Pastor’s Column in the April Newsletter

Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

Greetings in the Name of the Holy One of Israel, Jesus Christ our Lord!

In the coming week we will pause to remember the most important week of our Lord’s life, the week of his passion or death. It is easy for us to forget the dizzying effect this week had on Jesus’ first disciples. One moment they were looking out over the holy city of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, then they scrambled to find a donkey and led Jesus through the city in a victorious parade and later he shared a special meal with his closest followers that reinterpreted the meaning of the ancient ritual of Passover. Then Jesus was arrested by the Jewish authorities, prosecuted before the Roman governor, and crucified and left for dead outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Some of his closest and bravest followers recovered his body and prepared it for a proper burial. Then the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob intervened in a way never anticipated by his followers – God raised Jesus from the dead!

As you prepare to join Christians around the world in celebrating this Holy Week, I encourage you not to leap to the resurrection without first passing through the joy of the palms, the breaking of the bread, sharing in the cup, and the pain of the nails. To do so misses the experience of Jesus being fully alive in our midst, even in his “obedience unto death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). When we remember his life among and “the baptism of suffering, death and resurrection “we come to realize how much God loves us. This is the hope in which we stand unto this day: “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, that proves God’s love toward us” (see Romans 5:8).

During Holy Week we are hosting the Association of Congregations of Kinston and Lenoir County worship services during the lunch hour on Monday through Thursday. Each day we will worship from 12:00 to 12:30 PM and then have lunch together from 12:30 to 1:00 PM. I trust you will present to extend hospitality to our community as together we remember the week of Jesus’ passion. As we do this, let us hold fast to these words from the writer of Hebrews:

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 11:23-25).

In the week after Easter our contractor will be making a big push to complete several portions of our renovation project. I know you join me in praying for their continued good work and safety as they work on our behalf to prepare a great space for our children. Thanks for all you do to support the ministry of the people called Methodist on Queen Street.

Grace and Peace, Allen

Moving forward by saying YES (and often saying NO) …

When you are paying attention, answers come from unexpected sources for often unasked questions.  What do I mean.  Often I have been asked about what the churches I have served with did to launch something new.  For example, how did you get together the band for the contemporary service at Nashville UMC (which doubled worship attendance) or grow the missions budget at Pinehurst UMC (which increased twenty-fold)?  In my better moments I answered by saying it was simply a God-thing.

About three months ago I was attending a training event with the Alban Institute which was paying attention to helping organization take the next step forward in the journey.  In the midst of the conversation the title of one of Peter Block's books came up, and the title alone floored me.  I received in a fifteen second blip the insight in what had worked to unleash such creativity in the churches I have served.  The title is The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters!  When we say YES to taking the next step, the hows often take care of themselves, but we have to be willing to take the next step (or is it a leap?).

Listed below are six questions that Block suggests we need to reframe to say YES:

  1. How Question: How do you do it?
    Yes Question: What refusal have I been postponing?
  2. How Question: How long will it take?
    Yes Question: What commitment am I willing to make?
  3. How Question: How much does it cost?
    Yes Question: What is the price I am willing to pay?
  4. How Question: How do you get those people to change?
    Yes Question: What is my contribution to the problem I am concerned with?
  5. How Question: How do we measure it?
    Yes Question: What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life/work?
  6. How Question: How are others doing it successfully?
    Yes Question: What do we want to create together?
  7. Bonus Question: What is the question that, if you had the answer, would set you free?

I encourage you to consider asking more YES questions?  In my own life, the real adventures began when I made a commitment with God to move forward — especially when I did not have the answers to the how questions that I and others were raising in the moment.

Pastor’s Column in the February Newsletter

Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!

The new year continues to reveal itself for us at Queen Street Church. This month I invite you to attend the choir’s musical dinner theatre event . This will be a opportunity to enjoy the gifted musicians who lead our worship in a different venue. Bring a loved one or just a good friend for dinner and a show.

