Jamey's Newsletter: Sunday, February 26, 2024
We have an entire generation resistant to the church because they were told that we don’t ask those sorts of questions at church. We are simply to believe. And now we have convinced young adults that the church is not big enough to handle their tough questions. And if the church is not big enough, then maybe God can’t handle the questions either.
Doubt is not destructive to faith. Unexpressed doubt becomes destructive to faith.
What if we started thinking of faith not as a noun but as a verb? What if faith was not something we possess but something we walk into? What if faith was seen as a journey of trust and not a certainty of belief?
What if we viewed doubt as God saying, “I am making way for spiritual growth?” And we created an environment where God could plant seeds of faith in the fertile ground of doubt?
Spiritual growth happens when we are as comfortable with mystery as we are with the certainty of beliefs.
Jamey
(Pre-recorded online worship from Gainesville First UMC, Gainesville, Georgia)
Doubt is not destructive to faith. Unexpressed doubt becomes destructive to faith. (Click to Tweet)
Church is too often the less likely place to be spiritually honest. (Click to Tweet)
Being honest about our doubts is a way of staying authentic in our faith. (Click to Tweet)
Jesus prefers honest doubt over pretend faith. (Click to Tweet)
Meme of the Week
Dad Jokes
Flooding problems at home? I Noah guy!
What’s a tornado’s favorite game? Twister!
I Have Been Thinking……………
Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.
How would I live differently if I lived for the stories instead of the stuff? Will my children be more excited to inherit my stories or the stuff I have collected when I die?
Book I am Reading This Week
Lent of Liberation: Confronting the Legacy of American Slavery by Cheri L. Mills
INTERESTING ARTICLES, PODCASTS, OR VIDEOS FROM THE WEEK
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation: Keep Changing
Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz
"Three Days to See" by Helen Keller
The days are long but the decades are short by Sam Altman
MANAGING,LEADING, AND FOLLOWING by DEE W HOCK
The ‘Busy’ Trap BY TIM KREIDER
Abrahamic Family House ‘changes all the rules’ of interfaith understanding
Parkinson’s—The Gift I Didn’t Want by Philip Yancey
Youtube: February 17, 2019: Sunday Sermon by Michael Gerson at National Cathedral (he speaks on depression)
Top Ten (This is a little brain exercise I do - since I don’t do Wordle). I have a notebook where I make a list of ten things that serve as sort of a brain dump for me. It is random but fun. I plan on sharing it with you in 2023.
Where would I take people if I was a tour guide for my hometown (Gainesville, Georgia)? Top Ten
Collegiate Grill and walk around the square
Sunset boat ride on northern Lake Lanier
Sunday lakeside service at Gainesville First UMC
Food Truck Friday Nights at the Rowing Venue
Around the campus of Brenau University & a GTA production
Sandwich at In-Between (for our boat ride)
Wilshire Park and the Rock
History Center
Two private residents that I know I would take to visit
Breakfast at Longstreet
What am I missing?
Happening at Gainesville First United Methodist Church in Gainesville, Georgia
Sunday, March 19 / 4-6 pm / Sanctuary / Admission: free-will offering
In this stunning two-hour performance, Rev. Joseph Morris shares Mark’s Gospel by memory. This is an event you will be talking about for years to come, so invite a friend and make plans now to join us.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Sunday, March 12 / 12 pm / Reception Hall
The Foster Care Ministry of Gainesville First United Methodist Church will host a lunch and learn event on Sunday, March 12, at Noon in the Reception Hall.
If you want to learn how to be involved in a ministry that impacts children in Hall County, we invite you to join us. This is a free event. Email Misty Leach at mleach@gfumc.com to RSVP.
Weekly Blessing and/or Quotes
Quote from Rev. Sam Wells:
Pastor and author James Howell has a memorable phrase about patience. Mindful of negative resonances like Vladimir and Estragon and Agnes Wickfield, he says that patience isn’t about passivity or frenzied distraction: it’s about “being impatient about one thing for a long time.” That’s true patience. Not idle waiting. Not absurdly sacrificial selflessness. It’s being impatient about one thing for a long time. That’s what long obedience in the same direction truly is.
Reflection on patience is, in the end, a meditation on God’s patience. God doesn’t wait idly. In Jesus, God is proximate with us, tells us a different story, gives us reason to hope, and finally bears in his own body the scars of his commitment to us. Jesus is God’s long obedience in the same direction. God’s patience is exactly this: God is impatient—passionately, crazily, devotedly—about one thing for a long time. That thing is us.