The Gospel According to Paul

 January 25, 2022

 

 

Hello friends!

 

I’m sitting today in what’s called the Gathering of the Orders, a required “retreat” for all clergy that’s held once a year the last week in January. Ordinarily we gather somewhere in person for three days mid-week, but of course covid has put the kibosh on that for the past 2 years. So many pros and cons to doing it via Zoom, and seeing each other on a screen…it’s definitely much more economical, and it’s certainly safer and more efficient, but its also awfully easy to get distracted and impossible to really connect with friends and colleagues. 

The theme of the day, though, is lovely. We are considering together Isaiah 43, and hearing speakers on different portions of it. The Bishop spoke powerfully about being called by name, our keynote speaker gave a message about the healing effects of compassion, another speaker talked about walking through the fire and God being with her. And just an hour or so ago, my friend Angel Rivero spoke about being a witness.

Angel is a sweet, soft-spoken, powerfully faithful young man whom I met a few years ago, as part of a yearlong class on church planting and church growth. He is a second generation Mexican American, and his vision at the time was to plant a church that ministers uniquely to people like himself: straddling two cultures, loving both, having a passion for justice, yearning for Christ. But he can and does minister effectively to all kinds of people. 

Angel is also gay. Before he became Methodist, he was a minister with the Seventh Day Adventists…but when he realized he was gay, he was kicked out of the ministry and the church. He still felt a strong call to ministry, though, so he went to seminary the same place I did (about 10 years after me), and met some of my favorite humans who affirmed his call and formed a strong circle of support around him. He was ordained in the United Methodist Church 2 years ago, with great joy.

He told us the story today of serving the church he serves now, and the avalanche of hate mail he started to receive because he is gay. Not from the church, they are 100% behind him, but from the community. How scary it got, how demoralizing and exhausting. How his relationship with God and the support of Christian friends continues to keep him focused. How important each of our unique Christian witness is, and how God surrounds us with support and guidance so that God’s word is faithfully spoken even during the worst hardship.

Our lives are full of joys and hardships, both of which can distract us and steal our focus. May God surround each of us with good people who love and support us, who are a healthy and positive presence in our lives, who help us clarify our own unique witness. And may God use that witness to make the Gospel real and alive in the place God has planted us.

Love and blessings,

      Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

ROMANS: The Gospel According to Paul

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This week, we begin a 6 week study of the book of Romans. Some would say Paul’s letter to the Romans has done more to form Christian theology – that is, our understanding of who God is, who Jesus is, the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the meaning of salvation, and more – than anything other than Christ himself. So we will take our time with it, exploring Paul’s letter just a bit at a time. As we begin, you might like to read the first 3 chapters of Romans, and listen for how God might be speaking into your life today. 

 

If you are worshiping with us from home, either via the radio broadcast or video, we are so glad! If we can pray for you, or if there is anything you need, we would love to do that. You can call the church office at 775-423-4714, or you can call Pastor Dawn on her cell phone any time, 775-671-5553.

Sabbath Freedom

 January 18, 2022

 

Hello friends!

Holy baloney, you guys. I am sitting in the infusion center in Reno, and it’s the VERY LAST TIME I’ll be doing this. Every 3 weeks for a year. And in about an hour, I’m free!!!! What a crazy thought. Halleluia.

In worship this month, we’ve been talking about healthy, Christ-centered life. God has given us direction for spiritually healthy living, rhythms of work, rest, and worship that give rest for our souls and open the door to joy. I’m thinking particularly about rest, and how vital it is to us. Spiritual, emotional, and physical rest. What I’m realizing is that it’s not just “rest” per se…it’s an exercise in freedom.

In the very first part of Genesis, after God has finished all of that work of creating, God looks out over
everything and calls it good. And then chapter 2 begins with God resting on the seventh day, making it holy. Last week in worship we talked together about how sabbath is thus about much more than going to church: worship yes, absolutely, but the central point of all of it is to look out over all of God’s creation and see that it is good. The people of Israel marked the sabbath and made it holy with singing, with dancing, with delicious food shared with friends and family, with wine and prayer and laughter. Giving your spouse an extra measure of affection and appreciation on the sabbath was (and is) considered a mitzvah, a religious duty. Playing with your children and grandchildren, too. All of this isn’t about sleep or relaxation exactly – although that too, certainly – but about freedom from the obligations of work, in order to enjoy the best parts of the life God has given us. Time to taste, and see, and hear, and smell, and feel, and know that God is good.

