Waiting for Miracles? Consider Some Already Done

Rather than waiting for a sign of God’s existence, turn to the Bible, where his miracles are well-documented.

HARKER — McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Waiting for Miracles? Consider Jesus’ Resurrection

BY DANIEL GRISWOLD

danielgriswold@Gmail.com

Originally Published: April 1, 2014 in the Bluffton Edition of The Island Packet

In reading Matthew 12, there are two verses that have bothered my soul. Jesus goes around performing miracles and refuting critics who are plotting to kill him and he amazes the crowd constantly. In the midst of this, in verses 38 and 39, someone states, “Teacher, we want you to show us a sign.” Jesus responds quickly and doesn’t perform a miracle on demand. In paraphrase, he says, “Come on people, you’re being terrible, you’ve turned away from God. Your only sign will be the sign of the prophet Jonah.”

Jonah sat in the belly of a large sea creature for three days, and Jesus is foreshadowing his future death and resurrection. He refuses to give into being the entertainment and centerpiece of the story. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God. Yes, he has done many miracles. But he is about to do something so much more important than make y’all say, “Wow.” Lastly, he’s going to rise from the belly of death and open the doors to a greater work of our father. That’s big stuff.

I was once like a member of the crowd calling out for more signs and miracles. In fact, I still like to ask God to show me he is real. I have hardly ever received a moment like Gideon, who asked God to place dew on a fleece in the book of Judges in order to determine God’s purpose and agency. I’ve had to build a trust with Him over time, and have had to mature beyond the need for “mountaintop” experiences every Sunday and every retreat to remain engaged with God.

As a child, I thought of church and altar calls (a minister calling those who seek repentance and a filling of the holy spirit to come forward and receive God’s presence, forgiveness and otherworldly touch) as an end in religion, and I fully expected to see miracles to prove my faith.

I wanted to see with my own eyes the physical and scientific reality of the God who created the universe. I didn’t want to trust the testimony of the millennia, because I’m new, the world is new, and certainly things have changed. The spirit behind my curiosity was, “God, show me something now.” Much like a sports fan saying a prayer for his team to win the current game, I wanted to have a story that would change my life.

I didn’t understand that that story had already been lived out. And in this scene, returning to Matthew chapter 12, we have a crowd that wanted an immediate sign, and Jesus said, something bigger than you can imagine is coming. Have patience; just wait.

How many walked away that day saying, “Man, Jesus was a disappointment”? He called them bad people; he didn’t create matter from nothing to prove his claims as a prophet; and he passed the buck to a future event. How can he be trusted?

Today we have the story of the gospel, we have the testimony of the apostles recorded for our discernment, the traditions of the church passed down and, even better, the living holy spirit working among us and binding us as believers in Christ, who calls us into ministry as the people of God.

God’s love has already been shown, and yet we still want a further sign. We are simply impatient to wait to see what God is about to do.

In this season of Lent, perhaps we can take a breath and remember that our time is not God’s time. The miracle we are looking for may be soon to come — it may have already occurred and we refuse to trust in it. As a community of faith, let us spend time in prayer and contemplation, giving God a place to do something even better than what we are asking for.

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

(Read more @ The Island Packet)

 

Great Justice Starts in the Hearts of a Few (Pastor’s Corner)

Thomas Merton was a 20th century writer and Catholic mystic.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Great justice starts in hearts of the few

BY DANIEL GRISWOLD

danielgriswold@gmail.com

March 18, 2014

I’m extremely interested in the study of the human desire, over the ages, to have justice and of people seeking hope in what the ancient Egyptians called Ma’at (a balance between the powerful and powerless).

The 20th century writer and philosopher Thomas Merton cautions that “hope in man must not be naive.” He advocated non-violence. This concept seems so utopian that it could never be achieved within the context of human time, perhaps not even in the 100 (if we’re lucky) years we have to live on this earth.

