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May 14, 2010
Volume 157, Number 1
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Imagine No Malaria event draws hundreds
 Christian rock band Jars of Clay performed for the Imagine No Malaria kickoff event in Austin and used their platform to talk about the disease that kills 1 million people every year.
up to hear Jars of Clay,
learn about disease
By Rachel L. Toalson
Managing Editor
It’s a treatable disease, a curable one, but it steals the lives of 1 million people—mostly children—every year.
Which is exactly why it must be eradicated, said Dan Haseltine, lead singer for the Grammy and Dove Award winning band Jars of Clay.
“We’re excited to be a part of (Imagine no Malaria) because more people need to be aware of this,” Haseltine said. “People are dying from this disease. But when we hear a little more about someone’s story, we can take our resources and do something about it.
“No mother or father wants the story of watching their child die from what is treatable. We have to do something about it.”
The group headlined a kickoff event April 25 for The United Methodist Church’s Imagine No Malaria campaign, an initiative that seeks to raise $75 million to eliminate malaria from sub-Saharan Africa by 2015. More than 1,000 people gathered at the Texas State Capitol in Austin for the free concert and to hear more about the campaign.
The event featured informational booths, face painting and temporary tattoo stations and local music and food.
Austin District confirmands also received their crosses and were confirmed by Bishop Jim Dorff at the event. During the ceremony, Dorff told confirmands—sixth and seventh graders—that Imagine No Malaria will no longer be just a slogan but a fact by the time they graduate.
The Austin event kicked off The United Methodist Church’s worldwide fundraising efforts for Imagine No Malaria and also celebrated the success of the initiative’s pilot efforts in the Austin District and the Southwest Texas Conference. Churches in the district have raised $1.2 million in cash and pledges since September.
At the close of the event, Bishop Thomas Bickerton of Pittsburgh, chair of the Imagine No Malaria initiative, announced that $10,031,452 had been donated or pledged as of April 25.
 Bishop Jim Dorff and Bishop Thomas Bickerton of Pittsburgh, model their Imagine No Malaria "tatoos."
He added that insecticide-treated bed nets and educational materials provided through Nothing But Nets is already making a difference in malaria deaths.
Dorff said last summer he asked 110 churches to participate in the Imagine No Malaria effort.
“We got 120 and then district by district, church by church, you’ve been able to participate in a variety of ways,” he said. “Our entire annual conference embraced the opportunity to lead the way by supporting Imagine No Malaria.”
Throughout the event, the audience heard video stories from conference members who had personal experiences with malaria before it was eliminated from the United States in the 1940s.
The Rev. Bobbie Kaye Jones, Austin District superintendent, said that if there had been no cure for malaria, she probably would not be here. Her mother survived two severe childhood malaria cases.
The Rev. Ken Dahlberg of Sierra Vista spent a summer in Somalia when he was 16 and contracted the disease.
“It was the most awful thing I’d ever been through,” he said. “With an additional 50 years of living, it is still the most awful thing I’ve ever been through.
“I cannot imagine a child or a mother or a pregnant mother that does not have access to treatment or the tools of prevention. That’s why I’m a stalwart supporter of Imagine No Malaria.”
The members of Jars of Clay said people just have to realize that each individual life can make a difference.
“The things we do in our corner of the world affect people elsewhere,” said Stephen Mason, electrict guitarist for the band. “The decisions we make affect the people on the other side of the world. Making a difference is to say ‘I care.’”
“If my kid were sick with malaria, I would want to call on a neighbor to help me,” said keyboardist Charlie Lowell. “We want to look on Africans as our neighbors and see how we can help them.”
“Nobody wants to live in a world where they watch the people they care about die of something that is preventable and curable,” said electrict guitarist Matt Odmark. “It takes creativity and advocacy, but the opportunity is out there for us to make a difference.”
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Why we are the way we are: the need for historical context
The United Methodist Church, like other organizations that have survived many generations, has continually re-created itself to meet the needs of the present day. The current version of that exercise is playing out in the efforts of the Call to Action committee created by the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table. You can get information about it at www.umc.org.
