Ordination | The Journey

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A Horrible Retirement Speech

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Dr. Steve Martin

Steve & Shirley

“When he heard the words, ‘Chest of God,’ Eli fell backward off his stool where he sat next to the gate. Eli was an old man, and very fat. When he fell, he broke his neck and died. He had led Israel forty years.” – 1 Samuel 4:18
 
When I read this scripture for today I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I have just retired after forty years of leading the church. Some think I am old. Some even think I am fat. Thankfully, I got a well-intentioned roast as I got ready to retire – and there was no fire – and no neck breaking – just gracious people having a good time as they celebrated my leaving and the coming of a new pastor. That’s the way it should be… know when to retire… and expect and encourage a refreshing new spirit to follow.

What a horrible retirement speech at the end of a long career. No one wants to be remembered the way Eli was in today’s scripture. We’ve all seen that happen before. The leader who builds something impressive but can’t see when it is time to step aside. The retirement that happens a few years too late. If he’d stepped down a few years earlier, the retirement celebrations would have had a whole different feel to them.

What are we going to do without you around here? Did you mean it when you said we could call you about anything? I can’t imagine this place without you. 

But when the person stays too long, people might say all those things, but they don’t really mean them. There’s a hollow ring to the speeches of people trying to be kind, when what they are really thinking is: It’s about time.

Eli, who had a genuine call from God, should have stepped aside and allowed the people to celebrate his years of work. Instead he stayed, and started listening to all the wrong people. His degenerate sons started stealing the temple meat, but even worse, they lost the ark of the covenant. How do you lose the ark of the covenant?! They took it into a losing battle and lost it. And when their father heard the news, he skipped the retirement party and keeled over.  

When the scripture mentions that Eli was fat, it was not a comment on his physical fitness. He was fat because he too had been eating the fat marbled temple meat. He had benefited from his sons’ corruption. He had truly lost his calling.

Why couldn’t he see it? Why couldn’t he see himself with any clarity? When did he lose his vision?

Dear Lord, guide us in accepting our callings and also in accepting when it is time to allow someone else to follow theirs. Let that be the right person, the one who has a calling too, one who will bring an exciting new spirit to us all, in and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace

Steve

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Take a Look in the Mirror

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Dr. Steve Martin

Steve & Shirley

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” – Jeremiah 1:5

Every now and then someone will ask me: “How do you know that you’ve been called to be a minister of the gospel?”

I could tell the long story of my calling and my running from that calling until I ran right into Jesus. Perhaps I could answer in the words of Howard Thurman: “I learned to follow the grain in my own wood.” That my calling was in the grain of my being… I needed to recognize that it is there.

Discerning the calling in your life has a lot to do with getting to know yourself. For me, the calling of God has always echoed in the chambers of my consciousness.

Listening to your own inner voice can at times be more daunting than listening to the voices of others. Searching for all the answers outside of ourselves always gives us an excuse to postpone the hard work of introspection and self-evaluation.

A clinical psychologist once told that her greatest aim is help people to listen to and pay attention to themselves. She says that when a person becomes cognizant of himself and his self-conflictedness, he is well on the road to psychological health.

Could it be that our greatest discoveries are really the discoveries we make about ourselves? Could it be that that the greatest challenges we face are actually the challenges that are innate to who we are? Could it be that the discernment of our life calling is really an invitation to explore the deeper meanings of our own lives?

A young seminarian went to hear a lecture by Howard Thurman. He wanted him to sign my book (‘Jesus of the Disinherited’), but more importantly, he wanted him to give him some spiritual guidance. Our young seminarian said: He looked at me and wrote these words in my book: “You know the path. Walk in it.” Being told what Iwealready know was not really what we are looking for, but it does make us begin to take more seriously and to look more closely at the man in my mirror.

Dear God, it is amazing how our journeys in life keep leading us right back to ourselves and right back to you. Help us to follow your leading in and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace

Steve

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“Stitch ‘N Bitch”

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Dr. Steve Martin

Steve & Shirley

Today Shirley and I were making the rounds looking for some sculpting supplies and instructional books on sculpting that would help me do it better. After my heart attack back in 1995 I started sculpting and produced statues the district superintendents would purchase and give to those persons being ordained in their districts. The piece was entitled “Ordination” and pictured Jesus standing in front of this kneeling person (one for male and one for female) with one hand on their shoulder and the other on their head.

