The Spirit Cheney United Methodist Church August 2013

I ’ve been spending a lot of time at the gym these past few months, which means

I have gotten in a lot of reading time on the elliptical and treadmill ma-chines—at least 6 hours week-ly. After reading a number of sci-fi books, I turned back to subject matter even more closely related to my work. I am currently on a Leonard Sweet streak, having read and immediately reread Jesus: A Theography, then r e-turned to Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who Is Al-ready There. After completing tha t one, I found it contained some blurbs about a couple other books he wrote and moved onto my current one, So Beautiful. It has been a delightful and tasty banquet so far!

L en Sweet is a UMC pastor who has a home on Orcas Island, and is also the E.

Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University and a Visiting Distin-guished Professor at George Fox University in Portland, OR. He is a prolific and gifted writer, sought-after speaker, blogger, church historian, and deep thinker. The ti-tle of this book refers to the discovery an-nounced on Feb. 28, 1953 of “the secret of life” - the double-helix structure of DNA. In a 50th anniversary interview with the BBC, one of the discovers (and Nobel laureate) James D. Watson remembered how he and his collaborator, Francis Crick responded to what they had found thusly:

“When we saw the answer we had to pinch ourselves. Could it really be this pretty? When we went to lunch, we realized it prob-

ably was true because it was so pretty.” Having shared this, Sweet provides a delightful description of what he refers to as “an MRI-shaped life” as the very essence of Christ-following, and equally beautiful.

T he MRI stands for Missional, Rela-tional, and Incarnational, each

foundational tasks of becoming and helping others become more like Christ

as individuals, congregations and the full Body of Christ. Throughout, and especially in the incarnation section, Sweet emphasiz-es the importance of doing ministry in ways that fit one’s context. He is ‘unpacking’ or filling in the details of what it means to be in the world, but not from the world, as Je-sus instructed. It’s one of the things church leaders have been talking about for quite awhile, but still seem to have trouble really grasping. Here in the PNWAC, our regional area of United Methodism, we are often re-minded that ministry should be ‘indigenous’ but can’t seem to shake the pressure to get bigger and adapt the meth-ods that have helped others to do so. It is just so hard to escape the temptation to count butts in the pew, baptisms and other tangible symptoms of a healthy church, per-haps because those things are just so ..., well ... countable! The challenge we face is

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The Many Faces of Jesus

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Inside This Issue:

Pastor’s Page 1

Church Calendar 2

Quilt of Valor 3

Pastor’s Page Continued 4

Odds and Ends 5

VBS 6

SPRC Survey Results 7

Tribute to Mary Anderson 8

Terry and Dennie go to the Movies 9

Church Office Information: Hours Monday-Thursday 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Contact Information 509-235-4600 (Office & Fax) 204 4th Street, Cheney, WA 99004 cheneyumc@centurytel.net www.cheneyumc.org Pastor Rev. Terry B. Hall Cell phone: 509-944-1446 Office Manager Laurie Murphy Inland District Superintendent Rev. Dale Cockrum Bishop of Greater Northwest Area Bishop Grant Hagiya PNW Conference Website www.pnwumc.org

August 5, Monday—Nurturing Meeting

August 12-16—Church Office Closed

August 13, Tuesday—Worship Creation at 6:30 p.m. at the parsonage

August 17, Saturday—Birthday Bunch at 9 a.m.

August 18-22—VBS from 5:30 pm to 8 p.m.

August 27, Tuesday— Leadership Meeting at 7:00 p.m.

Bible Reflection Groups: Mondays at 7:00 p.m. @ Kr ieghs’ on Aug. 5 & 26

The Birthday Bunch is back at the Longhorn BBQ in Air-way Heights Saturday, August 17th starting at 9 a.m. Eve-ryone is invited to a really nice fellowship with a no host breakfast. We look forward to seeing you there!

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The Nurturing Committee is collecting school supplies for our local elementary schools. A board located back by the nursery contains Post-It notes with the needed school supplies. Please take a Post-It note, buy the item and return it back to the church with the original note. The Nurturing Committee will make sure the supplies get to the right person. Please have all supplies and post-it notes returned to the church by August 11. Please see Edith Dickson if you have any questions.

The Church Office will be closed Monday August 12 to Thurs-day, August 15 as the church secretary will be on vacation. Messages will be checked daily by Pastor Terry and you can generally reach him at 944-1446.

Finance News

Your Finance Committee continues to report gener-ally good news and give thanks for your faithful giv-ing. While giving was down slightly in June, we ended the month in much better shape than a year ago, with spending also below budg-et. The all-church parking lot sale provided a nice boost, bringing in around $1300 while also re-distributing a lot of items large and small to folks who seemed pleased to have them. And, of course, it was also a great time to meet some of our neighbors, both ones with whom we are well-acquainted and those new to us. After selling some long-held Avista stock, we now have funds to complete the needed repairs to the master bath at the parsonage, caused by water damage, and hope to have that work done in Sept.

