"Some of My Best Friends Are Women"

In a time when issues of inclusion/exclusion seem to be coming to a head, it is more and more common to hear this phrase that I thought was quite outdated. It starts like this, "Some of my best friends are _____________________" You fill in the blank. It's a way of saying "Yes, there is a problem, but it's not mine...I have this friend..."

I'm glad to be a part of something that in its best moments can embrace change (especially when 'change' isn't exactly our middle name!). The UMC has recognized full clergy rights for women for 50 years now. The first time I really knew a female pastor was in 1995 when Rev. Gayla Rapp became my pastor. God used her to change my life, and to rekindle in me a passion for Christ's church that had been close to extinction. I'm in professional ministry due to God's persistance and the love of many faithful people, this particular one will be placing the red stole around my neck as I'm ordained at annual conference this year.

There is cause to celebrate that God's Spirit would choose any of us for the work of the Kingdom. Once much more than 50% of believers were not considered fit for ordained ministry--I can't comprehend it, and in a way I'm thankful that I can't. For me, and many others, a church without women as pastors is not Church. Thank God we look a little bit more like the Kingdom of God then we did 50 years ago.

Jesus and People of the "Slums"

Once again, I'm too slow with the camera... I've become quite a connoisseur of church signs. I can spot heresy 2 blocks away, and have become concerned with the tax-exempt status of some partisan churches.

the following message graced a street corner here in Tullahoma for months, until appropriately, it was removed just in time for holy week.

Christ didn't take people out of the slums, he took the slums out of the people.

Alas, I didn't get a snapshot for you, and my dream of a coffee table book featuring such wisdom is slipping away. Trust me, it was there.

Of all times, during the season of Lent, this message spoke to a skeptical world a message they had already assumed--"Christ doesn't make a lick of difference in my life or in the world." OUCH church, that seems like a poor representation of a God who would give himself so that the world could have new life. Resurrection is bigger than tap dancing on the streets of gold. It is the power to transforms lives, to reconcile broken relationships, and to bring new life to dead places.

Christ did come to take people out of the slums, (oh, and he empowered the church with his Spirit that the transforming work could continue) we have the image of God stamped within us somewhere, and it can be restored--that's the hope we have in the Easter story.

P.S. Send me your favorites. Mine? -- "Your choice for eternity: extra crispy or well done."--classy