As we were on our hunt we went to Barnes and Nobles, asked where the sculpting books might be, and was told to look in the craft section. Guess what? In all of that store there is not one book on sculpting. But I did find one book whose title almost brought me to my knees laughing. It was titled: “Stitch ‘N Bitch.” It was about knitting… but we all know it was really about life.

When Shirley was young – say elementary to middle school, her mother would make some of her clothes… especially party clothes. Years ago she told the story of her mother working on this prom type dress, you know fancy and all that stuff. It was made of red velvet – which I am told is impossible to work with – it has a knap to it and shifts as you try to sew it. Margie would sew for a while, get ticked and throw it in the corner. She would settle down and come back to work on it at a later time. Needless to say it spent a lot of time in the corner. But, it was finished and Shirley did wear it.

When we served Triplett Church in Mooresville, Shirley tried to get me to crochet, saying that it will help to release the stress. Ha! All I could crochet was wads or tight balls of yarn. It made me even more tense. I have come to understand that we like to Stitch ‘N Bitch… stitch ‘n Lamatate (from Lamatations) when things don’t go exactly our way.

What ended my sculpting endeavor years ago was, after several months of working to get this statue perfect (which was really two statues that had to be put together after the finished resin product was produced), I went to pick up the statutes from the casting company in Sophia only to find that they had broken my original statue, and the finished product was so poorly done (big seams where the mold didn’t fit correctly, and pieces chipped away) that I could not accept them. I want to tell you I was in a “Stitch ‘N Lamatate” mood. All the ordinands would not receive this gift – a gift they knew others had received. I was disappointed for them. I was embarrassed that I let them down. I was MAD at this company for taking so little care of my product.

I remembered, after completing my first original, making an appointment with the person in charge of this at Cokesbury in Nashville. He set up the appointment and we made the ten-hour trip to Nashville, spent the night, and went to meet with him the next day. This man, I can’t remember his name, didn’t have the common courtesy to allow me to come up to his office and sit down and discuss this matter. No, he met me in the lobby and told me that I needed to sent this to China. I had ten hours all the way back to Asheboro to Stitch ‘N Lamatate.

When I saw this title I laughed. But the title really made me ask myself the question: “Are you ready for this again? The disappointment? The failure? Or will you be smarter this time and seek out people (professionals) who can give you advice on how to make it through the maze of stitches.”

My advice is, if your stitches are worthwhile, keep on stitching because they will bring encouragement to someone. Keep on bitching too. This helps you to express those negative feelings – get them out – and brings a release of that stress. Find someone who will listen to your complaints and keep them in Vegas. God has always been a good listener when someone wanted to bitch – look at the Psalms. God is big enough to hear that word and know that it is one of his children complaining about the unfairness of life. And guess what – He already knows, will listen to you day and night, and bring you peace – if you will listen.

Dear Lord, I gripe and complain and even lamatate at times. Help me through those times and give me peace in and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace

Steve

PS: Any of you who have one of my statues (the Ivory colored ones) would you post a picture or two to share with all our Facebook friends? I would like for them to know I really have done this????

Filed under: Church, Devotions, Faith, Gifts, Ordination | 2 Comments »

Easy To Die

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Dr. Steve Martin

Steve & Shirley

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24

Jesus was the last person Sundar Singh was looking for as a late teenager in India at the turn of the 20th Century. After all, Jesus was the “foreign god” of the Christian teachers at his school. A zealous Sikh, Sundar had publicly torn up a portion of the Bible to protest its claims. One night as he prayed he became conscious of a light shining in the room. He looked outside to make sure it was not someone shining a light. Gradually the light took the form of a globe of fire and in it he saw the face of Jesus. Sundar threw himself on the ground and surrendered His life to Jesus.

The following months proved to be very difficult for Sundar and his family. Becoming a follower of Christ was not taken lightly by his family nor his community. He was excommunicated. He cut his hair, a gesture that did not make things any easier with his family who were convinced he had renounced his Sikh heritage.

A month after he was baptized in the year 1905, he took the vow of a sadhu. He gave away his meager possessions, put on a saffron robe and became a barefooted wandering man of God. Among Christians the world over, this barefoot Sadhu was later called the “apostle of the bleeding feet” because the soles of his feet were often covered in bloody blisters. The life of a sadhu is hard and entirely dependent on God. Sadhu Sundar Singh’s needs were met entirely through the kindness of people he met wherever he went.

