Thoughts on the Central Conference Pension Initiative (CCPI)

“We eat once a day. We are used to it. We adapted ourselves to that condition. We eat small bread, then we cook that one meal at the end of the day.”
- Rev. Joseph Sunday, in a 2008 interview with United Methodist News Service

The United Methodist Church has a goal: to create a pension system in our Central Conferences so those who have served the church might have basic necessities in their retirement years.

Rev. Joseph Sunday

The Central Conferences of the UMC include those listed here. They are in countries where political stability and the quality of life we have here in the U.S. seem like a far-off dream.  Imagine doing ministry in spite of war, poverty, and genocide.

Yet, they persevere.  Rev. Joseph Sunday served  churches in Liberia for 31 years.  Now well into his 80s and ‘retired’ he still serves as Chaplain in the Monrovia Central Prison.

Buy one less latte or burger a week and consider a gift to CCPI.  $5 a week adds up to $260/year, enough to make a real difference.  Download the pledge form here.

United Methodist News Service Reporter Linda Bloom has also put together a photo essay on CCPI.

The poor and disease

There was a compelling story last night on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer about how diseases limited to third world countries in the past are now showing up in poor populations around the U.S.  Rural areas like those in our own Conference are one of the hot spots for this problem.

The first two-thirds of the story focus on relatively rare parasitic diseases, like Chagas disease and Trichomoniasis.  A compelling part of the interview for me was near the end of the story, when reporter Jeffrey Kaye asks why more drugs aren’t available to treat these diseases.  The doctor being interviewed answered: “I believe it because these are diseases of the poor, there’s no money in it.”

In Appalachia, diseases like Chagas and Trichmmomiasis are rare.  We deal with high rates of diabetes, heart, and periodontal disease.  “These are the neglected diseases of poverty.”  physician Scott Saeverud said in the story.  “When you have a tsunami of people with no health care at all…I’ve diagnosed two people today with diabetes, people who have never been told they have it before.”  Saeverud is part of a team of physicians in Remote Area Medical, a group of doctors, nurses, and dentists who volunteer their services at weekend clinics in poor communities around the U.S.

We’re going to take a hard look at poverty and its impact on our Conference and beyond in the next year, reinforcing one of the Four Areas of Focus for the United Methodist Church right now:  Engaging in Ministry with the Poor (read more about the four areas of focus here.) Our goal is a multi-media series – with articles in the West Virginia United Methodist, blog updates, slideshows, audio, and video stories.   If you have ideas/thoughts/suggestions for the series, e-mail us here – or leave a comment by clicking the ‘Leave a comment’  link at the bottom of this post.

Reporter’s Notebook: Social Justice Retreat

Last weekend at Spring Heights, Fred and Scarlett Kellerman (pictured below) talked about Wellspring of  Greenbrier,  Inc. Their presentation was part of the Spiritual Growth Retreat series based on the book Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster.

Fred and Scarlett’s ministry was the springboard for discussion around what Foster calls ‘the social justice stream’. Foster writes about ’six streams’ of spirituality in the Christian faith.  Retreats at Spring Heights over the past two years have focused on the contemplative, charismatic, and holiness streams outlined in his book.

Fred and Scarlett Kellerman

The Kellermans presented three scenarios to the group for discussion.  It was interesting to see how the group went from judging folks in these scenarios harshly to a more broad understanding of what the poor face, and how we as a society bear some responsibility for them.

They drew heavily on their own experience and on the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church.

The story of a family of two grandparents raising a 16 year old grand child on their own touched me the most.  As we heard about what these folks looked like ‘on paper’, we judged a bit quickly – suggesting the family should sell their car and cut cable/Internet out of their monthly budget.

As we heard more of their story, they became more than numbers on a piece of paper.  Balancing compassion with accountability is a tough assignment, and it’s an issue we’ll explore more completely in the next issue of the West Virginia United Methodist.

On Health Care

There’s a thoughtful piece in the current edition of the UM Reporter that gives good Wesleyan and Christian context to the national health care debate that made for, shall we say, an interesting summer.

The crux of the article for me came from Rev. Ken Carter, who recently preached to his Charlotte, NC congregation on the Health care debate.  He used the parable of the Good Samaritan to make this point:

When we focus on cost, or fire up the rhetoric, we are in effect walking on the other side, away from the beaten stranger in the road.  You can read his complete sermon here, btw.

