ideal moment for the Razorbacks to take a step up. And finally, I consulted Alice Elizabeth Thompson, aka the Littlest Hog. She's convinced the Razorbacks are going to get the win. That's good enough for me.


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Bonus: Check out the Arkansas Expats blog when you get a chance. For Razorback fans living outside of Arkansas, it is a great site to stay connected with U of A sports.

Q & A with Stanley Hauerwas

Earlier this summer I read Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir, which is the recent autobiography by Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas.

Hannah's Child is a very good read - a remarkably candid memoir that, for the lay reader, can also serve as something of an introduction to Hauerwas' way of thinking about the Christian faith, the church, and theological education. (You can obtain a copy of Hannah's Child here.)

I mention this because Robin Russell at the United Methodist Reporter has just done a great Q & A with Hauerwas that draws from some of the material in Hauerwas' memoir. You can read her interview at this link. If you don't know much about Hauerwas or are unfamiliar with his influence on contemporary theology, you should really check out this interview.

Bonus #1: Duke University's Office Hours program recently did a video interview with Dr. Hauerwas available here.

Bonus #2: Faith & Leadership at Duke Divinity School conducted a video interview with Dr. Hauerwas on the issue of Christian leadership which you can find here.

Catching up...

My blogging in the first seven months of this year was as light as at any time since I started the Gen-X Rising blog back in the summer of 2006. As a result, the archive of online writing that I try to maintain in the left-hand sidebar fell behind.

I'm trying to correct that now by updating the archives. You'll notice that the archive of "UM Reporter columns" is now up-to-date with my most recent columns in the United Methodist Reporter.

The tab below the one for my column in the Reporter, called "CDQ Columns," is up to date with the writing I've done for both Covenant Discipleship Quarterly and Covenant Discipleship Connection. But due to a website overhaul by the General Board of Discipleship in recent months, the links don't match up anymore. I'll be working on that in the coming days and will add in the new links. In the meantime, you can access All issues of the CDQ and CDC at this link on the General Board's new website.

The Hogs: Week 3

It's a day of reckoning for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

The Hogs take their 2-0 record on the road, facing the formidable Georgia Bulldogs between the hedges in Athens.

After a relatively light non-conference schedule that featured blow-out wins against Tennessee Tech and the University of Louisiana-Monroe, the Hogs now have the challenge of showing that they are a legitimate SEC contender. Not known as a strong road team over the past few years, the Razorbacks will be playing one of the best home teams in the conference in the 'Dawgs of Georgia.

For Arkansas fans, this is one of the biggest games of the past decade. If the Razorbacks are going to be a top-10 team, the battle against Georgia is one that must be won. It's gonna be tough, but after consulting with the Littlest Hog, I think they can do it. Here's the prediction...

Last week: Arkansas 31, Louisiana-Monroe 7 (My pick: Arkansas 56, ULM 14)

Arkansas' Overall Record: 2-0 (My Record: 2-0)

Today's Game: Arkansas Razorbacks Vs. Georgia Bulldogs

Location: Sanford Stadium - Athens, GA

Prediction: Arkansas 28, Georgia 17

Reason: While the Hogs haven't be a strong road team in the SEC in recent years, they've also never had the kind of offensive firepower that they have this year in the form of Ryan Mallett & Co. Georgia struggled offensively against South Carolina last week, and they don't seem to have the defense to be able to hold Arkansas to the low-scoring game they'd need to win. This is a real test game for the Hogs, and I think they'll come through. And for the record, so does the Littlest Hog.

Steve Manskar on the Class Meeting

Dr. Steve Manskar is the Director of Wesleyan Leadership at the UMC's General Board of Discipleship. In that capacity, Steve is the chief minister in the Church responsible for advancing the ministry of Covenant Discipleship.

Covenant Discipleship (or CD) groups are a contemporary expression of the early Methodist class meeting - a form of small group ministry that fosters growth in discipleship to Jesus Christ through relationships of mutual accountability. CD groups are a real means of grace, and I say that as someone who has participated in them since the late 1990s. I think they are a crucial way for fostering mature discipleship in Christians of all ages.

A recent article by Steve in the United Methodist Reporter - which you can find at this link - made me want to highlight his important work. The Reporter article speaks to the problem of our "enculturated church" that owes more to the market mentality than it does to a biblical pattern of ministry. And it points to the model of the class meeting as a way to practice a more faithful form of ministry within the church.

