A lot of us pay attention to sports for a lot of reasons.  It’s not always about a particular game or team. This week for those of us who pay attention to the Minnesota sports scene is something very different and unexpected.
 
The death of Flip Saunders and watching Jerry Kill break down in front of a TV camera telling us that his medical condition has taken over his life for now, reminds all of us that we are not invincible.  In a culture that so prizes overcoming obstacles, the thought of an obstacle overcoming us is disconcerting.  Sports can and does provide many important life lessons, and the one it is providing this week is perhaps its most important.
 
This lesson is the need for perspective…priorities….understanding what matters to you and if you are lucky… why it matters. The conversation around Flip Saunders’ death has been around the kind of man he was…not how great a coach he was. What I’m hearing about Jerry Kill’s decision is recognizing that taking care of ourselves is also taking care of those who are around us.
 
There will always be things in life we do not choose or control.   At its best, my experience in sports has taught me to recognize that the list of the things I do not control is much shorter than I usually think.  That being said, what many of us connect with when people like Mr. Saunders and Mr. Kill experience these kinds of life events is the realization that even those who seem in control will one day, some day in some way, be out of control.  How we manage that…how we manage the days when an obstacle overcomes us... is a very scary thing to consider.
 
For a lot of this, it is where we turn to our faith and being a part of a community, living out faith together.  We do this because at its most basic, faith is recognizing that our greatest obstacles do not define us and will not overcome us in the end.
 
Keep the Faith,
 
Pastor Dan
 
On another note... this week you’ll be receiving a mailing about supporting both the ministry and building ministry of EPUMC. Please begin praying about your financial commitment to these ministries.
 
On another another note... worship Sunday, November 1 is All Saints Day. We will remember those who are connected with our congregation and have died in the past year. We will also remember all those who have died that each one of us holds in our hearts. It’s a Sunday for Holy Communion where we recognize the promised heavenly banquet we will one day share.

On Sunday Oct. 25 we will have a baptism and receive new members back-to-back in our worship service. It’s like back-to-back homers in baseball or double coupon day at the grocery store….or if I can stretch this a little too far… double down in black jack. It’s a “two-fer.” Maybe we could even say that will be doubling our pleasure and doubling our fun as the old “Doublemint” gum commercial use to go.
 
Having a baptism followed by receiving new members is a way of celebrating the  vitality of our congregation.  I’m not sure I’ve ever done it except on Confirmation Sunday. This is also a way of reminding ourselves of what binds us together in a church.  It is our baptism…that calls us to practice our faith together… in a community… we call EPUMC. I won’t be making a mistake when I ask the dozen or so new member the same questions I will have just asked Audrey’s parents.
 
The questions I will ask are ritualistic sounding questions, which is a good thing in my book. Baptism and receiving new members are after all rituals we are participating in. And like most rituals or sacred events, they contain an element that is a bit mysterious. What matters, if you ask me, is not understanding all that is happening when we baptize a baby or comprehending all that it means to be a new member when we ask the larger questions of faith….what matters is that we recognize that God is up there with us. We can answer, “I do… and “I will,” to the questions that sound so ominous because God is right beside us up there saying “I do, too… and I will also.”
 
In the sacrament of baptism God accepts us in a way we could never earn. In the ritual of receiving new members God is supporting us in our attempt to stay together and faithfully face the joys and challenges of the times we experience. 
 
On Sunday we will celebrate God’s blessings upon our congregation…a new life… a new family… new members. It is also a time for you to remember your baptism and be thankful and to reaffirm your promise to be a part of this Big Enough to Make a Difference, Small Enough to Care church we so affectionately call EPUMC. See you in church.
Keep the Faith,

Pastor Dan

We’ve gotten some feedback on some of the different things we’re doing on Sunday morning.  It’s a good time to respond. 
 
Last Sunday we started including the registration of attendance in the bulletin itself on the backside of what has become the commitment section.  The commitment section gives you two or three actions items to respond to for the coming week.  There is always one prayer request.  We’ve had some very positive response to this section and then some Sundays not so much.
 
The intention for this commitment section is to encourage all of us as Eugene Peterson puts it in his translation of the Bible entitled, The Message. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear!”  (James 1:22)  I believe practicing and holding ourselves accountable to these “commitments” is one important way to act on what we hear. And I’ll just say it, I believe each one of us can commit to praying about something specific and related to our congregation’s life together. 
 
The other change last week was that we took away the attendance pad and provided the opportunity for people to sign in on the back side of our commitment section. The responses we got from a couple of those who wrote on this back side all made a statement like:  I miss passing the book down the aisle so I get to see the names of who is sitting next to me.
 
It’s a great question.  And yes this is something that will be different about registering our attendance. Let’s look at some things this asks of us and what is behind this change.
 
First, if I may say the obvious, it encourages all of us to wear our name tags. Just sayin’.    
 