This month we will also be focusing on the gift of Christian fellowship. We invite you to join us on Wednesday evenings for a meal and table conversation. Often times we feel rushed to push the plates aside for an evening program, but for this month we just want to enjoy each other’s company. In the coming months we will add opportunities for bible study or small group devotion in addition to the fellowship. If you are ready to join a small group right now, I encourage you to join Jeff and Shannon Nelson in their home on Tuesdays evenings. I am sure that the flame of Christian relationships will burn warmly in their home.

In our youth ministry we are working with Betty Blaine Worthington on Sunday mornings and with our youth team on Sunday evenings on opportunities to grow in our connections with each other and with Jesus. I will begin a confirmation class for the middle school youth on Sunday evenings at 5:00 PM beginning on February 8.

We anticipate seeing signs of construction in February, so begin your urgent prayers for our patience, perseverance, and safety during this time. As always, join me in praying and seeking for the welfare and prosperity of Kinston.

Grace and Peace, Allen

Last Week’s Diary Recovery

Last week was an adventure in many ways.  I wanted to capture some of the moments:

Calling the Reluctant to Action

Perhaps no one better demonstrated the reluctance that often accompanies a call from the Lord than Jonah.

As you may recall, Jonah received a call from the Lord to go to Nineveh and to call the city to turn from its wicked ways.  Jonah responded by doing what most of us would do — he booked himself a ticket in the opposite direction.  He went to port of Joppa and discovered a ship bound for Tarshish.  Now I need to tell you that if you gave me choice between the Spanish Riviera, which is where Tarshish is located, and Nineveh and its decadence; I would book passage to Tarshish with Jonah as well.  And that’s what we often do in our lives … we choose not what God wants, but what part of God’s word fits our thinking. In this case, Jonah says to himself, “I think a mission trip to the beach sounds a lot better than the mission to Nineveh.”

Those of us familiar with Jonah’s story know that a storm blows up almost immediately and threatens to sink the boat.  The crew throws everything overboard to lighten the ship’s load and when the captain goes below to check for further inventory to chuck he discovers Jonah sleeping!  He commands Jonah to wake up and pray to his God.  Its amazing how people find religion when stressed and everyone onboard is praying to every God imaginable.  When this does not seem to be producing fruit they turn to gambling – they cast lots to figure who has angered the gods and Jonah wins (or is it loses).

So they ask Jonah how they can fix his problem with the Lord.  Jonah suggests that they throw him into the sea.  After much soul-searching and prayer, the crew honors Jonah’s suggestion and Jonah is throw into the sea, where scripture tells us he was swallowed by a fish.  Some might ask how a fish could swallow a person whole and it is said that Dwight Moody’s answer was that it was easy for the fish because Jonah was only a “minor prophet.”  Anyway, three days later and the fish can’t stomach Jonah either and spits him up on the shore.  Did I tell you that our God is a God of second chances?  Let’s pay attention to the rest of the story:

3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Jonah 3:1-10, The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989).

What might we learn from Jonah’s adventure?  Let me offer several thoughts:

  • First, God will find us out. We cannot run and we cannot hide, although many of us will spend most of our lives running away.  Our boats are not necessarily heading to Joppa, but our intent is too clear.  When our God calls us we want the Frank Sinatra option (let me do it “My Way”).
  • Second, sometime we think doing what God desires of us will make us happy.  Better yet, we think if we cannot be happy then there is no use trying what the Lord asks of us.  Did you hear Jonah’s sorry eight word sermon?  “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  Scripture tells us he did not even get to the center of the Nineveh … he just found a stopping place said his piece, turned around and walked away.  Jonah’s attitude is not different from a reluctant child offering an apology for hitting a sibling, cutting up the sofa with their new scissors, throwing a rock through the window … if it weren’t for moma would apologies ever be made?  For me the important word is that despite his sorry words God changed the hearts of a people (and this is all God desired according to the opening verses of Jonah).
  • Third, as we walk through Jonah’s story we are invited to enlarge our sense of who God is.  Jonah stomped out of Nineveh and waited for its destruction.  When the destruction did not come, he then pouted and railed against the Lord for making him look like a fool for speaking a word that did not come to pass.  His exact words were: “ That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2).  Jonah knows who God is, how God will act, and then gets angry when the Lord acts exactly how the Lord is supposed to act.
  • Finally, to complete the circle, God sends a bush to shelter Jonah from the sun’s heat and then the next day takes the bush away.  Now Jonah gets really angry and receives this rebuke from God: “ You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons” (Jonah 4:10-11).  And soit is with us … how many times do I forget to seek the welfare of the whole?  How many times am I consumed about my piece of the pie to the exclusion of others.