His writing pushes readers to play with the concept of timelessness or eternity and what can be achieved by moving forward with “truth” — no matter what the immediate results prove. “Do not depend on the hope of results,” he argues. He says Christians are working on a timetable that is dependent on God and that we must suffer as Christ did, taking on the yoke of the savior, that yoke of evil.

Despite this, in the immediate context of our current world, I couldn’t help but think of how one goes about changing the politics of the world through non-violence — considering the current crisis in Ukraine, various conflicts in North Korea, flare-ups in Africa and even local violence I see on the news in Savannah and our Lowcountry each year.

There sometimes seems to be a stage that the powerful begin to stand on, and there becomes a distinct separation from the ordinary — a hedge away from regular people. If “the realism of non-violence must be made evident by humility and self-restraint, which clearly show frankness and open-mindedness and invite the adversary to serious and reasonable discussion,” then the stage has to be torn down, or everyone must be brought onto the stage so that listening, discussion and a middle ground can be found.

Should we use the threat of power and violence to raise us to that stage, and make peace then — and by those means?

Merton calls on us to say, “No!” We must not allow ourselves to take that stage, because that would make our ideal of non-violence a pharisaic ideal.

“The basis of pharisaism is division,” he states, and the basis of non-violence is the humbleness and oneness of the entire human race. The only real solution is to do the work of God in faith and have hope that through the generations, the kingdom of God will eventually come.

This is a timetable of patience, and is not dependent on immediate gratification. Though this is a hard ideal and the ways to live it out are diverse — from those who write in their home’s chambers, to the marches of Martin Luther King Jr. and those who non-violently struck the same chord for justice — there are endless battles that can be won on the level of ordinary streets.

Do we have the patience? How long will we wait until the earth is made new?

With each action we take and each word we say, with every moment we listen and by how we distribute and give of what we have in our possession, we push against walls that separate human from human, people from people and nation from nation.

A great hope is that all people will unite one day and accomplish great things. It always starts small in the hearts of a few.

What big things do you want to see accomplished? What steps can we take to make it so? How much patience will it take to bring about? And lastly, will we do what is necessary long enough to make it so?

I think we can make this happen.

 

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

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Don’t let noise distract you from God’s love

BY DANIEL GRISWOLD

danielgriswold@gmail.com

Originally Published in the Bluffton Ed. of The Island Packet, on February 18, 2014 

Thomas Merton, a somewhat mystical Catholic monk I’ve been prone to read, has impressed me with his strong commitment to silence. In an age of action and commotion, is this a call worth heeding? Can we be quiet in the storms of life?

Like nervous electrons, we like to keep moving in constant circles, only thinking of our being in terms of action and what we have been doing recently. This constant motion and outside analysis cannot bring peace with one’s self, and we become distanced from what we truly are (whatever that might be). I love this quote in a book of his essential writings: “When we are quiet, not just for a few minutes, but for an hour or several hours, we may become uneasily aware of the presence within us of a disturbing stranger, the self that is both ‘I’ and someone else.” Merton’s concept of the stranger is an eerie ghost to most of us who have taken too little time to seek inward, into the center of our being, where silence is the only communication and the key to self-discovery.

This silence is not easy for a generation that has put action and outer self-satisfaction above all else. We prize our rewards for hard work as our homes fill with items of our conquests here and there. We’re not used to quiet stillness. It is scary, like a horror movie, we might accidentally reflect, accidentally be silent for a minute, and we become disturbed by the stirrings of what is within us, perhaps lying dormant until that time when we’re listening and processing what it might be.

I’ve been reminded by Merton that the actions we must take before we help the world are the actions that are, as he says, “non-actions” and “the quiet of worship, the reverent peace of prayer, the adoration in which the entire ego-self silences and abases itself in the presence of the Invisible God,” this way we would receive “his one word of love.” And if we lived without this “one word,” we would be cursed to live within a life of illusion, like the electron, the ever-spinning slave promoting the goals of a world that is hell-bent on action, instead of the heavenward non-actions of contemplation and prayer.