Our current mode of operation has been in existence since 1968-70, when we merged the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church into The United Methodist Church. As a result of merger legislation, the denomination organized its functions at the top into what are now 13 separate “general church” entities that each had a separate portfolio and a separate board. A number of the agencies had a long history in the Methodist tradition, such as the United Methodist Publishing House, which carries forward a tradition of publishing begun by John Wesley. Other agencies have responded to new concerns acted upon by the General Conference, such as the Commission on the Status and Role of Women.
Dominant themes in the discussions I was a part of last summer on the initial Call to Action committee centered around the “institutionalization” of the UMC and whether some of our general agency structures could be rolled into others to create a more efficient organization. We worried about the inability of The United Methodist Church to react to crisis or change in our mission on anything like an immediate basis. The only structure we have that is able to do that is the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), which is renowned for its quick response time and able assistance to those caught in a physical crisis, wherever they are in the world.
The history of our general agencies go all the way back to just after the Civil War, when there were several private organizations, run by Methodist laymen, that carried out the mission of the Church in the world. Historical documents in the UMC archives indicate that the Council of Bishops at that time (early 1870s) wanted to be able to audit the activities and uses of funds by the mission organizations and, succinctly put, an agreement was reached to bring the entities into the Church in return for laymen being given voice and vote at General Conference. You can read about it in Chapter 23 of a book called "Perspectives on American Methodism - Interpretive Essays", a 1993 publication of Kingswood Books, from Abingdon Press.
In early Wesleyanism, clergy led the spiritual side of church matters, and laity led in "temporal" affairs, including finances. That began to change after the 1872 General Conference, and as the laity have accepted responsibility for half of all authority in the Church, so have the clergy. Our problem has become that we have spread the authority over so many different boards, councils, the Table, and General Conference, that the Church has no visible dominant leadership core. It is in part a trust issue; who are we willing to allow to exercise that authority? The next General Conference will be asked to move toward a more cohesive approach to setting day-to-day direction for the Church, while keeping control of policy in itself. As leaders of the Annual Conference, we need to help our delegation be ready to address that problem in a way that will truly advance the cause of Christ in this world.
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Revival of God’s movement has come once again
It happened again. I feel like a broken record (or a broken iPod) skipping songs, repeating lyrics, saying the same thing over and over again. But I just can’t help it because it happened again.
It happened when we were gathered at Youth Worship Conference. This new event was birthed out of 48 years of Youth Choir Rally and is now the expansion of that event into a full-blown weekend worship rally for students in the Southwest Texas Conference. It was at YWC that it happened again.
What exactly happened I have no idea. I mean, if I could see into the spiritual realm, know the mind of God, I might be able to clearly explain. But I can’t, so I will offer you a picture of what took place.
It’s a picture of a sanctuary on Saturday night, 300 participants sitting in silence, waiting for the worship team to finish their prep work of praying and come and lead worship. I was in that worship team and we weren’t at all ready. What I mean is our hearts weren’t ready. Our bodies were tired, our spirits distracted, our hearts not in it. But it was time, nevertheless, to get in there and lead the service.
And as the worship leader was walking toward his guitar and preparing for the full band to blast out the sanctuary, God interrupted. It’s more like a great NFL interception—the safety coming in out of nowhere to take the ball and change the course of the game. And believe me, our game had just changed.
The word from God was to go to the piano, just the worship leader, with a mic and nothing else. No words, no fanfare, no “big band,” no expectations. To sit and play and lead God’s people in worship.
Needless to say the altar that night was wet with the tears of God’s people, weeping in repentance, receiving healing, restoring lives, reliving the Great Romance of God’s love for his people.
I must have laid hands on a hundred students, whispering in their ears, “You are forgiven…the grace of the Lord is upon you…you are pleasing in God’s sight…your life matters to God…”
And revival of God’s movement came again. I boast in the Lord because I had nothing at all to do with it. Almost 50 of our churches were represented—50 churches that will be impacted by students returning to retell the story once again—that God is alive and moving.