In my study about sabbath, I ran across a book about the sabbath called “24/6” by Dr Matthew Sleeth, MD. He’s an interesting guy. A former emergency room physician, he left that field some years ago to preach and teach about healthy living and creation care. He works as a medical missionary in Africa, too. He writes that his and his family’s lives were dramatically transformed by adopting “sabbath practices”: one day a week to focus on God and on each other.

“How can we possibly have “ears to hear” when we are plugged in 24/7? If we never take time to “be still and know” God, how can we grow into mature spiritual beings? The solution is simple. And it is endorsed by the Great Physician Himself. In fact, He invented it. It’s called rest. And like all good things, rest is a gift from God.”

Before I got settled today here in the infusion center, I met with Martha, my fantastic nurse practitioner. (She’s originally from Cameroon and has the coolest accent.) She talked about health going forward, now that treatment will be complete: healthy food, regular exercise, and most of all rest. I’m so glad to know that, in God’s prescription for healthy living, rest is about claiming the freedom to enjoy all that God has given! Sounds like an outstanding new year’s resolution to me.

Love and blessings,

      Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

RHYTHMS: Finding Rest for Our Souls

This Sunday we complete our Epiphany worship series about the rhythms of life, what the Bible says about finding balance and peace, and what God tells us about work, rest, and worship. As you prepare your heart for worship, you might like to pray with Psalm 42, Matthew 9:9-13 and Micah 6:6-8. You’ll be amazed how God can speak into your life, when you take time in the quiet to read scripture and pray.

 

If you are worshiping with us from home, either via the radio broadcast or video, we are so glad! If we can pray for you, or if there is anything you need, we would love to do that. You can call the church office at 775-423-4714, or you can call Pastor Dawn on her cell phone any time, 775-671-5553.

RHYTHMS: Finding Rest for Our Souls

 January 14, 2022

 

Hello friends!

It has been a very interesting week, here at the Blundell household. Dennis and I managed to catch some kind of no-fun-at-all upper respiratory thing. It doesn’t appear to be Covid (although who knows really) but we still have stayed home and done our best not to share it. We feel just fine now, thank goodness, but it was a pretty gross few days! Anyway, that’s why this newsletter is a bit delayed. Glad to be back to it.

We have a bunch of really fun and interesting stuff happening in the life of the church, which you will see in the next couple of pages, not least of which is that we have been nominated for 2 community awards! Outstanding Nonprofit, and Outstanding Helping Heart. Isn’t that great! Thanks to the love, dedication, and hard work of a bunch of our congregation members, it is one way to know that we are
serving our community well in the name of Jesus Christ. We don’t need any kind of award, but the recognition in the paper and social media and whatnot gives us the opportunity to make sure folks who need us know that we are here. It amazes me constantly how many people in town still don’t know about Fallon Daily Bread, or Epworth Community Food Pantry, or that we offer folks the ability to take showers and wash clothes for free. Go to FallonChamber.com and click right where it tells you to get to the place to vote. And vote for our local businesses in a bunch of categories while you’re at it!

All of this gets me thinking about how and why our faith leads us to take care of each other. It’s something I find myself in lots of conversations about, outside of church, and I’ve mentioned before how strange I find it that some branches of Christianity find efforts to serve and help folks in need to be somehow suspect. A distraction from the sharing of the Gospel, they say. And I do see what folks mean when they worry that focusing on the needs of this moment and this world can distract us from the important work of sharing the Good News of everlasting life in Jesus Christ. But to me, the two things can’t be divorced from one another. The Bible as a whole and Jesus’ ministry in particular is filled with both, all tied up together.

Moment by moment, it comes down to asking ourselves “what would be the most loving choice be, right now?” From the simple, kind ways we interact with strangers, to how we spend and donate our money, to how we parent and grandparent, to how we act on the things that stir our heart, our Christian faith isn’t only about getting to heaven after we die. In the words of my friend Ed Stallworth, it’s also about bringing a little heaven here to earth. Like, by giving people the gift of love and dignity through good food and clean clothes and a shower. And by wearing a mask all the time, especially at church, so that we don’t share cooties with people whose immune systems are fragile. And a thousand million other ways that we can be salt and light.

See you in worship, beloved.

