Out of my mind…

A couple of weeks ago, the NWYM Administrative Council met with clerks from our various Yearly Meeting boards to discuss Ministry Plans for the coming year. For me, it was an exciting weekend—getting to hear some of the prayerful hopes and inspired dreams of our people—as they seek to be a resource to our local churches and a witness to the world we inhabit. Seeing it on paper and hearing the clerks talk about it was pretty exciting. However, what really gets me excited is knowing that these plans will actually be put into action in the year to come. Continue reading …

Out of my mind…

NWYM Superintendent

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus

As I write on this day after Easter, I am mindful of the costly nature of God’s love and the lengths God went to in order to redeem a lost world and broken humans like you and me. What an amazing grace!

I suspect the cost to Jesus was even greater than we sometimes imagine. Beyond the agony of death, I wonder if the sheer grief of seeing human suffering—especially suffering caused by human evil—was overwhelming, disappointing and deeply frustrating. Continue reading …

Out of my mind…

This summer during our Yearly Meeting sessions, we will gather under the theme of “Bring Forth the Kingdom!” It is our call and will be our reminder to be about the agenda of Jesus, aligning our individual and communal life with the values of God’s Kingdom.

During a recent staff meeting, we invited Hal Thomas—who serves with his wife Nancy as NWYM ministers in Bolivia —to lead us in our time of worship. Hal chose to reflect on a similar Kingdom theme. During his devotional, Hal articulated a key insight that I think captures something important about living as Kingdom people. What Hal basically said is that the Kingdom life is the “normalness of God faithfully lived in the abnormality of this world.” Continue reading …

Out of my Mind…

Exploring the Kingdom

II Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

In case you haven’t noticed, I am not perfect. If this at all seems a surprising revelation to any of you, simply ask my children, wife and/or co-workers. They will confirm my report.

Most days, I find myself liberated rather than defeated by this reality. No longer am I crushed and dispirited by my own imperfection. Instead, I think I have truly come to treasure and rely on the grace that both saves us and, in the end, transforms us when we can do neither on our own power or merit.

Paradoxically…

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Out of my mind…Happy New Year to each of you! I am so excited about the coming year—trusting that God is going to guide us and empower us in new ways as we seek Jesus’ kingdom!

In this new year, our brand new boards for NWYM will really be kicking off their first-ever ministry plans. New people are being added to the NWYM staff as we work to expand and deepen our ministry to local churches and beyond. I have hope that there will be signs of new fruit from this ministry we have been called into together—new people finding Christ and welcomed into our local church communities, new churches being planted, new ways in which we are all increasingly transformed into Jesus’ likeness, new ground broken because our peacemaking, justice work, and compassion ministries are touching lives and needs in our world.

Continue reading …

Over the next several months, I will focus this space on exploring our identity as NWYM Friends. A clear message communicated throughout the vision and long-range planning process emphasized our need to relearn and reclaim our identity as Christ-centered Friends. Together, we believe we have something significant to offer the world as we are faithful to our particular calling as Jesus’ people.

Some of you may not know this, but NWYM has one of the longer Yearly Meeting sessions among any group of current Friends. I know this because I have attended other yearly meetings and because I get ribbed about it a good bit by other Friends superintendents and secretaries. There is one who especially likes to remind me HOW LONG we meet. In response, I’ve encouraged him to simply install a drive-up window for Friends in their Yearly Meeting…since they gather for such a brief amount of time.

Continue reading …

Over the next several months, I will focus this space on exploring our identity as NWYM Friends. A clear message communicated throughout the vision and long-range planning process emphasized our need to relearn and reclaim our identity as Christ-centered Friends. Together, we believe we have something significant to offer the world as we are faithful to our particular calling as Jesus’ people.

A few weeks ago, I spent most of a weekend in Sprague River, OR. It was the first time since I became superintendent that I got to visit that community. Over the last 2+ years, I’ve had many phone conversations and visits with their pastor, Bob Adams, and contact with other people in the Meeting, but there is nothing like sitting down together with Friends, seeing their faces, hearing their stories, and joining them in prayer and worship. Somehow in actually being together, the bond of community becomes more real and lasting.

Continue reading …

Over the next several months, I will focus this space on exploring our identity as NWYM Friends. A clear message communicated throughout the vision and long-range planning process emphasized our need to relearn and reclaim our identity as Christ-centered Friends. Together, we believe we have something significant to offer the world as we are faithful to our particular calling as Jesus’ people.

Several months ago, I tried to suggest that Friends have long confessed that we can both know and obey Jesus Christ. This, at least in my mind, is at the heart of our life and message and central to the shape and direction of our individual lives and communal witness.

Continue reading …