When I was in high school, our English teachers always assigned us books to read over the summer. They worried that our brains would atrophy over the course of three months if they didn’t assign us some rigorous reading, so they would pick three or four books for us to read at the beach or at the poolside or at home on the couch. You couldn’t get away with reading the Cliff Notes or watching the movie, either. When we returned to school in the fall, they would test us on these books and would ask questions that you could only answer if you’d read each and every page. Teachers have always been good at out-smarting their students.

At the end of the spring semester, we waited with anticipation and dread as our English teachers would hand out the “Summer Reading List.” Sometimes the list would include grueling, non-beach-friendly tomes like books like Plutarch’s Lives. Always there was a Shakespeare play like Romeo and Juliet or Othello. And often we had classics like The Sound and the Fury or fun stories like The Once and Future King. (Is it strange that I remember so many of these summer reading books?)

As much as we moaned and groaned about having to read real literature during the summer (whine, whine), I actually looked forward to getting that Summer Reading List every year. I’m a geek who loves books, and I enjoy reading books that people I respect tell me are good. So, I read every dang word of Plutarch’s Lives and am glad I did. Well, I’m glad now that I did. At the time, I did my share of whining.

If you are a geek who loves good books, or if you are looking for some good summer reading, I’d like to invite you over the next two months to open up the Old Testament and read 1 Kings and 2 Kings. This two-volume history tells us the story of what happened in Israel after the death of King David. We hear about people like Solomon, Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel, Elisha, the Queen of Sheba and all sorts of other colorful characters. There’s war and intrigue, faithfulness and betrayal, righteousness and evil. We get to see Elijah in a showdown on Mount Carmel. There is compassion and healing as well as selfishness and idolatry. In other words, there are some great stories captured in these two books.

These stories will be our focus in worship over the next two months. It’s been awhile since we’ve gathered around the Old Testament in worship, so we’re going to let the books of Kings be our foundation for most of the summer. Starting this Sunday with 1 Kings 8, we will follow the kings, queens and prophets of Israel and see how God worked with them or in spite of them. And hopefully their stories will inspire us to be more faithful in our own life with God.

There won’t be a test at the end of the summer, but if you take the time to read this ancient book I think you will be glad you did.

Where has the spring gone? I can hardly believe that we are in the middle of May already. It just sank in this morning that my kids only have a week and a half left of school. What’s more, this Sunday we will be celebrating our graduating seniors and commissioning our youth mission team for their trip to Sierra Leone at the end of the month. Goodness gracious, my head is spinning!

Well, before the summer kicks into high gear, I wanted to give you a few updates from the church office. I have some good news and some not-so-good news. First, the not-so-good news, which you may have heard announced in worship a couple of weeks ago: Janet Howell, who has served for over four years in the church office as an administrative assistant and coordinator of publications, has moved with her husband Mike to Delaware. We will miss them both a lot, but they are excited to be moving closer to family.

Our Staff-Parish Committee has posted the job of Communications Coordinator and is now receiving resumes. (The job description is up on the church website, if you know someone who might be interested.) In the meantime Mike Deweese, Robin Kennedy and our fabulous interim-helper Brenda Anderson are keeping things going smoothly in the office. Say a big thank you to them when you see them!

Now for the good news: As you know, David Ssebulime has served as our Turner Fellow for three years while he has been studying at Vanderbilt Divinity School. That fellowship officially comes to an end this month. In fact, we received a kind letter from Rev. Tom Laney, Director of the Turner program, thanking us for serving as David’s host congregation for the past three years: “We celebrate the fact that Christ UMC has been such a wonderful learning laboratory for David. In getting to know and love the people of the church he has been exposed to the challenges of pastoral leadership and the dynamics of congregational life in the midst of joy and stress. These learning opportunities are only possible when a church truly opens itself up to the student and lets him be fully a part of the community…. Know how grateful we are to you for your vital role in David’s formation as a future leader of our United Methodist Church.”

Fortunately for us, even though David’s fellowship is officially ending, he has agreed to stay on at Christ UMC. He will be taking a group of folks from Christ and Blakemore UMC’s to Uganda in June, and then he will step in on a part-time basis during my renewal leave this fall to help with some teaching, preaching, and pastoral care. He will also be continuing his studies at Vanderbilt as he works to complete his M.Div. degree.

One other piece of good news: Rev. Paula Hoos, who served as one of the pastors of this congregation several years ago, has also agreed to help out during my leave this fall. She will be doing mostly visitation and pastoral care.

As quickly as the summer has come upon us, the fall will be here before we know it, and I wanted you to know about the people who will be working and serving in this place while I am out on leave. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s get ready to enjoy a summer full of ministry, mission, fellowship and fun together!

There is a practice of prayer called the Prayer of Examen, which calls us at the end of each day to spend some time reflecting on the day that has passed. It invites us to consider where in the course of our day we have seen God at work, where we have experienced God’s grace and where we have fallen short. We spend time thanking God for God’s presence, asking God for forgiveness and leaving all things in God’s hands as we turn to our beds to sleep.

As I went to bed on Sunday night, I took a few moments to pray the Examen and to reflect on the day that had past. My mind and heart were filled with images of the day and all of the many ways I had seen God at work, and I’d like to share some of those images with you.

The first image that came into my mind was from our wonderful service of worship on Children’s Sunday. I remembered standing beside two beautiful children as they served communion to many who came to receive the sacrament. I saw their sweet hands lifting up the bread and the cup, and I saw grown-ups bending down to receive the gift of God’s grace offered to them from the hands of a child. It was a glimpse of the kingdom of God, where the last shall be first, the greatest will be a servant and “a little child shall lead them.”

Another image that came to mind was of the Angel Choir singing “The Lord’s Prayer” as part of the communion liturgy. It was so clear in that moment that we were praying together. Their song was not a performance. It was not an opportunity for us to showcase the adorableness of our children. It was worship. It was an offering to God. It was a holy moment that pointed beyond the children to a God who is pure and loving and faithful.

As my Sunday night prayer continued, my mind wandered to, believe it or not, the Town Hall meeting that we held during the Sunday School hour. We had a wonderful crowd of folks, nearly 90 in all, and our conversation was open and thoughtful and loving and inspiring. As we talked about the capital campaign to pay down our debt, we shared concerns and ideas and excitement. I came away from that gathering feeling the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and expecting God to do more among us than we have planned for!

Finally, as I closed my eyes to sleep, my mind was drawn to a moment of prayer with the Murillo family. On Sunday evening we gathered in a circle in a waiting room off the ICU, and we prayed. We prayed for Sam in faith and hope and trust. And I experienced the truth that “where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, there he is among them.” We all continue to pray and wait, because this is what we do. Together. In the unity of the Spirit.

I am so grateful for the many ways that God is present each and every day. Sometimes, God forgive me, I get too busy or distracted to notice. But may God keep our eyes, ears and hearts open so that at the end of each day, we can go to our beds recounting God’s goodness and saying, “Thank you.”

The Service of Confirmation always gives me hope. As I looked out on Sunday morning and saw all of those young people professing their faith in Jesus Christ and promising to serve “as Christ’s representatives in the world,” I was overwhelmed. In light of all of the bad news we have heard this past week–bombings and manhunts in Boston, a fertilizer plant exploding in Texas, an earthquake in China–it is inspiring and hopeful to see these young people preparing to carry the light of Christ into dark and hurting places.

The Service of Confirmation gave me hope not only for the world around us but also for our congregation. We continue to grow in many ways. We are growing in numbers, yes, but we are also growing in ministry. Just this past week at our Administrative Council meeting, we heard about a new ministry, Justice for Our Neighbors, which is an outreach ministry with immigrants in our community. Also at that Ad Council meeting, we endorsed David Ssebulime as a candidate for ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church. If my counting is right, David is the sixth person we have endorsed since I became Lead Pastor in 2009. That, my friends, is a sign of a faithful church!

As we look into God’s future together, I want to share with you something else that the Administrative Council decided last week. Our faithful Finance Committee has done an amazing job keeping our budget balanced and finances healthy. As they look at our budget, they have recognized how much our mortgage payments cost us each month. They see the strain that our debt puts on our budget, and they have begun to dream about what our congregation could do and be if we were free of that debt.

The Finance Committee and the Administrative Council have cast a vision for us: What if we could be free of debt by 2020? Imagine the ministries we could do if we freed up the nearly $170,000 a year that we currently pay on our mortgage!

The first step toward this goal is a capital campaign this fall to raise $500,000. We plan for 10% of whatever we raise to go toward missions with the poor, as a sign of our continued commitment to the world around us. You will hear more as the fall approaches, but we wanted to invite everyone to our first “Town Hall Meeting” on Sunday, May 5, at 9:45 in the sanctuary.

We have many new members who have joined our church since the opening of the new sanctuary, and this is an opportunity for you to help in a new way. There are others, I know, who participated in the building campaign and in the most recent debt-reduction campaign, and you may wonder why we need another. Please bring your questions, your thoughts, your enthusiasm, or your concerns to the Town Hall meeting on May 5. We want everyone to be informed, to have a voice and to consider what we could be!

Wasn’t this weekend gorgeous? One of the things I love doing when the weather is nice is going on a drive, and on Saturday morning I got to take a beautiful drive up to Fountain Run, Kentucky, where a group of confirmands and their mentors were gathering for their final retreat.
I just spent a few hours with them up there, but even in that short time I experienced amazing love and connection and joy. When I arrived, they were divided up into small groups, working on writing a creed together. I watched these groups of adults and children sharing ideas, laughing together and talking about their faith, and my first thought was, “This is what Christian relationship is all about. This is what church is meant to be.”
Whenever a baby is baptized in our congregation, the congregation takes a vow to love, support and pray for that child. Actually, what we say is: “We will surround this child with a community of love and forgiveness, that they may grow in their trust of God and be found faithful in their service to others. We will pray for them, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.”
These young people going through confirmation have been surrounded with a community of love and forgiveness. From everyone who has taught them Sunday School to the mentors who have walked with them for the past eight months, they have been nurtured, loved and encouraged in their faith.
Going back to that baptismal covenant, when a child is baptized, his or her parents are asked the following question: “Will you nurture this child in Christ’s holy church, that by your teaching and example they may be guided to accept God’s grace for themselves, to profess their faith openly, and to lead a Christian life?”

On Sunday morning at the 11:00 service, these dedicated confirmands will be “accepting God’s grace for themselves and professing their faith openly.” They will be confirmed as disciples of Jesus Christ and as members of the church. This is a huge moment for them and for our congregation! I hope you can be there. And if you can’t be there, I hope you will pray for them, will write notes of support to them or will find other ways to encourage them.

From what I have seen in this group of young people, they understand a lot about what it means to love God and love their neighbors. They really do love each other, and they want to make a difference in God’s world. To put it another way, they know what it means to be in relationship with Christ, with one another and with God’s world. They have learned that from you. May all of us continue to learn together what it means to be followers of Jesus Christ, and may we welcome joyfully our newest companions on the journey!