One in the Spirit and one in the Lord,

      Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

RHYTHMS: Finding Rest for Our Souls

This Sunday we complete our Epiphany worship series about the rhythms of life, what the Bible says about finding balance and peace, and what God tells us about work, rest, and worship. As you prepare your heart for worship, you might like to pray with Psalm 42, Matthew 9:9-13 and Micah 6:6-8. You’ll be amazed how God can speak into your life, when you take time in the quiet to read scripture and pray.

 

If you are worshiping with us from home, either via the radio broadcast or video, we are so glad! If we can pray for you, or if there is anything you need, we would love to do that. You can call the church office at 775-423-4714, or you can call Pastor Dawn on her cell phone any time, 775-671-5553.

Happy New Year!

January 4, 2022

 

Happy New Year, church family and friends!

Dennis and I are just back from a really nice visit with my 30 year old baby boy up in Washington. I remember how much I love spending time with that guy. His giggle, his kindness, the way we talk together, his perspective on things…so nice. I also remember how much Dennis and I both really dislike driving in the snow. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT. Stressful, but worth it. And now it’s very good to be home, with the holidays behind us and back into the comfortable rhythms of our ordinary life.

I’m just gonna toss this out there: the middle of winter is a very strange time to begin a new year, really, especially when it means making changes or plans for new endeavors. Ancient societies usually celebrated the new year in the spring or the fall…at planting time, or at the harvest. Which makes a lot more sense, to me at least. After the deadly cold and scarcity of winter, we emerge with hope in the spring and see how the world is waking up…naturally, that’s a time we’d be thinking of newness and life and exciting new ideas. The Roman calendar marked the new year exactly then, at the spring equinox, until Julius Caesar instituted some reforms to bring the calendar better in sync with the actual seasons and made January first – the month honoring Janus, the god of beginnings – New Year’s Day.

Autumn makes sense to me, too, as the start of the new year. After the work of planting and nurturing and harvesting, working to lay aside enough to endure the winter months, it makes sense that many ancient societies would sit back and take stock. Give thanks. Make sacrifices, and pray, and look forward to the new year. Ancient Israel established their new year then, at the end of the harvest in the fall, with ten days of awe (that is, thanks and praise to God) and repentance. Before moving into a winter season of cold and dark, in close quarters with family and neighbors, they made an intentional practice of giving and seeking forgiveness. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is still practiced this way, seeking forgiveness from God and neighbor, forgiving others, and resolving to be more faithful in the coming year.

But winter? (Or in the southern hemisphere, in the middle of summer?) No. That’s weird. It doesn’t feel right. I mean, I realize that Jesus is born and we mark this time of Epiphany by being aware of the Light dawning…days growing longer and the darkness receding, literally and spiritually. I get it. But to me, in my bones, winter is a time for storytelling, and cooking, and creating. A time for family, and friends…for introspection, and appreciation. For love, and care, and gratitude. Not to do or achieve something new, but to see and love what already is. To be slow, and careful, and attentive. To love both the darkness and the light, because God is powerfully present in both.

Of course, I am very weird myself, so maybe none of this rings true for you. Maybe this is a perfect time for you, to make resolutions and have renewed energy for life. If so, then swell! But one note of caution, as you make your plans for the new year: be gentle with yourself. You are loved and loveable, exactly as you already are. And life is good.

Raising my Ebenezer,

      Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

RHYTHMS: Finding Rest for Our Souls

This Sunday we begin a new series! We’ll talk together about the rhythms of life, what the Bible says about finding balance and peace, and what God tells us about work, rest, and worship. As you prepare your heart for worship, you might like to pray with Colossians 3:23-24, and the second chapter of Ecclesiastes. You’ll be amazed how God can speak into your life, when you take time in the quiet to read scripture and pray.

 

If you are worshiping with us from home, either via the radio broadcast or video, we are so glad! If we can pray for you, or if there is anything you need, we would love to do that. You can call the church office at 775-423-4714, or you can call Pastor Dawn on her cell phone any time, 775-671-5553.

Standing in the Need of Prayer

 June 8, 2021

 

Hello church family and friends near and far!

I hope and pray that you are enjoying the sunshine and the growing things all around us. It brings a lot of work in yard maintenance and weed control, so I hope you have good help around you for that. Even though it’s work God gave us from the beginning, that some of us enjoy, not all of us are up to the physical work of it. Personally, I have a new appreciation of how much work it is just to bend down, and then to get back up again! And an associated new appreciation for letting the growing things go wild as God intended. Only sort of kidding.