So, as the world spins (and it does not stop for anyone), when will we make time to disengage and hear what heaven is really calling out to us? There is a real danger that even the best and most righteous follower of God, whose entire life has been devoted to doing good works, and whose energy has been poured outward, may find that the superhuman effort didn’t bring the rewards they’d hoped for — something was missing. If we just take the time listening, whispering, contemplating the word of God, and seeking the will of our creator, we may find ourselves rejuvenated and more alive.

Don’t let busyness take hold of you. Say “no” to some good things, say “no” to all evil things, and say “yes” to being enveloped by God’s love. Be continually transformed by the moments of grace and appreciate that God is everywhere; you are never alone. This moment is your moment: Close your eyes, be still, listen and know, “You are loved.”

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

Read more (here).

Learning to Breathe – Finding Quiet and Living in God’s Presence

 

We must find quiet in our lives to be able to breathe in God’s presence

BY DANIEL GRISWOLD

December 18, 2013 

I have a memory of my sister that I’ll never forget. We were sitting together in our parents’ brown 1980-something Caravan, and she began to gasp for air and after a moment of hysteria, she regained composure and stated, “Oh yeah, I forgot to breathe.”

That scared me a bit, and I’ve since reflected on that moment because I find it fascinating that something so essential — the taking in of air into the lungs — could be short-circuited. It is a life function we don’t often think about until it is missing. If forgetting to breathe is possible, what other essential things are we missing in life?

More recently, I was able to visit a Christian spiritual director. If you haven’t visited a person with this profession, their job is to help you along in your spiritual journey. I had no prior knowledge of how this would work, but I was excited to enter the process since I had worked pretty hard the previous five years and was feeling a bit dry. When I entered the session, worship music was softly playing, an icon of the Trinity (God the father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit) sat on a table and a candle was lit. We sat on opposite couches and introduced ourselves to each other.

Very quickly, I was directed to spend some time in silence prior to beginning our conversation. I believe it was about 10 minutes, and this is where my spirit wandered. First, I started to pray, “Lord, Lord …” and then I trailed off. I felt blocked. This is something I’ve dealt with in my prayer life for the past six months. I’ve felt so distracted I can barely find words that fit my experience to tell God my celebrations, my sins, my thankfulness, intercessions and supplications. I have been so dry I barely knew where to go.

After the time ended, we talked and I mentioned how I felt. I assessed where I’d come from and where I was going. I recalled a pastor who had lost his ability to speak because he’d been so busy. The prescription was to go to a monastery for a month and stay away from work. My spiritual director gave me the name of a monastery I could visit as needed, and she recommended I find times of peace and quietness.

As I write this I now recall a pastor charged with evaluating my extroverted personality. He had said, “Remember that to you, keeping the Sabbath in your way will be really important.” I realize that, but I hardly follow through.

My spiritual director and I hugged, which was strangely more powerful than usual, and I left feeling refreshed. My homework would be to make myself a Sabbath.

Even the busiest, most “important” people in the world, with high-functioning professional, extroverted tendencies, need rest. Constant pings from technology make this harder and harder.

In the Harvard Business Review article, “The Case for Slacking Off,” Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries quoted a company executive who testified to the need of not making yourself crazy by responding to constant emails: “I am not paid for doing this kind of work. If I’m so busy doing what people expect me to do, there will be no time left for what I ought to do. You can’t do creative work at a cyber pace. Creative work has its traditional rhythms. To be creative, you need to possess a more serene state of mind. Over the years I have learned the hard way that technology sometimes encourages people to confuse busyness with effectiveness. I need quiet time to be able to function.”

In our spiritual lives, this is even more important.

