All Saints Day

So...did you have a good Hallowe'en? Did you know that the ghoulishly identified celebration actually has a Christian connection in some ways? The name itself is a shortening of the term "All Hallows Even," which would translate to "All Saints Evening." Take out the "all" and the "v", and you have the name we have today: "Hallowe'en" (That's why the apostrophe is there: because of the missing "v").

November 1 is All Saints Day. In the Catholic Church, there are days set aside for those in Christian history who have been chosen to be saints, or specially venerated people. Probably the best known would be St. Patrick, whose day is March 17.

Since there are only 365 days in the year, there would eventually come a time when the saints would outnumber the days. So November 1 was set aside as a day when all of the saints, including more minor and future saints, would be recognized.

In the Bible, the terms saints was used more to refer to Christians in general. That's how Kailua United Methodist Church uses the term. The Sunday which falls on or just after November 1 is called "All Saints Sunday," and we kind of use it as the Christian Memorial Day. We will have some special worship elements, including a slide show of those who have died since the last All Saints Day, or for those whose loved ones were not included in a previous year.

We will conclude with Holy Communion. A part of the celebration of this sacrament (a sacred sign of God's unconditional love; in the United Methodist Church, the two sacraments are baptism and communion) of the church is the recognition of the "communion of the saints." It is a belief that though death may part us with our loved ones, the eternal hope is that one day we will be reunited.

It's a comforting thought, and one of the big reasons I remain a Christian: the hope not only for eternal life for me, but the far more exciting prospect of being reunited with those whom I love, and to finally meet in person, God my Creator and God my savior in Jesus Christ.

Endangered Species: Church

One of my colleagues in ministry in the United Methodist Church is Pastor Erika Gara, who pastors in Southern California. She has a great blog called Endangered Species: Church. What a great title for a blog! It reflects perfectly what is a reality: that many churches are in danger of extinction if we don't address very carefully the needs not only of the present generation which dominate church attendance (those over 50, but also, if not more so, the ability to address the needs of the generations which are under 50.

I like Erika's post on Pink Floyd and Psalm 23, on how a professor at Boston University (Peter Hawkins, from whom I was privileged to take courses during seminary - although at a different school than BU) read the 23rd Psalm and asked young people where they had heard of it. Their answers were interesting: few of them knew that it was from the Bible. Check out her blog to learn some of the surprising places this scripture passage shows up: http://www.endangeredspecieschurch.blogspot.com.

I also like her post on "Tinkerers," which talks about how younger people like churches which tinker with different approaches and ways of thinking. This can find a lot of resistance among older people, many of whom really like to keep things the way they always were.

I'm grateful that Kailua United Methodist Church, for the most part, has kept an open mind and allowed for experimentation and new ideas.

Hot Dog Eating Contests and Spirituality

Take a look at this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4BU2pOLvxA. It features Takeru Kobayashi, many time champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest (since dethroned by Joey Chestnut) at Coney Island, New York. In the video, you see that he consumes 53 1/2 hot dogs in 12 minutes, and you see at the end a chart which reveals that he consumed the equivalent of 8 1/2 days worth of the average daily caloric intake (2000 calories per day).

Now...what if they said to Kobayashi: "Congratulations! Your grand prize is a gourmet meal right now at any of the finest restaurants in New York City."

No matter how good that gourmet meal would be, I'm sure that Kobayashi or any of the contestants would not care for or want that meal.

Here's the point: it doesn't matter how wonderful and satisfying Christianity is. If you and I are filling ourselves with other things in our lives that we are so full...it's likely that we will not care for or want Christianity.

Maybe if we unclutter our lives, we just might find that following Christ is the most wonderful, satisfying thing in the universe.

Trying to find a Bible passage?

One of the things that a lot of people don't like to let on is how little they know about the Bible. One of the best ways to become more familiar with the Bible are the online sites, such as Biblegateway.com or crosswalk.com.

The easiest way to access this is to go to our website, kailuaumc.org, and in the lower right hand side, there is a search panel. Just put in a key word or passage, and you will transported to Bible Gateway and the verse will come up!

Happy searching!

Hello from L. A.

It's morning in Los Angeles. Pastor Mike Tolbert and I are here for something called Leadership Academy #8. One of the best pastors in the United Methodist Church, Rev. David Bridgman, is here to teach the 150 or so pastors and laypeople from various United Methodist Churches in Southern California and Hawaii. The basic theme is how to grow a church beyond the 150+ range.

It's been very refreshing and revealing to both of us. The basic question is, "Is yours a pastor driven church, where most of the ministry is done by the pastors, or are you a lay driven church, where much of the ministry is done by the laypeople?" Rev. Bridgman said in no uncertain terms that if a church is mostly pastor driven, it will get to a certain size and stay that way. It will create a bottleneck that will prevent the church from growing larger.

I have to confess that ours is definitely a pastor driven church. Pastor Sam, now Pastor Mike, and I pretty much handle most of the ministry duties, such as pastoral visitation, worship leadership, leadership of groups and studies, and a lot of the administration.

What's wrong with that? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? Isn't that why we hired the pastors? Well...in one form of church culture, that's true. But I have come to believe that the true purpose of the church is for pastors to train and encourage laypeople to do ministry leadership.

And the main reason is that the laypeople can experience the amazing joy of being in active ministry for the sake of Jesus Christ. And that is an incredible experience indeed.

Back to Blogging

It's been nearly a year since my last post! A lot has gone on since then: my twin daughters are in kindergarten; the church has added a great new associate pastor in Michael Tolbert; one of my best friends, Grant Hagiya, was elected biship; and I turned 50 this year.

As I look at the date of my last blog (October 26, 2007), I realize that this corresponds with the trip I took to visit my mother for the last time with all of my sisters and my uncle, my mom's only living sibling. I think there is a lot to this, because the grieving process for my mom probably started in earnest then, reached its culmination on March 27, 2008, when her body joined her mind (she had had Alzheimer's Disease for many years).

I'll be talking more about this in future posts (hopefully not a year from now!). But I think blogging is a sign of a new stage in my grieving process. So thanks for being there for me.

Grace and aloha,

Tom

P. S. Today is my lovely wife Becky's birthday!