It happened again. God never seems to get tired of meeting with his people. Touching hearts, healing souls, redeeming lives, advancing the Kingdom. It happened again and I am so glad that it did.
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Peace With Justice offering to be
May 30, benefits justice ministries
Bishop Jim Dorff and Wanda Holcombe, Southwest Texas Conference Peace with Justice coordinator, are encouraging churches to participate in Peace with Justice Sunday on May 30 to help ensure that the Southwest Texas Conference justice ministries are sustained.
The offering witnesses to God’s demand for a faithful, just, disarmed and secure world.
Peace with Justice Sunday is one of the six denomination-wide Special Sunday offerings. Established by the 1988 General Conference, the denomination’s highest policy-making body, Peace with Justice Sunday supports programs that advocate peace and justice at home and around the world.
Half of the offering is retained in the annual conference to fund local peace with justice programs. Half is remitted to the General Board of Church & Society to help fund United States and global work in social action, public-policy education and advocacy.
Last year, a total of $3,500 funded four projects in the Southwest Texas Conference, including Lifeline Ministry at First UMC, Boerne; Brewing Justice, Eco Tree at First UMC, Laredo; The Journey Home—Change the Home, Change the Cycle at Simpson UMC, Austin; and the Organic Community Garden Ministry at Bethany UMC, Austin.
Boerne’s Lifeline Ministry is one that sought to build personal relationships with families in the community and identify and provide for needs as the relationship developed. Monies from last year’s offering have helped the ministry buy a laptop on which leaders are creating a database to better monitor the ministry and the families with which participants are building relationships.
The ministry currently has four family/family friend matches but expects the number to grow to 10 in the next month. The grant application was for the purchase of hardware and software to help leaders track the activities of the matched families as well as the congregational resources available to them, such as transportation, tutoring, financial counseling and more.
Laredo’s Brewing Justice Eco Tree sought to create a wooden Brewing Justice Eco Tree to house crockery and cups for each member and guest and serve Fair Trade coffee. They also wanted to implement recycling bins throughout the facility. Grant monies have helped them reach both goals.
Church leaders brew coffee in pots that automatically cut off when not in use and have decreased the amount of coffee brewed and discarded. Reusable coffee cups will be donated by congregation members, plus 10 for guests, helping to eliminate the paper/Styrofoam disposables.
Recycling bins have also been purchased and implemented, leaders said. In addition, a committee of the Ministries Council was formed and investigated the feasibility of other “Save the Planet/Go Green” projects that it has taken to the congregation. Many changes have been implemented already.
Simpson UMC’s The Journey Home, sought to assist women offenders at the Del Valle Travis County Correctional Facility transition from an institutional mentality to one that is capable of living in a free community for an infinite length of time. The ministry’s mission was to provide women with 365 days of guidance and referral services, empowering women by helping them achieve independence.
Bethany UMC’s Organic Community Garden Ministry sought to introduce organic gardening practices into the congregation and community and provide a high-quality, locally grown produce to needy members of the community.
Right now, grant monies have helped Bethany finalize a location for the communal square foot garden and is getting the area ready for the larger community garden (which will include individual plots as well as one communal plot that will be located at The Rock UMC, Cedar Park.
Leaders held an organic square foot gardening workshop Jan. 31 at Bethany, which 46 people attended. They are working with St. Marks UMC and its food bank (which accepts fresh produce) to coordinate drop-offs later in the season when people may have extra harvest.
For questions concerning the Peace with Justice offering, contact Wanda Holcombe at wholcomb@umcswtx.org or (512)619-3469.
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San Antonio District news
Physical, spiritual droughts are unavoidable
Saturday morning the rain was pouring. Started raining an hour before I had to leave, so I was pretty sure it would stop raining before I would need to traverse the distance to my car – which was, of course, outside the garage! Nope, it did not stop. As I drove to Northwest Hills UMC, I remained fairly confident that it would stop before I would have to leave the confines of my car and get to the sanctuary. All this rain made it hard for me to remember that just last year we were in a drought! What drought, I asked myself!