I had my very last (praise the Lord) chemo treatment last week, and I want to tell you that I absolutely felt your prayers! Though it has been no fun at all, it has also not been nearly as difficult as I feared, or as others endure. That is all because of your care and faithfulness. Prayers work, friends. The next six months will be radiation and immunotherapy, and then it’s DONE. Halleluia. Already starting to feel my energy coming back, and though I know I won’t be 100% for a long time yet, I fully expect to be better. Thanks, too, for your leadership and teamwork in keeping our ministries strong and healthy. Epworth is SUCH an important part of our community, and you are a source of light and hope.

This month is a special one, for a whole bunch of reasons. A bunch of different historical events
mark June as a time of welcoming the outcast, of healing divisions, of moving toward perfection in love. The first Memorial Day was in June, held by a group of newly-freed slaves who wanted to honor those who had given their lives to save them. June 19, also known as “Juneteeth,” is the day slaves were officially freed in the last holdout state of Texas. June 12 is National Loving Day, which marks the day in 1967 when interracial marriage was finally made legal. And though it started with something ugly and violent, June has become a celebration of love, acceptance, and diversity in Pride celebrations all over the world. In worship we will be singing and praising God for loving us all, with good old hymns and gospel songs, many of the best of which come from the Black gospel tradition. Like Standing in the Need of Prayer, which we will sing this week.

Like many African American spirituals, God only knows when Standing in the Need of Prayer was written, and by whom. As far as I can tell, it was first published in 1925, but it had been sung for decades before that. Here is a quote from an anonymous enslaved person, about this song:

I pray now and just tell God to take me and do his will, for he knows every secret of my heart. He knows what we stand most in need of before we ask for it, and if we trust him, he will give us what we ought to have in good season (Johnson, 1969, p. 58; cited in Guenther, 2016, p. 124).

            We all need it, don’t we? Every one of us, standing in the need of prayer, trusting God to help us in trouble and grow our hearts to love God and one another truer and better. May our prayers this week (and always) bring us ever closer to the Lord our God, and to perfection in love.

Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

Judges: Lessons from the Worst Book in the Bible

Part 2: A Smashing Salvation

This week, we continue our worship series through the strange, strange  book of Judges. There are some of the most well-known stories in scripture there (like Sampson and Delilah), and also some very, very weird stuff. Some violent and hard to understand stuff. Some wild and wonderful characters. It will be good to study, and good to talk about as we look for the wisdom and the grace of God in it. This week, we will hear the story of Deborah and Barak and Jael in Judges 4-5. See you there!

 

After worship, stay for coffee and fellowship, and then adult Sunday School. Stay tuned for info about kids Sunday School and new Bible studies beginning!

Ordinary People, Strangely Warmed

 May 24, 2021

 

Happy Aldersgate Day church family, and friends near and far!

Probably none but the most dedicated church nerd would know what Aldersgate Day is, so lemme explain. First, some background.

John Wesley, Methodism’s grumpy but faithful founder, was raised by an Anglican priest and his wife, and grew up to be an Anglican priest himself. While in university completing his education, and before he was officially ordained, he and his brother Charles (who also eventually became an Anglican priest) started up the “Holy Club” that would become the foundation of a major revitalization of the church. Rather than just leaving one’s Christian faith in church on Sunday, the brothers and those who joined them longed for a real, vital, lifegiving faith that made a real impact on individuals’ lives. They covenanted to pray together, to confess their sins to each other, and to follow Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 25 by visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and caring in other ways for those in need.

These class meetings became a rapidly growing movement, and after a few years the Wesley brothers went to the colonies to “evangelize the natives” and start their successful movement there. In 1735 they landed in Savanna, Georgia to serve a church there at the invitation of James Oglethorpe, who had founded the colony. It didn’t go well. 

Two years later, John was kicked out of Georgia and headed back to England, discouraged and feeling that he had lost his faith. Having encountered on the voyage a group of German Christians known as Moravians, and being very impressed with their faith, he found himself on May 24, 1738 at worship at a Moravian church in Aldersgate Street in London. There, during a sermon on the book of Romans, he writes that he felt assurance of Jesus’ love for him for the very first time.

 

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

 

Can you imagine? After being raised a Christian, and spending 12 years as an ordained priest, and leading an explosively successful movement that was revitalizing the church in profound ways, he just now truly felt that he was loved and saved by Jesus. And that, beloved, is Aldersgate Day.

Our Christian history is filled with imperfectly faithful people who are loved and used by God. So if you ever question your own faith, your own value, your own belovedness, remember Aldersgate Day. And may your heart be strangely warmed.