Manskar asserts that  a central place for the class meeting can assist in helping all members of a congregation to participate in ministry (rather than relying primarily on the ordained clergy for leadership in every instance). And he also points to the important role of the class leader, a lay ministry position in early Methodism that fell out of use as the class meeting did.

One thing about the class meeting (or Covenant Discipleship, which is the best way to practice a kind of small group that approximates the class meeting in the present) is that it is decidedly not a flashy, 'cutting edge' type of ministry. It doesn't come with a slick, edgy curriculum written by the hottest writers in Christian publishing.

But you know what? I think that's a very good thing. Most of the flash in programmatic ministry these days turns out to be flash-in-the-pan. Covenant Discipleship has more substance than that. It's about helping us to receive God's grace, that we might know the reality of sanctification and thereby come to know Jesus Christ better.

If you think this sounds compelling are some links you might want to check out:

-- Covenant Discipleship Connection, the monthly (and free!) resourcing e-newsletter for CD groups.

-- Accountable Discipleship, Steve Manskar's own blog.

-- A link to Steve's book, Accountable Discipleship: Living in God's Household, which offers a theological overview of the ministry of small group accountability for Christian discipleship.

-- A link to the Rev. Kevin Watson's book, A Blueprint for Discipleship: Wesley's General Rules as a Guide for Christian Living, an excellent small group resource that introduces lay Christians to the essentials of Wesleyan discipleship. (I did a review of Watson's book, which you can read here.)

-- A UM Reporter column I wrote awhile back on Covenant Discipleship as a means of grace.

The Hogs: Week 2

As I mentioned last week, I am going to be blogging through the Arkansas Razorbacks' football season this fall. There's a whole lot of optimism in Hog Nation, otherwise known as the Great State of Arkansas (see below).

The State of Arkansas, aka Hog Nation

The reason? Well, there are two of them.The first is that the Hogs have what may be the most explosive offense in college football, led by quarterback Ryan Mallett, tight end D.J. Williams, and wide receiver Joe Adams.

The Littlest Hog

But the second reason for optimism is the Hogs' true secret weapon this year: As recorded on this blog earlier in the week, my wife Emily and I welcomed our baby daughter Alice Elizabeth into the world on Wednesday. That means the Razorbacks have got a brand new fan to cheer them on to victory. Alice has decided that she'll go by the code name, "The Littlest Hog," this season. She'll be watching Razorback games with me, and I'll consult with her on my game predictions each week before I put up my weekly Razorback post.

With all these factors in our favor, the Razorbacks can't help but have a great season! So without further adieu, here are our predictions:

Last week: Arkansas 44, Tennessee Tech 3 [My pick: Arkansas 49, Tenn Tech 7]

Today's game: Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks

Location: War Memorial Stadium - Little Rock, AR

Prediction: Hogs 56, Warhawks 14

Reason: This is Arkansas' second tune-up game and that last one before the conference schedule begins next week again Georgia. Coach Petrino will release the hounds against the Warhawks, utilizing all his offensive weapons to make sure the playbook is ready for the Bulldogs next week. I was going to put our final score a little lower, but the Littlest Hog is convinced we're going to break 50. I'll go with her call.

Meet Alice Elizabeth Thompson

Mom, Dad, and Alice shortly after she was born

The most personal my posts usually get is the occasional "Gratuitous Cat offering about either Lulu or Ruthie, the four-legged members of the Thompson family. But I'm going to make an exception this time.

I would like you to meet Alice. She's my daughter. Exactly 24 hours ago - at 8:47 p.m. on September 8th, 2010 - Alice was born to my wife Emily and me. That's us in the picture above, in the room where Emily gave birth to Alice at the Durham Regional Hospital here in Durham, North Carolina.

I've tried over time to cultivate the habit of recognizing all aspects of life as gifts from God. But then occasionally the magnitude of some gifts is brought home in such a profound way that one does not need a certain kind of habit to recognize them as among life's greatest joys and blessings. In those instances, one only needs to witness the reality of the gift being given.

Such is the birth of a child. And such has been the birth of Alice Elizabeth for me. Beyond the thoughts of my mind or the affections of my heart, seeing my daughter and holding her in my arms for the first time elicited a response so deep in my viscera that I cannot begin to describe it in words.

She is a beautiful little girl, whose beauty derives from the beauty that God has inscribed into the creation. Alice is an expression of the Father's handiwork, called into being by the love of the ineffable Word and given life by the breath of the Holy Spirit. And that same God has given her to Emily and me, that we might love her and nurture her and raise her to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

If there is a greater gift in this life, I do not know what it is.