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often how to ‘do the met-rics’ with less countable things like lives trans-formed, healthy faith con-versations engaged and sense of well-being in those within the communi-ty of faith coupled with re-spect for those they en-counter. Sweet shares his first attempt at starting a new church in the Roches-ter, NY, area, in an area

that appeared to be largely African-American. Despite his learned attempts at ‘culturally competency,’ the church was not connecting with that predominant segment of the local population. Finally he took to the streets and actually met his neighbors as they sat on their porches, worked in their yards and moved through their days. Much to his chagrin, what he discovered was the real majority in the local population was Ja-maican-American! As he became acquainted with actual people, he was able to refocus his efforts in the church, and sure enough, those ‘tangibles’ soon increased. As it turns out, “location, location, location” pertains as much to ministry as real estate!

O ne of my favorite parts of VBS, and there are many, is the opportunity to

take pictures and video of kids, teens and adults interacting in ways that are active, fun, and meaningful for everyone and then share them with those same people and oth-ers. Sure, some of us see ourselves in photos and think things like, “Gee, I didn’t realize my butt looked so big in those pants,” most folks like to see pictures and videos of them-selves, and even more so, of their families and friends. But in most of our churches, if there are any images of Jesus or biblical scenes, the figures tend to look pretty North-

ern European. Here we have avoided that lack of cultural sensitivity by pretty much keeping our walls bare of any such images except in class rooms.

A s I worked on this article, I found these images and many, many more on the

internet, at mattstone.blogs.com>Christian Art. Looking through them in the context of pondering Sweet’s ideas about localizing and contextualizing ministry, I first considered contacted Matt Stone to see if I could reprint some of the great artwork he has on his blog site, and I may still do that. But then I felt an even better ‘nudge’ - why don’t we create im-ages of our own “Christs” … or at least, Christ-imitators? It could be fun to actually stage some of gospel scenes with our own folks and/or folks we know, even filming little skits bringing those scenes to life. We could frame photos and hang them around the church, maybe use some to illus-trate the stories when they are used on Sunday mornings or as backdrops on our Sunday slides. If we take photos as we meet our neighbors through the Caring Ministry helping opportunities, as I hope we will, we could use some of those as well.

What do you think? Pastor Terry

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placed by a team from the LaCrosse UMC, headed up by their pastor, Roger Downing. Before responding to a call to ministry, Roger was a building contractor, so was able to tackle that very large job, and has since plunged into the remodeling of the bathroom. After talking with Pastor Betty, it seemed we might best help out by scraping the exterior of the building to prepare it for painting, and perhaps with the painting itself. Taking some of what we learned down at White Swan, we want to be truly helpful at Wild Rose, which mainly means remembering it is not our project but theirs. So we’ll take our instructions from the folks there and add our efforts to theirs without trying to take over the project. We are trying to make arrangements now to get a team up there in very early August, although with VBS so close, it may have to wait until we complete that very important project here. If you would like to lend a hand, there are at least 3 ways to do so: Keep Wild Rose, its leadership, congregation and neighbors in your prayers, thanking God for the resurrection of the spirit they are experiencing; Let Pastor Terry know you want to help with the scraping and painting; Donate to the Planter’s Club - you can give your donation here, marked “Planter’s Club” or “Wild Rose UMC” and we’ll pass it on, or just send it directly to the Inland District office.

Connectional ministry opportunity—Wild Rose UMC Wild Rose is one of our Inland District churches, located between Spokane and Deer Park, a few miles to the west of US 395. They will celebrate their 125th anniversary in 2014, and are currently experiencing a “Resurrection of the Spirit.” We have been invited to join in their joy by participating in our district’s Planter’s Club project to help them refurbish their building so it matches their renewed life. Pastor Terry, Dennie Sherman and Floyd Clokes made a site vis-it early in July to meet with Pastor Betty Smith, her husband Burt and several members of the church who were hard at work around the building. As you can see, it is a little country church

which, like our own parsonage, did not get all the maintenance it needed over the years. But it actually does not look quite this way anymore, as the windows have all been re-

