COUNTING DOWN

We're driving north on South College Mall Road. The girls are in the back seat as I drive us downtown to the church. (We decided the church looks like a castle.)

Ella asks, "When is Christmas?" I explain that Christmas will be Thursday. We count down the days, and I explain that it is three days away.

"Just three days and it will be Christmas morning?" Ella asks in a hushed voice. There is a sense of awe in her, I can tell, that we are this close to the big moment. Something big is about to happen.

I was struck by the contrast between her attitude and mine. I saw traffic backed up at the light, I was carrying around in my head a list of things to do, and the seven year old had this sense that we are right on the cusp of something big.

Time, for her, is actually moving towards something.

The Bible tells us that time is moving towards something big. Jeremiah says God is going to give us a new heart. Amos says God is going to rebuild the ruined cities. Zephaniah says God will be in the midst of the people, renewing them in God's love, exulting over them, saving the lame and the outcast. Matthew says the Child born in Bethlehem will save God's people from their sin. Which, I believe, means we are forgiven. More than that, though, it also means we receive a grace and a truth that allows us to grow up (Ephesians 4) and to become a new creation (2nd Corinthians 5).

Here is the truth of it: if you live long enough you can lose the sense of expectation that God may show up in a life-changing way. You can begin to view all time as "flat," with one day being just like the other. You can -if you're not careful- yawn your way through life and agree with the author of Ecclesiastes: "There is nothing new under the sun."

I listened to that voice from the backseat and I thought, "That's what it is like to count down the days. That's what it is like to lean into what is coming."

Are you leaning into God's future for you, ready to embrace the new thing God is up to in your life and in our world and in our church?

Lord, give me an expectant heart and an open mind. Teach me to see every day and every moment as time filled with the possibility of new life. Slow me down and open me up to your Spirit, I pray. Amen.

"And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." (Luke 2:7)

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark Fenstermacher

UPSIDE-DOWN

I wouldn't recommend this as the way to "do" December. Our church staff has been living in an "upside-down" world as we move from the Lincoln Street offices back into the church building.

We're living out of boxes. We're trying to do normal while much is abnormal. The phones work, the phones don't work. We have internet access, we don't have internet access. Office floors are covered with boxes we step around as we try to find the book or meeting agenda we just had in our hands a minute ago.

And not only are things in a mess, all moved around, but we are waiting...and we don't know when the blinds will get hung or the desk will arrive. It sort of feels like we're trying move ahead at the same time we're waiting. Things keep shifting.

I wouldn't recommend this as the way to "do" Christmas, but perhaps it helps put us in touch with the world Mary and Joseph lived in as they prepared to travel south from Nazareth to the Judean town of Bethlehem. Bethlehem, by the way, as known as the "City of Bread." It was also known as an area where sheep, which would be sacrificed in worship at the Jerusalem Temple, were raised. They were then led to the city.

Perhaps your world, today, feels upside-down. Things may be changing in a relationship, at work, or in your family. Things you counted on before suddenly seem to be shifting. You are trying to do life while waiting for the new normal to happen.

God still comes. Bringing God's love and truth and peace and courage into our lives. Even when we are living -figuratively or literally- out of boxes.

This child, born in the City of Bread, where sheep were raised for the Temple, will one day announce, "I am the bread of life." He will also say, "I am the good shepherd."

"All went to their own towns to be registered," Luke 1:3 (New Revised Standard) says. "Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David."

The Savior comes. To a world that often seems upside-down.

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark Fenstermacher

SHAPING OUR FUTURE

Friends -

I'm Sue Sgambelluri, and I've been a part of the Fruitful Congregations Journey Team at our Church since the fall of 2013, but my time here actually goes back quite a ways.

We moved to Bloomington in November 1994. We had been part of a much-loved church in Indianapolis, and we missed our friends and faith community terribly. It was so hard to journey through that season of Advent without a church home. And then in the spring of 1995, God led us here and we were so warmly welcomed by then-pastors Howard Boles and Phil Amerson. We were so grateful for the quality of worship, the intelligent, relevant preaching, the small groups, and the social consciousness here that gave us opportunities to connect ... and grow ... and especially to serve.

Over the next 20 years, this faith community gave me lasting friendships, gave me reassurance and a sense of perspective when my career took an unexpected turn in 2002, sustained me when my marriage ended after 18 years in 2011, and continues to give me hope and peace now as I walk with my parents during these last days of their earthly journey.

I'm in a very different place than I planned to be when I came here 20 years ago. So much has changed in my life, in my family, and in my faith journey. And this church has been there at every turn ... reminding me of what is important and reassuring me that our loving God has a plan for me and work for me to do.