By the time I arrived in the narthex I was wet through three layers, but at least I was in place. What a powerful moment of grace awaited us all. Thanks to Northwest Hills, Pastor David and all the “hands” that hosted the 2010 Confirmation Rally! Thanks to each pastor who fulfilled his/her Disciplinary responsibility to see that Confirmation Classes are taught. Thanks to the pastors, sponsors, parents and other adult disciples who sacrificed throughout the term of the classes and those who braved the rain to attend the Rally. Thanks to those adolescents who in a world that offers so many tasty options for time and talent, participated in the classes and discovered the means through which God showers saving grace upon the lives of humanity.
As a pastor I have heard the age-old criticism people level against the church saying that their congregation never taught them the faith necessary for the troubles they faced later in life. The word “later” is always a giveaway. When queried, the response reveals that the one making the complaint about the church’s inadequacy had gone through Confirmation Training and had hung their faith on the wall as if it was a one-time accomplishment. Been there; done that; bought the t-shirt (or in this case, got the cross).
Rev. Trawick welcomed these water-logged Confirmands and, hardly stopping to take a breath, went on to explicate that Confirmation is not an end. Rather, it is a beginning of full, professing membership as disciples of Jesus Christ – and that being a disciple is, by definition, to be one who is always learning more. Confirmation Class might end; but learning the means and manners of Christian discipleship is a never-ending journey – at least until we gather in that never-ending Kingdom and are perfected at last!
I believe droughts of physical nature and droughts of spiritual nature are relatively unavoidable. Though humanity has imagined solving the droughts of physical nature, there is truly not much we can do. However, when it comes to droughts of a spiritual nature, God has given us free moral agency – the freedom to choose. When a spiritual drought comes our way, those of us who thought Christian learning ended with Confirmation training just might choose to blame the church for not preparing us for the travails that come. On the other hand, those who choose to continue the journey of discipleship by learning and preparing just might find ourselves thanking God for the faith, strength and hope to manage the ship of our soul when the storms of life are raging against it. Some can blame drought on so many different causes; some will simply look around and say, “What drought?”
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District Happenings
 Rev. Carl Rohlfs presenting crosses to the Confirmation Class of 2010.
Worship and Celebration Reception
Please mark your calendar for a very special event on May23 at 6 pm. Our District Superintendant, Rev. Carl Rohlfs will be delivering a spirit filled sermon and he will be joined by Rev. Germaine Tropez Mathis as the liturgist with music provided by The Voices of Dixon Choir from Germaine’s church, ET Dixon UMC. The worship in the sanctuary will be followed by a celebration reception in the Gathering Place hosted by the Adult Discipleship Work Area. This evening promises to be exciting because of the expected presence of the Holy Spirit, Carl, Germaine, and choir from ET Dixon UMC who will all be there to remind us of our heritage as Christians. Pentecost is considered to be one of the holiest of days of the liturgical calendar because it is the day that the Christian church was born. On the day of Pentecost, the frightened and confused disciples who had been in hiding after the crucifixion, were miraculously transformed by the Holy Spirit into bold apostles and were given the Great Commission to go out and spread the Gospel among the people of the four corners of the world. Today, Christianity is the world’s largest religion with an estimated 2.2 billion believers, about one third of the world population. Christianity began its spread among the nations of the world on Pentecost almost 2,000 years ago. Come join us in the celebration of the power of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Christian church.
Showers of blessings
On April 17th the rains came down and a flood of blessings came up as Confirmands from churches around the San Antonio District came together to celebrate their growth in faith and to be welcomed and recognized by the greater church. These young people who have taken the next step in their faith development came forward to be yoked, both literally with an olive wood cross, and symbolically into service to Christ. They felt the weight of their decision to become disciples of Jesus Christ as the District Superintendant, District Lay Leader, pastor, parents, and sponsors all laid hands on each Confirmand as they received a blessing and a challenge to continue to grow in faith and service.
