Pastor's Page
February 2012
The Pillars of Our Vision
What I want to share with you this second month in the new year is the “strategic plan” we are seriously preparing for in the organization of our nearly fifty plus ministries in Damascus Church. The framework in the Beacon this month begins to embody what we have been talking about in the Council of Ministries, Pastor Parish Committee and staff after the work of the Long Range Steering Committee’s mission statement which we adopted almost two years ago. You know it by now. Devoted Servants, Drawn to Jesus, Dedicated to Making Disciples.
We are using the term “pillars” for the three major settings forwhich we see our ministries being organized.
The first pillar is Worship Arts, which includes music, Wesley Guild acolytes and crucifers, ushers and hospitality, communion stewards, Academy of St. Cecilia, drama and puppetry, Fourth Sunday Concert Series, Living Christmas Tree, Sounds for Glory: Organ Renovation Project, etc.
The second pillar is Christian Formation, which includes Sunday School and education, Evangelism and welcoming of new members, Pleasant Plains Preschool, Adult ministries, Youth Ministries, Children ministries, United Methodist Women, United Methodist Men, Family Ministries, retreats, Vacation Bible School, Young at Heart, Walk to Emmaus, etc.
The third pillar consists of outreach or mission work and contains Missional Service and Health and Wholeness. Missional Service includes Faith Connections ( formerly DELAI ), The Beacon, Church and Society, Entre Culturas (Between Cultures, our Nicaragua mission), Action in Montgomery, Volunteers in Mission, Board of Childcare, Learning Academy, Computer/Website, Earth Stewards, Holiday Baskets, Meals on Wheels, Summer Youth Mission Tours, etc. Health and Wholeness, includes Stephen Ministry, Caring Ministries, Small Groups, Earth Angels, Pastoral Counseling, Blood Drives and Health Screenings, Prayer Shawl Ministry,Funeral Luncheons, First Place 4 Health, Health and Welfare, etc.
Related to all these areas are four major undergirding Christian callings and conducts that need to be lifted up and kept before the congregation. They are discipleship, evangelism, stewardship and spiritual gifts.
As we work through this insightful “pillar” organization, we are thinking about job descriptions, staffing, and lay organization, and we will address these issues in the coming months. It is a joy to know that our Body in Christ has so many “blessings of ministries” that keep us growing and transforming the world.
I invite you to read the full Vision Statement on our website at http://www.damascusumc.org/worship/Values,_Mission,_Vision.php!
Walter G. Edmonds
P. S. This Sunday, February 5 is the day we recognize and acknowledge the outstanding “behind-the-scenes” work of the Learning Academy under the principal leadership of Marlin Heckendorn.
P.P.S. Sunday, February 19 is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday before Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. As the last gesture of the Epiphany Season, come to the wonderful Madrigal dinners on Friday and Saturday, February 17 and 18 at 7pm. They will be delightful and great fun.
January 2012
Never too late for a Christmas Story
I must begin my telling of the last Christmas story for 2011 – 2012 with some feedback from Christmas morning’s service at DUMC. For the 80 some of us who attended that 10am Service, the story of the "twin baby Jesus" going to the home of a very needy woman and her four children in a mid-western town will hold our hearts forever- a true story by the way from Christmas, 1943. The number to dial, 7162 !
The story I share with you on this Epiphany Sunday is another true one that follows the lead of Gietzen’s If You Are Missing Baby Jesus. It suggests the real call of the Epiphany season to "bring the light of Christ to another." It is by Edmund W. Ostrander, School of "Hire" Learning.
I wrinkled by nose and sniffed the air as I closed the classroom windows; still I couldn’t identify the faint odor. It was Friday afternoon, my first week of teaching, and- although already in love with my hard-working students- I was exhausted and ready to leave the building.
For the most part, my twenty-four fifth graders were the children of seasonal agricultural workers on Long Island. Their parents were employed at the local duck farm, many on welfare. They lived in converted duck shacks, with outside privies, cold-water hand pumps and potbellied, wood-burning stoves.
So odors weren’t that unusual.
However, by Monday morning the foul smell overpowered the hot room. Like a dog scenting its prey, I sniffed until I found it: a rotting sandwich in Jimmy Miller’s desk, the bread smeared with rancid butter and the meat green. I rewrapped the sandwich, put it back in his desk and threw open all the windows before my students filed in.
At noon, the children got their lunch bags and fled to the playground picnic table. I saw Jimmy unwrap his sandwich and pretend to eat. Making certain the kids didn’t see, he wrapped it again, put it in his pocket and slipped it back into his desk when the class returned.
My stomach knotted in empathy over Jimmy’s poverty…and his pride.
After a private discussion, another teacher and I "hired" Jimmy for classroom chores like cleaning the chalkboards. As payment, we treated Jimmy to lunch with us each day. We also encouraged him to study and provided him with after-school tutoring. Before long, Jimmy took pride in his special lunches and earned top grades in all his subjects. As word traveled through the faculty grapevine, Jimmy was "hired" by each year’s succeeding teacher.
After a time, however, I accepted another teaching position and moved away.
It was on a trip back eleven years later that my friend Chris asked if I remembered Jimmy. "He’s attending college now and is home for Christmas break. When I mentioned that you were coming, he asked to see you."
"Really! He was just a little shaver when I knew him."
"He’s grown some since then," Christ tried to hide a smile. "Says he has a Christmas present for you."
"A gift? For me?"
Jimmy drove up a bit later, and I walked out to meet him. At 6’6" and pushing 280 pounds, he certainly was no longer a little shaver.
"Happy holidays," Jimmy stuck out an oversized paw. "I hear you got your doctorate. Congratulations! Do you mind if I call you Doc?"
"It’s all right with me, Jimmy." I tilted my head and looked up the full length of him. "What have you been doing?"
"Well, I got a four-year football scholarship, and I’ve made the dean’s list every semester. I graduate in June."
"Great work. I bet you’ve signed a pro contract already. Big bucks you know."
"Yeah, I’ve had a few offers, but I’m not goin’ into the pros."
"No kidding. Why not, Jimmy?"
"I have other plans."
"Oh?"
"I finished my student teaching last week, Doc." He smiled when I registered surprise. "I’ve decided to be a teacher-just like you." For a quiet moment, Jimmy gazed over my shoulder…and into the past. "I know you fellas invented those classroom jobs for me." He cleared his throat. "You helped me keep my dignity, and I’ve never forgotten."
I felt a lump in my own throat as Jimmy looked me full in the face.
"When teachers really care, students know it," Jimmy said. "That’s why I want to teach. I want to be there for my students the way you were there for me."
What a Christmas gift, I thought. And a little teary eyed, we shook hands.
No longer teacher and pupil, we were now two men with the same hopes- and the same goals.
To me this is a perfect story for keeping the "epiphany of Jesus" alive in our heart and our will. It is to offer "the baby Jesus" yet again with the trust that we are doing the right thing. May the stories of Christmas "play out" in your spiritual life all though 2012.
- Walter G. Edmonds
P. S. Thanks to the generosity of our congregation, the balance needed to pay our bills for 2011 was reduced from $11,000 to $1,000 during the last week of December. In the words of Linda Motter, "Thanks be to God."