When the prophet Elijah was running for his life, he holed up in a mountain where he was told by the word of God to stand at attention, and he would have a meeting with God there. In 1 Kings 19, it records that a hurricane wind came, and then an earthquake hit, and God was not in those, then a fire arose, and God was not in it either. Eventually, a quiet whisper spoke to him, he muffled his cloak over his face, and he listened. Elijah could have continued to run from those who wanted him to die, but he waited for God in that place.

We all need to stop, put away our distractions, especially during Christmastime, and learn how to breathe in God’s presence. Elijah heard a still small voice, and in the quietness, we can be given wisdom and be refreshed too.

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/12/18/2843706/we-must-find-quiet-in-our-lives.html#storylink=cpy

 

Real Conversations Mean Listening, Being Present

By Daniel Griswold

I recently watched an interesting episode of the television comedy, Friends, in which during an alternate universe scene, one of the characters (Pheobe) has a heart attack.  Upon returning to work, Pheobe is told that she is fired, and while she is having a second heart attack due to the stress of the news, a co-worker walks by.  As she passes she asks Pheobe, “Hey, how are you doing?”  Pheobe basically responds, “I’m fired and I’m having a heart attack.”  The co-worker, completely ignoring Pheobe’s response says, “Well, glad to have you back,” and continues on her way.

The scene is striking because it is true.  Often in our own routines, and wrapped in our own multi-tasking, we find ourselves callous to the reality of those around us.  We listen, but only to gain the pertinent information to the tasks we are performing.  Sure, this is often a necessary function of working together and seems quite logical, but does this not irk us within when someone else does this to us individually?  What does this look like?  It is a blank stare, only gazing long enough to make brief eye contact, the stare moves beyond every chance it gets, because the “listener” is not really with us.  Only one of the ears is on us, the other is on the potential of the next conversation.  What does this feel like?  It makes us feel as if we are not very important to the one “listening” and causes a rift slowly over time, if quality listening and real affection do not come in time during the relationship.  We do not like to be half listened to because it makes us feel less human.  We become nothing but a source of information, and the relationship potential becomes secondary to the functional.  This leads to burn out, and loss of quality friends/family/coworkers over time.  Has anyone ever done this to you in your home or in the office – at church?  Have you ever realized that someone is not valuing the moment they have with you?  We all do it from time to time to others, but how can we guard against this?  How can we make sure to have Real Conversations and affirm the humanity of those we work and are in contact with regularly?

Like many disciplines, the first step is to seek to always be aware.  Being aware of how you are treating others, means that you are constantly monitoring your eye contact and ensuring that you are not looking around ready for the next conversation should it occur.  Being aware means keeping both ears focused on the one speaker, comprehending the depth of the message, and not just the outline, or the surface level data of the conversation.  Being aware means giving feedback that shows you are interacting with what is being presented to you and that you understand the wholeness of it.  When someone says, “I hope you are doing well, I’ve been praying for you,” you do not reply, “Good, you?” and move on, but rather something like, “I am well, I appreciate your prayers.”  Or if you meet with a co-worker/minister who tells you of a great story that happened at the fellowship event the night previous, you do not say, “Oh, yeah. Cool.  Did you finish the research?” but rather, you affirm that their celebration is worthwhile, and celebrate with them for a moment.  This awareness may make getting business done a bit  more clunky and cumbersome, but if this personal tact is not excessive, it can flesh out the often impersonal office work and give people a place that their work has meaning, and where they feel that they are more than just means to an end.  They become more human in the midst of their work.

This not only applies to the work place, but to every conversation we have.  Whenever something becomes familiar, we can make if a routine, and the relationship can become less valuable to us.  By being aware of every relationship in every conversation we hold ourselves accountable to the image of God in every person (imago dei; Gen. 1:26, 5:1, 5:3).  And whether we like those around us or not, we are to give each person respect as fellow creatures, and love each other as those who have been created by God, as those who have been given an opportunity to love one another (1 John 4:7) in greater ways each day.  Start today, and decide to have Real Conversations with each person you meet today.  Meet the challenge, and your life will certainly be enriched, and perhaps more blessed than before.