“If Christians are to participate meaningfully in the conversation,” he said, “we will rediscover the fullness of God’s gift of salvation for all people, even the beaten man on the side of the road,” he says in the Reporter piece.

The article also traces our Wesleyan roots, giving more context as to why our Social Principles state that:

“We believe it is a governmental responsibility to provide all citizens with health care.”

Needless to say, the sermon didn’t sit well with everybody, but the article goes on to say:

Others gathered afterward to review the United Methodist Book of Discipline’s resolutions on heath care. They discussed statements such as “health care is a basic human right” and that it is a “governmental responsibility to provide all citizens with health care” (Social Principles, Paragraph 162.V).

“We didn’t all agree, but we had a civil dialogue,” Dr. Carter said in an interview. “Health care isn’t just the province of TV news and talk radio. It’s also the business of the church.

“Jesus was a preacher, teacher and healer—caring holistically for the spirit, mind and body. Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of that.”

It’s definitely an article worth reading in it’s entirety.

H1N1: How can you help?

The following article is submitted by Rev. Amy Shanholtzer, Director of Evangelism and Congregational Development.

It’s official.  Our household has joined the nationwide statistic –  as one that has experienced H1N1.  I’ll understand if you prefer to be in another time zone for the next week or two.

This is what I’ve learned so far.  It came on fast and furious in our case.  We were told to get to the doc within the first 24-48 hours for Tamiflu to be of any assistance. Good luck getting into the doc -I’ve never seen our pediatrician’s office so full of sick children and parents. The final verdict on the swab test took about 24 hours. Tamiflu cost about $115.00 at Rite-Aid, before insurance co-pay.  We added in hand sanitizer, Lysol spray and a three pack of Kleenex for the sick child. Then, plan on keeping child home from school for 24-48 hours after fever is gone.

It’s a challenge. It’s always a challenge for working parents managing childhood illnesses. This one will impact more families, because it’s new. It will challenge the working poor, the uninsured and children on the edge most of all – to afford the medicine that will shorten the duration of the illness so that there’s less time off work and school for those who can least afford to miss.

Illnesses in children strike fear into the heart of parents. The unknown strikes fear into everyone’s heart.  What is the antidote to fear? Perfect love drives out fear – 1 John 4:18b.

How can we love in the midst of illness in our communities? As I meet with members of UM Churches all over WV, I am regularly hear the lament, “We don’t have any young people in our churches anymore.”  Right now, the young people in your communities are facing the challenge of caring for the sick and trying to keep their financial ships afloat in the midst of it. What does perfect love look like then? How can you care for those you are longing for in your houses of worship?

I don’t know for sure. I do know that some prayer and ingenuity is likely to produce some creative results.

Should you donate hand sanitizer to your local school? (I had a friend in higher education administration jokingly tell me I should invest in companies that produce it – now I’m not so sure he was joking).  Could your church sponsor one family without insurance to receive Tamiflu for a week? Who do you know in the health care arena who can tell you how you and your church can make a difference?

Mother Teresa said, “I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?” This would be a good time to find out.

Social Media: What can we learn?

As an old radio gal who still passionately believes audio mixed well is a great medium for telling story, one thing has has become clear to me:

Social Media is not going away.  The transition we are seeing in the world of communication is staggering now.  The stat that blows me away:

It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users.  TV? 13 years.  The Internet: 4 years.

Facebook added 100 million users in 9 months.

If the church (not just the UMC, but all of the ‘mainlines’) really want to reach the next generation of people – from Gen X through the Millennials (I’m a gen-xer myself), we must embrace this fact.

The tension comes in the desire to leave nobody behind.

This is a good goal.  I know full well that one day, soon really in the grand scheme of things, I’ll be where the boomers are today age-wise.  Inevitably, those coming up younger than I will have their own revolution that will challenge me. I hope I’m open to it when that time comes.

What do you think?  I hope you’ll watch the video, too, btw.

The Mocha Club

Two mochas = $7.

$7/month can change the world…what can we learn from this?

BTW – you can check out what the Mocha Club is all about here. While we’re at it, here’s a link to their YouTube channel.

Conference Blog: Yes or No?

This blog began a little over a year ago, during Annual Conference 2008.