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Go Greek! VBS: Paul’s Dangerous Journey to Share the Truth Au-gust 18-22, 5:30 dinner, 6:00-8:00 program Vacation Bible School is approaching, and you’re wondering what kind of oddball things you should be looking for, right? We are go-ing back in time again, this time to Athens, following Paul’s journey to spread God’s love. To do that, we need artificial ivy, statuary, large pots, columns … think Greek! Also needed: Stick hobby hors-es (for the Olympics, of course), and broken rocking horses that we can paper mache to look like statues. We have been promoting intergenerational programs for a few years now, and are convinced it is a fantastic method for bring people to-gether! Please plan on attending, even if you can only spare one or two evenings Each

night from 7:00 to 7:30, the Athens marketplace is open in the parking lot. The shops are fun, interactive places where even the shopkeepers have a role to play! Please consider being a shopkeeper; you can interact with the participants in a low-key, meaningful way, and all you have to do is show up—the shop items are already set! Shopkeepers also can be for just part of the week; if it fits your schedule to come 3 or 4 times, we can work with that. As usual, we host a popular, delicious free family dinner before each evening program. That sign-up sheet is in the narthex, and of course many hands make light work in set-up and clean-up. We particularly need someone willing to provide leadership in the dinner prep; how about find-ing a friend and co-leading a night or two?

Donations have started to come in—thanks so much; we so appreciate your prayers, your service, and your resources! Pick up a CD. Come to the Blitz builds on August 12-13 at 10:00, invite people to come to the program; this is a chance to joyfully share our church, and we hope everyone feels moved to be involved in some way. Questions? The people to ask are Saralynn Kerr, Betty Schofield, Caren Lincoln, and Dennie Sherman. See you in Athens August 18-22!

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Why does God hate sin so much? Dr. R.C. Sproul wrote a book called “The Holiness of God.” Here’s what he thinks: “Sin is cosmic treason. It is an act of supreme ingratitude toward the one to whom we owe everything, to the One who has give us life itself. Sin is an act of defiance, a

revolutionary act. It is an insult to God’s holiness. When we sin, we not only commit treason against God, we also do violence to each other. Sin violates people. There is nothing abstract about it. By my sin, I hurt people. I injure their person; I despoil their goods; I impair their reputations; I rob from them a precious quality of life; I crush their dreams and aspirations. When I dishonor God, I dishonor all people who bear his image. Is it any wonder, then, that God takes sin so seriously?”

Dear Margie,

So sorry this is delayed. Your help with my Dad’s Memorial Service

meant so much to us. It was a relief to just concentrate on friends and relatives

without more details. Your help was invaluable. Thank you very much.

God bless your for your kindness.

Sincerely,

Diana Kadeg

Thank you so much for your prayers for me with my balance issues. It means

everything to me.

Sandy Hanner

Many thanks to Jim and Patti Sooy for once again extending their gracious hospitality for our annual all-church picnic, and to the Nurturing Committee for bringing us that great time to talk, swim, play games, get better acquainted and share fabulous food! While both of our usual photographers left their cameras home, it was a great, if undocumented, af-ternoon. The pool was well used by kids and adults alike, the lawn games enjoyed by several, and the weather could not have been more cooperative.

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Terry & Dennie go to the movies

How can you respectfully value the work of your father and yet dream of something better? I think this is the work of the church as well as every family and this movie reveals the inner working of a both a family and a community on the crest of a new awakening. You may have seen this one long ago, but it is currently on NetFlix instant streaming and worth seeing again. I found myself reaching back to remember 1957 (I would have been 5 years old) but really you could set it in any time period in any

country. We all experience this transition and this movie’s honesty transcends time and place. Although God is never mentioned, I think it is a Biblical Story, because the characters are struggling to live aligned with “good” in the face of all the tempta-tions to do and be less. I think every generation must find their own way; and the previous generation must let them go. As we used to read in Disciple Bible Study, the “Human Condition” is something we are meant to rise above. Yours in Christ, Dennie Sherman

Ok, it feels like we are doing a promo for NetFlix instant streaming, but being without any cable or satellite and finding very little worth watching on network TV, we mainly find ourselves doing the streaming thing. Some of you know we watch some flicks that fall outside the main stream, and this is one that probably falls almost as far outside as any, but we found it to be really engaging. No obvi-ous great biblical truths here, but I would say that the one and only human character certainly gives new expression to the notion of hu-mahnity’s search for life’s meaning and mysteries. Apparently inde-pendently wealthy, he was living on a lot of acreage, or at least out in the boonies in the south, where he could walk all day in wooded grasslands with-out running into another human. He was interested in turkeys and wanted to know if he could get some turkey chicks to imprint on him so he could better interact with them and learn both from and with them. He pulls it off, and spends several months completely living, as the title suggests, as one of them. They walk with him and he finds his eyes opened to the area in new ways. There are rattlesnakes around, and although he says at one point that he had rarely encountered any, it turns out tur-keys are very interested in them and invariably found some during their walks. As a ‘turkey,’ he was also accepted by other animals, allowing him to approach deer, even adults with fawns, just as like any other inquisitive turkey would. In fact, that was one of his discoveries—turkeys are very curious. Check it out—I think you’ll enjoy it!

P T

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