Dan is the Youth Director at Saint Andrew By-The-Sea UMC on Hilton Head Island, SC

Twitter:  @Dannonhill     Email: DanielGriswold@Gmail.com

Blog: DanielGriswold.Wordpress.com

*Originally published in The Island Packet’s Bluffton Edition

(Photo Credit: http://westernbotanicals.blogspot.com/2011/11/are-you-listening.html)

Pastor’s Corner: Shiny New Things by Daniel Griswold

Pastors Corner: Shiny New Things

By Daniel Griswold

Youth Director at Saint Andrew By-The-Sea UMC

Hilton Head Island, SC   Twitter:  @Dannonhill     Email: DanielGriswold@Gmail.com

Blog: DanielGriswold.Wordpress.com

This article was originally published in The Island Packet, Bluffton Edition

Last Wednesday iOS 7, the newest operating system for the iPhone was released in the United States.  For an entire week building up to the launch, the internet and many of my friends had been buzzing, hoping to be able to be the first to try it out on their phone.  For non-Apple people, this is a major revamp of iOS and changes the look, feel and inner workings of the phone on a level not seen in a long time.  The New Factor was extremely high, much like someone waiting for a revamp of the prior year’s Corvette.  On launch, at 1 pm, Facebook and Twitter (as well as Instagram) went wild reporting those who could actually download it.  The demand being so high, that the servers could not bear the load of all, so many are waitlisted until a later time when the servers go idle.  This is not just an Apple phenomenon, in general, most people love new things.

I think on my own life, as my wife and I expect our first child, and the excitement that this new development is bringing to our home.  Last year we adopted a Mini-Scnauzer named Bella, and now, we’re going to have a real live human being to take care of.  I’ve already been told by just about everyone that our lives will be completely changed – and it is going to be good.  The newness of a future child has me nervous and excited, like being in line for a roller coaster at an amusement park – the really big ones.  All I know is that I’m going to do this – and I’m going to do all I can to make it as awesome as I can.  Adrenaline races through me as I think about it, and I’m finding my being refreshed, rebooted, and remade by my new reality.

The reverence that comes with viewing newness changes us, much like the moment in my life when I was renewed in the spirit as I began to try to understand God and began a relationship with Jesus years ago.  When I read these lines from 2 Corinthians in relation to looking at Christ as my savior from a life of darkness, and brought to a new light: “Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it!”  I imagine the earliest Christians grappling with what it would mean to live out a faith that was new and exciting and that would be pioneered as a lifestyle, often misunderstood, yet strong and full of the Spirit of God.

Like all new things, I felt pulled into its rotation by its natural beauty, and unlike an object that I hold in my hand, the relationship kindled by God’s love continues to transform me each and every day.  This message is for all, that we can be brand new, because there is a God in Heaven who came to us, and says, “Come with me.”

Keep an open mind when it comes to family worship services

 

Keep an open mind when it comes to family worship services

Published: August 20, 2013, The Island Packet, Bluffton Edition

 

By DANIEL GRISWOLD — danielgriswold@gmail.com

Have you ever been to a “Family Worship Service”?  I have, and it was fascinating. The service I’m thinking about was a Christmas service at a church I had served near Boston. I sat in the balcony, where I had a great view of the hundreds of moms, dads and their children. Whole families were sitting together in the pews — and it was noisy.

Sometimes when we think of church, we think of contemplative chapels with candles lit, silent prayers of confession, worship with a well-trained choir who sing with well-picked pauses and preachers who stop to let one think. Family services are nothing like that. Children have very few boundaries, and so the sanctuary becomes a place of constant movement (sort of like a hill of ants after having been kicked).

I worshipped with these families in an incredibly participatory style. We danced, played and listened to stories. Our eyes darted as children decided to dance in the aisles, and there was not candle lighting at the end like at most Christmas services I had attended. This was family friendly.