Second; If you have someone sitting near you or in your pew you don’t know, and they are not wearing a name tag, this is a great excuse to go ahead and ask that person’s name when we welcome one another.  I know not everyone is comfortable doing that, but those of us who are willing to take the chance or who are comfortable with this will help us to get to know one another better.  We are a church big enough not to know everyone’s name, small enough to want to.
 
In a few weeks we will have perforated paper for our bulletins so that tearing the registration and commitment sections off will be much neater and easier. This simple act, which every one of us can do, is a way of reminding our selves that the faith we celebrate is not only something God does for us, it is also how we are  “doing” for others.  So take the time, fill out your registration, mark your commitments for the week, and have something to place in the offering plate even if you gave to church in another way.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan

This Sunday in worship we are going to have a conversation we need to have about “the money,” as it relates to the story of Jesus challenging what the Bible calls the “money changers.” Bart Reed will talk about the money and I’ll talk about Jesus. We hope this conversation answers a lot of your questions about our present financial status and helps you understand why Jesus talks about money so much.
 
If your home is anything like mine, talking about the money is not always an easy thing to do. That is especially true if in addition to talking about the money, you also are talking about the lack of it. And so in addition to talking about our financial status during worship, we’ll also have a time for discussion and questions during a part of the fellowship time. Bart and others will also be available for smaller conversations if you would like. We will also be including a copy of our notes in your third quarter giving statements in case you can’t make it to the conversation on Sunday.
 
During these next weeks we are going to have conversation in worship about different parts of our life together. We start by talking about the money, because well, it is an important sign of our commitment and yet it is something we shy away from addressing.  So although it may be a bit difficult, I am going to ask you as a part of being what I called a “die hard member” to review your giving to EPUMC.   I know a lot of us give what we might call “in kind”; that is we give a lot of time and energy and creativity.  This is a strength of our congregation. For Sunday I’m asking you to look at “the money” before you come to worship. Be aware of the dollar amount you give.
 
Now before I get more responses to a memo than can be recorded, give me a moment.  I am not judging anyone’s worth to EPUMC based on how much money they give to the church.  I am, however, saying that what you give matters. It matters first of all to you. Giving is an important part of our spiritual development. It matters to the mission and ministry of our Church.  We’ll hear about that on Sunday. And it matters to the people who are not here yet.  We need to talk about the money so that we can talk about how we can keep making great things happen here.
Keep the Faith,

Pastor Dan

I have several friends who are what I would call die-hard Minnesota Twins baseball fans. One of them has lived in Nashville for about 15 years; he knows more about the Twins than I do.  I would call myself a “recreational” baseball fan. This means I pay enough attention to care but not enough to know a whole lot of names and statistics and strategy. This year die-hard and recreational fans alike are very happy that we are still paying attention to the Twins in October.
 
My friend from Nashville is coming up this weekend for a meeting and is staying with me. His “Die-hardness” is rubbing off on me. When we were talking about what to do together he sort of gasped over the phone as if to communicate, “What to you mean?…. what are we going to do….the Twins are at home against the Royals…. WE ARE GOING to Target field.” We’ve got tickets for Friday’s game. 
 
I’m guessing there will be a different atmosphere at Target field tomorrow night if the Twins are still in the chase. Even recreational fans can sense the excitement of the possibility of the playoffs. Everybody is a die-hard fan when the play-offs are a possibility. When you put 40,000 die-hard fans together, the atmosphere is electric The ball park has such a sense of urgency, it is difficult to imagine or reproduce.  Ball players call this a home field advantage and tell us it makes a measurable difference.
 
The next several weeks at EPUMC will be electric. We need you there to create the kind of momentum that 40,000 die-hard fans create at a major league ballpark. I’m asking you to become a die-hard member of EPUMC for about 6 weeks. This means not only to do your best to make it to worship but to also pay attention to all the communications coming to you from EPUMC.
 
Beginning on October 11….. a week from Sunday….. we will be having some significant conversations about the future of our congregation that will make of you a die hard EPUMC member. On October 11 we’ll talk about the money. Following worship, Bart, myself and several other church leaders will meet in the room right next door to the fellowship hall to listen to your questions and comments about the money. We’ll be having similar conversations about our mission, our purpose, and our challenges through November 15.  That is the day we’ve set aside to receive our financial commitments for 2016. Actually on November 15, we’ll also have our annual “best pancake breakfast in the world” so my guess is there will be more eating than talking that day.
 
Now I know that most of you who have opened this email are already die-hard members of EPUMC. (Usually over 50% of those we send this to open it. This is a great statistic) Please take this memo as much as a thank you for always being there as it is an invitation.  Maybe then this memo could also be an opportunity to reach out to someone you haven’t seen in church in a while and invite them to join you. Jesus called this “making disciples”; we have been calling it being “Small Enough to Care.” Something as simple as a phone call or an email to an old friend is how the world is transformed and we create the momentum at EPUMC to continue to be “Big Enough to Make a Difference.”
 
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan