September 16 - Toomer's Corner ... North

Here's a hot-off the press pic of "Toomer's Corner ... North" in Wilmore, KY. We are greatful that the Wilmore police did not cuff us. In the picture are Nolan & Susanna Donald, Auburn Alumni of great note, myself and the lovely and gracious Mrs. Becca Wilson.

The tree is next to the home of a Florida fan. : )

Ahh, well ... Auburn victorious, Notre Dame crushed, and LSU denied and defeated.

This, my friends, is a good day.

Here are some highlights:

This is our coach Tommy Tuberville.

This is Toomer's Corner North ...

As always with an Auburn victory, there was much rejoicing ...

Friendship's were strengthened ...

And all Florida fans were "nose-pickin'" nervous ...

That's Jim ... we rolled his tree.

When Auburn plays Florida we will be in London. Nolan and I are going to ask Jim and our fellow BP Aaron Weyer (both Florida alumni of great note) if they want to try to find the Auburn Club of London and watch the game. Woohoo! I hope that we don't violate the Asbury ethod statement.

Grace and ... nyah ... WAR EAGLE!

Trav Wilson

September 4-17 - Reading, Writing, Reading, Writing ... part ... what part are we on now?

We are getting ready for our class in Anthropolgy. I am reading like a mad fool and writing even more ... foolishly.

Here are our books:
American Cultural Patterns
How Does America Hear the Gospel
Contextualization in the New Testament
Clash of Worlds
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
The Shaping of Things to Come

The reflection paper is the equalent of 36 double spaced pages. Engineers don't usually write this much ... even in seminary and ministry. That's why God invented bullet-point lists and charts. If the liberal arts majors can't figure out the advantages of this after 2000 years of church history, then we technical arts people should pray for them even more.

Perhaps we should sing the liturgy of the hours!

"O God, come to my assistance ..."

Kidding. That's a monk joke. Yes, thet are all that lame.

God bless you all! Please pray that I can accomplish all this work and accomplish it well.

Grace and peace,
Trav Wilson

September 1-3 - The Abbey of Gethsemani

Our pilgrimage to Gethsemani Abbey was very helpful.

I am usually not one for monkery. I have this strange notion that Methodists should act like Methodists and not trifle around doing poor imitations of Episcopals or other high-demonations. We are a simple worshipping, evangelical people with a social justice streak a mile wide; we are "both liberal and conservative" as Adam Hamilton would say.

However, there is something to be said for a even simpler weekend, in silence, in prayer, and in pondering. Some people reflect. I don't reflect. I ponder. I remunate. I pray. Reflecting is for people enslaved to their past. The other activity are for people who live in the present and pray for the future.

And so this weekend we prayed. I was in silence for 24 hours, before a classmate of mine and I broke down and had lunch in the talking dining room. Yep, that's right ... two silent dining rooms, one talking. I do not recommend it as a lifestyle, unless you are going to help others who live in a busy, hurried and noisy world to hear the still soft voice of God. After 24 hours of silence, I began to feel sad; must be my extrovert side coming out.

My main prayers were for Becca, the future of our ministry and the people to whom we would minister. I also did quite a bit of reading for a class that begins on September. We have to write the equivalent of a 36 page relfection paper on the 6 books that we had to read for the class.

Here are some pictures of the area around the Abbey:
1. The Abbey itself ...

2. Thomas Merton's grave ...

3. Along a walking path for meditation ... the sleeping disciples ...

4. ... Christ praying for us ...

5. ... and the place where we worshipped, signing the Liturgy of the Hours.

I recommend this kind of retreat to all. It may seem strange at first, but just hang on. You'll be blessed.

Grace and peace,

Trav Wilson

August 30-31 - Seminar on the "Missional" Church

We had a two-day, 8:30-4:30 seminar on the missional church. A missional church is the lastest buzz word for churches that are passionatly missional in their nature: that is they are full-bore evangelistic and dedicated to serving the poor in resources and poor in spirit in their community. I was able to learn quite a bit from this seminar, however, there were some issues that brought me up short. I will let fellow blogger and Beeson pastor Rev. Aaron Wymer discuss this:

"Wednesday and Thursday were filled with lectures from Carol Childress and Carol Davis. They are with an agency that exists to help connect churches to resources and information. Carol Childress considers herself a "Missionary of Information" for the aid of the world missions. The website for her group is : www.worldconnex.org

I found some of her information useful, to one degree or another. Here is a sample of some of the things she said:

• "The church is a spiritual organism but also a social organization. The thinking that got us where we are today will not take us where need to be
  tomorrow."
• "We tend to eternalize the culture and the tools. We make the assumption that if something worked before it always will."
• "Effective ministry now and in the future will be done from a missional mindset. The culture today is much more like the first century than it is like
  the past 1000 years."

Below is Carol Davis. She has an interesting story as well. She is a consultant with churches. Her specialty is to help churches strategize in terms of coming up with specifics to attach to their vision statements. I am hoping some of the things she said will be relevant to the dissertation that I'm planning on doing (more on that in a later blog).

The two days have been okay. . . but we students are in a haze as a result of a week and half of sitting in this room for 8 hours a day listening to lectures (okay,
I'm whining). Actually, I had some theological issues with some of the things that were said, too.In particular, I didn't like what was said about the time of orientation that follows change. Claiming to use the Israelites and the Exodus as her model, she said that the time of wandering in the desert was time God was sing to "get Egypt out of them." I suspect the opposite is the case. I think God was using that time to get the experience of slavery (and being freed from slavery) into them. The reason it is important is that we are being told that we are entering a time of discontinuous change. It is accompanied by the idea that the church can use very little of the past if she is to move forward faithfully. I'm dubious about that.

Grace and peace,

Trav Wilson

August 23-29 - Theology of Ministry

On Wednesday, August 23 we began our Theology of Ministry class with Dr. Stephen Seamands. Dr. Seamands is the child of a missionary to India; his grandfather and father are also United Methodist ministers. His father even served as senior minister at Wilmore United Methodist Church. Dr. Seamands and his wife has us over for an dessert social on Friday, August 25. They are just the best kind of folks! I gave links to his books in my presvious entry. I recommnd that you read them both. They are very easy to understand; a kind of stick to your ribs theology. It stays with you a while.

The class has been very practical. We talked about different theologies of minsitry (how people understand God and how that effects their call to vocation). We met from 8:30-4:30 every day, so we were tired at the end of each day.

The first 60-90 minutes of class were worship service or devotional times. Nolan Donald and Scott Layer led the singing. The class ended with communion.

I really learned a lot about myself in this class. With a title like "theology of ministry" it may sound a little head-y. It was really practical. Here are some notes that Rev. Aaron "The Might Asron" Wymer took for the class.

• Ministry is the ministry of Christ, to the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
• The ministry of Christ - Seamnds contends that we don't just minister through the example of Christ, we continue (in the church) the actual ministry of Christ.
• To the Father - He makes the point that in John 5, when Jesus healed the man at the pool, he was responding to the call of the Father--not the crowd and not the religious people. If Jesus had let the crowd be the motivation behind healing, he would have healed everyone there. Because it was the Sabbath, if he had listened to the religious people, nobody would have been healed.
• By the power of the Holy Spirit - Dr. Seamands is fully committed to the importance of the Holy Spirit to be the animator of real ministry through our weaknesses--not in spite of them.

Ultimately, God call us first to himself and then into ministry. We are all called to ministry: clergy and laity. This has dangerous implications for clergy job security. Suppose a person is called to preach: should they become clergy? Since when is preaching a sacrament that only clergy can preach? The Methodist tradition is riddled with lay preachers. In fact, we would not exist without them. Suppose a lay-person is called to Christian caregiving: should they become clergy? Since when is pastoral care a sacrament that only clergy can give it? All are called to ministry. It is the clergy that are fearful of this ... and the laity who may be freed by this good news. "It is for freedom that we have been set free" ... right?

"And fear is a path to the dark side" ... right?

Friends, we are both human-beings and human-doings. Our being leads to our doing. Our doing leads to our being. Standing still is spiritual death and the descent of a great shadow on our hearts. There is no dichotomy between the two.

Grace and peace,
Trav Wilson