I left feeling exuberant, and having been raised in a family of five as the oldest, I enjoyed every minute. My church had brought families together and demonstrated an act of incredible vibrancy. Not all people felt as I did, however. I asked one of the worship directors (not a children’s ministry worship leader but a whole church worship leader who had led with guitars and singing) how he felt about it after giving my glowing review, and he was not as optimistic. The same energy, seeming chaos and unpredictability that I was celebrating was a thing of disconcertment for him. He felt out of control, unable to perceive where the service was going to go, and I believe he didn’t feel a sense of connection with his intended audience.

On Sunday mornings in a gathering of more than 1,000, the harmony of many adult voices singing would be quite different. I left him and wondered to myself about the canyon between our perceptions on such a lively worship event and I’ll admit I was a bit discouraged.

The question that bothers me the most is this, “Should children worship with adults?” We’re quite good at segregating the ages and sending children to “Kids Church,” youth to the “Youth Service,” and young adults to various small groups and offering fellowship offerings throughout the week. But I’ve always wondered how that affects the future of the church. What does it say to a child? When you take them into a place where we say we are entering and recognizing the Glory of God, and then, we send them to another place?

One who studies basic behavioral psychology knows that children develop patterns early on, and those patterns remain with them the rest of their lives. One alarming statistic going about the church today is that millennial young adults are not returning to the church. But I think to myself, we’ve been sending them away for a long time, why would they come back?

In Matthew 19, we see a similar tendency to segregate when the disciples rebuke parents from taking children to have Jesus pray over them. He says quite explicitly, “Let the little children come to me.”

I think this deserves some attention in our sanitized, clean and orderly modern worship services. How undignified are we willing to go to be welcoming and faithful to our future generations — who are the church of today not, as people often say, “the church of tomorrow”? Personally, I love when something out of the ordinary happens in church. A crying baby means there is life in that church. A teen might seem bored but at he or she is trying — and it means the family cares enough to build patterns of faithfulness in that young person’s life.

So how far are you willing to go? What would a family church look like? God’s family has all ages — from the Greatest Generation to the least.

Let’s get uncomfortable together.

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/08/20/2639874/keep-an-open-mind-when-it-comes.html#storylink=cpy

 

There is a Place for Young People in an Aging Society

There’s a place for young people in an aging society

Published: July 30, 2013, The Island Packet, Bluffton Edition

By DANIEL GRISWOLD — danielgriswold@gmail.com

A wise man told me this morning that our current culture is very “ageist.” In an area that is full of wonderfully retired and aging people, we live in a focal point of the angst that aging brings with it, in regular life and in worship.

Young people in the college and career phases of their lives walk into a church and are greeted by handshakes and smiles from gray-haired people wearing nice suits or dresses, holding up the structure and traditional styles of worship. In a perfect world, all ages would come together and worship the God of the Ages (or all ages), but the reaction I’ve more often seen is one of segregation according to age, individual taste in style, or by culture. In a time when people basically worship youth, this is not surprising, but how can God’s people be different?

In the Scriptures, it is obvious that God values all people of all ages. Those who are young are the church, those who are middle-aged are the church, those who are elderly are the church. And it is with different perspectives on life coming together that we see life’s picture more completely. The old do not forget what it was like to be young, full of new adventures, fears and risks. The young gain the advantage of wisdom, which is basically the ability to denote patterns in life and share that knowledge with others.

“Since my youth, God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.” (Psalm 71:17-18)

Perhaps segregation started after the World Wars, when young men and women settled down together and simultaneously started families and careers. A mass of people grew up together, supported one another, and raised children together. That solidarity gave them a special place in society as their children grew and created a new world beneath the structures they created. As that generation retires and passes off the responsibilities of the world, a painful process begins. It also seems like there are more older people than ever as the baby boomers remain in health well into their 80s and 90s. My great-grandmother, Alice, is now 102 years old.