This week has provided us moments to reflect on the Dr. Martin Luther King’s 80th birthday about being willing to do the hard work in order to set a nation on a different tack in the storms of life.  This week an African-America was inaugurated as our 44th president — something that I could only have dreamed about as a child.  And yesterday Kay Yow died.  Kay’s dogged determination and attitude made it possible for women’s basketball to move from a sport played in front of family and friends (I saw a State-UCLA game in Reynolds coliseum in the 70’s that could not have had 500 people in the stands) to a game that attracts a crowd and a following.  To make a change in the world you have to be willing to dig in and make a difference no matter how reluctant you may be to take the first step.  This week I invite you to pray about where you are on life’s journey … is your ticket punched for your personal Tarshish or God’s mission to Nineveh?

When Things Go Bump in the Night

As I have reflected on my call to ministry, and in particular a calling to ordained ministry within The United Methodist Church, there is one constant theme – the prayers of my grandfather.  When I was young my grandfather, Buell Bingham – a pastor, would take me on his knee and we would read through the bible together in his study.  He would pray for me and my journey with Jesus Christ and tell me that God had a great purpose for me.  It was all a little overwhelming … especially for a five or six-year old.  My grandfather died when I was still in college completing my engineering degree and more than once I have told others: "My granddad had to die so that I could distinguish God's voice from my granddad's.  Up until then, those voices were confused in my head."

In the season after the Baptism of Jesus, we pay attention in the lectionary readings from scripture to how God calls servants into ministry.  Today we will talk about Samuel responding to a voice in the night.  But first, we need to tell the beginning of the story.

Hannah and Elkanah from Ramah had no children, so Hannah traveled to the tabernacle in Shiloh to pray for a child.  Eli, whose name means "my God," noticed Hannah's lips moving while she prayed, but no sound emerging from her mouth.  For whatever reason he supposed her to be drunk and proceeded to throw her out of the tabernacle.  We need to know that the drunken folks in the tabernacle were mostly Eli's own sons, who never received the treatment that Hannah was getting (much to God's disappointment).  Hannah told Eli that she was not drunk, she only wanted a son.  She then invited Eli to pray with her and made a promise.  When my son is born I will bring him to you to raise as a servant of the most high God (perhaps she noticed how sorry Eli's sons were, but giving up your first-born child is no small sacrifice).  And so it came to be that Samuel came to live with Eli.  Here is how scripture tells the next step in the story:

Continue reading “When Things Go Bump in the Night” →

Now is the time for turning …

“Now is the time for turning” read Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast in 1998.  After his personal scandal a supporter of Clinton’s gave him the book The Gates of Repentance.  The quote continues with these observations:

The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily. It takes an act of will for us to make a turn. It means breaking old habits. It means admitting that we have been wrong, and this is never easy. It means losing face. It means starting all over again. And this is always painful. It means saying I am sorry. It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. These things are terribly hard to do. But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday’s ways.

My job today is to not to rehash another sinner’s public humiliation and shame, but to invite you to reconsider your baptismal vows as we pay attention in this new year to what God is calling each of us to do with the gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ.  This gift begins this way according to Mark:

Continue reading “Now is the time for turning …” →

In the Beginning …

The majestic story of God begins with these words:

In the beginning when God createda the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from Godb swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

a Or when God began to create or In the beginning God created
b Or while the spirit of God or while a mighty wind

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, (Genesis 1:1-5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989.


From there the creation story unfolds for four more "there was evening and there was mornings" until we reach the sixth day of creation, where Genesis' author offers these words:

26 Then God said, “Let us make humankindc in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,d and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27     So God created humankinde in his image,
in the image of God he created them;f
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.


c Heb adam
d Syr: Heb and over all the earth
e Heb adam
f Heb him

Did you get the impact of what was just read … we were created in the image of God.  Each of us, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, red and yellow, black and white, is precious in God's sight because we were made in Godself image.

