April showers, winds and hailstorms have beat down the flowers

Last night I preached at my 2nd revival. In a little Creek church in the middle of nowhere. There were rock covered dirt roads. My mom was driving kinda like one of the Dukes of Hazard and it scared the crap out of me. I have been away from home too long...

So I preached at Wewoka Indian UMC. At the first revival I was asked to preach at, I had asked the theme. I was told there was no theme and that I should just pick a favorite theme of mine and go with it. I had a little trouble with that and I think I tried to preach the entire Bible in 40 minutes.

I was able to narrow my focus this time around and went only 25 mins. I preached on an Easter theme and talked about the empty tomb and wild turbulent Pentecostal winds of change. I had fun last night. I made it through the alter call with little trouble. I even had a little kid come and ask for prayer which makes me glad because I think I am a better minister to children than to adults.

Oh, and I am on vacation too. Til tomorrow. I probably shouldn't have agreed to preach but I thought it would be kinda fun. I have a weird idea of what fun is these days.

In random news, I also agreed to preach at Student Forum of the UMC in Washington, DC on Memorial day weekend. I am kinda excited about that one too. Mostly because I get to see and work with a good friend of mine, Delyn. Yea!!! We are playing Tom Petty during the Saturday evening worship service. I think doing church is more fun as a group effort.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be in on the South Central jurisdiction episcopal interviews for my conference. We interviewed potential bishops from our area. That's the great thing about being from a tiny conference. I get the chance to be a part of almost anything that is going on in my conference. We interviewed 8 of the 9 candidates and the sad thing about being from a tiny conference is that when asked what they knew about the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, almost every began with, I looked on your website last night...

I think I would be more understanding of their lack of knowledge if they hadn't been from the same jurisdiction as us. At the same time, I do know that the Oklahoma conference is barely aware of us and we are in the same state. In Clinton, where my kids church is, the other Methodist church in town was unaware that we existed even though it has been there since the 1950s. I am just not sure what to think about that. Is it lack of effort on our part or theirs or both? And a couple of them admitted that in their UM churches they do not observe special Sundays. What?!? How is that even possible that they were not embarrassed to admit that? I try very hard to make sure that we observe those days and we are tiny churches compared to the churches that they served...my 25/35 to their 500/800 member churches. One boasted of a 9 million dollar sanctuary but the special Sundays get ignored. Does that seem wrong to you? I was a little sick after the interviews of trying to explain that we in our conference apparently lived in a completely different world than they did.

I was trying explain this by telling of the time that I ran out of money for gas. Rising gas prices, the 1.5 hour commute, the fact that I pay for everything out of my own pocket for the kids church, and even though I am making more as a seminary graduate the pay is still lower than any other pastor in the UM church, well, running out of money, its bound to happen from time to time.

I told the story to explain that this was a common problem for all pastors in OIMC, and more so for the people we serve, that this is the world we live in. I was telling the story with the candidate looking at me with horrified eyes, when his eyes filled up with tears and then I stopped talking because if someone cries, I usually do too, and my eyes started filling up too. We just started at each other for about a full minute. He told me he was sorry that had happened to me and I didn't get to tell him that this happens to all of us in OIMC.

I had to leave early that day so the next guy that came in, my gas money story was repeated and the next week that guy sent some money for me and another young pastor in my conference. I am not sure what to think about it because that was not my intention to get him to send me money. Also he was one whose large wealthy church does not observe special Sundays. I think I would have appreciated a letter from him saying that he understood the struggles of my conference and that he would see that his church would observe all the special Sundays which includes Native American Ministries Sunday.

But I leave on a high note with a story about my kids church, last Sunday. I pulled up to the parking lot and a group of them came running out calling my name. They were so excited to see me and to tell me happy late b-day. They had made me paper cut out butterflys with stickers on them and a card which all of them signed. Then they handed me a jewelry box and demanded I open it. Inside was a lapel pin that said Angel and an arrowhead necklace on top of cotton balls. Under the cotton balls was some money they had collected among themselves. $3.25. I think I told them when my birthday was back in October and had not mentioned it since. (I tend to think its tacky to tell people when my b-day is...) But they remembered. I wish all churches were as great as that kids church, maybe then I wouldn't be fighting so hard against ordination.