So what are the young to do? I think that a bit of humility would do us all a bit of good. We are an aging society and for a time the young will have to come to terms with what it means to be at the other end of life. I think that the benefits of sharing life together outweigh the initial awkwardness of the relationship. Who wouldn’t want to have some sound financial advice, or to hear the stories of their family?

Perhaps that means that we don’t have all the electric guitars in the worship band, or perhaps that means that the projector shows images of cartoons from the 1960s and 1970s. That’s all OK. As we worship together, our picture of life becomes more complete, and it is our common focus on the glory of God, and telling of the great things he has done, that we forget age and become part of a church that is eternal. Can people of all ages come together and be the body of Christ? I know we can, I’ve seen it happen. Have courage and trust in the Lord, great things are possible.

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/07/30/2603993/theres-a-place-for-young-people.html#storylink=cpy

 

Experiencing A Better World Through Mission

Juaqin and Me

Experiencing pure joy through helping others is closest thing to heaven on earth

Published: July 3, 2013 in The Bluffton Packet

By DANIEL GRISWOLD — danielgriswold@gmail.com

There are so many ways to make a difference in this world, and everyone brings different skills to the table when building groundbreaking coalitions for global unity.

Some people are gifted at raising funds, and they finance the future of philanthropy — such as Bill Gates. Others build awareness and research causes to direct people toward their personal mission fields. Invisible Children made a splash last year, and their success in building awareness of forced child militaries in some regions of the world was both celebrated and reviled worldwide. Then there are those who feel a strong calling to be the hands and feet of the mission itself. They are called to go out into the world to shake hands and hug their fellow human beings across the globe.

Last week I flew to Panama with an intergenerational team to live out that call to be among people who were once “other” and completely alien. By intergenerational, I mean we had high school youth, a college student, a mom, local business owners and some wonderful retired people who wanted to make a difference. Our church has been connected and has supported a pastor named Rhett for years, and he has spoken at our church about Panama and the work there, but we hadn’t seen it with our own eyes or placed stakes in the ground with our own hands.

It was from a desire to build stronger ties that we headed out in an initial trip in October 2011. A local team traveled to Panama with to meet with Rhett, participate in the work of the mission, meet the people whom this pastor served, and build stronger ties with Christians working faithfully apart from us. That first mission was a success. We held a Vacation Bible School led by a retired teacher in our group, and the worker bees (including myself) painted the mission building, built a retaining wall for a new soccer field and repaired insect screens on the open-air windows. We were unable to visit the Gnobe people’s villages, which is the native tribe for whom the mission served. A tree had destroyed a bridge during a flash flood. We left strong as a team, feeling the Lord’s presence. We had strengthened ties with Christians in the city of David and the village of Cienaguita, but we still felt we needed to go further.

Last week we returned. Rhett had been able to build a connection between the natives, the village, the government, some Methodist churches in the U.S., and the Methodist church in a local city. A bridge had been built, and this new team made of up of people of many different views and stages of life were able to walk across the river and mostly uphill for 38 minutes through rainforest-like conditions to build the foundations for two homes and the steel grid structure for a second. We worked hard, drinking about five bottles of water a day in heavy humidity, making concrete, drilling holes in steel plates, digging and leveling space for the foundational platforms. All this for families who worked with and among us.

As the week came to a close, one young man named Juaqin, who is the oldest of a family of 10, whose mother had carried the bricks for their home up that mountain two at a time, invited us into his home. It was probably about 16 feet by 16 feet and had two bedrooms and a main area, but he glowed as he invited our team of 15 in. He felt as if he were in a mansion. My heart was warmed, and I could feel the presence of God, who had worked through the hearts and hands of so many people to make this happen. We closed by reciting together the “Lord’s Prayer” and thanked our father in heaven.

I thought about this and realized we had experienced a sign of what heaven will be like. People of all ages and nations coming together in unity to worship and thank God for his blessings. I imagined Christ on a throne in each of our hearts, and I was overcome with joy.

