Disciples Act

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Tom Bolton

We’ve studied the Bible for 19 weeks now in our Disciple Bible class at First United Methodist Church of West Allis.  Truly, it is a marvelous curriculum, and I am with a wonderful group.  I have thought about how the Marks of Discipleship make a strong litany, and as we enter the New Testament this month, I am reminded of the orientation to Action for Disciples.

Disciples Act

Disciples place themselves under the power and authority of Scripture–
–Free in the Word!

Disciples know that they belong to God, that God has claim on them–
–We act on our discipleship with Jesus, eternal Word!

Disciples acknowledge their rebelliousness, and repent–
–We turn away, sometimes many times.

Disciples respond to God’s call, enter the covenant community,  express committment–
–called and shaped, sometimes many times!

Disciples hear and obey God’s call to be bearers of God’s message of deliverance–
–Listen to our cries for help. Hard to miss our calls!

Disciples keep God’s Law by doing it–
–Keep us obedient that we might find happiness in the commands.

Disciples commit to corporate worship–
–Offerings and thanksgiving, help us pass through our guilt and shame.

Disciples are Godly leaders–
–Keep Nathans in our lives. Sometimes we hate Nathans.

Disciples respect and support Godly leaders but give true allegiance only to God–
–God, bless our actions and keep us right.

Disciples listen to prophetic voices for our communities, nations, and world–
–Holy One, open our ears.

Disciples accept consequences of our sins, seek forgiveness–
–Creator, heal us, and offer us new opportunities for faithfulness–even when we fail.

Disciples choose to serve and not to despair–
–In our sinful despair, teach us to pick up the towel and wash feet.

Disciples trust God with all their thoughts and feelings–
–God, do be in us.   Joyful!

Disciples strive to live in harmony with God’s laws, even when it is costly–
–Make us servants of the Word!

Disciples trust God in the face of unexplained suffering–
–Keep our focus upward. Heal us, as we minister.

Disciples live in hope, with a vision of God’s kingdom–
–We are God’s people!

Disciples hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ in harmony with the historic people of God–
–We yearn to be with our God, held by God.

Disciples accept Christ’s call to radical discipleship–
–joyful to be radical again, show us Christ’s way.

Disciples enter the ministry of making disciples–
–Keep us vulnerable, lead us from our pretenses.

Disciples understand our ministry as a call to self-denial and suffering–
–My suffering is not FOR me.

Disciples are in mission with the least, the last and the lost–
–Keep us walking WITH those we serve.

Disciples experience life in Jesus Christ–
–Lord, I am at peace, in joy, beyond meaninglessness. I know I have purpose.

Disciples experience the inner assurance of abundant, eternal life–
–It is personal in this relationship. Eternal life!

Disciples experience the Holy Spirit–
–So much life, gifts to each of us!

Disciples witness to others in order to lead them to Christ–
–Let my whole life be real witness, a Psalm of the Gospel!

Disciples receive and accept the forgiving Love of God in Jesus Christ, and serve out of love and gratitude–
–Trust and grace in our lives today!

Disciples love–
–Simply difficult!  Just do it?

Disciples experience and express freedom as loving God and loving neighbor–
–Freedom again! Keep us free!

Disciples seek sound teaching–
–Train us each day, even when we are too bold to know we are off-track. 

Disciples accept God’s forgiveness–
–as hard as we try to forgive ourselves, we feel God’s grace as we serve.

Disciples know themselves as distinctive, peculiar people bearing the mark of Jesus–
–Mark our character deeply, our outward selves marked with compassion–
–Keep us Holy!

Disciples remain faithful to God in the midst of persecution and suffering–
–Holy One, strengthen my faith as I lose my temper around suffering souls.

Disciples exercise their gifts in ministry to others–
–Direct our eyes and our souls outwardly each day!

Disciples commit their lives completely to God to serve as God wills–
–Keep our memory vital!

For me it is right to conclude with John Wesley’s  Covenant Prayer:

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put met to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by you or laid aside by you,
enabled for you or brought low by you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
you are mine, and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

We Care

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Tom Bolton

Saturday morning, I had been reading Matthew and John 13, and then went to Isaiah.

We Care

I was startled today at the many voices in the text–
so many accents, so many tones under the words–and
Then there was one voice, a unity, one trinity.
We came back from the dessert, refreshed, and in the dim pre-dawn, 
A light has risen again!
I turn to God early this morning–once again! Thank you.
Near the kingdom, already past midnight, already past deep sleep,
the oil was gone, some lamps now dry.
Awake, what day is it? What hour?
We do not know, and we learn to lose caring.
We are here for the suffering, the lonely.
Barbara called me one day before and I forgot her.
We care for her now.
Maria-Anne heard my voice this week, and forgot me at once.
We find her and lift her up.
We care for her.
We left some too long alone in hospitals.
We care, even when we forget, and return late at night,
Early in the day.
The rough voice, the smooth words, the academic words, the lawyer words,
The words blend to one this morning.
We care for the weak, the prisoners of life, the prisoners of selves,
And we lift the cross as best we can.
We care.
At what hour? Who cares?
Beneath the cross, we care for ones we left years ago.
We return and we care.