Singing our great Redeemer’s praise with far more than a thousand tongues,

Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

Ordinary People in the Hands of an Extraordinary God

This week, we begin our study of the book of Judges. There are some of the most well-known stories in scripture there, and also some very, very weird stuff. Some violent and hard to understand stuff. Some wild and wonderful characters. It will be good to study, and good to talk about as we look for the wisdom and the grace of God in it. See you there!

 

After worship, stay for coffee and fellowship! A bunch of wonderful folks have signed up to provide goodies, and set up and clean up so that we can spend time together. As we continue to observe Covid protocols, we will have masked and gloved servers to give you your refreshments, and we encourage everyone to keep friendly distance from those outside your household. The rules are a bit vague right now, so let’s grant each other an extra measure of grace and kindness as we navigate it all.

Baseball, Pentecost, and Heaven on Earth

 May 18, 2021

 

Happy almost-birthday Church family, and friends near and far!

This Sunday is Pentecost, when we celebrate with the church around the world and across time, in nearly every known language, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Church. It is, hands down, my favorite church holiday. Yes, much more than Christmas and Easter. Which makes me a church nerd, I realize, but here we are. If you are reading this on our website, you might like to click on the latest newsletter, where you will find an excerpt of an interview about the Holy Spirit and Pentecost with Dr Jack Levinson of Perkins School of Theology. Check it out!

In the meantime, let's talk about baseball.

Near the end of the movie “Moneyball,” as Billy Beane is grappling with tough decisions and an emotional collision of success and failure, he says “It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.” I’ve never been a huge baseball fan myself until kinda recently, so I’m still learning a lot, but he’s right. And what I’m about to write might sound over-romantic. But this letter isn’t about baseball. It’s about the church.

See, in last night’s game against the Nats, two excellent and well-loved former Cubs players returned to Wrigley Field for the first time to play against their former teammates. They both got standing ovations from Cubs fans, and a lot of welcome and affection from Cubs players. Mr Kenny Coval was telling me a similar story the other day about the Cardinals. Apparently this is normal in baseball! It happens all the time! I mean…I just…I find that incredible. And just the coolest thing ever.

It makes me think of other things, too. Like the way players of all kinds, on every team, cheer for each other when they make a great play, and stand by each other when they don’t. The camaraderie of competitors as they chat together between pitches. Their playfulness with each other, on opposing teams, even while being fierce competitors. I grew up on football, not baseball, and that is a WHOLE different ballgame (heh). Now obviously it isn’t always all sweetness and light; there is plenty of normal competitive frustration and some occasional poor behavior, too. But it seems to me as a newbie to the whole thing that there is a culture of respectfulness and grace that is evidently nurtured and expected in baseball, and I find it all shocking, in the best way.

I’m probably not explaining it very well, but here’s the thing. In this life, and in the church, we can walk through life as though it’s a competition between the good guys and the bad guys. As though everyone who isn’t with us is against us. As though everywhere around us are sides we need to take, and people and circumstances we need to be prepared to fight. 

Or, we can recognize that we are all in this together, and we do better when we ALL do better. We can stand and fall and play and work together, and love one another as Christ first loved us. We can see each other, even when our perspectives seem diametrically opposed, as fellow humans, all known and loved by God. We can refuse to participate in making enemies, and instead we can be the Body of Christ in a way that is marked by humility, empathy, understanding, and grace. If we did that, especially in this polarized and bitter day and age, I suspect we would shock everyone around us in the best way.

And thereby, bring a little heaven to earth.

Come Holy Spirit.

          Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

Pentecost Sunday: Come, Holy Spirit

It’s Pentecost!! Well, almost. We have been spending the past few weeks praying about and thinking about the way Jesus’ disciples and apostles lived and worked as people of the Resurrection. This Sunday, we celebrate where it all started, enter into the mystery and power of the Holy Spirit, and celebrate the birthday of the church. See you there!

 

After worship, we will share in-person coffee and fellowship. After more than a year of Covid restrictions it has been very good to enjoy each other’s company in person once again. We are so thankful that almost all of us have received our vaccinations, to make this possible. As we continue to observe Covid protocols, we will have masked and gloved servers to give you your refreshments, and we encourage everyone to keep as much distance as makes you feel most comfortable. The rules are a bit vague right now, so let’s grant each other an extra measure of grace and kindness as we navigate it all.