My prayer is that every person of the earth will experience this joy at least one time in their lives, if not continually. Not everyone can be out in the fields of the earth, but everyone in the chain made that moment possible. Let’s be thankful that the holy spirit continues to prod us like the apostles and the early believers who shared what they had and went out to care for all people. Let’s continue to be agents of God’s love and spread God’s good news to every living soul.

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/07/03/2565552/experiencing-pure-joy-through.html#storylink=cpy

 

Mobile Ministry: Bringing God’s word to the people of the Community

Mobile ministry brings word of God to the people of the community

By DANIEL GRISWOLD — danielgriswold@gmail.com

Published: June 21, 2013

The Bluffton Packet, supplement to The Island Packet

 

I’ve been thinking about what it means to be “mobile” as a person with a ministry.

I’ve found that so much of my time ministering to young people has been spent on the road in my little Toyota, on the various winding roads and highways around Hilton Head Island and Bluffton.

At the beginning of my ministry, I spent hours at a desk doing administrative work and getting little things done here and there, but the more I built relationships with the various communities our church serves, I cut down desktime and have learned to do much more on the road. My desk is sometimes replaced by rented tables paid for by my cup of coffee, or by spending a few moments at Saint Andrew’s new Bluffton Ministry Center near Dairy Queen — there is free Wifi there. Wherever my laptop sits, I become a hub of relationships, communications and learning.

A Google search for “Mobile Ministry” brings up articles about ministers preaching on circuits, trucker ministries and various other long-distance traveling ministries. The kind of ministry I’m talking about is not long distance. I am talking about the kind that develops around a “regional” church.

When people find a church they are willing to drive 35 minutes or so to reach, you have a “regional” church. These churches have families from wide and varying communities from urban to countryside, and so the ministers (lay and clergy) quickly learn to live beyond their own hamlet, and see the varying contexts interacting all over.

Here in our area, we have unique culture in each plantation and neighborhood. Our people have all sorts of ways of life and perspectives, so we become more creative to connect and serve, unify and challenge wisely. It would be easy to use the church as a hub and never leave it, because so many people come to this beacon set in the proverbial waters of the communities, like an academic who never leaves the seminary and finds oneself trapped in an ivory tower. The light on the outside of the church walls is just a fable to that person, and eventually the sermons and the advice of the one caring for the community makes little sense to those who live on the outside of the cave.

No, we must go out and be in the community.

Look at Jesus: He did not spend much time in one place, and it seems to have been a reality of the Jewish culture that his family traveled for various reasons. When Jesus was born, a census forced him to be born in a stable (Luke 2:7). After his birth, his family went to Egypt to escape Herod’s murderous attempt to stop the future claim to Kingship (Matthew 2:13). As a youth, he ended up at the temple asking questions of the teachers (Luke 2:46). After his ministry began, he then set out traveling, spanning the heights of Samaria to the depths of the Dead Sea toward the mountains around Jerusalem.

Jesus and his disciples were on the move, an urgency of mission moved them, and Paul and successive generations have moved with little time to remain static, and if so, only to teach for a time. So if Jesus was on the move, we as his followers must consider and act on the power and energy of that movement.

The nice thing about being mobile is that you become a central command for the community. Like a plant reaching out and connecting to new plots of soil and spreading life, you become the shoot that seeds love and hope in many different pots full of fertile soil.

After many years of being a “runner,” or a mobile minister, you begin to see the harvest come to bloom in various ways. God begins to bless the work, and you may see others becoming ministers to the community themselves. It truly is a blessing to see people you’ve cared about care for others and begin to bloom. Here’s to the hubs and nodes — keep connecting, keep moving and bring the Good News to your multicommunity community.

Columnist Daniel Griswold is the director of youth at St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church. Follow him at twitter.com/dannonhill. Read his blog atwww.danielgriswold.wordpress.com.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2013/06/21/2550939/mobile-ministry-brings-word-of.html#storylink=cpy