(c) Tom Bolton March 17, 2012.

Related articles
Posted in Poetry, Reflecting on Scripture | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Bonhoeffer Trailer

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Tom Bolton

As someone noted, this short video, for the Dietrich Bonhoeffer biography (a book!) by Eric Metaxas, is better than many movie trailers.  Bonhoeffer is always so worth reading!

Sometimes I struggle with some translations of his works.  The biography is helpful to me.  Here is the video trailer:

Posted in Recommendations | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Poll: When to schedule a class for Youth and Adults

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Tom Bolton

At my home church, I started a new class on the 1st and 4th Saturdays for adults and youth on leadership training and mentoring.  The 90 minute class–Learners, Leaders and Relationships–has  been held at Noon for the past 7 months.  A few times we had a good attendance, but usually attendance has been small.  Those who have attended, indicated that they liked the material and the discussion.  I think that Noon on Saturdays may be a bad time for this mentoring/learning/discussion group.  I’m seeking more advice from my readers:  In your opinion, what might be an ideal time for resheduling the group?  I plan to you use these poll results to help me re-tool in September.  I will also be studying the survey results in my Church, which was conducted by our adult education committee.  But what do you think?

I welcome your comments and suggestions below too.

Posted in About Tom | Leave a comment

Even Then

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Tom Bolton

A favorite devotional blog for me is The Painted Prayerbook.  There is always fantastic art, and beautiful poetry.  The March 13 blog–Even when we were dead–particularly captured me this week.  It is a cool devotion on grace.  It is Jan Richardson’s Thursday March 15, reflection for Lent.

http://paintedprayerbook.com/2012/03/13/day-20-even-when-we-were-dead/

I recommend this place.

Ephesians 2.1-10

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Posted in Recommendations | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Temptation and Word

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Tom Bolton

I wrote this meditation at a Lay Servants Teach Adults class at Salem United Methodist Church on January 27, 2010. I was leading a study on Luke 4:1-13 as my teaching assignment. I included an exercise for 14 adults, most over 45 years old, to write an impromptu poem inspired by the text. After some initial protests, all of them participated with enthusiasm. For many of us, the small published book of the poetry created that night is a cherished possession.

It seems like a good time to publish this poem again.

First, here is the passage we were studying, from the NIV translation:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.  And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.  For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you    to guard you carefully;  they will lift you up in their hands,    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Temptation and Word

Lake Michigan at South Shore Milwaukee

Lumbering and lazing along Lake Michigan,
Alone on an early morning path I’ve walked
Many days alone and many days in community,
Today alone,
My morning podcasts wind and wire ’round me,
Up to my ears–then tunneling toward mind and soul.
Money Matters, composers of the day, and
Deuteronomy on audio, Global Economics and
High Tech and political gabbing.

I listen to Deuteronomy,
Then pause the audio,
Lunging, leaping some, lifting my walk intensity.

I pause to pray and listen before Luke.
I lift my pace and lift my eyes,
Not a desert here but lonely lake this morning, as the
Sun shines embers over the lake,
Lonely, glistening, living Son.

My thoughts shift,
Dreams of money,
Lusts, power-craving.
Ego? Is it lonely, lack-of-confidence?
All-About-Me?
Can I respond with Your Word?
What did I miss in Deuteronomy today? I drifted.
Was it there for me, and I missed it?

That Me-First-Feeling again: How can I reply?
I laze again, lessen my pace,
Listen.
You grant the Wisdom of Your Word
When I stop,
When I listen,
When I love Your Word.

—-Tom Bolton, Salem, WI, January 27, 2010

Posted in Poetry, Reflecting on Scripture | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

I noticed that AnaYelsi Sanchez’s excellent January blogs on identity and intimacy were reblogged this morning, after some recognition by the Godspace blog. It was featured in the “Easter is Coming: What Do We Hunger and Thirst For?” Lenten Series at Godspace.  She originally wrote this in January–before I became familiar with her blog, but I want to share my appreciation for the original two blogs, starting here:

http://browneyedamazon.com/2012/01/10/identity-intimacy-and-impact-part-1/

In it she says, “Intimacy with God enables us to maintain a passion for justice and a commitment to living in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in poverty. Intimacy with God opens up the door to intimacy with others.”

That was the start to a powerful essay, I think.

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Tom Bolton | Leave a comment