But before lean into this passage, let's hear the whole creation story again, from the pen of James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), Harlem Renaissance poet and preacher.

Continue reading “In the Beginning …” →

Pastor’s Column in the January Newsletter

Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

As I start the new year I am resolved to return to a different rhythm in my life. The melody to this rhythm is found in a hymn written by Joseph Brackett, an eighteenth century elder of the Shaker community in Maine, who penned these words in 1848:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

At some point along the way, the word was that this was a melody to work by, but other historians suggest that this was a dancing tune. This latter theme was picked up when Sidney Carter wrote the words of “The Lord of the Dance” found in our most recent hymnal. Let me suggest that in this melody is the primary work of this new year for Queen Street Church, the work of finding true simplicity.

We love to make life difficult. Have you noticed that we seem to enjoy complexity. When you ask me to do something I come up with a list of why I cannot respond at this time. When I ask you to do something the list is different, but the outcome is the same. Yet Jesus said “let you ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no‘ be ‘no.’” When we look at the calendar for the new year we immediately pencil in everything we did last year and then start adding new events to the schedule. Pretty soon I will have our staff in charge of producing 104 special Sundays a year and wondering why they can only accomplish 52! So let’s stop being complicated and seeking true simplicity this year.

I suggest first that we consider simplifying the way we talk about our faith. I want you to have you personal connection to Jesus Christ, but I want you to understand that following Jesus among the tribe called United Methodists is pretty simple! Bishop Rueben Job suggests that John Wesley’s rules for living together in Christian community can be reduced to three challenges:

  • Do No Harm,
  • Do Good,
  • Stay in Love with God

Is that simple enough for us? I think so. So my pledge to you in the coming year is that I will be asking us to consider all the simple things we can do to further God’s soon-coming kingdom. I will be asking us to uncomplicated our lives and our calendars by throwing out the complicated things that get in the way of true simplicity. And then I want us to dance in God’s simplicity … “’tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free, ‘tis a gift to come down …”

Grace and Peace, Allen

Kings Journey (Matthew 2:1-12)

Angel Announces – Mary Sings – Joseph Prays – Shepherds Come – God with Us – KINGS JOURNEY

I have observed that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who think there are two kinds of people and people who do not.  It is in our very nature to divide between us and them, winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, State and Carolina, ECU and any ACC or instate school, rich and poor, those born below the Mason-Dixon line and those born above the line, etc. (help me out with your divisions of the world).  Just one more observation, if you are worshiping with us on this one of the lowest attendance Sundays of the year, you are the ultimate insider.

(North Point Community Church outside of Atlanta does not have worship celebrations on the last Sunday of the year to give their 1000+ volunteers a break.  When I brought this up with my staff they thought this would be a great model to follow, but others disagreed.  Most of the dyed in the wool Christians I know consider cancelling Sunday worship a heresy, excepting for snow or others “acts of God.”  I mean if its Sunday then we are … playing some football right?)

I bring this to our attention because most the lessons about Jesus’ birth are about establishing his insider status among God’s chosen sons and daughters.  The “Scandal of Particularity” is that God became flesh and blood and moved into the backwater towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth, in the backwater province of Judea on the edge of the mighty Roman empire.  If God were planning to transform the whole world (see John 3:16, “for God so loved the world …), then the plan seems inverted.  Wouldn’t have made sense to have God’s child show up in Rome and born within the emperor’s lineage?  If God is going to transform the world, don’t we need the assistance of those insiders on Wall Street (financiers), Pennsylvania Avenue (politicians), and certainly K Street (lobbyists)?

This was brought back to mind this week, when Leonard Sweet’s text message came across my phone’s screen this week.  Len’s tweet was “Where are the Wise Men? Are they disappearing from Xmas story? Particularity=Jewish Messiah. Magi open us to Universality: Savior of World.” That’s right I thought, without the Magi (and the shepherds) we outsiders do not have a chance at this flesh and blood Savior born among us.

Continue reading “Kings Journey (Matthew 2:1-12)” →