Sundar Singh is credited as the first missionary to cross the Himalayan Mountains to take the gospel to Nepal and Tibet. At 36 years of age he made his last trip over the mountains. He never returned and is assumed to have been a martyr for Jesus.

In his diary left behind he had written, “It is easy to die for Christ. It is hard to live for Him. Dying takes only a few minutes—or at worst an hour or two—but to live for Christ means to die daily to myself.”

Dear Lord, help me to live worthy of the calling as your disciple. Show me the cross you want me to carry today, and to do the “hard” thing: die to myself and live for Jesus and others who need His love. Amen.

Grace and Peace

Steve

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Worthless Degrees

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Dr. Steve Martin

Last night on the eleven o’clock news they reported that according to some poll that some organization had conducted they came up with the top ten most worthless degrees. I didn’t catch all the segment, who conducted the poll, what was the meaning of “worthless” in this poll, and why it was even worth airing the findings.

In this poll, Communications was the most worthless – judging by journalism on television today – I agree with this one. It has gone from the honored profession of the Walter Cronkite days to the sensationalism of the present day. Today it is not news but opinion and talking heads. Number five however, of the most worthless degrees, was a degree in Religious Studies or Theology.

(Since I did not know who conducted the poll, I googled the “top ten most worthless degrees…” and came up with many polls which all gave different rankings for all sorts of degrees.)

But I wonder how could a degree in Theology and Religious Studies be worthless, especially in the top five? If worthless means money, then you may be right. Most people in the pulpit in mainline denominations make less than people with Master Degrees in other fields – which is required for becoming fully vested members of the clergy. We have drawn closer only in the last few years. Had it not been for conferences in the church seeking to keep qualified and talented young clergy we would still be lagging far behind like we use to. The old layman’s prayer use to be: “Lord, you keep him humble and we will keep him poor.”

I honor anyone who has the intellectual honesty and moral integrity, the compassion and calling of Christ, and the maturity of spirit to know that one needs to be educated in the things of God, so that whether you stand in the marketplace, the pulpit, the home, bedside, study or at the grave, you may speak as one prepared and approved by man and God to speak with wisdom, truth and grace, and not speak as a fool.

In addition, in the United Methodist Church, before one can be ordained an Elder in the church, he/she must have a college degree or equivalency from a school certified by the University Senate, a (94 Hrs. 3-4- years) Master of Divinity degree or equivalent from a school certified by the University Senate, gone through the candidacy process with a District Committee on Ministry where we pass a fully involved background check and answer many questions concerning our call to ministry and our theology, receive approval and support from our home church and PPRC, and meet face to face in two different years with the Conference Board of Ordained ministry – where we write papers and sermons, defend those papers and sermons before committees on Preaching, Call and Disciplined Life, and Theology. These are tough committees who are charged with the serious responsibility of making sure you are ready to become an ordained United Methodist Pastor. If there is doubt you are asked to redo your papers and return the following year.

Our education doesn’t stop there. Each year we are required to continue our education through seminars, courses, and convocations. We are even encouraged to join a weekly lectionary group where we study and discuss scripture and prepare for sermons we will be delivering in the lectionary cycle.

I invite the Reverend Doctor Charles D. White, Jr. (former Conference Secretary) and Reverend Kimberly Ingram, current Conference Secretary to add to and/or correct anything I may have offered to you tonight.

You just don’t take a correspondence course, talk with a preacher or two, and they declare you are an ordained minister, at least not a United Methodist minister. One of the questions we ask is this: “Would I want this person to be my mother’s pastor?”

Is a degree in Theology or Religious Studies worthless? It is if you don’t use it and take it deeper and further everyday. But, I want to tell you that as you stand at the bedside of some dear parishioner who is moving into the heavenly country, you will let them down and feel very empty… if you don’t have that knowledge of God and that life of faith under-girding you as you lead this family though their most difficult day. I have an undergraduate degree in Religion, a Masters in Divinity, and a Doctorate in Organizing the Church for Ministry, and for me they are most worthwhile. I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for them.

Dear Lord, I thank you for college and seminary – it’s strain, difficulty and excitement. I thank you for those professors who cared so much for their subject – and that others learn well – that they were willing to teach in schools that didn’t pay all that much… but gave their lives to their students. Thank you for sending them to prepare us for the work of ministry, in and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace

Steve