This church has become a touchstone in my life. It deserves more than just my thanks. It deserves my time ... and my financial support ... and my service.

+ + + + + 

When Mark asked me to be part of the FCJ Team, I was skeptical. I've been to a countless conferences, I've worked with a lot of organizational development consultants, and I've even been a consultant. When it comes to organizational growth and visioning programs, I'm tough to impress. I couldn't imagine a visioning process that would be sufficiently high quality and responsive to the distinctive needs of our church. What books would we study and why were those chosen? What were the qualifications of the consultant and why could he or she be trusted to offer recommendations about our church? Why was FCJ better than any other programs? Don't we have the talent and expertise among our own members to craft our own program rather than look to one that comes from our connectional relationship with the larger church?

But ... as I said ... this church deserves my support ... my best. And so I said yes. I trusted. And together with other members of the FCJ team, we prayed and we studied, and we listened, and we learned. We asked a lot of tough questions. We argued and discussed and debated.

And I've come to realize that the FCJ Process makes a tremendous amount of sense for us at this moment in our congregation's history. This prayerful, Christ-centered plan may be imperfect in some ways, but the framework it provides is powerful and, more importantly, we serve a God with a perfect plan. And as we all know, when we seek to stay close to God, He will lead us where we need to go.

Over the last 20 years, our church has changed too ...

 

We've torn down an older building and built the Wesley Wing, we acquired the property across the street. We've faced alarming debt ... and we've gotten that debt under control. We've said goodbye to treasured friends ... and we've welcomed new ones. We've brought closure to some ministries, grown others, and introduced new ones.

Everything that we've been through as a congregation has brought us to this point ... and on Monday, December 15th, our faith family with have an important opportunity to begin shaping what coming years will look like for this church. That evening, we'll gather in the Sanctuary at 6:30 pm, we'll worship together, and we'll vote on the Ministry Action Plan that has been developed for our congregation through the Fruitful Congregations Journey.

While we've hosted three town meetings on the FCJ Ministry Action Plan, you do not need to have attended any of them in order to vote. You simply need to be a current, registered member of First United Methodist Church Bloomington. We'll have childcare available that evening, and if you need more copies of the Ministry Action Plan or background on the FCJ Process, please let us know. You'll find cards with team member names and contact information at church exits, and you're welcome to call the church office, too.

Thank you for being my church family.

I'll see you all on Monday, December 15th.

Sue Sgambelluri

PACKED AND WAITING

I'm not good at waiting. When I was a student at IU if the dinner line in the Willkie Quad was too long, I would choose to return to my room rather than wait and eat. Years before that I would wait impatiently for the record albums I had ordered from the Capitol Record Club to arrive. Day after day I would stop by the post office in our Alaskan village, and check mail box #550. The waiting was intolerable.

I'm not good at waiting and yet at the heart of Advent is the Biblical call to wait expectantly for the arrival of God. The God of Abraham, Sarah, Ruth, Isaac, and Jacob is a God who is on the move.

This December Sharon and I are waiting not just for the arrival of the Carpenter King, but we are waiting for the birth of a little boy. He will be the son of our youngest son, Michael, and his bride, Sarah. The boy's name, they decided long ago, will be Max. He is being named after my biological father. My Dad was a missionary teacher who died on the mission field and is buried in a place called Wymbo-Nyama.

The due date is immediately after Christmas. Sarah and Michael, who live near DePaul University in Lincoln Park, Chicago, are so ready for their son to arrive! The nursery is ready, the crib was long ago put together, the rocking chair is waiting, the car carrier has been purchased, and Max has a whole line of IU clothing ready to wear!

At a lunch put on by a United Methodist Women's circle this week, people asked, "What are you going to do if Sarah goes into labor on Christmas Eve? Will you go?"

I mumbled something about staying here to preach while Sharon drove north, and several people said, "You go! You hand the sermon to someone else and you go be where you need to be. You've got to be there...whenever it happens."

So our late December plans are a little "iffy." Other family members are coming in. Airline tickets have been purchased. But if Max decides to arrive, then we may well be headed north even as guests arrive. We'll abandon our Christmas tree, gifts here and some people we love very much, and head north...because we don't know when he is going to arrive.

This whole God thing, this Advent deal, is like this, I think. We are told to live with our bags packed, our shoes by the door, so that when God shows up we don't miss the holy, beautiful, world-changing thing that is happening.

Mark's Gospel begins (1:2-3, NRSV) with this quote from the prophet Isaiah: "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"

Are you ready for God's new thing in your life, even when God doesn't give you a specific date on the calendar?

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark Fenstermacher