Now to him who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us all blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy; to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

A postexcess moment? To what end?

I've always admired David Brooks' writing in the op-ed section of the New York Times. He is an irenic conservative, unwilling to let ideology or the passions-of-the-political-moment drive his column writing.

One thing that allows Brooks is the leeway to take on interesting and creative topics that he sees as important aspects of contemporary American culture.

Brooks' recent column, "The Gospel of Wealth," is a good example of that characteristic in his cultural analysis.

Reflecting on the out-of-control materialism of late-20th century American society, Brooks takes up the subject of David Platt - the pastor of the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, who seeks to steer his megachurch away from the typical megachurch ethos of most megachurches.

That ethos is (to paint with perhaps overly-broad brushstrokes) the prosperity gospel. And it arises out of an understanding of the confluence of the Christian faith with American democratic capitalist prosperity.

A disclaimer: I've not read the recent book by Platt to which David Brooks refers in his column, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. But the summary he gives of it is one that I think is right on and that needs to be taken more seriously by more Christians in contemporary culture - namely, that the excesses of a consumerist culture stand in direct opposition from the kind of life we are called to lead in faithful discipleship to Jesus Christ.

Reading Brooks' column brought to my mind some other reading I've been doing lately: that of the desert fathers who established monasticism in the fourth century A.D. in the barren wastelands of the Egyptian desert. The culture from which those first monks were drawn was that of the powerful Roman Empire, and in particular, the wealthy and cosmopolitan city of Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile River. Presented with any number of idols which could occupy their earthly lives - wealth, power, erotic pursuits, and even learning - these early monks saw such things for what they really were. And instead of allowing themselves to be numbed by worldly excess, they gave away all they had and pursued a holy life away from the temptations that could drag them away from Christ.

Despite my earlier appreciative comments about Brooks, it does seem that he's probably using David Platt in a way Platt wouldn't intend himself. Note in the column that Brooks is really interested in Americans seeing, in this "postexcess moment" in the wake of the Great Recession, a path to the kind of (small "r") republican virtue that would find national identity in something other than materialistic consumption.

But is that what Platt is getting at? Someone who has read him would have to tell me. My guess is that the end toward which Platt writes and preaches is that life with God that we know as salvation. Brooks, on the other hand, seems to just want a more virtuous American society. That Brooks does not seem to recognize the way he distorts Platt by the end of the column is ironic, given that he invokes Platt's work in the first place to point out that the Church and America are not one in the same.

Y'all oughta watch my Hogs

Go Razorbacks!

College football better get ready. Because the Arkansas Razorbacks are about to unleash untold amounts of porcine fury on unsuspecting opponents between now and early January.

It can be tough rooting for a middling team in the uber-powerful Southeastern Conference from year to year. But occasionally the stars align, the amount of talented players and coaches reaches critical mass, and the start of the football season holds out the possibility that this - yes, this - could be THE year.

As an Arkansas ex-pat who roots for my Razorbacks from the piedmont of North Cackalacky, I can get a little obsessed around el primero de Septiembre. And yes, I can be a little overly-optimistic about the upcoming season when the record is still at 0-0. But I'm here to tell you, there ain't been this much excitement in Hog Nation since our backfield featured names like McFadden, Jones, and Hillis.

The reason: We've got a QB with legitimate Heisman trophy potential (Ryan Mallet) and a corps of receivers that might be the best in the nation (Greg Childs, Jarius Wright, Joe Adams, D.J. Williams, et al.).

A Hog with his game face on

There are always "if's" and this year is no exception. Defense is a concern, as it has been for the past few years. But at least Coach Petrino and his staff have known that all year, which means they might have been able to plug some of the notable holes (especially in the secondary, which looked at times last year like it didn't know what it was doing).

But if certain things go the right way - and if the Hogs get their sea legs quickly - then the Good Ship Razorback could have a date in Atlanta for early December. Yes, I'm calling you out, Bama fans and Auburn fans. (LSU and Ole Miss, you don't merit taunting. Have fun in the Independence Bowl. Oh, wait - I just taunted. Sorry.)

I'll be making predictions on gameday each Saturday the Hogs have a game this fall. Today's sacrificial lamb is Tennessee Tech. Let's get the ball rolling...

Game: Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Tennesee Tech Eagles
Prediction: Hogs 49, Eagles 7
Season record: 0 - 0