Following a theme of “Gone Fishin’?,” the morning was filled with lively music and praise led by the Northwest Hills praise band and a powerful call to witness and service by Rev. Carl Rohlfs, District Superintendant. While Bishop Dorff was unable to attend this year’s event, he sent a message, by video, of celebration and welcome. In explaining his need to be in Africa as part of the “Imagine No Malaria” campaign, he provided a real glimpse into what it means to be a part of a connectional church. He challenged each Confirmand to look beyond themselves to a life of discipleship and service to a world that needs to hear the Good News.
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Victoria District news
Hebrews 11:1 – 10
The primary task of the local church is:
Reaching People Where they are.
Receiving People just as they are.
Relating them to God.
Nurturing them in the faith.
Sending them out.
Having Fun!
The primary task of the local church is taith development.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. John 4:10
According to Waldo Beach and H. Richard Nieburh in their 1973 book entitled Christian Ethics, they say that Martin Luther (1483-1546) is “the key figure”, the dominant leader in that profound movement of life and thought, the Reformation, which marked the end of the medieval and the beginning of the modern period in the history of Christianity. Though conjoined with the Renaissance, the rise of nationalities, the growth of capitalism, and the development of modern science, the Reformation was fundamentally a religious revolution. It resulted in a great popular revival of Christian faith and life, in an unprecedented influence of Biblical history and thought on the Western mind, in the adoption of new ethical ideas and ideals, in the organization of Protestant churches. It later goes on to say that the interrelations between the religious and the cultural, political, and economic movements of the periods are so complex, Luther’s personality is so challenging, and his activities were so diversified that no consensus on the significance of his achievements is likely to be reached.
Nevertheless Luther’s ideas and the Reformation impulse were revolutionary in a large sense, for they sought to base Christian Faith and practice directly on Biblical foundations without much concern for the conservation of the tradition and usage’s developed during the fourteen centuries”. “It later says that the gospel, the central message of Scriptures as Luther had discovered it in the course of desperate personal struggles supplied him with a new beginning and led him to call for a more radical reform of the church and Christian life than did his contemporaries. Hence the starting point of the Reformation is to be sought in that encounter with the gospel which marred Luther’s personal conversation”. As we stand looking over into the promised land of this twenty-first century wondering what challenges we will face, wondering if it will be the investment of a better generation the Gospel of Jesus Christ had better be at the center of all that we do. Men and women like Luther stood on the bridge remembering the darkness of the past remember the corruptions of the church when it worked with the state. Luther remembered the leaches of science when science was magic. Luther saw the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the modern age. But we are seeing the Renaissance of a new period also. We, too, are seeing the corruption of our church officials, and the fall of government officials and the rise of nationalities in the context of these United States of America. The growth of capitalism is no longer with the huddling masses it is with the affluent few. And one has to look hard to find a moral and ethical voice proclaiming the ideas and ideals of a Christian Culture within, in the House of Representatives, the Congress, the White House, or the Supreme Court. People are frightened about everything. The color of people’s skin, their sexual preferences, the state, and federal militias, immigrants, the growth of capitalism, the devastation to the environment, and the immorality in a runaway scientific research. Also, it does not seem as though anyone is keeping track of the Gospel in the interrelations of the religious, Christian, United Methodist influences on culture, politics, the economy, and the relationships between practice and faith beyond the four walls of the local Church. But despite all of the apparent, clear, conspicuous, discernible, distinct, glaring, indubitable, manifestations that are obvious, open, overt, palpable, patented, perceptible, plain, tangible, transparent, unmistakable, and visible, I believe that there is redemption and salvation to the nations. I believe beyond hope that there are hopeful insights to the kingdom of God that give us a glimpse into the new Renaissance, a third Great Awakening, that will help us eradicate fears and I believe this because of Gods great love for us. The same God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace that you have been and are being saved. Ephesians 2:4-7 says that God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10. Well folks many of our problems are not demographic, ethnographic, racial, feminist, sexist, they are spiritual issues.
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