I started it, well, because I wanted to reach out to ya’ll, as I was the first new communicator in nearly 30 years.  That’s a long time.  Another one of my goals for the blog was to show the power of new media to tell story.  We got to know each other in this space throughout last summer and into Commission Possible last September.

Using that criteria as a judge, the blog has been a big success.  But, it’s gotten more difficult to keep writing creatively about what’s happening out there, mostly because we’ve been busy launching an e-news (which now has over 1200 subscribers), working on a website, assisting Bishop Lyght in launching his blog, and many other things.

Twitter and Facebook are also covering ground previously been handled by the blog.  In effect, the blog was our first effort in revamping the electronic media efforts of the Conference, now those efforts have expanded.

Perhaps now, it has served it’s purpose, and it’s time to move on.  One thing is certain in the new media landscape: change.  You have to be willing to recognize what worked last year might not be now.

And finally, a blog is a personal thing.  It’s really about an individual sharing story…and well, the Conference is your story.  It’s a shared story, and I’d like other voices to be heard in the telling of it.

So I guess I have two questions:

Do ya’ll think a blog for the Conference is something to be maintained?  If you answer ‘yes’, my next question is:

Will you help write the story?

Let me know.

Those of you who have come to this space to look for music posts (there’s been a surprising number of hits on the music writing here) should go to my blog, SpinBeat.

Humility

Blogging has been spotty at best for a couple of months…it’s been a busy time, and somehow, blogging has been ‘the next thing in the priority list…’ for awhile now.

Nothing like a good story to get one writing.  Right now, I will write about Claudine Leary and the inspiration her life has been to me these past few months.

Claudine Leary, in her dorm room at Africa University near Mutare, Zimbabwe

Interesting thing is, she would specifically not take credit for inspiring me – she would give God that – because she defines the word humble.  I write about her story tonight because I believe the Holy Spirit is at work in the Africa University Choir tour of WV that begins at Annual Conference on June 14.

There’s this number floating around:  $160,000  to raise in support Africa University.  The idea is to help send people living in Africa, folks who have lived through hell on earth in some cases, to college.  And, to give the folks that teach them decent housing. The tour is one way we as a conference hopes to help raise those funds.

But I digress, I want to write about Claudine.

I met her for the first time during quadrennial training in Jacksonville, Fl in late January.  I was impressed by her quiet, steady strength.  She rolled with the punches and never complained.  She ate and slept whereever we were – gratefully.  I also noticed she ate less during an average meal than all of us.  Not because she was sick, but because ‘being full’ means something different to folks who have spent any amount of time as a refugee, which she has.

I didn’t see her speak during the training, but from what I have heard she connected with many folks from around the country over the four days we were in Jacksonville.   She touched people (and again, I can hear her correcting me…telling me that God touched people, she just happened to be there).

Humility is a word I for one, don’t see lived out every day. and sometimes we Christians are far from it.

That’s where we could learn a thing or two from Claudine.  Or as she would gently remind me, from God.

A Warm Welcome

Post below submitted by Rev. Amy Shanholtzer as a reflection on  a recent trip to Peterstown.

It was so cold Sunday. By the time I arrived in Peterstown, I wished I had worn a jacket. I made the mad dash from my car to the entrance of Peterstown United Methodist Church, wishing I’d chosen a closer parking space. My crossed arms provided little protection from the chilly breeze.
As I came through the entrance, I was greeted by a warm smile and an outstretched bulletin. The young man introduced himself as Micah. He asked if came to church often. When I told him that this was my first visit, he immediately said, “Then let me introduce you to the pastor.” He escorted me down the center aisle before I had a chance to say that Melissa, his pastor, and I were friends.

Micah handed me off to Rev. Melissa Shortridge, who began introducing me to Bonnie, who had invited me to the congregation for Daughters of the King Tea that afternoon. As we were going back up the center aisle, I was greeted by a gentleman from the church with an outstretched hand, strong grip and a twinkle in his eye. He welcomed me to the church and then said,

“You look so pretty and sweet this morning.” Then, he gave me a quick hug.

I realized that I didn’t need that jacket anymore. I’d been surrounded by the warmth of God’s love through the special greeting of the folks at Peterstown UMC. The twinkling-eyed gentleman found me after worship too. Another handshake, another hug and an invitation to the evening worship service and dinner told me that there is a culture of welcome here and folks who are willing to take responsibility for it.

Thanks Peterstown, for welcoming me and all of the people who are seeking God’s love through you!